How To Switch Out of Fight-or-Flight When You Need to Perform with Oren Shai — Part 2

So parasympathetic is your arrest and digest. It's the state in which your nervous system is open to relating to accessing more creativity and higher executive function. The problem arises when we don't revisit those assumptions and recognize what ways our earlier protective patterning is influencing our behavior today. I believe is that the way we want to feel is on the other side of what we're not feeling. (upbeat music) - You define parasympathetic and then explain some of the ways that you prepare to enter environments that could be overstimulating or stressful. - Yeah, so parasympathetic is your arrest and digest. It's the opposite of or the counterweight to your sympathetic activation in the nervous system, which is fight flight, getting you ready to take action, competing, and it's that movement, again, going back to cycles of, I've been in sympathetic for a while. Let me give my body some access to parasympathetic and then I'll go back into higher activation. One other thing I just want to name around this and supporting yourself and connecting to parasympathetic is, let's say you don't really want to even think about your breath. You can do something as simple as elevating your legs above the heart. So this can look like legs up the wall or legs on a couch. If you're in an office environment, this might look a little bit different. It might just look like going into a conference room where you can put your feet up onto another chair and give your legs a chance to rest to some degree and doing some slow breaths there. But there can be really activating or connecting with more of that parasympathetic response doesn't have to be very complicated and it also doesn't have to last very long in order to get the benefits. - So let's say you're going into an environment or a situation that you think could be a resumulating stressful, is that what you do? Typically the parasympathetic. - So it depends on, and this is what's interesting about as you learn to work with the nervous system. Depending upon what you're about to get up to, you might want to work with the nervous system in a different way. So for example, coming into this conversation just now, I was really looking forward to it and excited to jumping on the call with you and I was feeling this activation in my body where I wanted to kind of settle a bit. And in that moment, instead of going right into you, I have to come down, let me do some deep breaths. I was moving with that excitement and I was doing some movements that allowed that excitement to move through me and it helps you for that, for me to be in relationship with that energy and then naturally, my body will be ready to ground. And so if I were, for example, about to run a workshop, I might be doing some kind of hopping around before the workshop starts if I'm in a kind of more tired state. And I want to just gear myself up to be engaging and to be at the front of the classroom. And so depending upon what it is we're about to do and what state we're starting with, we might be engaging in a different exercise. - So good, that's such an important point. This is one of the things that I think is missing from a lot of advice in general. Any kind of advice is that most of it is really highly contextual. If it's not just, hey, you're going into an overstimulating environment, however you choose to describe it, do these three things, it's actually codifying overstimulating in what way with which balance needed. Let's then tailor it to that. And that's one of the things that I think is so important with how we practice micro moments is tailoring it to what you need in that moment in choosing the activities and exercises that are the best balance to energize you there. - Yeah, and it takes being an explorer and kind of a scientist and experimenter with your experience and learning. Oh, in these kinds of moments when I'm feeling this way, these are the kinds of things that tend to be most helpful. And as you continue experimenting and connecting your awareness with your physical practices, you start to learn what's going to be most helpful and becomes more intuitive over time. The problem is when we look outside of ourselves and look for, oh, this Instagram reel looked like a really, that looks like a really cool exercise. I'm going to just kind of blanket apply that to whenever I'm nervous. And if we're not connecting to going back to this first point I brought up around meeting my reality. Where am I starting from? And then connecting that to what I'm giving myself. Yet this experimentation culture is really scientific and is cordial a lot of professional fields. But I think that Instagram example is a perfect way of saying that this experimentation culture is fundamentally at odds with perfectionism as we experience it in the near term. That if you're trying to say, oh, I need to find the perfect exercise to do in these three minutes or else this time is wasted. That thought process is inherently at odds with actually the intention of it in saying, oh, that didn't make me feel noticeably better like this influencer. I did something wrong. Again, fundamentally at odds with the entire point of it. And so yeah, really this experimentation culture is being self-compassionate about actually asking inquisitively, what is it that I need right now? Not from a place of self-condemnation why can't I do blank? I should do why. But really just what do I need and letting yourself lean into that as opposed to the any improvement over just the default autopilot of scrolling your phone in this downtime. And you have a pretty interesting take on something that most people misunderstand about success in general. And you've said, share some quotes with me that I thought were great, like most careers are fueled by coffee and trauma. So I'm curious in general, what are some things you think people tend to misunderstand about success? Yeah, well, I think a lot of it starts with what you were just naming there, which is, we even heard it a very mechanistic way of viewing ourselves and have gone a bit too far, in my opinion, from our humanity. And that's really what we're talking about is recognizing, oh, I'm a human being. And I require certain things that a machine would not require. And if we can recognize that a human being operates on these cycles, a human being, when it relates as a release to success, is not about, I've decided I'm going to achieve these goals. I've achieved those goals. Now, I'm totally satiated. Like, I feel great about myself, all the problems that I had, all the uncomfortable emotions that I experienced before they're all gone. This is the illusion that we've been sold, is that when we get there, then we'll feel better, then we'll be able to relax. And that time never comes. So if we can instead relate to or think about success as what is the extent to which I am living my own life, I am contributing what I am able to contribute and what is aligned with what I want to create in the world, where I am intellectually stimulated, connecting with other people, connecting to meaning. These are the things that we actually want to feel that we imagine are on the other side of achieving whatever metrics we've set for ourselves. Yeah, and that definition of meaning is huge. You reminded me of a concept I was introduced to by Ann Lamont in her book, Bird by Bird, which is great. And she talks about getting an award she always wanted, getting up to the podium and realizing how empty it felt, and realizing that if you're not enough without an accomplishment, you won't be enough with it. And that's fundamentally changed not only how I approach my goals, but also just how the goals feel, right? If you think that this accomplishment should feel and fill some hole in you, then you're going to be disappointed and it's going to be this just a tonic treadmill you never get off. But if the idea is I am enough, my meaning is impact in ways that I can define and not this external validation, and all of these external successes actually feel better and you're more likely to have them. And it's just a fundamentally different cycle to borrow your term, then feeling like we're constantly on this needing to achieve more delayed gratification now because eventually it'll come. And I think this comes in small and large ways. There's obviously the big ones. If I get into this school, then I'll be happy. Get this job, then this promotion, relationship, whatever it is. But I find myself doing this in little small ways too. So, or when we're having this conversation on July 22nd, my initial plan was to start my maternity leave on July 21st, and I was like, no, it's fine. I have the energy. This is great. I'll just do what I have the energy for. I love these conversations. This is fun. This is easy, but just this goal is moving. And now I find that, well, I have energy now before baby. Once baby comes, I won't have control over my schedule. So I have to do it now. And this sort of rush to contribute. I don't see ending. I see people who could retire say, well, I can still contribute now, but I won't be able to in 20 years. So I have to keep working just as hard as I did 20 years ago. And yeah, I think defining this definition of success for ourself is the only way to actually be happy with it and then build careers that feel meaningful to us. - Yeah, I think that's very well said. And it's the reason why I sort of partially tongue and cheek will say that most careers are fueled by coffee and trauma is because of this loop that we wind up in, where it's the combination of, oh, I'll be, I'll feel better when, or I'll feel more myself when, or I'll feel accomplished when. And then in order to get to move in that direction, we have to keep caffeinating ourselves, medicating ourselves in whatever form that takes. Because, and we end up disconnecting and moving further and further away from ourselves. When the thing that is going to give us the feeling that we really want is connecting more moving closer and closer to ourselves. - Yeah, and the definition of closer to ourselves, I actually think the conditioning away from it starts really young and is really hard to answer. Friend of mine introduced me to this question that her therapist shared with her as a child, what did you feel you had to do to earn love? And if the answer was nothing, you have a lot easier of a foundation for unconditional love and exploring your pursuits. But if it was something like be polite, be pretty, be athletic, achieve in school, then that conditioning started very early for what feels like now an instinctive definition of meaning and worthiness, but was very much taught. And yeah, I find myself having this conversation in a workplace culture that was really big on direct, bold accountability and communication. And their thinking was it's a skill either you have it and you can basically work here or you don't and you're not a good culture fit. But I really thought how much of this was culturally taught that the idea that some people are just naturally more direct isn't necessarily true, right? As two-year-olds, we all just say no, I don't like it and we're taught not to. So the conditioning of how we communicate with ourselves even starts very early. Yeah, and you can be taught in an explicit manner and in a more implicit manner because as a child moving through the world, your sense of belonging with your group, with your family is your means of survival. And at the nervous system level, you understand that. So you are going to do what you need to in order to be protected and be okay within the unit that you're surrounded by. And so whether or not these things were actually verbalized, we learn, oh, if I want to get love, get support, get encouragement, I so that I can feel safe, I need to do X. And this is that trauma part of the coffee and trauma is, we all learn something around what's going to keep us safe, what's going to help us survive as we move through life and into adulthood. Yeah, I think that comes back to a lot of the self-compassion. These ruminations, these now counterproductive thought cycles came from a place of protection for your survival. So recognizing that we're no longer in a place that they're useful is one thing, but it's not that they're bad or we're inherently doing something wrong. There's something about the thought pattern that was beneficial and that's why we started doing it. And now that we're in environment or cycle where it's no longer beneficial, that's where that cutting the rumination cycle can come from. Exactly, we don't need to blame ourselves, we don't need to blame our parents, we don't need to blame society, we just need to come back to presents with that protective pattern, learn how to be in relationship with it and create the space to choose what is actually coming from us. Exactly, love it. Any last thoughts you want to leave people with? To keep it simple. So there's so much information out there. There is so, especially now that nervous system regulation and somatics is having a mainstream moment. There's so much out there around what you should be doing, how you should be doing it. I think the reminder that you have the tools that you need, the important shift is really the theme of this conversation, which is accepting, acknowledging, appreciating your humanity. That comes with a lot of feeling. Oftentimes discomfort, oftentimes not feeling and thinking as clearly as we would like to be. And that's the name of the game as a human being. It doesn't necessarily mean you're missing a certain supplement or a certain practice or exercise or therapist or coach. What we need to collectively recognize, I believe, is that the way we want to feel is on the other side of what we're not feeling. So if we can just practice allowing a little bit more room for what we're feeling right now, that is going to free up a lot of energy that can then go towards the things you care about. - Amazing, the way you want to feel is on the other side of what you're not feeling right now. So great. Oran, thank you for this. This was fantastic. We dove right in because you're so great. This was awesome. Thanks so much for being here. - Happy to be here. (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]