In this episode, we nerd out on all things nervous system! We share more about nervous system co-regulation and how actually dysregulating each other’s nervous systems was the key to experiencing a quantum leap of personal growth.
Links mentioned:
Elisabeth’s previous podcast appearances on our show:
Applied Neurology: https://interviewconnections.com/elisabeth/
Leadership and the Nervous System: https://interviewconnections.com/leadership-the-nervous-system/
Audio Transcript:
Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): On this episode, we are going to be nurturing out on the nervous system and on some really deep work that dustin I have been doing together.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And then, with the help of Elizabeth Christoph who is our nervous system angel and the incredible breakthroughs that that work has really made available.
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Jessica Rhodes: yeah I have learned, I mean i'm embarrassed to say I really didn't know what the nervous system was until like a year or year and a half ago, I mean, I guess, I had heard the phrase, but I really didn't understand it.
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Jessica Rhodes: and Elizabeth has been on this podcast I think three times I interviewed her a couple of years ago, so definitely will link to these episodes in the show notes, so you can can listen she's been on marquees panels leadership and the nervous system panels.
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Jessica Rhodes: And i've just learned so much about the nervous system and it's helps me like experience the biggest breakthroughs i've ever had.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): yeah, and the reason that elizabeth's work and she's legit she has been featured in forbes she's like we're clearly obsessed with her.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): We feature her every possible opportunity we both personally work with her, we have coaching clients work with her when they have something they need to process through their nervous system, like the level of.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Our trust in her and our love of her is like very, very high, because we don't take that lightly, who we work with and also who we send our clients to.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): So what I love about elizabeth's work is I think there's such a huge focus in the personal development space on these mindset emotional energetic up levels.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And I love them they're amazing like I love them i've had so many like mindset and your feelings and your emotional guidance system, all that stuff is so real and so important.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And also, I felt that I personally and i've observed other people kind of hit a ceiling on how far I could go with just mindset and emotion and energy.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And I really wasn't sure why until I learned more about the nervous system and the work that Elizabeth doing.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And realizing that my mind my energy my spirit was like leveling up like crazy, but no one had talked to my body about what we were doing and that resulted in.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Yes, migraines exhaustion fatigue, but also in me sort of like getting up to the ledge of doing this thing that I knew I should do in this leap of faith.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And backing off because the discomfort in my body was so intense.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): I felt like I couldn't handle it, whether that was like you know super tight in the chest like shaking hands shaking voice like it was just like.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): It was like my body was like hell no and so i'm ready to show up powerfully and make this big move, and meanwhile i'm like shaking i'm like I have this week voice i'm like so tense, I can barely get the word out like.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And i'm like this in it like this any would make me back off because i'd be kind of honestly embarrassed because my body is not cooperating and I feel so powerful, I want to show up powerfully.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And then i'm showing up with so much fear in my body and people can feel that and I can feel that and it started messing with my mindset.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Because I would like go for these up levels, then I would have these reactions his old fear and stuff in my body, and I would back off because I would be like oh God it's too much Oh, it was like there was a fear.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Of the fear like feeling the discomfort in my body from the fear was so uncomfortable that I would back off and i'd be like okay I won't do it then.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And then I would be getting mad at myself for playing small.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): But the threat response that my body was going through, it was like you're gonna die you're going to die is like you're not gonna die from going on Facebook live, but if your body is sure that you will.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): It will feel really, really scary and your brains job as Elizabeth says, all the time, is to keep you safe so.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): This has been such a profound thing for me because.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): it's really allowed me to quantum leap because i've already done all this work i've like I mean i've processed, a lot of trauma i've done a lot of energetic work i've done so much mindset so much emotional guidance system stuff.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): It was the body was really the last piece, for me, and by now learning how to work with my nervous system and get the nervous system on board and take that time.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): To be like hey here's what we're doing it's going to be safe and like doing the neuro drills and the tapping.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): It the power and the grounding that I now have is absolutely incredible and I say that as someone who has a tendency to dissociate.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And when you dissociate you're not in your body and so getting in my body is a focus for me.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): it's it's always something that I have to be really mindful of and i'm like up in the head i'm like flying like let's do this.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Typical air sign if you're into astrology and my my Achilles heel is always grounding a lack of grounding and feeling safe in my body feeling safe grounding into my body.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): has made me so much more powerful as a leader as a mammal You know, as you know, we are, we are like.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): alpha apex predators as humans like and there's something when you bring that full power, not in an aggressive way in your body to all the other work you've done mentally it's fucking crazy are we allowed to swear on the spot.
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Jessica Rhodes: Now well well we'll have the explicit sign, but I feel like that's very fitting for a show with you, because we always put the little explicit emoji react in slack so.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): yeah i'm a big.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): fan of being explicit I always say I want to tell you explicitly what I want.
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there's no miscommunication.
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Jessica Rhodes: yeah I love, all of this, and you know.
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Jessica Rhodes: MARQuIS came to me recently and I alluded to this and I didn't lead to it, I said it in the last episode, but I want to dive more into this, I mean, are you why don't you share that side of story because yeah I want you to share.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Okay, so something was happening, where I was getting dis regulated, when I was talking to us.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And there, there are something we talked about last episode we'll talk about it this episode like mirroring and funding and stuff like that which is a trauma response.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): where you want someone to like you, or you want to connect with someone, but to do that, you try to be what you think they want or to mirror what they're doing.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): which can backfire right, because if people feel like you're being in authentic and you're kind of stepping on their toes and you're doing what they're doing but it doesn't feel like it's really authentic.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): It can dis regulate them right and they start to get like they don't know why but they're just getting this feeling around you have like I don't know like I don't know if I like this.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And I was starting to get that feeling and especially stepping into the personal brand I was getting it more, because just was getting more regulated, understandably, I was also kind of just regulated, because it was scary to step out into this content.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And I really wasn't working with my nervous system, yet at that point so i'm already I would say delicate nervous system, wise in this new situation and then justice dysregulation was like we were just.
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Jessica Rhodes: It was a thing out of 10.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And yeah and I, like the reason people, people are like, why do you have such a successful partnership and like.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): We are able to talk to each other about stuff that like.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): You you would never talk to someone about like because I started and I started to think about susie so susie if you've heard past episodes i'll let just do the whole story, but she was like a friend in middle school and there was this.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Experience with her were in typical middle school girl on evolved fashion.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Like.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): You know pulled this kind of power move, where she stopped talking to just she brought the friend group with her to super traumatizing.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And, in some ways and justin I have talked about this, there are some parallels between me and susie.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Just like energy wise and like so it was really interesting because, as this, I was already a little wonky with my regulation because i'm stepping into this new level.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Just seems just regulated, I can tell that there's more like finding and mirroring which is making me feel smothered which is making me feel this regulated.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And I started thinking about susie and we had done coaching we've worked with great coaches and you know both jess and I are quite familiar with each other, like middle school drama and we talked about it all the time with our coaches.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And I was like you know what I wonder if this happened with susie.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): I wonder if susie was getting this regulated and, of course, a middle school girl is not going to be evolved enough to say.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): You know what I think you're just regulating my nervous system, can we talk through the trauma that we might be playing out together so that we can have a more aligned dynamic now middle school girls are bitches she was like by.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And like and she used her influence to create you know, the new situation that she wanted, which is what people do, especially in middle school.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): So it was really interesting though, because I realized, we had talked a lot with coaches about.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): The susie situation, but it was always the aftermath right, it was always like okay you've been abandoned and now there's this abandonment wound.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): How do we, you know build your self worth up, which is like fine but, honestly it's kind of superficial right, because if you don't get to the root of something.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): You can layer affirmations all day long it's not gonna work it's not going to work at the level of your nervous system, and you can say I feel so much better, but people can tell that you don't so.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And that's not just just like i've done that too we've all done that, and then like i'm doing great and it's like maybe, so I realized we've never gone before the susie incident right before it right so we've always just said yeah like susie's a jerk middle school girls are.
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Jessica Rhodes: traumatized and if susie if you happen to be listening I forgive you and I love you very much.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): We understand what happened with your nervous system, we get it we're on the level with you.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): and honestly, as far as middle school girls got like truly no judgment.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): it's a savage time so yeah, but it was really I was like we've never gone we've never asked the question why did susie leave.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Because it's always been I think people are afraid to ask questions like that, personally, and one of the things I like to do coaching people.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Is ask those questions that other people are afraid to ask because it's it's hard to tell someone who's like Oh, I had this.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): You know, someone abandoned me it was so traumatizing it's pretty in your face to say like, why do you think they left you right like because it's not just there a terrible person.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Everybody as Elizabeth would say is acting on the level of their nervous system, everybody is doing the best that they can.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): And so, are there, people without empathy yes, there are, but the majority of people, they don't do things for no reason right, it might be their own reasons, it might be their own trauma and have nothing to do with you.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): But, as I was getting this feeling I was like I wonder if there's something here that we should dig into about what drove susie away.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): and not in a blame way, and this is what I said to just it's very easy to go from a victim of like this person abandoned me because they're an asshole.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): To self blaming have they abandoned me because i'm unlovable and i'm terrible.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): Those are basically the same thing those feel like two different things that are two sides of the same coin So how do we take responsibility in a way that's like.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): What caused this result is there a way that I contributed to this and what did that look like, because we know it's not the answer is never going to be your own lovable like spoiler alert.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): If that's what you're getting you're very lovable.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): it's never that you're a bad person it's never that you're fundamentally unlovable you'll never be enough, I know you have those thoughts I know they feel real.
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Margy Feldhuhn (she/her): it's never going to be that, so if we can rule that out, and we can rule out...
