In this episode we unpack the topic of: "Cracking the Code: Exploring Emotional Literacy and Embodiment” This is Part 2 in our emotional literacy and embodiment series. Our special guests are returning alumni with Divinia Knowles, Founder of the COO Roundtable and Maddie Fox, a leadership development coach across venture-backed organisations. We are also joined by Pippa Richardson, Somatic Therapist, Educator, Speaker and Clinician. 

We discuss the following with Pippa, Maddie and Divinia: 

• Our personal journey’s into embodiment
• What do we disconnect from our body? 
• What is dysregulation? 
• How do you manage through a day of back-to-back meetings? 
• How do you bring embodiment into the day-to-day? 

Biography: 

Pippa is a highly regarded Somatic Therapist, Educator, Speaker and Clinician. She has lived experience and clinical expertise in the areas of trauma, eating disorders, addiction, recovery and healing. With over 10 years experience of working and studying in the field of embodiment, body-centred therapies and psychosomatics, both in clinical and non-clinical settings. Her work lies at the intersection of psyche (mind) and soma (body) and she is passionate about supporting her clients to live an embodied, meaningful life. 

Alongside her clinical work, Pippa leads talks, retreats and workshops both in the UK and abroad. She has a broad range of experience working with individuals, groups and organisations including the US Military, Save The Children, Bamford, Manolo Blahnik - as well as with leadership executives and professional athletes. Her work aims to provide thought provoking environments to explore the human experience with curiosity, kindness and compassion.

Divinia was COO, CFO & a director at both Mind Candy and Pact Coffee, where she also served as interim CEO.  She has held or still holds chair and board seats at too many companies to list and is occasionally an angel investor. Divinia re-trained as a coach in 2017 and combined it with her previous experience to become the COO Coach, working with start up/scale up COOs/CEOs to help guide them through successfully starting up, scaling up and exiting. And in addition to all that, she is also the Founder of the London COO Roundtable, a community that brings operations professionals together to define what it means to be a highly effective startup and scale up Chief Operating Officer.

Divinia Knowles references

COO Roundtable - https://www.cooroundtable.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/diviniaknowles/

Divinia’s email - divinia@diviniaknowles.com

Maddie has over 20 years experience in HR and Learning & Development working with various organizations from corporate to fast growing tech, in Europe, the US and Australia. She is an ICF accredited executive coach, leadership and HR consultant with a wide range of experience, however specialising in developing leaders from emerging leaders to seasoned CEO’s, building high-performing sustainable teams and helping clients successfully navigate change. Her style is eclectic, using research, theory and direct experiences to ensure individuals find ways to effectively embed new behaviours, build resilience and deliver results. More recently she has been working in VC backed start-ups, series A-B, working for mostly founder led businesses as a Chief People Officer, Leadership Coach and Advisor. Clients include Blippar, Lantum, Trint, Mixcloud, amongst others. 

Summary:

• Diversity and inclusivity in tech industry. 0:05
• Bethany shares her experience at an EQ event for people and talent, feeling like an imposter among mostly women in leadership roles.
• People and talent leadership, strategic conversations, and IT budgets. 2:13
• Bethany highlights the importance of the people team being involved in strategic decision-making and having a seat at the leadership table.
• Brandon agrees, emphasizing the need for people leaders to be proactive in thinking through the implications of choices made by the leadership team, particularly in terms of human resources and operations.
• Brandon and Bethany discuss the importance of people leaders having control over their IT budgets and understanding people ops and analytics to run the business effectively.
• Bethany suggests that combining thinking and feeling perspectives can create a powerful combination for business success.
• Embodiment and acting techniques for emotional connection. 7:00
• Brandon struggles with abstract concept of embodiment, citing communication issues in his career.
• Brandon discovered that traditional communications training was ineffective and found acting classes to be more helpful in understanding the human condition and connecting with others.
• The Meisner technique, which includes the repetition exercise, was instrumental in Brandon's acting development and ability to connect with others on stage.
• Brandon describes Meisner technique as "mesmerizing" and "emotionally difficult" but ultimately "spectacular" for connecting with others.
• Bethany shares how she discovered her body through acting and wants to hear others' experiences to inspire new ways of embodiment.
• Somatic practice and its connection to leadership and emotions. 14:10
• Divinia bumps into Nick Kitchen, an executive coach with a somatic practice, and learns about the disconnect between people's words and body language during team coaching supervision.
• Somatic therapy and body awareness. 15:44
• Pippa realized she was disconnected from her body through somatic therapy, leading to profound life changes.
• Embodied coaching and somatic practices. 18:22
• Maddie's curiosity about the body and mind led her to explore somatic coaching, which she found helpful in connecting with her body and sensations.
• Maddie notes that while Pilates can be a helpful exercise practice, it's possible to do it in an objectified way that's disconnected from the body, and that somatic coaching offers a more embodied approach to movement and self-awareness.
• Therapy, embodiment, and yoga for body positivity. 21:01
• Bethany finds solace in yoga after years of therapy, feeling more grounded and centered.
• Bethany discovers joy in embodiment through PIPA, undoing years of yoga conditioning.
• Disconnection from body and its impact on society. 24:48
• Pippa argues that disconnection from the body can limit connection and joy, and is reinforced by systemic factors.
• Body awareness and dysregulation. 26:18
• Maddie and Divinia discuss the importance of recognizing and addressing unregulated stress in the body, which can lead to physical sensations like pain or anxiety.
• Divinia explains that unregulated stress can manifest in various ways, including physical sensations, behaviors, and emotions, and that it's important to identify and release this stored trauma to move forward.
• Autonomic nervous system and stress regulation. 29:22
• Pippa references autonomic nervous system, explaining sympathetic (accelerator) and parasympathetic (brake) states, and how body signals can indicate stress or anticipation.
• Dysregulation occurs when the body's stress response system becomes overloaded, leading to difficulty regulating emotions and behaviors.
• Managing energy and presence in meetings. 32:38
• Maddie suggests incorporating intentional pauses between meetings to improve presence and productivity.
• Brandon and Maddie discuss the challenges of maintaining energy and focus throughout the workday, particularly for senior executives.
• Maddie suggests practices outside of work, such as yoga or exercise, can help increase resilience and presence in meetings.
• Categorizing daily tasks based on energy levels. 36:24
• Reflect on energy-giving activities to prioritize in daily work.
• Self-care and body awareness. 37:49
• Bethany prioritizes self-care by giving herself permission to do what feels good in her body, such as laying flat on the ground for a couple of minutes each day.
• Somatic practices for stress reduction and self-awareness. 38:51
• Practice dual awareness of self and others to reduce stress levels.
• Resilience coaching and grounding exercises. 41:18
• Divinia observes that using words like "presence" can be misleading, as people may not actually be as present as they think.
• Somatic coaching and its benefits for stress management. 42:40
• Maddie and Bethany discuss the importance of centering practices for managing stress and difficult interactions, and Maddie leads a quick centering exercise to demonstrate the technique.
• The exercise involves bringing to mind a difficult interaction, physically sensing any tension in the body, and then grounding oneself through a scan up the body and attention to familiar places.
• Maddie guides listeners to find space in their body by centering themselves and lengthening from the crown of the head to the soles of their feet.
• Pippa, Bethany, and Brandon discuss the importance of creating space and having more choice in our bodies and actions, leading to a more conscious and intentional approach to life.

Brandon 0:05

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the operations room a podcast for CEOs. I am Brandon Mensa. And as always joined by my lovely co host, Bethany Ayers, how are things going, Bethany?

Bethany 0:18

They're doing okay, like in the spirit of our embodiment chat that we're about to have and like how to get in touch with our bodies and to acknowledge that we have them. I'm not feeling great today, I'm relieved to say it's not COVID. So after six weeks free of COVID, but now it's some sort of tummy bug virus, like low level My stomach hurts. But you know, I'm here.

Brandon 0:43

So the December bugs are floating around.

Bethany 0:47

Why not? Why not just kept something new and unpleasant. Pre this bug? Probably where I caught the bug was I went to EQ T's people and talent Christmas event on Wednesday. It was awesome, because it was the first tech event I have ever been to where there were more women in the room. Wow. Okay, that's impressive. It was nice, but in some ways, almost off putting because I'm like, What are these women doing here? Where are they? Oh,

Brandon 1:17

so abnormal. It's so unusual. So

Bethany 1:19

completely unusual. And then the men who were there were like, quite nice and open and a little bit Metro and like, it was just a totally different vibe than let's say the pavilion Christmas drinks that I've been to in the past where it's all like bravado and extrovert and I'm the most amazing person in the room.

Brandon 1:45

Well, props EQ team is doing some curation of their lists that are trying to like, figure out who is the right mix for our particular brand or mission?

Bethany 1:54

I think it was just because it was people and talent and people and talent, or were all the women hangout.

Brandon 1:59

Good point can be as easy as that.

Bethany 2:02

It was a fascinating conversation. I felt like the imposter in the room because everybody was people in talent. And then they'd be like, what do you do? I'm a CEO, I

Brandon 2:13

neither people nor talent, I've

Bethany 2:15

definitely have a new found appreciation for people and talent having done the CFO role. So rather than like when I was CRO, I was like, I have a really big team. I know how I want to lead my team. I know how I want to structure things. What do you do? And then moving over to a CEO role. I'm like, Oh, you work on putting in all of the structures, you make sure that all of the managers are talking the same way. You put in proper performance management, performance management matters for fairness, like my past perception of HR before being on the other side was risk management. Was

Brandon 2:59

there any takeaways from the EQ T event or any kind of interactions you had that are noteworthy,

Bethany 3:03

what was really interesting was a lot of the event was talking about how to have the people team become more strategic or embrace the fact that they are strategic. So looking at metrics, looking at business cases, how to argue the efficiency and operations implications of not involving the people team and the people team being able to have the right language to push back. So we broke up into workshops, and our case study workshop thing was, you have just been told we need to expand into three markets. Now what and a lot of it was, how did this happen, where HR or the people team wasn't in the room when this decision was made? What are the implications that you need to talk about? And not just being like the low level tactical, but how do you raise that conversation up so that everybody else in the room takes the people team seriously, the

Brandon 4:06

people leader needs to be at the leadership table for sure for these kinds of conversations. Because ultimately, whatever you end up doing for rolling things out in new markets or whatever, there is a massive people application in all sorts of respects, whether it's the actual human beings that are being deployed, or the countries that they're going into in this example, but the people a person being upfront thinking through with the leadership team, the implications of whatever choices they're making, is incredibly useful. And by not having the person there it's like a, you're kind of like putting them in a position where the other being pushed off to respond to which is not a great position to be in from a kind of an empowering perspective, but equally, you're losing the visibility of like a really important voice in the room. Absolutely.

Bethany 4:43

So it was interesting to first see the coaching of the team on how to respond. But then also, I think it was a more of a confidence level like everybody in the room was capable of being able to have those strategic conversations. But some had the confidence and others were talking about. I know I'm right. But how do I do that? And how do I back myself. So

Brandon 5:09

hats off to EQ T ventures for having a phenomenal get together for people and talent. In this case, I've been recently exposed to this kind of vertical, where the people person generally is not the budget holder, that the budget actually, in fact that the people person is using is part of the CFOs budget, essentially. And at first, it was quite shocking to me, I was like, what the people person doesn't have an actual budget themselves, they can draw upon. I'm just wondering if you have a thought on this. It's common

Bethany 5:36

in a way because of maybe the heritage of people, teams coming from HR, where it's been very people based, a little bit of legal, you know, with risk mitigation, but not numeric in any way. And the rise of people ops people analytics people data means that you now really need to have those systems in place. And those systems are critical to operating the business and ensuring fairness. So people leaders should have control over their IT budgets. And also should be thinking about people ops, hiring in People Ops, understanding if they maybe are not the most intuitively numeric people that they should bring in somebody who is and can help them run the business through a combination of from Myers Briggs, the F I suspect, most people team, or people leaders index very highly on F which by the way, for anybody who doesn't know Myers Briggs is the feeling like interacting through feeling and bring somebody in who counterbalances you with highly index T, the thinking logical and you've combined those two together. And it makes magic and is very powerful for the business.

Brandon 6:53

I love it thinking and feeling together as one I was like, yes, that is the two things that you need in this case. So with that, why don't we move on to our conversation with Divinia Maddie and

Bethany 7:11

I am delighted to welcome us to part two of our embodied leadership Podcast. Today we have Divinia who is one of our old favorites. DVDs first episode is by far our most listened to so I suspect everybody who's listening today has listened to hers with what is the COO. And then we are also joined by Maddy Fox, who is also been a previous guest and is a expert in embodied leadership. And finally, Pippa Richardson. I've worked with Pippa for many years, she is deeply embodied and has been part of my embodiment journey. For those of you who joined our first episode, it was very much the theory around embodied leadership, what it means why it might be interesting for you. And what we're looking to do with the second episode is move past the theory and into the how, share our examples of embodiment our journeys into it. And then also, hopefully, we'll have a bit of time to do some offer up some practices, so that anybody who is curious, might find a path to their embodiment or start on their journey. What I was going to do after introducing all of our guests is maybe controversially starting with Brandon, because Brandon and I have had some conversations around embodiment. And Brandon, I'd love to hear your story or if you could share your story with the group.

Brandon 8:46

So I just thought it was interesting, because like often, Brandon, you're like, I just think this is what I experienced with acting. And I had such a that's amazing moment, because so often, we believe that the way that we have discovered something new or a truth is the only way of accessing it. But that's just not true. There's an infinite number of ways. And so what I thought would be really interesting is for everybody to share how they discovered they had a body, which I know sounds so silly, but like I think it's basically what we're talking about. And hopefully that inspires other people to either realize, oh, yeah, I am embodied already. Or that sounds really fascinating. I want to go and act or I want to go to a Pilates class or I want to do some yoga, or Divinia. I don't know what your journey is so super curious. Like how did you discover you had a body

along the way, when I was doing systemic team coaching, I bumped into a chap called Nick kitchen, and he's an executive coach, but he loves somatic practice. And I was doing team coaching supervision with him. And basically, he would therefore make it all about somatic practice with our team coaching clients, and we'd bring them into the room and then we talk about them. And it became really fascinating to me about how little sometimes what people were saying, and what was happening for them with their body and in their body did not match up. So that's kind of my entry into it. And I spent a year in team supervision with him and a group of other people. And it was just fascinating having all of these different folks bring their team experiences into this room where we then deconstructed them until about it, and then thought back to my sort of time as a leader in business. I feel like I was a very, very cognitive leader, most of the time to be honest, and didn't really pay attention to my feelings. And whilst I've been studying organizational TA, we talk a lot about how organizations probably dumb this down and then they, you're sort of almost not allowed to have feelings or you'll seem to be, especially as a woman, you'll seem to be too emotional or other stuff. And because

you've introduced the term somatic, I think I'll introduce Pippa. Next because Pippa is a somatic practitioner. And I doubt very many people understand what the word somatic. So PIPA, could you both talk about your journey, but also help us understand what somatic means.

I think my journey has been a significant one. And I would say that it was led by necessity rather than choice. In my very, very early career days in a corporate setting, I started to really struggle with my own mental health, which was kind of compounded of years of not being able to attune or regulate my body, and literally the word somatic. As a term Soma, the first part of the word is the Greek word for body. So it's body based practices. And I had tried talking therapy, and the practice of talking therapy just hadn't been able to engage me, I had originally thought that that was potentially my age and being quite young, and not finding it very interesting or fun to be sat in a room with somebody still who wanted to talk to me. But much later, I was able to actually understand that a component was being deeply missed in that process, which was my body process and the kind of dysregulation that I was experiencing at the time. But a core component was that I worked weekly one to one with a buddy psychotherapist for five years, which had a profound impact on my life. It changed my life, it probably saved my life. And I think your question, Beth, when did you first realize that you had a body, it was in the connecting to my body that I realized I had been highly dissociated from my body. And I heard lots of people talk in a number of different settings, from organizations to clinical settings that talk about or recognize a disconnect, or a centering, or even a sense of being divorced from self body feelings. So somatic practice and inquiry is really an opportunity to put the body at the foreground of the experience. And when I think about what is somatic therapy, why would we engage in it? It's the recognition that alongside our words, that body is also communicating. So as somatic therapist is trained to foreground, the nonverbal and is trained to foreground and directs somebody's awareness to their embodied experience, which for me, was incredibly helpful. And was my way in. And

Maddie. Yeah,

so a little similar to Pippa, there was two things really, that got me into this space. One was I also had talking therapy, which was really helpful and acknowledging what were perhaps my issues, but I kind of didn't know what to do with it after that, like was the so what? So I think that was one kind of place where I started to get really curious. And the second was after training as a Pilates instructor, I had this curiosity around body and mind together. And this is back before we even really were talking about body mind or mindfulness wasn't even really a thing in organizations. And it really was both those things were a curiosity and I didn't really know what to do with them. When I did my coaching training, the facilitator of the course, having expressed this curiosity, the facilitator of the course shared with me, ah, have you come across Richard Strozzi, heckler as work? He is set up the Strozzi Institute, and they do a somatic coaching program. So I would, I was like, Oh, this all sounds wonderful. She'd express the Greek word for Soma, being body or the body and its living wholeness. And I went, Yes, that's definitely my thing. And I wandered around thinking that for a while, until I read the book and went, Oh, I'm not really sure I understand this. And really needed to have that actual experience of it. Right. It's a very experiential thing, and I think is purpose talked about in terms of that severing of head and body. We live in a very cognitive world. We live in a very head first world, and sometimes people refer to the body not just Seeing a brain taxi, right? It's not just there to sort of carry us around. And I think it's important to note that whilst Pilates got me my curiosity around that, it's very possible to do exercise and not be in an embodied way. Right and not be connected with your body. There's a sort of functionality to it often, which is about an objectified version of body, right? They're sort of looking outside. And as purpose started to talk about, we're not talking about that objectified version, we're talking about that feeling sense inside the body, and what that kind of brings to us and actually getting connected to sensations, whether that's kind of temperature feelings movement, or again, Pippa mentioned about sort of being disconnected from that, you know, where do we have numbness? Or where do we not have feeling because actually, that's all data, and it's data in itself. So it's really thinking about that inside out experience, and not how we look at the body externally. I

100% agree with you on exercise is not the same as embodiment. And maybe I will share my journey because it is very much that, like you, I did five years of therapy, talking therapy, and I did find it helpful. And those five years were me becoming a person rather than a shell of a person who was so riddled by shame that I didn't feel like I belong with anybody in any group, I always felt like I was the outsider, and deservedly so. And so it took those five years. And it was actually probably my first hint and sensation of body. But I didn't realize it until I'm talking to you today that I felt very empty. And I didn't like physically empty, like there was nothing in my core. And so I had lots of protective outer layers, because there was nothing inside, there was no strength there. And through the five years, I remember saying at the end, when we were finishing therapy that I felt like I was solid. I felt like I had a core. And that for me, was just talking and learning that I'm not disgustingly horrible person. And then I carried on with life, I thought I was fixed. I was fixed. And then I left newvoicemedia, my mother was very ill. I had a lot of free time. And I decided to go to this yoga studio. That was a five minute walk from my house. And I ended up doing yoga every single day, for about a year and a half is a way of keeping sane. And in that process. There was a class on a Wednesday evening. And it was unlike any other thing I'd ever experienced. I was doing a lot of yoga, and I was just like, what are we doing here? It's healthy yoga, Hatha Yoga is changed. I didn't realize this is what yoga was. Now, this is amazing. I want more of this. And it was pipas class. And so eventually, I got to a point where I couldn't go to any of the other classes because they were telling me what to do. My feet were wrong. My arms were wrong. It felt weird. Whenever I did it the right way. They'd be like, yes, your arms are right. And I was like, all of this feels wrong. And when I would adjust it to what I'd learned in pipas class, they'd be like, No, your arms are too close, your arms are too far, your feet aren't right. And so I got to the point where I was like, Well, you know what, I'm not doing this anymore. And I actually then started working one on one with pipa. But I spent about, I don't know, a year undoing everything that I had learned at yoga and discovering that I had control over my body. And what felt right for my body was right for my body, even if it didn't look Instagram, right, or why hips were in the way that the yoga teacher had taught me I needed to look. And so actually, I think yoga, I happen to have discovered PIPA and discovered joy in life. But yoga in and of itself. So therapy gave me the ability to be a person in the world. And embodiment has given me unlimited joy. And I would just love that everybody can feel as joyful and free as I do, which is why we gathered up this group in the first place. Because I just love that everybody can feel inspired, not feel pressured. And realize that there's so many ways you can start to feel less shame around your body, less hatred, less resentment, and realize that you have control over all of you. And it's down to you to give yourself what you want.

There's a really interesting point you're making Beth around the joy too, because what I often talk about with clients is that in the numbing of sensation or A disconnect to the embodied experience. Were often doing that because living in a body was a really hard place to call home. And in this othering of connection, we are also limiting the connection or the possibility for connection, joy, pleasure. In other words, we can't not have the uncomfortable or difficult feelings, and only have the good, there is a an impact that spans the entirety of the human experience if we are in disconnect to the body. And I guess it's also important to say that if we are experiencing disconnect, it will be for very valid reason. systemically, it's also reinforced by our culture, society, I often say if everyone was getting behind their embodied needs, and intuition we'd have most adults not showing up to work, adults having tantrums in the supermarket, it would kind of grind our society and workforce to a halt. So it's reinforced. In other words, and I think holding the systemic piece is really important when we think about the individual experiences as to why it might be difficult for us to connect to the body. And

I think on that paper is about being kind to ourselves for that, right, the body is an incredible thing. And it made adaptations at a time in your life when you needed it to in order that you would get your needs met. Right? If we're all primed for safety, belonging and dignity, then when those things come into question, we may have to adapt ourselves in order to get those. And that's really clever. So the fact that it has severed from something or there is a lack of feeling that was done as a protective piece for us. And so I think that's also why there's a level of caution going into this too, right? Because starting to feel, again, may bring up things for you, that are big feelings, right? And their big feelings to kind of contend with and why it's therefore useful to sort of do that in a in a guided way and with someone to support it. But yeah, I think it's really important to recognize that we are inherently incredible beings, who are able to adapt ourselves in order to kind of survive. And that it just may be that today that's not serving us in the same way. Right, that's something we've been holding on to for a long time. And now that might well be holding us back, you know, as Brandon talked about, in his getting to the acting place, realizing that, you know, the communication was becoming a bit more challenging. And so that's a great kind of place to start exploring, where that sort of behavior may not be serving us anymore.

Well, and it's interesting, isn't it, because I think the body as well as a phenomenal store, I quite often hear from clients that when you leave this unattended for really long periods of time, you may start to see things in your body, that are trying to tell you that something is really not good anymore, and can be quite debilitating. So your body is trying to warn you or trying to trigger you into doing something about it that might be locked in there or suppressed.

I think I understand what you mean. But maybe just to clarify it. It can be things like physical pain, but can also be anxiety. So kind of like just feeling a racing heart or feeling very uncomfortable in your body. Like are there other examples that you can share of what you mean? So

I mean, in terms of unregulated stress, all sorts of things right, which could be phenomenological, as it were, so temperature or physical conditions like racing heart, or what have you, or behaviors that are a result of this, which are things like procrastination, or lack of empathy or other things that you may notice that your body contains that data, and trying to unlock some of that your body may get to a point where it needs you to before your brain is sort of caught up if you know, we've used

the term dysregulation and Regulation A couple times, PIPA that's something that you'd introduced to me. Could you explain it a bit more what you mean and what the sensations are?

Really what I'm referencing is the autonomic nervous system. There might be some knowledge that some of our listeners will hold around an understanding of that. We can think about the two branches of the nervous system. So the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. I like to think of the sympathetic nervous system as our accelerator and the parasympathetic nervous system is the brake. So during the day, we will be moving between these two states and their broad state It's and ideally there would be a flexibility in our system to move between these states quite fluidly quite easily. So if we were running late to work, and a child had been sick in the back of the car, and we've maybe had a morning, that was not ideal, I imagine that many of us would start to experience some signals of stress. In fact, even before we started recording, we were acknowledging myself included that some of us were feeling a bit nervous around the anticipation of the podcast, and I could feel my hands getting clammy, I could feel I was a little bit restless. So my body was giving me the signals of anticipation, some anxiety, possibly excitement, they can be closely related. And ideally, if then, for example, if we stay with the work scenario, once we'd kind of got to work, had a cup of tea sat down, ideally, our system would regulate and settle down, so the brake system would come on. So as I said, ideally, we'd be moving through that, throughout the day, without too much difficulty, a dysregulated state can happen under repeated stress or in the presence of trauma, where the experience of our state starts to shift into wider states outside of this more familiar day to day, accelerate and pause. So some of our listeners will be familiar with fight flight freeze states, so we're kind of moving into a bit more kind of technical kind of language, if you like. But a dysregulated state will be when we move outside of this window of tolerance. And essentially, we get caught in a stress cycle, where it then becomes much more difficult to regulate. So if we had a difficult conversation with someone at work, and we're noticing that actually that's impacting us all day, or maybe even all week, it's probably giving us a signal that our system is overloaded. We use the term in kind of trauma therapy, which is actually flooding. So when has our system become so flooded. And for some people that might be expressed in high anxiety or panic for somebody else that might be expressed in shutdown, withdrawn more of a kind of depressive collapse state. They're both expressions of dysregulation.

And I think talking about going with your theme paper about thinking about the day, and how we might move between those states. One of the things we talked about, you know, we said we were going to think a little bit about the how today. And I think one of the things that can really impact us is let's say we go through back to back meetings, I'm pretty certain most people listening to this podcast will be familiar with what that's like. And so we don't have any gaps through that we hang up the phone and possibly one's late and then we're late for the next one. And what we then tend to take through with us is that first meeting of the day, is probably in shard, still with us by the last meeting of the day. And so that starts to then impact how present we can be with the next meeting. Because perhaps we're still thinking about something that was perhaps unresolved or was difficult in that meeting before or, gosh, there's loads of work I need to do as a result of that. But now I'm in, you know, meeting number three, meeting number four. So one of the ways that we can help ourselves, I think to do that is actually to have intentional pauses between those meetings, that allow us to complete the meeting we've been in and get ourselves present. And there are techniques to do that. I mean, some of that may just be giving yourself 10 minutes to make a couple of notes, take a breath, move on to the next one, it might be walking outside at some point, it might be actually sitting down and having your lunch, even if that's for 20 minutes, rather than doing that on the run by putting in some intentional pauses and some intentional spaces, that we can start to allow our system to let go or finish the thing that we were in and enable us to move into the next thing with a little bit more presence and intentionality.

So I think this is a very present problem with a lot of senior executives, because you have long days, there's a lot of stuff to get done at scale companies are under tremendous pressure. And one part of it is you know, carrying baggage from previous meetings or interactions you've had with others. The other part of it very clearly just purely energy levels because as a tails into the last part of the day, you've had four cups of coffee or crashing basically. So everything kind of compounds, both in terms of irritability, but also energy levels as well I suppose and And you know, I think a lot of your suggestions make tremendous sense. And being present in the next meeting is just if you want to get value out of the meeting, you need to be present to give what you can to that person to make them successful, obviously, is there anything else that you could think about suggestion wise here,

I've seen that point about volume. And there's a sort of sense of the speed with which needs to happen with everything is really challenging in the workplace. I actually heard something from someone last week, I think it's an army term, or it's a military term of slow is smooth, smooth is fast. And I've been holding that because I just think that's really interesting. There's a sense that if we pause, throughout our day, that actually we will get less done, right, because there's only so many hours in the day. But I think to your point about energy, those are some of the things that can help you to maintain energy, rather than sort of, you know, fluctuating into bigger ways. And so I think there's those pauses that we've talked about during the day, but and I'm sure pepper and venue, you've got some as well, I think there are also practices that we can be doing outside of our day, in order to actually give us a little bit more resilience, help us to be more present. We've already mentioned some of those. So whether it's yoga, or some sort of form of exercise, being outside, those are the kinds of things that can give us some level of resilience.

There's a lovely exercise that I do in some of my resilience coaching work, where you reflect on the things that give you energy and drain your energy. And they're sort of put in two different camps, things you must do. And I like the way that acknowledges that in your day to day work, there are things you're going to have to do, some of them are going to be very draining. But you start to sort of categorize these things to ensure that you've got enough of the energy givers that then give you back enough energy to carry on your day, and also to reassess your criteria for these things. And I often use the example of a coaching client of mine who was a runner. And during the periods of time, when he didn't run, he thought less well, he had a whole range of things going on that didn't really serve Him. But running really helped him to kind of overcome those. For him running was a must do energy giver versus an optional energy giver, for example, because he found it had such an impact on him as human being all the time and his behavior and the way he related to others, that he had to incorporate it into his own practice. Whereas I think a lot of the time, we think these are optional, I could just go and do this, or I might just get we're actually building a practice becomes more about the things that you know, will help you and they're all different for every person. So it's quite a nice exercise to really go through things and also in your working day, you can then start to decide, okay, so there are things I must do here. But there are optional things here that are draining me to so how do I start to mitigate some of those? And how can I rearrange my work in a more sort of forgiving way for me, so I more effective productive, but also have more energy to comes

down to the giving yourself permission to do the things you want to do. And for me experiencing it in my body has given me permission in my life, rather than like, I can move my tests however I want, haha. And then suddenly, I can also decide whether or not I don't know still work. My husband is a real runner. So to finish what you said about running like, yeah, he doesn't have a choice. But it doesn't have to be for those of us who are not runners like oh, the equivalent has to be an hour out or whatever. One of my non negotiables is at the end of the day, I lay flat on the ground for a couple of minutes. And that just really helps me it like undoes all the time in the chair, it settles me back down, sometimes I then decide I want to move more. And sometimes it's just laying on the ground. And sometimes it's laying on the ground for 10 seconds. And sometimes it's laying on the ground for an hour like there's just tapping into what I need. But it's super easy. It's not going out for a run, which is not me.

One of the other things that comes to mind, I guess, Brandon, when you were talking is I think we need to hold the flexibility of being able to do an activity, like running, or birth your own kind of somatic practice that you're giving us as an example, which is great if we have the time and we can prioritize the time. And I'm also holding, I guess an example of something which I encourage clients to develop, which is what can we do kind of literally in the here and now in terms of what can we do in a meeting. So even in the context of this podcast, we're here, we're talking, it's engaging, it would be really easy for my attention to be completely outside of myself, and as a practice or a somatic practice of achievement. What I really encourage people to develop is how do I maintain some contact with my internal state so even As I'm sat here, I can be aware of how I feel in the chair, I can notice that I'm leaning a bit more to the left than to the right, can I get more comfortable? So there's a developing over time, of an achievement to self. Always, as opposed to, I'll do my ran on a Thursday at four. And that's the time that I check in with myself. And that can be helpful in addition, but I guess I'm thinking Divinia, you said that there's a number of things that actually are so tiny and simple, and have a profound impact to change our state. This dual awareness that I'm talking about, can I be in contact with myself whilst being in contact with another, we can practice that whilst driving, we can practice that, in a meeting a difficult conversation, it can be with us always, that actually came out of trauma therapy work, where they notice that if we maintain jewel awareness, contact with myself as well as others, then we limit the impact of stress of the engagement that we're in. So there's actually the science to show a practice like that can reduce our stress levels, very, very simple, does take practice, they hadn't really

looked that, you know, the other thing that it brings up in my thoughts is around, can I sort of do a resilience coaching group work. That's a two hour session. And right in the middle of the session, there's a grounding exercise, which is, so you sit to stand, try to come back into your body, you do fight and notice five things in your immediate environment. And then it goes to 54321, the things that you can hear, taste, smell, etc. And it's fascinating that it's halfway through this session, and you think that everyone was present by them, right, you would have thought that because we've already been talking about stuff for an hour, and we've done a check in, we may have done two and halfway through this exercise. And every time you get people there, then like, that's really weird. I've just sort of come back into my body, because there's this feeling of sort of really honing back into yourself, because you're doing things that relate to what you can taste, or you can hear. So it's all of your senses. But this is, I think the challenge that we have is that when we use words like being present, etc, etc, it's actually a lot harder to do than you would expect. And so I love this idea of developing a connection to your inner self that you can tap into more readily, because otherwise, I think that you can feel that you're present, but you may not actually be as present as you as would be good for you or make you feel it, you know, in a very positive way.

We have something

similar in somatic coaching Divinia, which is a centering practice, which we do to be present, open, connected and on purpose. And we talk about intentional practice with it. So 200 repetitions or 300, repetitions for muscle memory 3000, to embody attained. And the point is to practice when you're okay, right, in order that when you're under pressure, you can actually access all of that good practice. And you can be a little bit more at choice about about how you respond in that moment. And that can be five minutes, it can be 15 minutes. And it's about how you bring it into your day. So pepper, you talked about doing it in a meeting, you know, connecting while you're driving the car, or, you know, we say if you're while you're waiting for the kettle to boil, or you're standing on the tube, or you're waiting for a bath, these are great opportunities to do that sort of micro practice around it. So

we had hoped to fit in maybe one example and not too so much chatting about it. I'm

happy to do a speedy centering practice, if you like and sort of show a state changer. Okay, which everyone who is listening can do along with us. Okay, I'm just gonna ask you to think about something a really difficult interaction. If you're thinking about one to 10, let's go for a five or six out of 10 that you've had recently. And I want you to just bring that to mind and bring those physical sensations that come with it. So maybe your hands clench, maybe your focus what happens on your breath. Maybe your shoulders are hunched. I can see some nods. So let that go. I didn't mean to make you fully relive that but so you've got that feeling inside of you. Okay, so, shaking that off. We're going to do this we're all sitting so finding your feet on the ground, feeling the back of the chair, holding your weight. During a quick scan up the body to let go of any tension and draw some attention to familiar places. which might be the knees, the buttocks, the tummy, shoulders, letting go of the jaw, relaxing behind the eyes. So that's how we found ground. And then, if we add centering to that, think the centering, take your hand to your sort of belly button or your stomach center is two inches below the belly button in the center of our body, sometimes known in other domains as the dantian, or the horror. And from that place, I want you to lengthen up as you also lengthen down. So this isn't coming into tightening the body, this is about maybe finding some space in the vertebrae and just growing a little taller out of the crown of the head. And then from that center, pushing out to the sides of the body. So breathing into the sides of the body. And seeing if you can just extend out a little further, you can feel the clothes on the side of your body. And then from center, focusing on your depth. So back of the body, and the back of the body represents all of that knowledge, experience history that you have, filling into the back of the body, extending out a little further. And then coming to the front of the body. Our future our unknown. And again, seeing if you can extend a little further to that. And now, recalling that thing that I asked you to think about before we started this, where is that now in relation to you? How do you feel about that? Maybe someone can share for the listeners. My

experience was creating a bit more space and I think central to what you're bringing. Maddie I guess feeds back to the question, why would we do this? And I think central to that is having more choice. And when we're in a dysregulated state, physiologically we will not have the same availability of choice to our actions, our feelings, our thoughts. So it feels really key as an example as to why we might engage or prioritize a practice because we have more space distance. And the outcome of that is then that we have more choice. And that's got to be a win, as far as I'm concerned. Moving from reaction to conscious choice. And

I think this is a perfect place to end because Pippa when you said that that reminded me that's what's a lot of the theme of episode one. And you unwittingly brought it back and it's a perfect conclusion to thank you.

Thank you, Peppa, Maddie and Divinia for joining us on the operations room. If you like what you hear, please subscribe or leave us a comment and we'll see you next week.