I was inspired by my friend and fellow coach Maggie Reyes after listening to a podcast of hers on emotional leadership. I felt like the topic resonated for me personally and for my clients. I am always thinking of how to shift into a state of self connective empowerment no matter what is happening in your body and your life. As Vanessa Blackstone said in episode 47, mindbody work is akin to relationship coaching and I know no one better to talk about relationships than Maggie. Please enjoy and listen with the mindset of a what resonates with me and how can I apply these ideas for my highest benefit and deepest self connection. Maggie Reyes is a Master Certified Life Coach & Marriage Mentor who helps high-achieving women excel in both their relationships and leadership roles without burning out or sacrificing connection. Maggie brings a practical, down-to-earth feminist, and compassionate approach to relationship transformation and personal development. Through her signature approaches like Soul-Centered Communication and the 5 Relationship Powers framework, Maggie guides women to transform resentment into connection and overwhelm into clarity. Her clients report remarkable results - from feeling happier around their partners and resolving conflicts more quickly, to developing stronger communication skills that transfer directly to their leadership roles. Her clients are typically executives, business owners, and professionals who read both Harvard Business Review and Brené Brown, and who value both strategic solutions and soulful approaches. What makes Maggie's approach unique is that she works with women individually to transform their relationships - even when their partners aren't participating in the process. Through a unique blend of cognitive coaching and somatic practices, she helps clients question limiting beliefs and create new patterns that serve them better. The same skills that create extraordinary marriages translate directly to leadership effectiveness, helping her clients become more influential and impactful in all areas of life. She's committed to helping women lead from their power, not their exhaustion, both at home and at work. Her signature concept of becoming "Sexy Besties" with your partner describes that perfect balance of deep friendship and passionate connection that characterizes thriving relationships. Maggie met her husband on Christmas Day and has been married for over 17 years. Her Marriage Life Coach Podcast ranks in the top 2% globally, and she's the author of the bestselling Questions for Couples Journal with over 3,000 positive reviews. With more than 2,000 hours of coaching experience, Maggie makes complex concepts delightfully simple while honoring their depth.
I was inspired by my friend and fellow coach Maggie Reyes after listening to a podcast of hers on emotional leadership. I felt like the topic resonated for me personally and for my clients. I am always thinking of how to shift into a state of self connective empowerment no matter what is happening in your body and your life.
As Vanessa Blackstone said in episode 47, mindbody work is akin to relationship coaching and I know no one better to talk about relationships than Maggie. Please enjoy and listen with the mindset of a what resonates with me and how can I apply these ideas for my highest benefit and deepest self connection.
Maggie Reyes is a Master Certified Life Coach & Marriage Mentor who helps high-achieving women excel in both their relationships and leadership roles without burning out or sacrificing connection. Maggie brings a practical, down-to-earth feminist, and compassionate approach to relationship transformation and personal development.
Through her signature approaches like Soul-Centered Communication and the 5 Relationship Powers framework, Maggie guides women to transform resentment into connection and overwhelm into clarity. Her clients report remarkable results - from feeling happier around their partners and resolving conflicts more quickly, to developing stronger communication skills that transfer directly to their leadership roles.
Her clients are typically executives, business owners, and professionals who read both Harvard Business Review and Brené Brown, and who value both strategic solutions and soulful approaches.
What makes Maggie's approach unique is that she works with women individually to transform their relationships - even when their partners aren't participating in the process. Through a unique blend of cognitive coaching and somatic practices, she helps clients question limiting beliefs and create new patterns that serve them better. The same skills that create extraordinary marriages translate directly to leadership effectiveness, helping her clients become more influential and impactful in all areas of life.
She's committed to helping women lead from their power, not their exhaustion, both at home and at work. Her signature concept of becoming "Sexy Besties" with your partner describes that perfect balance of deep friendship and passionate connection that characterizes thriving relationships.
Maggie met her husband on Christmas Day and has been married for over 17 years. Her Marriage Life Coach Podcast ranks in the top 2% globally, and she's the author of the bestselling Questions for Couples Journal with over 3,000 positive reviews. With more than 2,000 hours of coaching experience, Maggie makes complex concepts delightfully simple while honoring their depth.
Here's links to the episodes we discussed in the podcast -
Episode 182 – The Hidden Power of Emotional Leadership: Why Going First Transforms Your Marriage
Move With Deb, Episode 69, Embodying Systems Thinking
Website link
Instagram link
https://www.instagram.com/themaggiereyes/
Facebook link
https://www.facebook.com/TheMaggieReyes/
TCCEP54
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[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, 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 compliment your healthcare journey. But always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized advice.
[00:00:57] Deb: So here's a little preamble, everyone for this next episode had a conversation with Maggie Reyes and we are talking about emotional leadership, but we actually cover so many things in this conversation.
[00:01:13] I just listened to it this morning as I took a walk to go vote and so many things were resonating with me. There was a moment of me choosing leadership this morning, and not waiting. All of this will become clear when you listen to the episode, but yesterday I had an experience. I didn't leave my house. It got super stormy. I was getting work done and I had some meetings, but there was this way in which I kept feeling like I was always waiting for the right time to leave and go take a walk and I'm kind of a, ooh, habits maybe are my kryptonite.
[00:01:52] But since being on vacation where I did a lot of walking, I'm back home and I'm noticing, oh, you know what? I'm not kind of getting out and you know, taking a walk, enjoying the sunshine, feeling the breeze, especially as it's getting warmer and warmer and warmer. There's something about that kind of early morning breeze, that feels extra delicious knowing how hot it's going to get later in the day.
[00:02:19] And I'm starting to put these pieces together and noticing that there's a desire there. But what's coming up are these old patterns, these old stories, these old feelings of shame. And what I'm recognizing in re-listening to this podcast with Maggie is that there's no leader. There's no leader in my mind, body experience when it comes to doing things like going and taking a walk.
[00:02:48] There's old messages and shame. There's also like diet culture narratives. There's one story in particular that I swear just gets me. And it's this story of, uh, there was this woman in my town and apparently she lost a lot of weight by walking. And so we would see her around and she was always walking and, you know, and also like, this is my child mind and I didn't know her. So this is all based on a perception and of course my mother's, very enthusiastic, encouraging perception of this woman having done this great feat. But it's always kind of positioned in this way where you have to basically drop your whole life and now all you do is walk and then you will get the reward.
[00:03:40] And so there can be an all or nothing vibe that runs through the simplicity of taking a walk. So, that's something I'm trying to deconstruct and then reconstruct for myself so that I actually get to enjoy the things that bring me a lot of pleasure and also physiologically support the life that I want to be doing, which is I want walking to be an easy activity for me.
[00:04:10] I want to feel confident. I want my muscles to feel strong. I want my joints and my ligaments. I want all of those things to feel nourished. Walking is an activity that helps do that. And yes, it's dose dependent, but their mind body component towards making walking be easy, it's a bio-psychosocial experience.
[00:04:33] So what I was doing today was as I was re-listening to this podcast, I was like, oh, I am the leader and how can I make this activity be simple and clear and meet my goals and help me rewrite these narratives, create different conditioned responses, but also create corrective experiences.
[00:04:55] So my walk today was actually really enjoyable because I felt that empowerment of being a person who takes a walk and has it be easy and feeling the breeze and even enjoying the sweat, knowing that, oh, it's gonna get a lot hotter and I don't have to be out in it all the time. And that is a tremendous privilege.
[00:05:18] So there is a lot going on under the hood as I was listening to this podcast, but really stepping into a certain quality of leadership, and defining what that leadership looks like for me. How I want it to not be controlling, to be collaborative, to be, what does Maggie say later on, having the kind of a servant heart.
[00:05:44] So I think my invitation for you as you're listening to this podcast, and I think. One, you'll just hear me and Maggie having a lot of fun together. We really enjoy each other a lot and there are so many beautiful nuggets sprinkled throughout this podcast.
[00:06:03] Because I go off on my timey whimey tangents and she's following me and we depart from our original conversation and then we return to it. And she does a beautiful job of closing the loop and talking about the empowerment of shifting beyond, feeling over responsible, for feelings of shame, feelings of irritation when it comes to stepping into a kind of leadership that is beneficial when we're doing this mind body work and then when you're crafting the life that you want to be living. And I see this also coming up in some narratives around a new relationship that I'm navigating. So I can tell that there's this opportunity for corrective experiences that old hurts and old wounds and old pains are coming up to be met and loved on and released.
[00:07:01] And to be present in this today body, in this today relationship and being the engine that's driving myself towards that desired future. So there's a lot in this. I hope you enjoy. I am gonna link to all of Maggie's stuff. I just want you to know that. I am cheering for you and I am so on your side. I know that being in pain or having symptoms can feel so challenging and it can be so debilitating and also recovery is possible. And if recovery is not a word that feels good to hear, then change. We'll just leave it into that open field that change is possible. And so I am happy that you're here listening or,
[00:07:55] Okay. Enjoy the podcast.
[00:08:01] Hello my feelers and healers and welcome to the Curiosity Cure. And today is a very special episode because I have one of my most favorite humans on the podcast.
[00:08:14] Maggie Reyes, who is a coach, and I'm gonna have her give her own introductions. But, I'm gonna explain why I invited Maggie to be on this podcast because she is not a person in the mind, body space. She might in the course of her work, help people and talk about pain. We don't talk about physical pain, but certainly emotional pain. But here's my roundabout way, one of my favorite leaders in mindbody, like symptom recovery space is Vanessa Blackstone and she's the executive director of the Pain Psychology Center. And she was on my podcast recently and we were talking about safety and how to embody this concept of safety.
[00:08:55] And one of the things that she said was, this is really like couples therapy. This is working on the relationship between your mind and your body. So as soon as somebody says couples therapy or couples. I think of you, you pop into my head and because I love you and your work and I put your podcast on rotation.
[00:09:16] 'cause sometimes I need just like a little dose of Maggie because there's something about the way that you create a lot of sanity and clarity and simplicity in your wisdom. And it's all about creating change and evoking empowerment. So I was listening to your podcast and you were talking about emotional leadership and I was just like, oh, that rang a lot of bells for me.
[00:09:45] I help people with emotions. I talk a lot about how emotions are felt in the body. And so when I work with clients on that, I do that. And I was like, I should do a podcast on emotional leadership. And then I was like, in fact, I should just ask Maggie to be on a podcast and have a conversation about emotional leadership.
[00:10:06] A few areas in which I'm noticing this showing up in my own body and my client's bodies is both when we're dealing with physical symptoms like unwanted emotional and physical experiences, but then also this time that we are dealing with intentional or unintentional, chaos and cruelty in this political severe, like we are being driven to distraction and dysregulation.
[00:10:35] And so I see that in a lot of people. And sometimes when we talk about leadership, we think about power and then when we, but when we think about power, sometimes what we really feel is our helplessness. So I wanting to get into talking about how we create our own emotional power, like how we really take back a lot of that real estate, how we can ground ourselves in emotional leadership and how that, like I know that my clients are always connecting the dots inside of their own experience when they're listening to the podcast.
[00:11:07] So I was like, well, they really need to get an experience of you sharing your wisdom and knowledge, and then I just get to enjoy talking to you. So that is my whole story about why we are here talking about emotional leadership and I'm so excited to see where this is gonna go.
[00:11:28] Maggie: Well, I love it so much.
[00:11:29] First of all, thank you for the invitation. Thank you for the presentation. Hi everyone, my name is Maggie Reyes. I am a feminist marriage coach. Although I work on relationships and that's my specialty, I do it as Deb alluded to in a very sort of unique way. I like to take things that feel complicated and make them as simple as I can.
[00:11:53] I like to be playful about it. So I coach and a lot of sometimes like what we would call a heavy topic or something that feels, intense, emotionally intense, and I try where possible to like lighten the load, so to speak when we're talking through things. So that's when I love that you pull that out of listening to me because that is an intention that I have in, we do those things and then I a total nerd about all the things.
[00:12:17] So I can't wait to just nerd out on whatever you wanna talk about. I'm here for it. What else do I want you to know about me? I think we can just talk and everyone can just listen to us having fun and talking about working through existing at this moment in history is its own reward. Whatever topics we end up covering so that's my hypothesis.
[00:12:39] Deb: I a hundred percent agree. I also feel like I should say that you're also like a fan girl Yes. Of a lot of things. Bridger 10 being one of the main things that I know about you. Yeah. But I think what I enjoy about witnessing your fan girlness is the unapologetic quality by which you enjoy things.
[00:13:02] Oh, yes. There's so much permission giving in the way that you exist in the world.
[00:13:09] Maggie: Oh, okay. I'm gonna just take that in for a second and then I'll just tell you what I, I met someone at a conference. And she was the kindest person and she was apologizing for fangirling to me like about me. And I was like, first of all, please know that I'm just delighted.
[00:13:27] Feel free, that's not an experience that I have every day. Right? And, but then I told her, you know, I myself am a fan and I love being a fan of things and people and, and books and movies and whatever, actors, writers, whatever. And I'm like, what is being a fan? It is passionately, enthusiastically, appreciating a piece of art, a human, a process, a sport, whatever it is.
[00:13:55] What could be the downside of passionate, enthusiastic, appreciation. I see none. Therefore I am unapologetic about it. That's the behind the scenes for that.
[00:14:10] Deb: I think when I think about myself and I think about my clients, the downside is being seen. Mm-hmm. And being vulnerable. Oh. And putting yourself at risk.
[00:14:23] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:14:24] Deb: Of rejection.
[00:14:25] Maggie: Okay. I hear you. I hear. So here's what's interesting, because I have like undiagnosed A DHD, and I for sure have rejection sensitivity. So I navigate this duality of like being really sensitive to rejection in certain contexts and being like, I will die on that hill in other contexts.
[00:14:46] Right. Where I'm like, you don't like my enthusiastic passion for something. Like, you're missing out. Like sad for you, but okay. Right.
[00:14:55] Deb: I love that. When we think about the way that rejection feels, yeah. In MINDBODY work, we're often talking about the pain system is a system of protection. Yes. It's protecting us from things that we now no longer need protection from. And there is a quality of, like, I remember being like, oh my God, so cringe. Like my mother was a person who had a lot of enthusiasm and energy and I remember there were times in my young life where I was so embarrassed being around her enthusiasm.
[00:15:32] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:32] Deb: That like, if I could have shrunk into my body and disappeared, I would have. That's such a visceral experience. And oftentimes when we have unwanted physical sensations and symptoms. It's like those systems in our body are just like, I'm here to protect you from this visibility and vulnerability. This like too muchness, whatever it is, whatever flavor it is. Mm-hmm. So I love what you are saying, which is like the power of claiming it and being like, you actually can't take this from me. Like, I refuse, I refuse to be embarrassed.
[00:16:19] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:20] Deb: Like, you know, hashtag pro cringe.
[00:16:24] Like if I could go back in time and like whisper in that younger me's ears and be like, at some point you're not gonna have this.
[00:16:34] Maggie: Yeah. Anymore.
[00:16:35] Deb: Like, enjoy your mother. Mm-hmm. Because she's not gonna be around forever. Yeah. And now when I look back, I'm like, oh, that part of her is something that I like, I miss.
[00:16:47] Yeah. And I appreciate. Yeah. I'm just like, oh, oh. But it's like so normal. It's so normal for us to be like, oh, it's a little too much. It's a little too whatever. It's like, so that rejection sensitivity,
[00:17:02] Maggie: ah,
[00:17:03] Deb: you know why we always stick the word disorder or pathology on it, but like that rejection sensitivity leads us into ourselves.
[00:17:11] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:12] Deb: In a way that's like identifying a need. It's like oh, I need to feel safe in this experience. I need to feel like, yeah, maybe you'll say no, but you're not rejecting like me as a human. Mm-hmm. I'm not getting thrown away or whatever it is. So. As you know, you mean you know me.
[00:17:35] Maggie: Yeah.
[00:17:35] Deb: Um, uh, so I often just go off on tangents in my podcast and my I love it.
[00:17:41] Audience knows me as well.
[00:17:44] Maggie: I'm here for it.
[00:17:45] Deb: I love it. I lo like I'm watching you lean in and I feel really loved and seen by that.
[00:17:52] Maggie: Oh.
[00:17:53] Deb: I wanted to share the bullet points from that podcast episode, and I'm gonna link to it so that people can listen to it as well and kind of get this flavor of you.
[00:18:05] But some things that you talked about for emotional leadership were take ownership of your emotional responses.
[00:18:12] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:13] Deb: Set the tone for meaningful connection, create space for authentic growth, and break free from waiting patterns.
[00:18:21] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:18:22] Deb: And you were talking about practicing those regulation tools like taking a pause and breathing mm-hmm.
[00:18:29] And dropping into yourself, but throughout the day so that they become more automated. And that's so simple. Yeah. It's so wise.
[00:18:39] Maggie: Yeah.
[00:18:39] Deb: So I wanted to talk about how do we look at emotional leadership through an empowerment lens versus trying to be controlling or feel responsible for everything.
[00:18:52] Maggie: Love it. Such good distinctions. Yeah. So, okay, let's take these words, these three words like leadership, controlling, and then over responsibility. 'cause one thing is being responsible and another thing is being responsible for everything. Right? So I think that's the easiest way. I'm just writing this out so I can keep on track too.
[00:19:15] Let me go back to the beginning a little bit about why do I talk about emotional leadership at all. Like, why is it a thing? I used to work in hr, so so much of the work that I do is sort of influenced, I sort of like marinated in this soup of leadership and teams and how people work together to get things done on earth.
[00:19:35] Like that's, that was just my job before. So when I look at any kind of relationship, so even though I'm a marriage coach, I also do general life coaching. I coach people, executive leaders, all these people on all kinds of stuff with their team, their kids, whatever. And relationships at the bottom line really are 98% the same no matter what way you're interacting with each other.
[00:19:56] So emotional leadership came from me watching women who I coach, waiting for their partners to do something, for them to feel better. I didn't even label myself as a feminist. I really didn't know. Like true story. My mom was a really angry person and she was a feminist, and she was just always angry.
[00:20:17] And I just can't play that song. Like I cannot be angry all the time. Like, like I, listen, I'm Cuban and I'm a Leo. I can be angry. But it, it was this mental association that I had as a kid that I was like, oh, if you're a feminist, you must just be angry all the time. So I never identified like that.
[00:20:33] Like this was a very innocent interpretation as a child, right? Like I had no idea. And then when I got older, everything I did in my life was feminist coded, let's say. Right? So when I was a recruiter, I vividly remember, I had this department where we always hired men, and I'm like, why are they only men in this department?
[00:20:51] I don't understand. Explain it to me like I'm eight, right? And then, so I worked for a cruise line and they're like, oh, they have to share cabins and because of the cabin allocation, we have to do this thing with the genders because of how it works, on board. And I was like, wait, so I could just hire two women and they could just like, legit, that was the meeting they could just go together, is that, they're like, yeah, that was fine.
[00:21:15] Like, it wasn't even conscious like, like sometimes it's conscious stuff people do, but this was more like, oh, whatever. I was like, so I hired two women at a time and transformed that particular department. So. Just to tell you that then I, I leave that I become a marriage coach. Since I became a coach, I always focused on relationships and I kept seeing these women are just waiting like, this is not it.
[00:21:40] Like I don't know what is it, but this isn't it. And over time I was like, I think that we just need to claim emotional leadership and just like we lead in all these other areas of our life, then we come home and we sort of abdicate leadership to cultural narratives, to family stories, to all kinds of internalized externalized things, right?
[00:22:01] And it's like, well, what if we just didn't do that? What if we said, I'm gonna be the emotional leader of how this goes. I want it to go the way I want it to go and we're gonna see what happens when they do that. So that's how the origin story of how that came to be. And then this idea of the distinction between leadership control and over responsibility is like absolutely gemane to how we practice leadership. So I'm gonna just pause because I just threw a lot at you. So anything you wanna say before I keep going or ask?
[00:22:33] Deb: No, I, I love all that one. I love your origin story. I love the, not the secret feminist, but the feminist that lives inside of you, whether or not that's a label
[00:22:46] Maggie: Yeah.
[00:22:46] Deb: That you had identified with. And just being able to see those patterns.
[00:22:52] Maggie: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Deb: And I think sometimes what happens with emotions, because they're things that we feel and experience in our body, they often feel like they're things that happen to us.
[00:23:03] Maggie: Mm.
[00:23:04] Deb: And we don't necessarily feel like we have any control or agency.
[00:23:10] And when we think of emotional control, we often really are talking about repression.
[00:23:16] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:17] Deb: Versus learning to be with, experience, learn from, cultivate, get curious about. So I would love to, to hear like when you are introducing this concept to your clients
[00:23:33] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[00:23:34] Deb: Because I know that you don't only coach
[00:23:37] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[00:23:37] Deb: Women who are married to men, but I mm-hmm. I would imagine like, predominantly that's
[00:23:42] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[00:23:43] Deb: That's who you're talking about.
[00:23:44] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:45] Deb: And like, I would be resentful if I'm like, okay, now I gotta like lead. I gotta keep doing all this work and mm-hmm. I, I hear that too in MINDBODY stuff, which is like, oh, there's this stuff that's happening that feels like it's happening to me, and now I have to do more work. Mm-hmm. Or there's the sense of like, it's my fault now I am responsible.
[00:24:12] Versus, the Western medical model, which is oh, I go to the doctor and then they like, give me a, a pill or an injection. And that's what changes my experience. Oh, there's something here that I am supposed to be doing or that I can do to influence it. But ultimately recognizing your own influence Yes.
[00:24:34] Is empowering.
[00:24:36] Maggie: Yes.
[00:24:36] Deb: So, okay. How do you bridge that gap?
[00:24:39] Maggie: It took me three years to answer this question as succinctly as I'm about to do it. So everybody, you should just like lean in. If you have headsets, press them closer to your ears. Okay. So when people would say to me, but why should I do one more thing?
[00:24:54] I already do have things, which is true, right? Like mental load, emotional load, all those things are true. Here's what I would say. It's not that you're going to do all the work, it's that you're going to go first. And all of the work that I do really is inspired by and sort of shaped by systems theory and psychology, which is when one element in a system changes the other elements in the system, which in this case is like a marriage system, respond to that change.
[00:25:21] So this is why I coach individual. I actually do individual marriage coaching, which is kind of unique. I don't actually work with couples, although I impact couples. But I work with a woman and I do coach women who are married or in long-term relationships with women. As a side note, many of the relational dynamics are, like I said, 98% the same.
[00:25:40] Um, but most of the time when coaching women, you're a married men, and they're like, well, he doesn't have to be in the session. I'm like, no, because here's what's gonna happen. Imagine this scenario. We're gonna go back to my HR days. Imagine for all of us listening that you work at a cubicle and you're sitting at a cubicle.
[00:25:55] It's eight 30 in the morning. You just got to work, and somebody walks in and there's a big black cloud over their head, and they're cranky and they're annoyed and whatever. They're just like carrying the big black cloud and they pass by your desk and you're just, ugh. Another day with this person. Right?
[00:26:11] This person has now impacted the other 19 people and all the cubicles with their big black cloud. Now, the next day, we're still in cubicles here. We all are Deb and I are cubicle buddies next to each other, and somebody walks in and they have brought five boxes of donuts and coffee and orange juice and all the fun things and they're like, Hey everybody, I'm so proud of the team.
[00:26:35] We're doing amazing. Come get the donuts. Now, this one person has affected the mood of like 19 other people. So I give this example, 'cause sometimes I say fancy sounding words like systems theory and whatever. And I'm like, it's about the donut, right? You're gonna bring a donut to your relationship and then you're gonna see how the person responds.
[00:26:57] They're either going to like be, thank you for this donut, it's amazing. Let's go have more donuts together. Or they're gonna be like, oh, donuts, they're disgusting. Like how dare you, right? And either way, I call this, you get closer or you get clear. And I would say relationally, that's the dynamic I've just seen happen over and over again.
[00:27:19] If we take it to your mind, body connection. I would say you would discover what your body can do when you practice these tools, you'll find that line because you'll get closer to the maximum healing you're capable of in your body, and you'll get clear about where you need other kinds of support.
[00:27:38] So I would draw such a clear parallel with that, just knowing you know, what I know about the amazing work that you do. Um, okay, so that's the part about doing the work, the part about it's my fault, or that sort of taking on, taking it like a burden or taking it, like why do I have to be responsible for this?
[00:27:59] Or like any, anything in the flavor of that. Again, it took me three years to figure out how to say this as clearly as I would say, so everybody just like cheer, just gonna cheer. Um, here's how I think about it. Most of the people I talk to. So remember, I don't have a scientific group of people, right? For my case studies, they're the people who are drawn to feminist, forward thinking, empowering, loving, compassionate connection.
[00:28:28] So it's like a cross section of people, but they have those type of values, right? But most of those people, if I ask them how their partner feels about them, their partner would be something like, I'm glad she even looked at me twice. It's a miracle I get to be with this person. I don't wanna rock the boat. I'm doing the best I can, that kind of stuff. So I'm like, listen, the reason you're doing this is because you want a different result. For your partner. They could go on and on and on like this forevs, hashtag forevs, and so you want a different result means you're taking this on. So same with your body. There you go. That's my answer.
[00:29:05] Deb: One, I love that you name like, Hey, this took me three years to figure out.
[00:29:13] But also not that you like, figured it out in, uh, like you went off and like were on the top of the mountain and figuring things out. You're figuring it out as you are creating. Exactly, yeah. As you are moving through it, as you're working with people, as you're having this conversation and that kind of learning is what I've been doing in my own work, which is why I have this podcast and everybody gets to listen to me figure things out live, but also what we're doing live in our own bodies. Right. And that it's so powerful to like claim that the, the not quite knowing exactly how to be so specific or articulate or like, uh, you know, like, yes, this is the thing.
[00:30:01] Right? And I think there's something powerful about naming it because like social media life mm-hmm. Has us seeing the end results of people's things and thinking, oh, they, they never had this middle part of having to figure it out. Yeah. They just showed up and knew.
[00:30:19] Maggie: Fully formed. Yeah,
[00:30:20] Deb: fully formed.
[00:30:21] And people get into a lot of compare and despair. I mean, I see this. With clients, we listen to a lot of recovery stories and we want to be the recovery story, but we are not willing to go through the recovering process. Yeah. Which is a lot of like, ah, things that like work or don't work or Yeah.
[00:30:42] Brings us in contact with things that frustrated with unhappy about, are experiencing, that are unpleasant, undesired. And you know, some, I think when you were telling this story about the person coming to the office with the black cloud, I was like, oh yeah,
[00:31:02] Maggie: yeah.
[00:31:02] Deb: What if we're the person coming into our own office with our own black cloud?
[00:31:10] And I was like, oh, that feels like me. And I wanna hold that with a lot of love.
[00:31:15] But what I love about systems theory. And I've actually, I had a podcast about systems theory. See kindred. You got a link to that in the show notes. I get a link to that in the show notes. Yeah, yeah. Um, that place, which is about we don't have to change everything.
[00:31:34] Mm-hmm.
[00:31:35] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:31:36] Deb: And that ability to lean into curiosity of like, what does it feel like? If I, like for my mind, body people, we often find ourselves in these habituated patterns. We wake up the same way. We're looking for pain, we're anticipating, we're bargaining with ourselves in the beginning of the day, what the rest of the day is gonna look like.
[00:31:56] And if we just shift our way of experiencing ourselves a little bit differently
[00:32:03] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[00:32:03] Deb: That sets the whole system
[00:32:06] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[00:32:06] Deb: Into a different mode. Yes. We can start to influence our physiological experience just by. Waking up. Yes. And interrupting that pattern of looking for pain.
[00:32:21] Maggie: Yes. So
[00:32:23] Deb: good. So that feels very cool to be like, okay, well I don't have to change everything in my life and I don't even necessarily have to change this relationship.
[00:32:32] Mm-hmm. That I'm in the person I'm in a relationship with. Mm-hmm. To start to affect and create
[00:32:39] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[00:32:39] Deb: Change.
[00:32:40] Maggie: Mm-hmm. And to feel relief, right? Mm-hmm. Like, we can feel better, even if we don't feel amazing.
[00:32:50] Deb: Say more.
[00:32:51] Maggie: It's just, I think we have this all or nothing mindset that, humans are sort of like default, right?
[00:32:58] We have these, what do they call them, cognitive distortions. We have these bugs in our system. In our programming that it's like, oh, I'm either okay or not, okay. I'm either healthy or unhealthy as opposed to like, oh, I still need to go to physical therapy. Which by the way is true, i'm in physical therapy for my knee right now and I'm like, oh, but my knee is so much better than the first day I went to physical therapy.
[00:33:21] Right? And even if I never improved, my knee is so much better. I can go up and down stairs, you know, which like, I didn't realize how important it was to be able to go up and down stairs until I couldn't. And I was like, what? So the idea for anything that we're doing in personal development, in mind, body connection, I like to tell my clients, take the idea of an on off switch like you have in your house, and put a little dimmer light on it.
[00:33:47] And then imagine that you're gonna be able to have different degrees of, what is it, recovery, connection, relief, whatever it is that you're working on, and. That degree is still gonna be better than where you started. You're still gonna feel better than where you started. And it's worth going there.
[00:34:03] Even if you don't get to the, like, I'll maybe never run a marathon, which I have no desire to train to do, but I just need to go up and down stairs. Right?
[00:34:12] Deb: Yeah. The feeling of relief is such a good one. Like the I the dimmer switch. One of the things that I share with people when we're exploring our MINDBODY connection is like sometimes I help people implant this concept of a control room.
[00:34:29] Right? So that gives us this sense of empowered ability to dial up or dial down certain sensations. Right. Dialing up. Pleasure.
[00:34:39] Maggie: Okay. Wait. Yes. Sorry, I'm just really excited by this example. Describe the control room.
[00:34:45] Deb: So the control room , I learned it through hypnosis.
[00:34:48] Maggie: Okay.
[00:34:48] Deb: And it is a conceptualization.
[00:34:52] Maggie: Uhhuh,
[00:34:53] Deb: So it can be as creative and imaginative as you want it to be. So everyone's control room is personalized to them, okay? You're inviting somebody to envision their own control room, and they start to tell you what it has. Mine often looks like Doctor. Who, 'cause I, okay. Love Doctor. Who. So there's lots of levers and buttons and things that you hit with a mallet.
[00:35:19] Um, and some people's are like, it's a view screen and you're touching the screen. Some people's right? It can be anything.
[00:35:29] Maggie: Okay.
[00:35:30] Deb: And you imagine playing with the settings.
[00:35:34] Maggie: Okay. This is why this is freaking me out in the best way. When I worked in the cruise industry, I used to hire for many different positions.
[00:35:41] But among the positions I hired for, I hired the engineers. And at some point you have to go on a cruise and you have to do the behind the scenes tour and you have to let them take you to the control room. It is one of the coolest control rooms you will see. And here's the cool part, is that they monitor every system on the ship and they have alarms and they have lights flashing, and they have cameras and they have all these different things that they do.
[00:36:09] And so first of all, it's just like, yeah, like our control rooms, like we monitor if it's our body, like all the systems in our body, right? I love this so much. And then this is the thing, so I did, I worked there for six years. I talked to a lot of engineers over time and I think this is so applicable to our bodies. I'd ask them questions about how, what was their philosophy about maintenance, which sounds, it could sound really boring to people, but I was fascinated by it. So the best engineers would always give me some version of this, what I'm about to say.
[00:36:40] It was always a version of this. They're like, well, this is what you need to know. If you don't spend time on planned maintenance that is in your control that you can do, that's in your budget, that's in your timing, that you coordinate and plan on purpose intentionally, you will for sure spend more like double the time on unplanned maintenance, which is when the stuff breaks down, right?
[00:37:06] And so the best ones we're always like, oh, we really take really seriously our planned maintenance. We don't like get interrupted. We prioritize it. We really lead our resources as much as we can to the intentional part. Because then what happens is the unintentional part diminishes. You have less of it to deal with.
[00:37:27] It just makes everything run. It's still, things will still break, right. But it will be less, less intense, easier to fix all these different things. So if we think about our body and this idea of the control room and like when the first alarm goes off, right? Instead of when the 47th alarm goes off, I just love this idea.
[00:37:45] So that, that was all,
[00:37:47] Deb: I love it because my brain just started thinking about like emotional regulation also with this
[00:37:53] Maggie: Yeah.
[00:37:54] Deb: Is like one, we don't have to do it perfectly. Yeah. But that our bodies are always giving us information and feedback and so when we ignore the signals, like if we ignore like, Hey you need to get up and go pee. Like, one, we're bypassing that first opportunity Yes. To listen in and for whatever reason, whether that's something that we learned, you know, as a child or learned in school, right. Where somebody else is controlling our schedule, where we're not taking up space and asking for what we need or, you know, or we're just like really distracted and, or we're disconnected from having a body.
[00:38:37] And so we don't listen to the signals until they're screaming at us. Yeah. And then the only volume that they know to listen to us to is at a 10.
[00:38:48] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:38:49] Deb: There are so many places for that intervention. So it's really just starting to invite in that quality of connection, but doing it in a way, I like where you said like, oh, it's planned maintenance.
[00:39:02] Maggie: Yeah, yeah.
[00:39:03] Deb: Like, We have needs. Our bodies have needs. There's nothing wrong with that. And when we start to attend to our physical and emotional needs, just as a normal part of being a human being, yes. There's this sense of reliability and safety and trust that starts to happen more regularly.
[00:39:25] Yes. And again, it's more like influence versus control. We don't have to control everything, but we can influence everything.
[00:39:32] Maggie: I love that so much. And I think, um, that idea between influence and control is something I talk about a lot as well. And I think this is like the perfect segue to go back to just those definitions around emotional leadership and control and oral responsibility.
[00:39:46] Just to close that loop, which is when you're a leader, you inspire, right? You can influence but not control people's behavior. The best leaders, often have some version of a philosophy around servant leadership. Like the purpose of my leadership is to make life or business or whatever better for others, for the team, for whatever it is we're doing.
[00:40:14] So a true leadership comes with a deep sense, I think, of purpose and connection and helping other humans and community, right? So that when you think about leadership from that frame, then controlling isn't the way you get things done. I coach a lot of type A women who I myself could call myself controlling and they're controlling as well.
[00:40:38] And I just want to pull that out and say, in a society that's not built for us, where we constantly feel unsafe, the quest for control, the desire, the impulse to control things. As you already know, so many people listening to us already know is a quest for safety. That makes complete sense given our cultural, professional, all these different places where we are in different ways emotionally unsafe or professionally unsafe or where all the different ways we experience that.
[00:41:10] So control is like the coping mechanism for lack of safety. And I think when I talk about it, I wanna talk about it with nuance and to say there's some context which absolutely appropriate for you to control the heck outta that. Right? And then there's other contexts where you sort of switch the channel from like control to influence.
[00:41:31] And usually it's in places where you feel safe. So for example, I've been been interviewed on a lot of podcasts. I have my own podcast, I interview people and there's podcasts where like I wanna know exactly what we're gonna talk about and how it's gonna flow and what we're gonna do. And I like ask all these questions.
[00:41:47] And then Deb was like, oh, come on my podcast. I'm like, okay. I don't need to know anything. I don't need to control anything because there's a high degree of safety in my mind, right In my relationship with Deb, right? I have all these thoughts about wherever she leads, I will go, this will be a safe place.
[00:42:03] We'll have fun no matter what. It'll be useful no matter what we end up talking about. And so I can release that control and just show up for the experience. Right? So I wanna just honor that sometimes when we discover some of these things, we then make ourselves wrong for being controlling and then that's a whole other thing we have to work through versus I wanna be that voice that tells you it makes so much sense.
[00:42:26] There's nothing wrong with that in some context. Keep doing that. And then there are times when that no longer works and then you make an adjustment. So what are your thoughts about that?
[00:42:36] Deb: I love that because the, because it always leads back to self-inquiry.
[00:42:42] Maggie: Yes.
[00:42:42] Deb: And it leads back to our survival responses always make sense. Yes,
[00:42:50] Maggie: yes.
[00:42:50] Deb: Even when they don't serve us any longer, if we start with curiosity
[00:42:57] Maggie: Yes.
[00:42:58] Deb: Versus shaming.
[00:43:00] Maggie: Yes.
[00:43:01] Deb: Then we can just be like, oh yeah, you know what? When over here and this conversation that we're having, I don't need those kinds of things. But if I'm gonna go, I mean, I'm not gonna be on Joe Rogan's podcast, but if I were gonna go be on somebody else's podcast, like I might need a whole bunch of other things that I'm not gonna need here.
[00:43:19] And so there's a certain quality of flexibility.
[00:43:23] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:24] Deb: And really recognizing that different locations of safety Yes. And vulnerability have an impact on our nervous system and that's when. The more nuanced we are, the more well practiced we are at checking in, at getting really comfortable being, getting to know who we are.
[00:43:48] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:43:49] Deb: Leads us into that place of empowerment because then we have a quality of agency. Yes. And it's that breaking free of waiting patterns.
[00:44:02] Maggie: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:44:03] Deb: Um, wanted to ask are there any places where your clients get stuck in claiming leadership for their emotional responses, how do you lead somebody through the experience of even just that idea of taking ownership for your emotional responses. How do you help them observe that without falling into the story or without amplifying any kind of distress?
[00:44:36] Maggie: Okay, so I'm gonna answer this sort of what I think you're asking, but feel free to like, jump in. So, of course we all get stuck. I teach this for a living and I get stuck, right? And I have to help myself unstick by using the same tools that I teach everybody. We are always gonna have human reactions, like the whole way, the whole, the whole time.
[00:44:55] Um, so yes, so the first simple answer is yes, we will all get stuck. We will just, um, the dip will, will not be as low and the length will not be as long. So one of the things I like to do is I, I will draw on the board so everybody can, if you can use your imagination for this, imagine that I draw like a w on the board, like a bunch of W's run after the other, and there's like a high peak and a low peak and a high peak and low peak.
[00:45:19] And then imagine that I just draw like a wavy line where like there are no, like peaks or just some like waves. So to me, one of the goals of coaching is that you spend more time in the wavy lines and like less time on the really low peaks when you do get stuck and when things happen.
[00:45:33] So you course correct faster and the impact is lesser. Right? I kind of joke around and now people quote this back to me, but I say the fight you don't start is the fight you don't have to recover from. Maybe your partner starts fights too, okay? We still have to deal with those. But for you, if you don't start the fight, then you don't have to spend all the time deal, you know, working through it, finding the way forward, whatever.
[00:45:55] Like, like that just eliminates half of the thing right there, right? And so what we look for is like, well, why are you starting the fight? What's going on? If that's the case, right? Some people aren't argumentative and that's not their thing, but to give you a concrete ish example on how do you actually do this in practice, it's like, okay, your partner says something that presses your last button.
[00:46:19] You know that button. We all have that. It's just like immediate activation, zero to 60, we're ready to roll, right? Instead of responding back like, right, it's like pause and breathe and then look at that person. And then here I have a lot of different instructions that I give. Sometimes I'll give you the funny one first, and then I'll give you a more serious one.
[00:46:42] But sometimes I say, look at that person and pretend they're an alien from another planet, and they have no idea what you just said and why it's meaningful to you and why, you know, you're having your reaction. They're just an alien from the planet. Imagine if you had to help them understand or decipher what was going on, and that they're having this reaction because on their planet they do it some completely other way, and for some reason that creates enough.
[00:47:09] I don't know if I was gonna use a technical terms like thought diffusion. It creates enough space between what's happening and their reactions that you could be like, oh, if they were from another planet, of course they wouldn't understand. I. Why this mattered and how it hurt me.
[00:47:22] And like all these things, it just gives 'em enough space to like make a new choice, which is like the whole point of what you were saying of when you practice, right? When you're getting up in the morning and you're associating with pain, you're just, you want space to make a new choice, right? So Alien from planet is one.
[00:47:37] Another one is to look at that person and imagine their inner child. Like imagine they're six and they're wounded and they're in distress right? And you just, um, and this is from, I'm pretty sure this is from Harville Hendricks, where some book somewhere he said like, pretend you're talking to their inner child and just see what happens.
[00:47:56] So that's one that you could do. Then the other one is one of my favorite ones actually, is to look at them through the lens of innocence. So I had a person that I was judging really harshly. They were innocent of my, like I was judging them for something that was just my, you know, it was on me, let's say.
[00:48:16] But I had to deal with this person and I was in a situation where I had to be with this person in an intimate way for an extended amount of time, but say, I need to figure this out for myself. 'cause this is not gonna go away. So I found a picture of them on Facebook and I looked at that picture and I stared at the picture until I could see their innocence.
[00:48:35] And I just kept staring at the picture. I was like, this is a human on earth going through their own trials and tribulations. And why have I decided that the way they reacted that day that hurt my feelings is the way that I'm gonna judge them for the rest of their ever loving life. Right? Like, so I was like, with my judgments and I was like, but what if this person is innocent?
[00:48:54] What if they're innocent? What if they're innocent? What if they're innocent? And there came this point where I was just staring at this picture where I could just be, they're innocence. Probably their pain and probably their humanity and probably their like gloriousness and their messiness. And I could just be with my own innocence and guilt and gloriousness and messiness and where I fail all the time too, with being as lofty as I would wanna be or whatever.
[00:49:22] And so that really, that one, I did it one afternoon and then that really colored like the rest of our relationship to the present day, where now I'm not in a situation where I have to be around them, but we get along great and I could be around them for the rest of my life if I needed to. Okay. That was my example.
[00:49:40] Does that answer what you wanted?
[00:49:43] Deb: Oh my God, I don't even remember what I wanted. I just know that I got something really beautiful. All of those examples are practices that, one, if you're listening to this podcast, I want you to pick one, whichever one is your favorite. And do that with yourself.
[00:50:03] Maggie: Yes.
[00:50:04] Deb: Oh, um,
[00:50:06] Maggie: mic drop moment
[00:50:07] Deb: Because they are practices that we do in mindbody symptom recovery work all the time. Because again, we are talking about this relational experience between ourselves and ourselves, between ourselves and our triggers between the nervous system, which is leading on a subconscious level and creating systems of protection, which include pain and symptoms, and then the part of us that's like experiencing it.
[00:50:40] Yeah. And making that space to become the observer. With a lens of compassion or love, or even just that neutral curiosity of like, oh, what if I am an alien? Or I have to describe this symptom to an alien? I think that's right out of Alan Gordon's book The Way Out.
[00:51:03] I think that is actually Oh, wow. Oh, how cool. That's so fun. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, so that's a quality of somatic tracking, which is one of the main tools that we use. What I notice is, a lot of times it's like we think we know what to do. Like we think we know what the response is, but oftentimes it's like we need that pause.
[00:51:28] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:51:28] Deb: And that space between the input and then the response, whatever it is that we're doing, and I even just said this to a client yesterday is like, as we're cultivating neuroplasticity and not going down this reaction road so much anymore, half the time we're gonna find ourselves halfway down the reaction before we're even aware that that's what's happening.
[00:51:54] And at any moment we can interrupt it. At any moment we can pause, take a breath, and choose to do something different.
[00:52:04] Maggie: Yeah. I love that. I love that so much.
[00:52:08] I have something that just occurred to me that I'd love to share in the context of what you teach. Yeah. So last year I went through perimenopause and I'm in menopause now.
[00:52:19] And it was probably from a physical perspective, one of the hardest years I. There's a couple of things that, like I had my first year that I was married, I had really chronic insomnia and it was very difficult and I had to go to sleep doctor, and it was just a very challenging time at just a physical level.
[00:52:37] And then last year with perimenopause, I didn't know that it was perimenopause at the time. If I told you the list of symptoms, I'm pretty sure I had like mild depression in the sense that I was still interacting with humans and doing things, which is where I put add the mild.
[00:52:49] But I like didn't wanna leave my house, I didn't wanna get outta bed sometimes. Like I had all these things. I had trouble sleeping and all the things that, that has brain fog. I had at one point dizziness that like mysteriously came and then mysteriously left. Like I had a list of things. And now I am taking some medicine that's really helping me and I am just doing different things, trying different things.
[00:53:13] And one of the things I'm doing now in my own self coaching is I had this moment where I acknowledged for the first time that I felt like my body betrayed me. Like a betrayal. And I was like, I can't expect it to do the things that it used to do, the way it used to do them. And I labeled that wrong and bad and it felt like a betrayal.
[00:53:38] And I sat with that and I read some meme online about just bodies, something that didn't have to do directly with what I was coaching on, but was just like, oh, how bodies function or whatever. And I was like, wait, my body is just bodying. That's what I called it. I was like, it's just bodying and it's just a bunch of cells and organs and electrical impulses and liquids and whatever it is, right?
[00:54:04] It's a bunch of things and it's on earth. In gravity, like doing what it can do to function. And then I am creating this story that the things it's doing in order to survive are all betrayal. And I was able to create that space between my body and this bodying. And this is not a betrayal to me. It's not my enemy.
[00:54:29] I can still acknowledge the grief and sadness of seeing that it's not going to act the way I'm used to it acting in the past and that this is a new way forward and that I'm gonna have to adapt to it, like a new way of doing things. But I just felt like I wanted to share that about the idea between feeling like it was this betrayal and all the emotions that go along with that, to the neutrality of my body is just bodying, and what if it's innocent, right?
[00:54:56] In a sense of it's just doing what it needs to do for itself to hold me in it. Right.
[00:55:06] Deb: I think that's genius. One, I wanna acknowledge that when I went through perimenopause, I didn't realize what was happening. So I think that's normal. I mean it says something about the world,
[00:55:18] Maggie: right?
[00:55:19] Deb: And the patriarchy that we are having, things and experiences that happen that is like a normal part of our human aging process and we don't even know what's happening.
[00:55:30] So that says something there, but same thing, I had to Google it. I was like, why am I angry all the time?
[00:55:36] Maggie: Yeah, yeah.
[00:55:37] Deb: And I was like, oh shit. I think because we are sold this idea of what it means to have a healthy body, and it's got this very strict and narrow view of parameters that are socially controlled, you know, around body size and race and youth economic status.
[00:56:01] We don't have a lot of room to be relating in this curious and neutral and inquisitive and you know, I sometimes think like we're just much more loving and open with our pets than we are with our own bodies. And I love the way that you were able to get yourself from betrayal into neutrality mm-hmm. Without kind of squishing down those feelings that you were having, right? Mm-hmm. So validating the feelings, but also being like, yeah, actually my body is not really betraying me, it's just bodying, and how, what can I explore then from that point of view? And I think that that's a lot of the things that when I work with people on chronic symptoms, it's a series of paradoxes.
[00:56:49] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:56:50] Deb: Because we are recognizing that today is different than yesterday, but it doesn't mean that we know what it is tomorrow.
[00:56:58] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:56:58] Deb: But that it is normal for things to shift and change.
[00:57:01] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[00:57:02] Deb: And also we wanna avoid the habitual process of chronifying something. Right. Like believing that whatever's going on right now is going to continue on and perpetuate.
[00:57:14] Mm-hmm. Which I feel like also we can have those same things in relationships with other people. It's just like a hundred percent where we just sort of decide this person's never gonna change. Mm-hmm. Like, it's always gonna be like, this is, I think, one of the, the biggest failures of imagination.
[00:57:34] Maggie: Agreed. Agreed. Okay. I have two things to say about that. First, just to start with, the miracles I've seen and how people interact are like beyond, so I'll give a one brief story, which is a woman whose highest value is truth, highest value, truth, honesty. Right. And then of course, her husband was a chronic liar.
[00:57:56] Like that person would lie about things that don't even matter and you would even know, so there was something impulsive in his lying thing. And so she came to me and I was like, why are you gonna divorce him over this? And she's like, no, he's the love of my life. You know, I can't imagine.
[00:58:08] I was like, so then what we have to do is practice acceptance. Like you're married to a person who sometimes lies. Can you just accept that you're married to a person who sometimes lies? And this was basically your homework assignment and what we worked through like over several weeks. And then she came several weeks later and she's like, we are never gonna believe what happened as our clients tend to do.
[00:58:27] I'm like, try me. I probably will believe it. So she's like, he's lying less. And my only hypothesis is he felt such profound acceptance from her that he no longer felt unsafe, right? To bring it back that safety, where then that coping mechanism was less necessary and to the degree that he had any influence over it.
[00:58:48] 'cause it could just be these are how his cells are programmed in that body, but to the degree that he had influence over it, the behavior changed so dramatically that the little lies that were left just didn't matter.
[00:59:00] Then the second thing about what you said about that failure of imagination, where we think just because it's been some way in the past, is how it's gonna be in the future.
[00:59:08] I coach on this, this is my bread and butter every day, right? People have been married 20 years, 15 years, whatever. So one of the very first things, that I often talk about, the way I like to describe it, is. If you're going to experience something different, if that's the intention that we're s then we need to make your vision bigger than your past, than your history.
[00:59:30] Your vision has to be bigger than your history. And what I invite people to imagine, so I'm gonna invite all the listeners to imagine this because I worked in the cruise industry, I have a lot of ship examples. So imagine that the current of the ocean is your past. It's pulling you, it's pulling you back to that previous experience.
[00:59:51] But you're coaching, you're working with Deb, or you're doing whatever modality you're doing, whatever's happening, and then that's the motor that's pulling you towards your vision. And if you just keep that motor on and keep going in the direction of your vision, no matter how strong the pull of the current is, at some point you're gonna be outside of the clutches of the current, and you're gonna be able to just.
[01:00:16] Be your vision, be the thing that is the reason that you're doing this work. And so that idea of just, oh, how can I make my vision bigger than my history can be just a comforting place to take your brain when you're like, oh, here we are again. It's like, wait, here we are again. But what's the assignment?
[01:00:33] The assignment is make my vision bigger than my history. So how am I gonna do that today?
[01:00:37] Deb: My brain's got like 17 million things to say as per usual. So in my work, we'll call that a corrective experience.
[01:00:47] And we want to create opportunities to have corrective experiences. This is how we train the brain to experience something new and different.
[01:00:58] 'cause otherwise, because the brain is a predictive organ, it is anticipating our responses. It's anticipating what the body is supposed to be feeling and it is giving it to us ahead of time. Yeah. Because that's like metabolically conservative. So what we're trying to do is mess that up.
[01:01:21] Maggie: Yes.
[01:01:22] Deb: And being able to envision more, like, imagination sounds like it's not real. Mm-hmm. But imagination is maybe one of the most powerful gifts that we have.
[01:01:35] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:35] Deb: Um, so I say that as a queer person who lives in a body and a reality in which we existed, even when people said that we didn't.
[01:01:48] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:48] Deb: And had to envision a life far beyond anybody, like beyond that what was considered legal.
[01:01:57] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:57] Deb: At different times in our existence.
[01:02:00] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:01] Deb: That's imagination.
[01:02:03] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:04] Deb: Then in mind body healing. There's a concept called provocative testing in which, we imagine to do the movement that usually triggers pain.
[01:02:15] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:15] Deb: And oftentimes this is how we rule in neuroplastic pain.
[01:02:20] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:21] Deb: Oftentimes people experience the discomfort and the pain just when they're imagining doing the activity.
[01:02:28] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:29] Deb: And so that reveals the power of our brain and our imagination.
[01:02:35] Mm-hmm.
[01:02:36] And so it's like learning how to use that for good, for our highest benefit, both imagining a life in which we're excited to be in.
[01:02:48] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:48] Deb: Imagining a life, a relationship, a community, a world, expanding our imagination of beyond this political moment.
[01:02:58] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:02:58] Deb: It's really essential. Even if you just spend five minutes a day imagining life beyond this particular political moment into what we have been at different times, what is possible for us, being able to spend some time in that vision changes our experience of this moment and might lead us to actions, you know, like people do mutual aid or feel a sense of connection and community or whatever it is, might lead us to actions in which we continue to build the thing that we want to be in the world.
[01:03:33] But also just imagining, waking up feeling different.
[01:03:38] Maggie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[01:03:39] Deb: But not in that defeatist like, oh, well it didn't happen today, right? There's something about how to use imagination as a tool. Yeah. That's kind of what I'm hearing you say is like one part of, we don't yet know what's possible, but knowing that there's something beyond just what we're experiencing right now, we can know that.
[01:04:04] Maggie: Yes, yes.
[01:04:05] Deb: Yeah. So imagination is unbelievably powerful. And you know, people use it in different fields all the time, like athletes use visualization all the time. And what visualization is just creating motor patterns in your mind.
[01:04:21] Maggie: Yeah.
[01:04:21] Deb: And practicing. So we're practicing, right? So a lot of the times, I like to couch things like, I like things when they land in my body and I feel like it's something that I can do.
[01:04:34] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:04:34] Deb: And learn and practice versus who I am. I feel like my whole life got better falling into this life coaching world because it shifted away from being like, these are your personality traits.
[01:04:49] These are your hardcoded things about yourself that you can't ever change. But also it wasn't so much like you need to be a different person. It's like you can be you and being more you, but also learning
[01:05:04] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[01:05:05] Deb: New ways of relating
[01:05:07] Maggie: mm-hmm.
[01:05:08] Deb: To the world around you.
[01:05:11] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:05:12] Deb: Can change everything.
[01:05:14] And there's like this seed of hope, there's this seed of empowerment in it without falling into the trap of like, you're broken, you're wrong, you're damaged, where we kind of get written off.
[01:05:28] Maggie: I think those patterns are very like all or nothing thinking. Yeah. Sometimes I'll have one of those, everything is awful and the world is terrible and whatever.
[01:05:36] Like I'll have that, I call them like doom attacks. I'll have these doom attacks and I'll just like be in the doom of it all. And then what I'm trying to do, sometimes I can see, sometimes I fail, is I try to remind myself to not make any decisions to like, okay, so today you're not feeling well and I'm not even gonna try to change how you're feeling.
[01:05:54] Like you just got up on the wrong side of the bed today. We're just gonna be with that. We're just gonna feel this way today and then we'll get up again tomorrow and see how we're feeling. And that has helped me just allow and accept the do attack, not try to fight against it. And not trying to then get on this hamster wheel, like I have to make it different and I have to do something else.
[01:06:17] But I was like, listen, today, we're just gonna write it off. This is how today is. It's fine. I also think we have this cultural narrative, especially in the United States, like every day has to be productive and every day has to be the same level of like 147 widgets today in 147 widgets tomorrow, versus most of us in the jobs we have and the things we do, we're gonna have a great day where we have a brilliant idea where we maybe change the world with that idea or change your company or improve a process.
[01:06:41] And then we're gonna have like 30 days where we just show up and do the things and it's fine. Right. I think when we say like, I'm awful or I'm whatever stated as our identity. I think what I would say to everybody listening is whenever you state it as who you are, it should be like an alarm going off in your control room saying like, oh, something's off.
[01:07:04] We're an all or nothing dinging again, that like glitch in the computer is activated again. And I try to add humor to it because you're like, oh, it's a glitch in the computer, it's activated. Oh, okay. What are we gonna do? Oh, it takes 24 hours for it to power down. All you can do is just wake up again tomorrow.
[01:07:22] Deb: I love that. And adding humor, I mean, I, ironically or not, I ironically, like there's a concept in pain reprocessing therapy called positive affect induction, which is just a fancy
[01:07:35] Maggie: I love it when you talk sexy science to me, Deb,
[01:07:37] Deb: I know do it positive affect induction, which honestly just means humor. I love it.
[01:07:46] So it's exactly what you say, which is like, how can we inject some lightness into this?
[01:07:52] Mm.
[01:07:52] It's not about feeling only great all the time. It's not about feeling only productive all the time. I mean, that's, that's, it's so not possible. Mm-hmm. In a human being. In a human body, we have cycles, we have in our 24 hour period, and depending on your physiology, you have different cycles during the month, and we have different cycles in the year, depending on where you live.
[01:08:15] And , you know, capitalism has tried to organ us, organize us into, you know, yeah. Mm-hmm. Machines that make widgets.
[01:08:25] Maggie: Mm-hmm. And
[01:08:25] Deb: we can optimize. Ourselves out of our own humanity.
[01:08:30] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:08:31] Deb: But I love that bringing the lightness to it changes the experience of it changes the experience of those doom attacks, right?
[01:08:39] Mm-hmm. Those moments of existential dread.
[01:08:44] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:08:44] Deb: I think that they're gifts. Mm-hmm. And when we don't fight against them so much, we expect them to show up.
[01:08:52] Maggie: Mm-hmm.
[01:08:52] Deb: We start to get curious about maybe what is a trigger for it, you know, not because we have to rush out of the experience, but there's something here
[01:09:01] Maggie: Yeah.
[01:09:01] Deb: That we can know more and be gentle with and tend to that inner child or that younger self. Right. And listen to the part of us that never gets listened to.
[01:09:13] I think that those can be really powerful interventions
[01:09:17] Maggie: Yes.
[01:09:18] Deb: That we can create for ourselves and we can invite other people into creating with us.
[01:09:24] Oh my God, I could talk to you forever.
[01:09:26] Maggie: I love that feeling.
[01:09:27] Deb: Yeah. I feel honored and grateful that you have come here and shared some of your wisdom. I'm gonna transition us out of this conversation. 'cause I wanna pick up more threads, but we don't have another hour.
[01:09:44] Mm-hmm. Yeah. What do you want people listening to this podcast today, to either know about you, your work, or, or just an invitation for them to know something about themselves?
[01:09:58] Maggie: I would want them to know that they're listening to this episode for a reason that if all they take away is the thought that things could be different, that's enough to start from, and that's really what I would want them to know.
[01:10:14] It's like whenever we think about a goal or a dream or a desire, whether it's a desire for healing in your body or a desire for promotion or whatever it is, the first step is we have to believe it's possible for us. And so if you're listening to us right now, and hopefully you had some fun with us along the way, what I would want you to leave thinking, is that thing that you're holding with so much tenderness and love with your heart, like Deb and I are telling you, keep holding it.
[01:10:42] Keep walking with it. Don't put it down. If the world is on fire, if things are going on and it just seems like a doom attack is imminent, right. Hold it, hold it tighter, and just keep it with you. And you may be able to take action on it to some degree, and you may not, but don't put it down. That's what I would want.
[01:11:02] Deb: Hmm. I love that. Thank you. And I'll link to all of your things, all the coaching that you do. So you coach relationships, you're also a one-on-one life coach. You have your own podcast. You can just put it on when you need a dose of Maggie like I do sometimes where I'm like, oh, I need simplicity, clarity, humor and love, and a quality of permission to be even more yourself.
[01:11:36] That's one of the gifts that I get from being in community with you.
[01:11:41] Maggie: Thank you for that. I am going to breathe that in for a second because I was bullied as a kid. I was very lonely. I had one friend, I literally legit, she's still my best friend to this day, but I had like one friend. So sometimes people will say very kind things like what you just said, and I will think about that in her child and I'll be like, if she only knew that she would grow up and she'd be like a guest on a podcast of this like, wisdom archetype, look up wisdom in the dictionary.
[01:12:13] There's a picture of Deb there, like wisdom, thoughtfulness, depth. Right? If I, if that little me just knew like this was gonna be like the type of people who would be into her. I just feel like she's having a parade right now. So thank you for that experience and I hope that listening to us, if somebody else is having that experience, like we're into you.
[01:12:36] We like, we like your quirks. We're into them, so thank you.
[01:12:41] Deb: You're welcome. Oh my God. Now I'm just imagining our two inner children running up and like really enjoying whatever it is that they're enjoying having this the very best time. And like nobody can tell us any different. Does not matter. We're just being loud.
[01:13:00] Yes. And making a ruckus.
[01:13:03] Maggie: I love it.
[01:13:05] Deb: Amazing. Thank you.