This is part 1 of the 2 part series where I guide you through my principles and share some practices for you to explore how to deepen your experience of yourself. 

I’d like to invite you to pause and notice! Are you ON and alert? Disconnected and shutdown? In an exploratory state? In this episode I speak to the threat response cycle and how our state is often a reflection of our trauma and us stuck somewhere in that cycle. By understanding your autonomic nervous system you’ll also be able to more clearly reflect on the way you move through your day to day. Lastly, I invite you to consider when you’re exploring from more of a top down or a bottom up perspective. By paying attention to when you use your resources and coping strategies you’ll be able to notice when you’re directing your experiences versus when you’re staying with your experiences and discovering what else is possible! 

This is Part 1 of a 2 part series that can be used as a resource as you explore what comes up for you in the Experiential Podcast. Be sure to download the Experiential Guide to support you in reflecting and inquiring. And remember, less is more. Pause often to digest and integrate what you’re learning here. And I encourage you to come back to this episode again and again!

Mentioned Resources:

www.nicolelohse.com/experiencial-guide

Connect with the Host:

Learn more about Nicole - www.nicolelohse.com/about 

Download The Experiential Guide - www.nicolelohse.com/experiential-guide 

Join me on the podcast - www.nicolelohse.com/experiential-podcast 

Instagram - www.instagram.com/nlohse

TikTok - www.tiktok.com/@nicole.lohse

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Before we dive in, I want to share a little bit about what it is I'm experiencing, because I've hit record and stop so many times. And I've actually already recorded this episode, but I decided that I wanted to rerecord it. Because I forgot to say a few things. In all honesty I have had so many things show up around doing this podcast. And it's interesting, because I'm someone who enjoys taking up some space and sharing my perspectives and my teachings. Yet, I've always done it in a way where I stay relatively safe, where I stay within these realms that are familiar and comfortable. And within that I stay relatively small. Now, with doing the podcasts, I'm really starting to challenge these edges of what's familiar and comfortable. And what I noticed, showing up around those edges is a lot of fear. There's a part of me that really is feeling the sense of being exposed is not okay. And I prefer to just flee for the bush and stay small and stay hidden. And it's interesting, because this part of me, I'm pretty familiar with it. And it feels really old, like it's beyond this lifetime. And there's this real sense that if I'm seeing there is going to be an experience of ostracization, and it is going to lead to death. Now, that may sound a little extreme, but that is what this part of me experiences. It's like the riskiness of being seen just isn't worth it. Yet. What's also interesting is that I have many other experiences that exist at the same time. And I have a big part of me that's actually really excited about doing this podcast. And when I noticed that part, I really feel myself leaning in, and I feel myself move out of the fear and the aloneness. And I feel myself shift into what feels like I'm tuning more into the collective experience of those of us who are really fascinated by the human experience and want to dive deeper into understanding all the ways we get in our own way, or all the ways that we can connect more with our sense of wholeness and show up as sovereign beings and have impact from that place.

So what I'm constantly doing is pausing and noticing the many experiences that I have at one time. And what I'm here to do is also challenge my own edges and discover what else is possible, as I transform these parts of me that are stuck in time that are stuck, still trying to survive. As I access more of my experience of myself. In this sense of wholeness, I get to really hold those aspects that are challenged in a way where we can lay with these edges and see what the hell happens. So I'm naming this because I am very much on this experience and on this journey with you. And I'm really excited to bring my perspectives forward my experiences forward to welcome guests onto the podcast so that they can share their teachings, their perspectives, their experiences, and also people like you where you to have something to share where you can come on to this podcast. And we can together explore the ways that you're getting stuck the ways that you are, finding yourself limited by these parts of you that may also be struggling with pieces, or example like ostracization, and being seen and all the extreme pieces that show up around that. Now, my intention with these first couple episodes, this episode in the next episode are like a mini workshop. There's two episodes that where I'll be diving deep into my teachings and my principles. And my hopes are that you use these episodes as well as my experiential guide, a PDF that you can download as an ongoing resource as you listen to future episodes. These resources can also be just used in general, they're great ways for you to deepen your awareness and expand into what's possible as you explore what it is you're experiencing. Now, what I'll be sharing is my principles and in this episode, the principle we're going to dive into is pausing and noticing. And what we're going to speak to here is we're going to pause and notice our way of showing up in the world and how that relates to us being stuck somewhere on the threat response.

On cycle, or how it is we're showing up in a way where we're just moving through whatever is it is that we're experiencing, relative to the ongoing changes in our environment. So we're going to talk about the threat response cycle, we're also going to weave in aspects of the autonomic nervous system, which is the branch of your nervous system that's responsible for all things automatic, specially around survival. We're also going to speak a little to pausing and noticing when we're using our resources and our coping strategies and how that's different than when we pause and notice and just be with our experience. And I'm also going to speak a little to the difference between top down techniques versus bottom up techniques that both are important and for you to be able to pause and notice and have a conscious awareness of when you're doing something more top down, versus holding space for a more bottom up approach. So that's what we're going to cover today in this episode. And I want to point out that this is going to be a lot of information, and it's recorded. So I am a big advocate for less is more, focus less on retaining everything. And let the experience be what guides you through this episode. Let whatever lands be what you make sense of in a more embodied way, that it's not about just getting the information and letting that information be what guides you, but actually feel what it is I'm talking about. So that you can make sense of it and find your own understanding in your own perspective of what I'm inviting you to discover here. With that, I encourage you to come back to this content again and again, because chances are you're going to pick up on new information every time you hear this. So in no way do you need to retain everything I'm saying, in no way do you need to make sense of everything I'm saying, see this as a foundational aspect for you to plant some seeds. And this is something that I'll ongoingly be weaving into all of my episodes. Alright, let's begin. So pausing and noticing. Let's notice in this moment, what is it you're experiencing? Now I like to keep things simple. So let's start by noticing if you feel like you're more on and alert. So what might that look like? Maybe you have a hard time sitting still, maybe you need to always be doing something. So you're listening to the podcast, but you're also doing other things, right? Maybe you feel this energy inside you like a buzzing there's this experience of this buzzing happening. Or maybe there's a vibration of some kind. Maybe there's a fidget Enos or maybe there's a sense of hyper vigilance and just being on alert, noticing everything, all the details. So in this moment, does it feel like you're more on and alert?

Or does it feel like you're actually quite shut down and disconnected from feeling anything? Maybe you feel quite numb. And like, you don't really know what it means to pay attention to your experience? Or maybe you feel quite floaty, like you're kind of like, whoo, I have a body. I don't know, I kind of feel like I'm just part of the universe above me. Right? Or maybe it's kind of like you're having a hard time focusing, you're having a hard time listening here. And maybe it's like, oh, I keep getting distracted. And it's kind of like, oh, I can't focus on much at all. So noticing, are you a little more shut down disconnected? Or is it possible that you're in more of an experiential excuse me, exploratory state, which would involve experiential experiences, right. So maybe in this exploratory state, you're really intrigued and you're noticing the sense of curiosity, and you feel a spaciousness around your heart and your breath is quite calm, you're really aware of the colors around you and the other sounds, there's a real sense of feeling yourself in your seat or on your feet. If you're walking or standing. There's just a real awareness of yourself and the space you take up. And there's a sense of presence being here. Now, it's quite possible you can relate to all three of these. And what I'm inviting you to do here is pause and notice on a regular basis, like are you more on an alert and in more of that state, or are you shut down and disconnected? Or are you in this exploratory state? It can be really simple but also really powerful to pause and notice and just bring awareness to what is. Now something I'll speak to here is, I find that a lot of people when they pause to notice, what is they right away, try to change it. So notice if that's you, you noticed you were on and alert and kind of moving around a lot. And you're like, oh, I shouldn't, I should actually sit down and try to stay still here. And maybe I'm gonna take a few deep breaths to try to calm myself down a little. Or maybe you're like, oh, I don't feel anything. I don't know what Nicole means, by this experience yourself talk? What's wrong with me? Something's definitely wrong with me, right? Or maybe you're like, Yeah, I'm in this exploratory state. And I'm nailing it, I am doing this. So right, because I'm present. And, yeah, I got this, you know, like, you get to notice what other experiences are showing up around how you're noticing yourself. Now, I point this out. Because, as I shared with my experience, we can have many experiences all at the same time. And it's quite fascinating, the more we pay attention to this, I'm gonna get into this a little bit more in the next episode. But I just wanted to invite you to notice that, that although I'm inviting you to pause and notice your state, you may have other experiences that exist at the same time. All right. Now, I'd like to speak a little more to the threat response cycle. And I find this to be so important for us to recognize, because this is something we are constantly exploring or moving through rather in our everyday life, unless we're stuck in it. So I'm going to speak to it as if you have a regulated nervous system, and you're someone who moves through these experiences relative to the change in your environment. And then I'll speak to how we can get stuck in them. Now, assuming our environment is safe, we will then be in a more exploratory state, right.

So I'm going to use walking outside in nature, because this is something I do all the time. And when I'm in nature, there's this experience of being safe. There's nothing around me that is proven otherwise. So I'm moving through the trails. And I'm really observing the colors on the trees, the moss, all the different styles of the moss and noticing the smells, I'm taking in all the sounds of the birds and the creek and the water moving nearby. And I really feel myself connected and as part of nature, and I'm moving through and I'm aware of where my dog Rio is and how he's stopping and smelling things. And there's just this real presence and all in wander around being in my environment being in nature. Now, of course, I'm in nature, there could be dangerous things around. But I'm not going to be moving through my walk, thinking there's always something dangerous, then I'd be stuck in the threat response cycle. The only time I'm going to shift into that is if there's a signal that indicates that something might be wrong. Now in our everyday life, if we are safe, we are in that exploratory state, assuming our nervous system is regulated. And we'll get to that later. And then, as soon as something indicates something is wrong, our senses pick up on that, right? Whether we hear something or we smell something, or we see something or we taste something, or we just send something spidey sense wise, right? Something indicates like, oh, there's something to pay attention here. There's been a change in the environment, and you need to be a little more alert. Right? I love watching animals for this reason, because they're a great example of this. When they're, let's say that's a herd animal. They're all together. They're grazing. And then as soon as they sense that something is off, their body changes, they become a little more rigid, their ears perk up, and they're working on gathering more information to decide if something is dangerous or not. We do that exact same thing. And you can pay attention to this. It's really cool to notice these shifts that you make from the exploratory state into more of this preparatory state where we orient in preparation for a potential threat. Now if there is no threat, so if I'm walking through the woods and I hear a branch break, I'm going to my senses are going to heighten I'm going to pause, my breath is going to change and I'm going to tune into hearing in case there's something else there. If I don't hear anything again, or I see that it was just a bird and the bird flies away. Then I move back into that next LaTorre state same with those grazing animals, right? They, their heightened senses heightened, they become a little more ready in their muscle tone. And then when they realize it was just another non threatening animal, they go back to grazing. Now, if that was an actual threat, if that branch braking was something that I needed to be cautious about, I'm going to shift out of that preparatory state, when my senses have picked up like, oh, wait, that actually wasn't just a bird that was actually a bigger animal, I can't even quite tell what it is yet. But I see that there's this big shape in the in the woods, then I'm going to shift into more of a defensive orienting where I'm really taking in the information in preparation to do something about this threat that has now been validated, like, oh, no, this is something serious, you need to do something here. Alright, so I am cautiously potentially backing away from this larger object, I live in the Pacific Northwest, there's a lot of bears around, right. And I'm going to do what I can to move away from the thing that is the threat, animals will do the same thing, right? So that that grazing herd they've gone from prepping, feeling or excuse me, prepping hearing that stick to getting ready to run, they see that the is an actual predator there, the whole herd is alerted, and they bolt. Now, what happens when we are escaping from the threat is we have a few options, right? Ideally, we escape and get out of there and move back to safety.

Once we realize we're safe again, then we can discharge all that extra energy that was needed for us to flee from the thing that was dangerous. And then we settle back into our sense of space where we know we're okay, where we know we're safe. The other option is we might need to fight, right. So depending on the situation, we aren't consciously running through the ideas for the most part, I mean, depends on how big the threat is. But if we need to fight, we jump into fight mode, right, we will do whatever it takes to survive the situation. So if you can imagine any situation where you might want to fight instead of flee, it involves a different response. Right, there's more of a defensiveness and taking action and protecting self, it's more of a leaning forward, leaning into to save your life versus the flee is more move away. Like my example of the threat of being seen. It's like little to avoid ostracization. Thank you very much. I'm escaping from all human beings seeing me and I'm gonna go hide in the bush. Thanks very much. Right. Now, what's important to recognize what that fight energy and that flee energy is, it's a lot of energy. And once we have moved away from that danger, that energy gets discharged. When we feel safe. And a once we have escaped from the and and the threat, there's that discharge, and we land back in the exploratory state, or back in connection back in safety. Now what can happen is what happens if we can't fight or we can't flee? This is where we freeze. Now, it's important to recognize that freeze is very different than dissociating. dissociating is more psychological freezing is more happening in the physiology. So freeze happens in a way where it's like, we're playing dead, right, we play dead, our limbs probably go numb, our heart slows right down. We're barely breathing. And we're doing this to preserve ourselves in hopes that the threat that is attacking us loses interest, it leaves so we can get up and get the hell out of there. Right. Dissociation, on the other hand, is more of a leaving of the body, again, more psychological. And as I leave my body, I'm maybe still able to navigate the situation. But I've disconnected I don't want to feel a thing. Thank you very much. So just to recognize it's not just one or the other. I'm not just associating or just freezing, they can be a combination of many different things that show up. I just wanted to point out that difference. Now, what happens here is if we freeze after the threat is over, we still have all that incomplete fight and flee energy that needs to discharge and if you've ever shaken not consciously top down, shaken does making yourself shake, but the body just starts shaking, that's usually a sign of that energy discharging. And then you, again, once you feel safe land in this place where you get to just rest, you recover, and you eventually find yourself back in the exploratory state.

Now, again, this is a lot of information to take in. And what I'd like to invite you to recognize is, when in your day to day do you move through this experience, right, because it's happening all the time, there's when there's a change in our environment, we shift. And when that change in the environment is validated as dangerous, we do something about it. And when it's actually not dangerous, we settle again, and we can really connect with ourselves again. Now, if we find ourselves stuck in this threat response cycle, this is what trauma is. Now, I want to emphasize that trauma is not about what happened to us. So that can be traumatizing. What happens to us can be traumatizing. But for us to experience trauma, it means we're still stuck in this threat response cycle. And the thing that was happening to us, our system perceives that it's still happening. So we can years and years and years later be living our life. And if something in our environment shifts that indicates a similar threat to what we experienced when we experienced the real life traumatic experience. It'll send signals to our brain and to our body. Right, there'll be this communication that happens that's like, well, the threats happening again, you need to do what you did, then to protect yourself, or to manage and control things so that you're okay, or distract yourself so that you don't feel. So this threat response to me is so important for us to know when we're working with trauma. Because the more we can recognize where we're stuck in the threat response cycle, the more we can support ourselves to move through whatever we're stuck in, so that we can land back in that experiential state. So for me, for example, with this experience of fear that shows up around the podcast, if I'm working with that piece, I notice this experience that feels like total terror, I can feel the terror in my body, there's a sense of shaking, the eyes feel really wide. There's the sense of being stuck and not being able to escape. And it feels like there's a potential death about to happen. So when I'm working with this piece, which I've worked through in many ways, and there's still a little flavor that I'm still aware of that I need to work with. And it feels like I'm stuck in the this terror, the beginning aspect of the threat response cycle, where there's this shock, and this in this place where I can't get away. So there's this experience, also of a bit of freeze, I can't escape. And I'm really noticing the terror that's coming alongside that. So it's a little bit of like being seen is a bit of a shock. There's terror involved, and I'm stuck, I can not move.

So that's something that I want to take note of. I'm stuck in the threat response cycle. And it's just a part of me that stuck in the threats response cycle. And this is important for us to recognize, when we have trauma, there's just these parts of us that are caught within the trauma. And what we want to do is we want to work with these pieces to support that aspect that stuck to move through whatever it hasn't yet experienced. And sometimes that can be an incomplete fight response, a flee response, it can be in recognition of safety and that it even exists because for some nervous systems, the experience of safety was never actually felt. And it's like a foreign experience. It's so used to always being on an alert or totally shut down and not feeling anything. So this threat response cycle piece, to me is one of the most important pieces that we get to bring awareness to and what we're paying attention to when we're noticing these layers of the threat response cycle that we might be stuck in. We're paying attention to our physiology, and we're paying attention to our autonomic nervous system, which is the branch of the nervous system that communicates in between our brain and our body in our body in our brain that's responsible for all things survival based. So I'm going to move on to the autonomic nervous system now but if you're someone who wants to Just pause and notice, what are you experiencing? Maybe you want to even pause the podcast and just take a moment to take in what I just shared. How did that land? Right? Again, I'm gonna cover a lot here, that was one big nugget. So let some of that digest a little and see what it is you experience and can make sense of around what I just shared. Now, something else that we want to pay attention to with this autonomic nervous system is these different ways that we move through the world. Now, the autonomic nervous system consists of two branches, the parasympathetic nervous system, and the sympathetic nervous system. Now these two branches are one of many branches that are part of your human design. Now, the nervous system is simply the communicating system in between your brain and your body, in your body or in your brain. And what we're playing with here is rewiring how the nervous system sends signals to your brain and your body and your body and your brain. Right. So we're paying attention. And this is where I find some people get a bit confused, because they're like, Oh, my nervous system is so wired right now, or, Oh, my nervous system needs attending to what I'd like to invite you to do is change the language a little because your nervous system is only one part of a really big experience, the human experience is quite complex. And the nervous system is simply the wiring the communicating system in between the brain and the body and the body and the brain. So what I'd like to invite you to do is become aware of this one branch of your autonomic of your nervous system, your autonomic nervous system, but know that there's so many more branches at play, and that will be saved for another episode.

Now, the autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetic branch, actually stems into two branches. And what's interesting here is these branches are always firing in some way, relative to what you are doing and what's happening in your environment. So let's talk about the ventral branch. First, the ventral vagal branch of the nervous system is responsible for more of this social engagement that we do. So right now, I've got some ventral vagal tone online, it's helping my mouth move and me make my facial expressions. And it's allowing my heart to be in my lungs to be working in a certain way so that I'm staying engaged, right, that nerve also moves up into my face and into aspects of my ears. And it is the social branch that really allows us to stay connected, and experience a sense of safety with our environment and with each other. Now, the other branch of the parasympathetic nervous system is your dorsal vagal nerve. We're going to keep it simple here. Okay. So that dorsal branch is really responsible for supporting you to rest and slow down. So when there is more of a dorsal tone present, you're more likely to be watching Netflix or going to sleep, assuming you sleep well and soundly, right? When that dorsal branch is online, a little bit more, you're settled, and you're relaxed. Now, just to make things a little bit confusing. The dorsal tone has a range, right? I mean, all the branches have a range. And sometimes they're on more sometimes they're on less with this dorsal branch. When it's on low tone, you're in more of that rest state. But if that dorsal branch is high tone, you are in more of a shutdown state. So the job of that dorsal branch is to really slow you down. And if it needs to slow you down so much that it shuts you down. It's going to if it senses a threat, and it wants to just shut your right down. That's what it'll do. So this dorsal branch is really key for survival, both in keeping us rested and fed and all those internal organs functioning, when they're supposed to function, how they're supposed to function. And at all costs. That dorsal branch will trump everything and shut everything else down. So that's your sympathetic nervous system. That's excuse me, parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system branching off into the ventral vagal nerve, which is more of that social engagement when the dorsal vagal nerve is more about resting, digesting and shutting things down, if needed.

Now lastly, I'll speak to the sympathetic branch. Now, when that sympathetic branch is more tone ified, when we've got more sympathetic tone, we are in more active mode, right. So maybe even right now, experiencing more sympathetic tone, right, though, involves a little bit of flushed Enos into my cheeks. And it allows my heart to beat a little bit faster. If I were to get up and go for a walk, or a run, I'd even need even more sympathetic tone, to get that oxygenated blood to my muscles, and then add a threat. And then that sympathetic tone, jacks up even more to help me fight or flee. And it allows me to really focus on survival at that level, right? Again, there are many other systems involved in that process, fight. And flee isn't just the sympathetic tone. But what I wanted to name here is just these different branches. So that you can see that every day, this autonomic nervous system is constantly changing state relative to what you're doing. And you can pay attention and notice, like, Oh, I'm feeling that I'm a little more active. Right now I'm out for a walk. So I must have a little more sympathetic tone. Now, if I have more sympathetic tone, that probably means I'm not digesting so much right now. So I have less of that dorsal tone on, but I'm out with a friend, so I must be a little more ventral. So it's something for you to pay attention to. And for you to get curious about. How is it your autonomic nervous system is constantly changing states, if we think about the threat response cycle, this is a great example. If I'm in more of that exploratory state, I am in more ventral tone, right, I might have some dorsal tone as well, because I'm feeling a little relaxed and connected with my environment. As I walk through the woods, I'm really noticing my sense of connection with the earth with the trees with the birds, right. And while I'm moving, I still need some sympathetic tone. And I'm really engaged and connected and moving. And there's a good range of all these different tones of my autonomic nervous system involved here. Again, lots of other systems are involved as well. But we're not going to go into that in this episode. If I experience a sound, I'm going to shift out of that ventral tone a little and move more into a little more sympathetic tone, right, I also don't need that dorsal tone very much anymore, and I don't need to be digesting and relaxing here, I need to be more alert. So I have less tone in that dorsal branch less tone in that ventral branch, more tone in that sympathetic branch, there's a potential threat. If the threat is real, I need even more sympathetic tone to get me out of that situation or to help me fight. Then as I escaped the situation, and I moved back into safety, whether it's away from that trail, or maybe I don't feel safe until I arrived back at home. And I feel that discharge of all that energy, that sympathetic tone starts to move, settle down and be discharged. And then I start to feel myself connect more with my environment. And my dorsal tone starts to come online a little bit more as I shift more into resting, and maybe I'm sharing my story with a friend. And there's this ventral connection as well. Right? So there's this all constant change happening within how our nervous system is communicating with the rest of our body, to tell us Do you need to be more on and ready to fight? Or do you need to be more on and ready to engage? Or do you need to be more on and in the state of resting? Right? So that is your autonomic nervous system? And again, this invitation to pause and notice, how does this information land? Can you feel the differences in your own experience when I was speaking to that sympathetic tone? And do you find you're more on and alert and in that sympathetic tone all the time? Or were you relating more to that dorsal resting state, and you're like, Oh, I love being in that resting state. Right? And you just get to notice again, this is all information for you to pause and take in about yourself. And this is something you can do on a regular basis. Now, one thing I want to now shift into is what do we do with this information? Right?

So what I want to speak to is what happens when you find yourself more on and this is where it gets It's interesting, often when we have more of this on this, and we're more in a, you know, more sympathetic tone is online, we're more activated is what some people will say, or they feel triggered, right? So there's this more sympathetic tone, and you're feeling quite on maybe alert, maybe hyper vigilant, maybe irritated and defensive, somewhere in those first few stages of that threat response cycle. Now, what is it you do? When you notice that you're on like that? What do you do when you're activated? Chances are, you're trying to change it, am I right? So this is where it gets quite interesting. When we notice that we're on, we're the type of society that's like, ooh, we should be calm all the time, you should be relaxed. And what we tend to do is we try to change what it is we're experiencing. So some ways you may try to change it is maybe you take deep breaths, maybe you think you need to sit and meditate. Maybe you play a song and you dance, maybe you go out for a run, maybe you grab your phone to try to distract yourself, there are many things that you can do here, right? Now, what you're doing is more of a top down technique. So what I want to invite you to notice is when you're experiencing something, do you consciously and maybe even subconsciously, do something to try to change it? Now, the reason I'm calling this top down is because you are more higher brain making a decision to do something to try to change your experience. So you're feeling activated, and you're like, I'm gonna take some deep breaths, and you take some deep breaths, and your system calms down. Great, until it jacks right back up again, right.

Now, what I speak to here, is when we get activated when we find ourselves in more of that sympathetic tone. Now, what happens here is when we do something about it to try to settle ourselves back down, it's kind of like, there's this tone, and then I settle again. And what's interesting here is we're not actually moving through our experience, we're just more in that omnibus, and then we are trying to bring ourselves back into the exploratory state, or at least not on an activated state. Right. Now, this is helpful, you know, it can be great to not have these resources and these coping strategies that help us not feel activated and on all the time. And it can get interesting because in a way, it's two conflicting experiences, something inside of you is on for a reason, there's an information there for you to gather and something for you to inquire into there, the more you notice that Oh, actually, right on right now, you'll also start to notice how you're trying not to feel that. And that's in conflict with what is happening within your physiology. So a great example of how we can experience this is, even in this moment, you can notice if you have the sense of being on or activated or triggered, you can even see what happens if you just think of a time of when you were on are activated or triggered. And you might feel that there's this extra energy there. Then notice how you almost have like a braking system or something that dampens or tries to make you not feel the intensity of all that energy. We call this the gas in the brakes, right. And this can happen all the time, because we're so busy trying not to be what we actually are. And it's like there's all this energy there, but we're trying to dampen it, we're trying to make it quieter. Now this can be a really cool way to notice that you have two conflicting experiences. And one way you can play with that is what shows up at the idea. You don't actually have to do it. But the idea of taking that braking system or dampening system off. So for me, for example, and the experience I'd shared at the beginning of the podcast, it's like there's this fear there. There's this fear around being seen. So if I keep myself dampened, I can feel the fear, but the fear gets quieter. I can kind of keep myself dampened. And in a way it feels like I'm controlling my experience a little bit more. But if I had less of that dampening and less of that protection online, I'd have to feel the end energy of that fear and it feels like a vibration feels like that nervousness as I was describing is eyes moving around, anticipating this consequence that's about to come my way. So the braking system is doing a really good job in making sure I don't feel the intensity of this energy. Now, this is one way we can notice the ways we don't necessarily let ourselves move through what it is that we are experiencing.

Other ways we might do that is with our resources and coping strategies. And I'd like to differentiate resources from coping strategies in that a resource allows me to still stay connected with my experience. And that allows me to settle myself and come more into maybe that relaxed state or exploratory state, where as a coping strategy distracts me from feeling anything. So that's how I like to differentiate resources versus coping strategies a resource, to me resources me enough where I move away from the activation and still feel somewhat connected to myself or they'll feel a little more settled, whereas coping is like, look, see you later, I'm, I'm doing something so I don't have to feel anything. Thanks. Right. So what's great for that social media, thank you very much. Right? Distract, don't feel go on social media, right. Or maybe I instead resource myself by having a bath. And by having a bath, I feel myself settle a little. And there's less of that activation present. So what I want to invite you to do is notice when you are doing things that are more top down, where you are controlling the situation in some way, where you are taking charge and changing your experience. So you don't have to feel the intensity of something. Now, well, how I like to explore is in another way, I like to explore more bottom up and with this, I'm not saying top down is not what you should do, we need to top down to support ourselves to settle and then there's other ways where we can top down direct ourselves, to support our curiosity in what we're experiencing. And I'll talk about that in the next episode. But for now, I want to just invite you to become a little more aware of top down being the way you are consciously making a decision to change your experience versus bottom up is me staying with my experience. So let's say I'm walking through the woods, and I hear that stick snap, and I feel myself become more activated. And maybe I have some history in this, maybe I'm actually stuck in the threat response cycle. And as soon as I hear a stick break, I find myself having these experiences that are entangled with something that happened to me in the past. That sound of the stick triggered something in me that is like, Oh, we know this, because only our higher brain has a sense of time. And the rest of us if we experience something that is related to what we're stuck in, and that threat response cycle, if it's related to our trauma, we will have an experience that is similar to our experience that we're still stuck in. So I hear that stick and all of a sudden, I feel myself starting to shake and I'm hyper vigilant. And now even though that was just a bird flying, I'm now really on and really alert and now I'm walking through the woods and I can't hear the birds anymore. And I'm barely seeing the colors. And I'm feeling my heart rate increase. And I'm walking way faster and there's this nervousness that I'm experiencing. And I can just pause and notice that I could also take some deep breaths and try to calm myself down top down. But what I'd like to invite you to get curious about is what happens when you actually just pause and notice Oh, interesting. My heart's racing a little bit more. And I'm having a hard time hearing the birds. And I'm noticing that my legs are moving really fast. I really want to like walk run out of here. Oh, interesting, as I noticed that just took a breath and something started to slow down. I can feel my muscles softening a little. I'm not choosing to do this just by me pausing and noticing. This is happening. Oh, interesting. The difference here and what I'm describing, is you're giving your experience some time to be experienced instead of trying to change it. You're giving yourself the space to be in a flavor of what it is you're stuck in. And what can happen here because As our body doesn't want to be stuck in these experiences, our system wants to move through being stuck in this fear or terror or perception of threat, right. And the more we give ourselves space to move through that, the more we move through it, it may sound too simple, but it actually is that simple.

Now, that being said, obviously, depending on the depth of your trauma, and how entangled your bar ball of yarn is, which we'll get into in the next episode, this is easier said than done. But what I'm inviting you do to do for now is take a moment just to pause and notice, before you try to consciously change what it is you're experiencing. This may be very new for you. And all you need to do is play with this for a millisecond. Obviously, if it's a big experience, this is not something you necessarily want to do. Or maybe you do. And then you're like, thank goodness, I have resources and coping strategies. Thank goodness, I have survival patterns that helped me not feel the intensity of this, right. And again, next episode, we'll be diving way more into all the layers that are involved there. But for now, see what it's like to pause and notice and be with your experience, you might be surprised in how you'll actually instead of moving up into the activated experience, and trying to settle it back down, you'll actually organically find yourself moving through it. And you'll experience yourself having written this wave of that energy, and landed in your sense of exploratory state, without having to have attempted to try to bring yourself there, it's this organic shift you'll make through the threat response cycle back into the exploratory state, without you consciously doing anything. This is where the real magic happens. This is where you're rewriting your story. This is where you're transforming and moving through your trauma. And yes, it can take layer by layer by layer by layer, because there can be a lot of entangled pieces involved. But the practice and pausing and noticing, and giving yourself that opportunity to just be in your experience is one of the richest practices that you can do. And this again, might be so new and so foreign to you. So I invite you just to play to see what happens here. Know, your body and your brain are so wise. And if it feels like an edge, that's not okay, something else will come in to help you out. Right? So play with this in a way where you can notice, like I shared at the beginning my edges, where there's the sense of vulnerability, there's a sense of fear, there's the sense of terror. And then there's the impulse to run and get the hell away from there instead of staying within the vulnerability and staying within the terror and staying within the fear and moving through the wave of that. To recognize that wait, I am okay. There is no threat here. Again, I could top down tell me, I'm safe. There's no threat here. You're okay. Right, you got this. But that's all top down. I'm inviting you to explore in a very different way.

So I'm really intrigued to see how this goes for you. Again, this is one of my principles, pausing and noticing. What we're going to get into in the next episode is we're going to deepen our awareness into what it is we are experiencing. And when it's not the threat response cycle, we're caught in? Well, we're always caught in the threat response cycle if we have trauma. And what happens then is we have these survival patterns to not feel the intensity of the threat response cycle. So for me, for example, with the podcast, the response, my survival pattern would be to flee to stay away from those edges that are uncomfortable for me to stay small. Those are all my survival patterns that I've adapted to stay hidden, right? I've adapted those to not feel the terror, the fear, the riskiness of potentially dying. So what we're gonna get into in the next episode is we're going to explore those survival patterns. We're going to deepen our awareness around what's involved in those survival patterns, why they're there, threat response cycle, that's why they're there. And we're also going to get curious about what happens when we explore these patterns. We're also going to really come into this practice and this principle of there's nothing to fix Now this is a big one. Because what can often happen when we're having all these different experiences is we try to make it be different, right? We try to change what we're experiencing. Now, it's important to recognize that there is nothing to fix, you are already whole. And although you have parts of you that are stuck in time stuck in the threat response cycle stuck still trying to survive. What we're doing here is we're supporting ourselves from a place of wholeness, to move through whatever we're stuck in. It's not that you're broken. It's not that there's anything wrong with you, right? There's nothing to fix here. All we're doing is welcoming the aspects of ourselves that are caught in these dynamics, to be moved through so that we can experience ourselves as more of this whole sovereign being. And the more we connect with a sense of wholeness, the more we recognize our sense of sovereignty, the more we find that we have choice, and we have agency, and we get to support ourselves as the empathic witness. And when we land in this recognition that we can be our own empathic witness, because what happens in that threat response cycle is, we're lacking the empathic witness to support us to move through and recognize that we're safe, that we belong, that we're there is someone to be part of the community part of the collective right. And when we experience trauma, we're isolated alone, separate from the collective experience. So it's the lack of the empathic witness that is part of our trauma, and we get to learn how to be our own empathic witness.

That's what we're going to explore the next module, or excuse me, the next to him. I'm speaking more my program talk here. The next episode, we're going to dive into all those layers, survival patterns, not fixing, recognizing your whole and becoming your own empathic witness. So I'm excited for you to dive into that second episode. Again, take all the time you need I've covered so much here. And definitely just take what nuggets land, you know, I need to retain it all. And know that I will be coming back to these principles and these practices over and over and over again. So take what landed, see where it takes you and I look forward to hopefully sharing some of these experiences with you on a future podcast. Feel free to join me and feel free to share your experiences on social media, all that fun stuff. I look forward to seeing where this journey takes you and me, I'm here with you in this so let's do this.