In today’s solo episode, Dr. Alex talks about whose responsibility it is to feel safe in our body. Dr. Alex also talks about why this is very different from other aspects of safety and how we connect with others.
In this episode we cover:
- Love and partnership.
- Our relationship with our physical body.
- How you can support yourself.
- What choices we can make to make ourselves feel safe.
- Prioritizing yourself.
Ready to learn more?? Let’s do this!
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You can listen to the episode on YouTube here.
Dr. Alex Golden: Hello, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, how are you doing? I hope fantabulous. It’s Alex here with you, I am so happy that you’re here, we are going to be talking about whose responsibility it is to feel safe in our body. And why I think that is one of the things that falls under the category of it is up to us to help our body feel safe. And why this is very, very different than other aspects of safety and kind of what the world looks like with us along with us how we connect with others. So this is a really unique deviation, in my opinion, from a collaborative space that I think a lot of life, things fall into, such as partnerships, and those kinds of aspects and safety. But I’m going to explain to you in this podcast, why it is my belief that when it comes to the physical body, that we get to do singularly as ourselves, and why I think that’s a really, really good thing. Okay, so that’s what we’re gonna dig into today. Let’s go through updates, though. So Megan, and I have been gearing up for one of our favorite favorite programs that we are the students of, it’s called business by design with James Wedmore. Some of you may have heard us on his podcast. And this is the only business program that we really feel like has, has changed the name of the game for us, but more importantly, the one that is the most powerful for people to participate with, in our opinion. We don’t commonly talk about other people’s programs. And if you’ve been here long enough, you know that we’re quite choosy in terms of who we share, right. But James has been our mentor for a couple years. And what we love about him, one of the many reasons we love him is that the way he does business is with the higher level identity. And the bigger picture in mind, right? Because around here we talk about, you know, when it comes to health, or when it comes to relationships, or it comes to career, what does it look like? Or even with food, what does it look like to live our life, so that it supports all of who we are, rather than sacrificing things that are really important to us for the sake of something else that’s important to us, right? People get into that with food all the time with health, right? They’re like, I am losing out on my connection, I can’t go out to eat, I can’t go to people’s houses, it’s hard for me to have friends over, it’s hard for me to connect with that my I don’t drink alcohol. So you know, I don’t drink coffee that the list goes on and on. And all of a sudden, that healthy good food effort that they’re doing is then sacrificing things like connection, and belonging, and community and love and all of that, right. And everything that makes up who we actually are and how we feel walking around this world, and living our life, the actual experience of it. And the same thing is true for business because a lot of people talk about creating something that you’re passionate about. And Meghan and I talk about that all the time, right? Once you reach good health, you realize that’s just the springboard for all the other things in your life. But now you get to participate, not from a, you know, like feelings of disease and ill health but rather from a place of power. And that’s a really amazing transformation to go under. And then there’s more. Right? Or is the rest of our life jiving and that’s what we see time and time again, is that the women we work with? Once they heal once they feel amazing. Once they’re up and running, then they look around and say what else? What do I want to create what I want to have what I want to be? Who do I want to become moving forward? And how do I want to help this world that I’m a part of. And for that, it can’t be in our opinion that you sacrifice what you just created for building something new. And that’s a lot of the conversations in business. Right, Megan? I’ve been at this for a good long while and over the years we’ve heard all sorts stuff and the narrative is generally work really hard, show up for your business, give it all you got, you know, it’s just a matter of time and effort. And some of those components are absolutely there, like you want to create something, you got to show up for it. Well, that’s pretty self apparent. But it’s different, to truly come at creating something in the world, that is impacting people positively from a place of merging it into the wholeness that you are in a way that’s authentic to you, and actually supports the rest of your life. And rather than taking away from it, see the difference here is a huge difference. But what a lot of people get into and Megan and I have done this in the past is they’re like don’t, okay, I’ll hustle. And then once I’m get to a certain level, then I’m good, then I’ll relax, same thing, right? I’ll obsess about my food, then I’ll heal and then all of a sudden, I’ll be good with food. Well, unfortunately, that doesn’t work that way. Because we will then keep doing exactly what we did, right. And that means that the journey has to be intentional, the actual experience of coming up to it has to support you in the process of it, and help you become who you are becoming. And this is a really tall order. And that is why the person that we’ve seen do this the most powerfully when it comes to business and creating the impact that people want to have in the world. And to actually give people like the step by step instruction manuals for any kind of business that they want to have any kind of launch structure, someone wants to have whatever coaching program, someone wants to have a business by design has all of it in there. So when we’ve done our beta launches, when we start did HTA, a couple of years ago, right? We followed that exact structure, it was a godsend to feel like, okay, here’s a way that our ideas, we’re gonna go to that portion of business by design, we’re going to enter the, the program portion that is for beta launch, and we’re gonna follow that. Exactly. And it was awesome. And as you know, we’ve been doing health transformation accelerator for multiple rounds. Now, it’s been years. So then we did it again, with in person retreats. Right, we applied exactly what we learned there from launches from beta launches. And then we said, what does this look like in person, and we did the exact same thing. And you know that we had a very successful level one, I already talked about that on the podcast, practitioner training back in May, we have another one coming up in October for level one. And all of the people joining us from level one to level two in February, are all geared up from this. So Megan and I are in it, where there there is currently a live training, a three part training that James is doing, I have been listening to it on repeat. Okay, so this is even though it’s free, even though I have BBD, I do not miss the free training because the stuff that James gives away for free, is what other people are charging $1,000 for. And then when you join VVD there’s literally so many different options to choose from no matter how you what phase in your business, you’re at whether you are just starting out, or you’re, you know, figuring out how to scale to multiple seven figures like you’ve already hit one, seven figure mark, and now you’re going to the next. It’s all in there. And it’s just a lifetime subscription. But every year in the summer, I basically go through James’s training that he does that he does, it helps me refocus. It’s part of my support for myself to be like every year, there is a special time that comes up where I really sit down, and I spent extra time with his guidance. You know, every year it gets updated, truly considering what I’m, what are we doing? What are we creating? Who are we impacting? How can we do that better? What does the world need? How do I need to show up? Who do I want to become? Where’s my strength playing into all of this? And so I’ve been doing that. Just over the last couple of weeks. I’m so excited. I also really, really love Brandon Lucero is another amazing he’s James’s friend, and they do a lot of work together. You’ll hear Brandon as well. And they’re amazing. So if you are listening to this, and you’re like, I would love an instruction manual on how to do this. So I’m going to come up with something that other people already have figured out and know Come join us, what we do every year is create a special bundle for people who have health specific businesses. So whether you’re a coach, whether you have a clinic, you know, fill in the blank. But if you are in the health care coaching, healing healers space, then we have special bonuses that augment what business by design already has, with what we’ve learned in the application of it. So reach out to us shoot us an email support SSD ginger.com or send us a DM on Instagram, it’s at zesty underscore ginger.com. We’re also going to link up the page where it’s all detailed, I won’t go into it here, just because it’s all written out for you go to the shownotes down below, check out the page that has all of that information. And you’ll see how Megan and I have been supporting businesses that are more similar to ours. And make sure that not only are the businesses healthy, but support the leaders, the leadership of those businesses of those coaching practices, so that they feel as amazing energetic, calm, passionate, supported, grounded as possible. And in our opinion, over the years that we’ve been doing this, the women that have joined us for this say that it allowed them to get more out of BBD faster, right. So Bvd is not phenomenal as it is, we did it without our help, right when we and we figured it all out. But what we’d like to do at every single point is every time we learn, we turn back around and say, Hey, let me speed that up for you, which is exactly what James is doing for us. Right. So we are just all I mean, which is the reciprocity principle, we are all just taking care of one another and serving each other along the way, right? So that that is our identity. And when someone comes in that says, hey, I want that too. I want in on this flow of people who are not sitting around complaining about how the world is, or being like I can’t get any views on Instagram. That stuff is frustrating. But honestly, the answer is to go figure it out. And that’s exactly what James is creating here in DVD. And all of the coaches who have gone through it that create bundles, you know, more specifically for them is doing the exact same thing. And then of course, the whole point of this is that then it continues to snowball those people get something out of it, then they function in a more significant impactful way for what their magic is. And someone else gets that it speeds up their process and down the line and goes. So like I said, check out the show notes for the link to check it out, or email us DNS so that we can talk to you more specifically about what it is that’s going on for you. If it seems like a good fit, and BBD will be open. It’s not currently open, right? right this second, but it will be shortly. So over the next couple of days, give it them all over. Or if you already know, reach out now and we’ll chat with you. Otherwise, we will see you in there once it starts. And there’s going to be sere video series, that live series that James is going to be doing that we will see you at okay, no matter what you end up deciding. As long as you’re in BBD, you’ll get to hang out with us. Okay, so that is the update. Let’s talk about why I believe it’s up to us to feel safe in the body. So the I want to contrast this with other things that are commonly put on up to us to give to ourselves. Because I do think that this is a little bit of a deviation from my usual thinking. And my usual thinking isn’t as a deviation from the narrative that’s happening now. Granted, I feel like the narrative is changing as other people experience things and have have these experiences that that helps them understand. And one of the narratives that has been happening for a couple of years, is in the topic of love and partnership. There’s this concept of we used to look at for love and other people. And therefore, now it’s up to us to give ourselves all The love we could ever want or need, and other people are going to come marry that love after we’ve given it to ourselves. Which is the concept. I think sounds okay. But to me, it leaves out something very important is that alone, when we give ourselves a certain level of love, it is generally dependent on the healing and the deconditioning process of all the things that we picked up along the way that told us a different story. Right, not worthy, not lovable, not valued, never chosen, not prioritize whatever you got. And then it makes it seem like it’s your fault, that you didn’t really get treated that way, because it was actually up to you to love yourself. And that’s why. And for, in some situations, I think that’s a helpful aha moment, right? It to be like, oh, what does this actually look like to to give myself love in the meantime, where I see people going wrong, that was a lot of times, that turns into a whole bunch of guilt and shame that basically says, it’s my fault things that happen that way. And then that’s what’s then I have to fix myself, and then I’ll be loved. But other people generally, then no matter where we get to alone, you heal those and get decondition, from those things that we learned. But the second someone else comes into the picture, all of a sudden, they bring up the next layer of, of stuff, the next layer of healing. And that’s because there’s almost always more, if if we got to a point where we were just done, what we would see in our culture is, you know, people struggling, and then other people, that would be an element where they were like, we totally have everything figured out, right? But what now that we look out in the world, a lot of times, even the people that look like they have everything figured out later, it’s like, oh, but then they had this problem, or under the surface, they’re dealing with this. And oh, you know, this mental health issue led to this. And we’re reminded often, that nobody is immune from kind of the tribulations of life and the learning and the growth and the exploration that happens as we have experiences. So to me, it paints a false picture that is prone to cause people to beat up on themselves first of all, and say, it was my fault, I have to fix myself, then someone will love me. But then they do that. And then someone comes, and then all of a sudden, they’re like, but there’s more, I must have done it wrong. And where do they usually go? More guilt and shame now you’re just stuck in that same loop? And then God forbid, that relationship doesn’t go well. It’s like, oh, well, I did all that healing for nothing. And now I feel really bad about myself see how it could be incredibly problematic for people. Now, not everybody is going to have that experience. But I do think that when we have narratives, we have to consider what kind of experiences people have, and what kind of potholes we could be leading them towards, right, that we shouldn’t be saying things that actually cause people to go and do things that aren’t good for them. And so that narrative, I think, has kind of played itself out. And more and more, I’m seeing the reminder of like, yeah, you just you heal to a certain point and you enter a new relationship, and then there’s more healing to be done. And you’re just on this reiterative process, where each time you become more and more who you are, each experience is feedback every up and down and neutral. And everything in between becomes a part of like a ladder on the rung of rung on the ladder, rather than you finish the road. And then you go to the magical field and there’s unicorns and rainbows and everything’s hunky dory, right. So, I personally, really, really love that we are no longer looking at, you know, when it comes to us feeling loved, feeling seen and feeling valued, that we are no longer painting a picture for people that it has to come solely from you. Yes, you have to believe that you’re worthy of love, right? Yes. You have to figure out what it looks like to even give yourself love. I struggle with that for a long time. I’m like, I know what I do for other people, that’s really nice. But I physically do not know how to do that for myself, right? And so I had to figure out what it looked like for me to begin to build that trust with myself to be like, how do I have my own back? And that came from a lot of sources. And at no point along the way, did I feel like I was just done. And then I was ready. And, and that means that you just make choices along the way. And it’s a lot more freeing to be honest, there’s just a lot less fixing to do, and a lot more loving and living to do, which is, in my opinion, exactly what the point is. Now, how does this compare to feeling safe in our body? Now, we have things often happen to us and to our body, that show us and teach our brains to look for patterns, where we say generally I don’t feel safe. And I’m keeping an eye out for patterns in my environment that say things are going south. And I’m also looking for patterns in my environment that say, There’s comfort, there’s familiarity, there’s safety. There’s all these things that our brains, because of very valid experiences that have in fact happened to you happened to us. That’s true. This is what my brain and my body learned as a response. The the deal here, though, is that when it comes to safety in the physical body, not a mutual shared experience of something like love and partnership. But let’s say there’s two people, well, each of them have a discrete physical body that is separate from the other one, there’s no shared body experience, right? Even during, like intimate moments, you’re still as long as you’re looking strictly at the physical body, to different people. Yeah. And that body is like, I like to think of it as our kid. Some people will die, but like, that’s your pet, or that’s your vehicle. But to me, sometimes I think those those analogies are a little further away than how we would feel for ourselves as a kid, right. And so for the physical body, I look at it as we are who we are. But that’s more than just our physical body, right? By our physical body is kind of like having a kid with us all the time that we care for, and show that we are there with it. It’s really easy. And I have I did this for years after trauma is essentially just sociate out of my body. And it’s no surprise then that I developed severe pain, generalized widespread pain, because my, my body knew I was not there for it. I was even when when I was doing things that were good. I was also doing things that showed it blatant disregard. And these are things like saying yes, when I should say no staying in conversations that I’ve had 18,000 times before and continuing until allow that person to gaslight me, it was things like, hey, there’s a bunch of people that need things for me. Let me push back lunch, or even something as simple I really have to pee. But let me answer this email real quick. Or, Yeah, sure. I’ll make that thing for the bake sale. When you really don’t have time to time and time again. I made small what seem like not earth shattering decisions that were not me.
Showing up to help my body the thing that I have 100% responsibility for because other people have their own. I was the one abandoning the aspects of myself. Now. I was doing testing I was taking supplements. I was you know was stocking my fridge with good food. Well, to my body having food in the fridge, my mindset, oh, I have food, I’ll just eat later to my body to a kid, imagine a three year old, you’re like, Hey, I know you’re hungry. But we have food in the fridge, that concept should be good enough for you. And just like, Don’t worry, hang tight, and then a couple of hours will eat right eat. Anyone who’s hung around kids knows that that would not fly, you pack your snacks with you raise that you don’t have the meltdown. But my body was screaming at me. It was having the tantrums. And during those conversations where I let someone, you know, say, Trust me, I won’t do that again. Or trust me, it’ll be different this time. Trust me. What you’ll that that workload will ease up soon, right? Every time I did that, it was the exact same scenario getting played out. And here’s the thing, nobody could do those things for me. Right? We can have support. Let’s say you’re going to difficult conversation, or I’ve done this, I’m going into difficult, difficult conversation, Megan, because you follow up with me. And remind me that usually in this situations, this is what happens. And here’s my safety net, here are the things that I have already chosen for myself from the toolkit that I’ve developed over the years from actually loving myself that I think I will need, and then that Megan can absolutely support me in the experience of that. And that’s really cool. I love that. And I love that we’re all here together. And then that’s part of the love and connection piece. But she cannot take me out of those conversations short of coming and dragging me by the year out, right? which no one should I’m going to do that for her whole life. She has her own life to live. And so when it comes to safety, if we’re like, well, that person always does this that makes me feel unsafe, or I have this structure that makes me feel unsafe. How can we in this moment, say this is my body kid? This is my responsibility to help me feel safe. What does that look like in these? Because that question, the you know, the quality of our life depends on the quality of our questions, you’ve probably heard that. That question gets us to potential solutions. Because I know from doing this a while with Latino 1000s of people and just from my own life, is that there are some things that once we ask that question we recognize, you know, that thing has that there’s an expiration date on this situation, this relationship this thought this mo whatever it is. And then sometimes it’s okay there’s there’s some conversations that needed to be had right? There needs to be some intentionality brought into it. And then sometimes it’s how can I support myself even in the environment, for example, in residency because this isn’t it doesn’t have to be negative, right? In residency, I worked a lie. We were a trauma centers outside of Chicago. I mean, really stressful times, really long hours, lots of call whatever. I knew I wanted to do that.
I wanted to finish residency, I wanted to be a practicing physician. No problem, right? That doesn’t mean that I had to quit just because it was hard. But in asking the question of what would it look like for me to feel safe? There was a bunch of stuff I could do when I was on call in the hospital. All you know breathing, just even in the olare doing different different breathing practices while I did my job right? You’re still breathing you have to it’s just a matter of how I could move my eyes certain ways right for to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Walking down the hallway to the next thing I’m going to doing some chest lumps for Vagus Nerve Stimulation. With those of you have hung out with us in our have a challenge. You know, the ear scissors. I know y’all love, love, love that one. That kind of stuff. It was what I thought what lunches I packed, how nutritious and how fun. I made that food house. How much did I look forward to eating it at a certain time? Yeah, these are I’m just giving examples. There’s no Millions of ways that Situations show up on our life. And I could never cover them all here. But that doesn’t matter because the heart of it is asking the question, what does it look like for me to take responsibility for making sure my body the thing that I have total ownership? Over feels safe? What does that look like for me, and every moment, every area, every category of my life, and what tools do I have at my disposal to keep me safe? Because I just I’m entrepreneurship and the beginning. If you are growing, and you are transforming, and you’re actively deciding your identity, and you are fighting for that, and you are giving it all you got, there will be moments of discomfort because you are changing. If you weren’t changing, you wouldn’t have to worry about it. But anybody who wants to create anything of significance in this world, will do things that are outside of their comfort zone. And the way that when I look around, and I look at successful people who also have an enjoyment of their life, and they have what other people can look at and say that looks like balance for them may not apply to everybody. But for them. That’s kind of their balance point, their grounding, they feel like they are themselves and they are experiencing that across the board. They that is not an accident. It’s an intentional setup, to create a world where the physical body also feels like it gets what it needs, and has you show up for yourself, to protect yourself to take yourself out of situations that could harm you. Things that don’t feel good to you ideas that you might have a Broan relationships that keep you small and remind you of who you used to be all of these things, in my opinion, and this is all just my opinion on our podcast is that physical body stuff gets to be only ours. And that is a good thing. Because for every time we learn that someone else can come and do something to you. We have daily, hourly opportunities to overcome all of that programming, all of that hard wiring in the central nervous system 100% of it because here’s the thing, even if there was ongoing trauma, even if things happen, they are likely not with you 24/7 Like you are with you. So, at each point, our relationship with our physical body, there’s so many more touch points, that kind of no matter what’s happening, the odds are in your favor that you can overcome that ran because the brain and the central nervous system functions and wires off repetition, and emotions. So when we protect ourselves, when we help ourselves feel safe, what we’re doing is that we’re using our emotions as a guy that says I don’t like it here, our physical body as a guy that says, hey, my heart’s racing, or I don’t, I feel nervous, I don’t like the situation. And then begin to say, I’m going to do something about it, that does feel good. And then our emotions can shift. And we can feel better. And we can find that relief. And how you do that, quite honestly, in my opinion, because it’s our body and our kid that we’re taking care of. It’s really completely up to us. Yeah, the way that I see it from agonize is, let’s teach all so many options, so many different aspects of a toolkit, that no matter what someone chooses, they have choices. And they have a support system that they have picked for themselves. And they know how it works for them that way. When someone else says, Oh, why do you do it that way? The answer is because I spent the time showed up for myself figured out what works. And this is something that nobody can take away from me. Right even in a Desert Island. Does that do those exist? Even, you know, an island, deserted island? Is that what I’m trying to say? Probably on a desert island, no one can take away my parasympathetic exercises from me, right? No one can take away my pattern of thinking that I have thought so many times in so many different ways that say, even when it’s not all right, I will make sure that it is all right for me in the best way that I can. And I did that enough times that, I trust that that is true. And that thought, can’t be taken away either, right? That experience, the evidence that I have can’t be taken away, someone could come and judge me super hard for the lifestyle I live. For the choices that I make, for what my body looks like, for what I choose to do with it. They absolutely could. And it wouldn’t matter one bit, because I didn’t fall backwards into how I treat my body. I didn’t arbitrarily get to feel safe in my body. Most of you know my story. And I have plenty of reasons not to based on what has happened to me in my history. But it’s possible. It’s possible, and you can absolutely get there. When we ask the right questions, we get solutions that get us to the experiences we want to have. And more importantly, it teaches us that we got there because we did. And that is so crucial when it comes to safety in the body. That kind of experience will transform the relationship you have with your body. I can say that, because I believe that to be true with all of my heart. So the question I’d like to leave you with is, what does it look like today? In this moment, no matter where you are, what is one way that you can help yourself support yourself and feeling safe, can be the smallest tiniest little thing. Like, I haven’t drink water today should probably go drink a lot of water, or a lot of water. Maybe I should get an app that reminds me to drink water. Right? Or having a conversation or doing some journaling to think through what is this telling me? Why don’t I feel good in the scenario? What about it isn’t working for me? Yeah. And just take one small action that shows your body that you’re there for it, that you’re making an effort that you are going to show up that you are going to prioritize yourself that it is important to you that it does matter that you’re making that choice, all of these things become part of our identity. And as we make those tiny little imperceptible choices a minute at a time, the change your identity is huge. So I wouldn’t be surprised if you do this. How many different areas of your life change without you consciously intending to. Because that’s what we see a lot. And that’s what I experienced in my own life a lot, these little choices, what look like little for one area of life. The effect on the kid is such that the whole family unit is stronger.
And that family unit then gets to function in all these different areas of life in a new way. And there’s some really exciting things that happen. So as you do that, as you have these moments, really make sure you note the wins that you have, because that’s going to be evidence for your brain that what you’re doing matters. Don’t let the metal Gremlins tell you none of that stuff really matters is not making a big enough dent. There, they’re lying to you. So you know don’t don’t get them wet. And and go back to what choice can I make now that helps me feel safe? And then let me know. I’d love for you to screenshot this episode, and share you know your experience what happened? What has been unfolding what are the wins what’s possible because when we share this kind of stuff, and one at a time, we tiptoe into this new way of being it helps other people who are struggling see that and say, okay, okay, I know I’ve been really struggling. I’ve had a hard time. We’ve all been here right and some day, one moment you have to gather up the courage and be like, I’m going to try again. And you never know what choice of yours What What model modeling behavior You’ll do that will impact someone like that you may never even know that. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not happening. So I would love, love, love, if you all would share with me so that we can share on our account and bring it all together and just remind people that one step one choice at a time, we can make a huge difference for ourselves in in the world. And I believe that that’s really what many of us are desiring right now as we look around and notice that a lot of us are struggling. A lot of us are finding it really, really difficult right now. And when we support one another, when we encourage one another when we celebrate one another, it matters. It truly, truly matters. I cannot wait to hear from you. I’m going to go have my own lunch. It is time. I mean go feed my kid and I’ll get you on the next episode.