Today's guest is Shanila Sattar! She is a breathwork facilitator, nervous system and sound healer and she mentors others in all three! She is mighty and impacting our world in a major way. I hope you love listening to our convo! You can find her links on her insta bio @ https://www.instagram.com/shanila.sattar/?hl=en
Emotionally Unavailable
Episode 71: Sound
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Emotionally Unavailable, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of emotional availability and intimacy. I'm your host, Melissa Hepner. And I can't tell you how excited I am to have you join me on this journey of self discovery and connection. Whether you're navigating the complexities of relationships or exploring your own emotional landscape, this podcast is here to inspire, empower, and entertain. So get cozy and let's explore the depths of human emotions together. Hi, friends. Today's episode is being posted a little bit late because I sort of forgot. So that was cute of me. And I got to see Sweet, friend Suzanne this morning. And that was beautiful and lovely. And I just fucking love her so much. Hi, Susan. I love you so much. So anyway, today's episode, I'm so sorry. I don't think I ever got clarification on pronouncing her name. So please forgive me if I say this incorrectly. But I think her name is pronounced Shanila Satar. She is a breathwork facilitator. And she does mentoring for people who want to do like be healers with their breathwork and with their nervous system work. She does a lot of nervous system work. She has a breathwork club that meets on Sundays at 10 AM Central Time. Well, I think CT anyway, it's virtual. It's really cool. I'm going to make sure that all of her links are in the show notes, but I loved this. And I want to do more of this. And I don't know. I hope you like it. So here is me and Shanila. [MUSIC PLAYING] [INAUDIBLE] Hi. Hi, Melissa. You. Thank you for waiting. Call us over. Oh, I just appreciate your understanding. When I looked at my calendar today, I was like, how did I miss that? It's always something. I feel like there's something we can blame it on. It's literally always something. I'm really excited about this, because breathwork and nervous system work are really important to me. Breathwork is not something I've done near enough of. So I'm so excited. And you do sound work? I do sound healing, yes. Yeah, I've just really started dipping my toes in that with a lady, an astrologer I follow, puts together a workbook for every new moon and full moon. And it's got shadow prompts and all that. But this last time, she sent us a playlist to a sound bath frequency. And I was like, I love this shit so much. I got to turn it on and just clear, you know? Yes. So how did you get into that? Well, I'm a fourth generation sound healer, so it's kind of in my blood. I'm a 13th generation mystic, so that's also in my blood, too. But basically, I've been doing it for almost 10 years now. And what I do is breathwork sound healing, and I mentor aspiring healers. I love that. You talk about what that means, mentoring aspiring healers. Yeah, I mean, I work with a lot of people who are coaches. They are people who are energy workers, breathwork facilitators. They're people who are wanting to step into the gifts of the holistic healing arts, but they're not really sure one how to do it. And also, a lot of them struggle with perfectionism, people pleasing, self-doubt, and posture syndrome. So I'm essentially a mentor for them, too. One, learn how to use the craft that they want to do, which is breathwork or sound healing, and then also how to actually bring it out into their communities. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Do you want to touch on what are you feeling inspired to talk about the most today? 'Cause it really doesn't matter to me. I love all of these things, so I don't want to direct it a place myself, because I feel like you have so much to offer. So is there something you're just inspired to talk about today? No, I loved you. I loved you when you came in, and you said, "Oh, I love nervous system and breathwork, and that's my jam." So however, it is supportive to your particular audience, I'm happy to go that way. Well, honestly, the whole conversation usually is just some sort of healing. So I don't talk a lot about nervous system stuff anymore, because I got really stuck on nervous system stuff when I first started learning about my trauma. I mean, I've got real big T trauma. You know what I mean? Yes. But the only way I had heard of trauma was in relation to veterans. I mean, seriously, and I'm 44 years old, but about eight years ago, I started to understand nervous system, but I then began to rely on self-control and willpower to try to control my nervous system and didn't understand the emotional piece to it and that I wasn't dealing with emotions. I mean, I call this show emotionally unavailable because that's exactly... Let's go there. Let's go there, yeah. Yeah, so... I'm happy to talk about it. Okay, so what do you... How do you... Well, I feel like the answer to my own question about balancing nervous system and emotional and how they go together is you're doing the other shit. You're doing the sound work, you're doing the breathwork, and to me, it can release so much and just get you into a different space to where then you can deal with the feelings, but you do have to calm the fuck down first. So, you know, that's where these other tools come in. How have you found it maybe the most beneficial to utilize your tools? Yeah, I mean, I would say that my approach is something known as psychosomatic, which is mind-body. And so a lot of people who are trying to heal when they go to therapy and they're doing cognitive behavioral, they're doing talking, they're hyper-analyzing everything. So it's a very mind-liminal, logical, overthinking kind of process, whereas somatic means body. So when we exclude the body from the healing part of that, your mind logically knows like this trauma doesn't need to hold you back, this thing happened in the past, but your physical body is still clenching onto the experience from the past. So my approach is how do you create safety within your physical body and a lot of people who rush their healing when they do too much somatic work, they snap back into the beginning because their body essentially doesn't know how to deal with discomfort of the new things that it's building. Yeah, and I've been having so many conversations around boredom because when you, you know, for me that's where I identified a lot of self-sabotage happening because I didn't know how I thought even recently I'm like, okay, I know how to be alone with myself now. Why is this still happening? Yeah, it's still, I have these narratives that instead of just being able to say I'm bored, I need movement or arrest or nourishment or attention. The narrative would automatically be I'm bored 'cause no one loves me and wants to hang out with me. I didn't wanna hang out with anyone five minutes ago to be clear, but now that I've done doing what I'm doing and it's no longer bringing me any sort of satisfaction, if somebody else's fault. So that's what I've really noticed that I will run to spending too much money or, you know, it's all relates to spending too much money, really. - A little retail therapy. - All the time, baby, all the time. All the time. Like a client session and was like, yeah, that's where I used to spend $300 on Team Ooh. After pay, thank you. And I got 200-- - Marshall's. - Anybody else in Marshall's body? - Yes, and wrong. I could go in Dollar General and spend $150 when you get it. I mean, it's really good because the dopamine of putting it in my car-- - That's a car, yeah. - Yes, it's crazy. So for me, I really had to identify where are these like areas really popping up that are just fucking with me, you know? But that's why it was important for me to start to understand that it wasn't my thinking. It was programming and messaging and a lifetime of avoidance of everything, you know? - So for me, I really just, you know, when I decided to do private practice, I was like, no, I'm not gonna be like every other therapist. Like this is exactly how my conversations with my clients go 'cause I tell them, you're not, I'm not gonna be like any other therapist you've ever met because I'm gonna be 100% who I am. Always 'cause that's where my gift is, you know what I mean? Like the communicating in the way that I communicate is my gift, but I am implementing more sound and I do virtual practice, but I wanna do more like workshops, retreat conferences, stuff like that. And I wanna integrate more somatic work. And I mean, I do a little, but like I've not tapped into the full capacity of that. But I mean, I consider myself a healer, you know? And I don't give any of the woo-woo shit, I believe in a label yet because probably confidence. I read tarot and do other energy shit, but you know, I don't, it's just not really a part of my identity except for to call myself a woo-woo work all the time. You know what I mean? But like only 'cause I don't wanna misrepresent myself, I don't, I feel like all of us need to, you can branch out, but until that becomes within your capacity, please don't label yourself as that. You know what I mean? For me, it's been, I'm in this lane and I am expanding, but I don't wanna pretend to be something I'm not. And so I haven't like introduced a ton of the stuff that you're doing, but now I'm like, you'll probably, I was looking at your playground before, and I was like, okay, well, I don't want it to seem weird that I'm signing up for that right before we talk. So, you know, just see that soon, I'm sure. But I just love that you are teaching people how to feel safe in their bodies because I was reading my little future self journal, yesterday, and over the summer I wrote, I wanna feel safe in my own body because I didn't feel safe when I was triggered all the time and so reactive, and I mean the worst reactions you can have to every minor inconvenience. I didn't feel safe, no one in my family felt safe, I was a fucking psycho, you know? So like, I love that you're doing that. What surely, even though it sounds like you were raised by and around a lot of people like you, surely there had to be internal development before you got to this place where you fully believed in your abilities. - I mean, I wouldn't say that I was around people who like fully embraced and knew how, because a lot of my self-expiration is also like my own personal journey of what it means for me to practice holistic healing arts because my training is as a researcher, as a research scientist, and so now I'm like trying to, you know, blend when I first started into this work about 15 years ago, it's to blend different parts of my brain. So here's the mysticism and you call it woo, yeah, I don't know, like, you know, this unexplainable, but then there's the mysticism, the esoteric, and then there's also observable science, and these two things are not separate things. And part of my own personal journey is to really be able to connect how most of the things that are measurable science are also as unique as the experiential science as well. And I think that's where a lot of healers, and especially the people who come to be mentored by me, are navigating that relationship with, what does it actually mean for me to really believe in the thing that I'm believing in, because I know that it works for me, even if modern science hasn't caught up to being able to measure that in a clinical and protocol way. So how is it that I know that emotions are a thing, even if like science doesn't actually know how to measure emotions, it knows how to linear logical analyze like what an emotion is, but emotion, energy, and emotion is literally energy that moves through the body. So when you're talking about, yeah, I'm getting hot, headed, or I'm getting, you know, like I'm unsaved to the people around me, this is a very temperate clue. There's a constriction and contraction in the physical body that we haven't necessarily learned or taught others to be able to identify. So I reject the idea that I grew up around people who knew how to do that, but it's sometimes when you indirectly learn from what people don't know how to do. So I grew up in Bangladesh, and I grew up with parents who are survivors of genocide, and I grew up in a post dictator, I grew up in a dictatorship, right? There's all of these different things that are in my lived experience. So I wouldn't say that the people who were around me had the freedom or the luxury to self-explore, to have the ability to develop their, you know, mystical powers or their confidence or some of the luxuries that we complain about here, like when we're living in the West and like, we're fine, you know, like our, my own conveniences, it's like, oh, this man is taking too long at the coffee shop. Like, that's like your biggest worry. - Right. - Those triggers are generationally passed down. They're triggers that are passed down from feeling unseen or feeling abandoned. And so the second that your body feels abandoned, it behaves in a way that is destructive. So it's like, I'm not gonna give you the opportunity to tell me shit because like, I'm responsible for whether or not I feel this way. So I'm trying to control that situation. 'Cause some bitch is not gonna tell me what to do. Like some guys are not gonna tell me. And so now you have this fucking attitude about like who it is that you're showing up as, which is outside of your character. And from a nervous system perspective, your nervous system does two things. One is that it goes into hyper arousal or it gives them to hypo arousal. And hyper arousal basically is the sensation of you going into overdrive, over action, overdoing. So you are in the fight mode, you're a fighter. You're about to argue the shit. You're about to hit 'em where it hurts kind of attitude. You're not gonna win. You're not gonna win. Like you're the loser at the end of the day, but in the moment that just feels like, I can say meaner things than you can, you know? And then the hypo arousal means like underneath your arousal, hypo is above and hypo is under. Hypo is when you shut down. So this is where we see the people who are procrastinating, people who feel numb. This is where a lot of depression happens. A lot of anxiousness happens. So your physical body feels like it's impossible to advocate for yourself or to do something or to communicate even to like people you love. You feel like what's the point? They're not gonna get it. They're not gonna get it. So like I'm gonna shut down. It's like what's the point of me even trying to tell you anything because you're gonna argue over me. And so you're approaching it from a place of shutdown. And now it's not just you, it's other people's triggers too. So if there's more than one person involved in this conversation, that is this not you talking to yourself in the head. This person is also hyper or hypo activities. - Yeah, yeah. - And they're acting from their abandonment wounds too. They're acting from like, well, she's shutting down. So I need to talk louder. So why are you shutting down? And so the more louder they talk, the more you shut down and then the gap between, you know, collaboration and being able to like match each other's energy is compromised. What nervous system regulation is at the end of the day is basically being able to exist in a middle ground. So in fancy words, it's known as window of tolerance but from wisdom traditions, we also talk about it in wisdom traditions like indigenous practices. This is known as balanced energy or flow state or, you know, not overactive chakras or underactive chakras. This is the state of flow. - Which, yeah. - And so like whoever's language you wanna talk about is basically saying, do you, are you doing too much? Or are you shutting down? - Right, yeah. - And you don't wanna be in either of those places. And what a healthy nervous system, one that feels safe knows how to do. It knows how to go up and down, but not up and down. So it's not up and down, up and down, up and down. - You understand that minor fluctuations in your day are normal. And that if you are having extreme fluctuations, which can be mislabeled as bipolar, and I don't want to, you know, go too far down that road, but can be, it's, there's something there too. Like you have to find the flow of life and even in perfectionism, something that I've identified in myself is now that I've reached this level of peace. If something does encroach upon that and I get frustrated, I was kind of talking shit to myself. And now I'm like, Melissa, people who have peace also have conflict and they have frustrations and they have a human fucking experience and it doesn't mean that you're bad because you had a, you know, a moment of frustration. You dealt with it exactly the way you planned all the times that you said, I wanna be this person who can handle, you know, these things that used to just drive me crazy. And I mean, I have experienced both hypo and hyper. I spent the majority of my life in the state of hyper arousal. I had about nine months, which was kind of nice where I was in hypo arousal and it was kind of nice 'cause I got a little break from the crazy, you know, like I can do lay in the bed depressed way better than I can fucking full of rage, you know, at all times. And it really just confirmed the shit narratives that I got in childhood, like you're mean. And I'm not mean, I was a very wounded person, but to your point, we've been having lots of conversations about flow and, you know, the give and take of the world, but also compassion and love that starts here that allows you to see these other humans as exactly who you are. We all have these, you know, five or six major attachment wounds and we're all behaving from those wounds if we're not stopping the cycle. And so I've been talking a lot, clients, podcast friends, husband who will listen endlessly, whatever, about being able to view people not through my wounding, sometimes through theirs and to understand like, bro, if peace is my currency, how much am I willing to give away? When I can see this is about me, this is about me at all. This is about them and their experience. So I can engage in that or I can not. And that to me is peace. And then there's shit that pops up. Like I have to remind myself in the car, when somebody's driving like a fucking idiot, like do you really have anywhere to be that fast though? You don't just slow the fuck down, enjoy the ride. Maybe it's, maybe you're about to see something really cool you wouldn't have seen if you were so focused on how this old lady is driving, you know? - Yeah, totally. And something that you mentioned earlier is about like the experience of boredom. So when people move out of that like up and down stage, you know, where they're used to a lot of folks who have very chaotic lives are kind of addicted to their chaos. And so when they don't have chaos in their life, they actually don't know what to do with it. And the body says, this is a new thing. And I think this is dangerous for us. - Not to be bad. - Yeah, this is dangerous for us. Because chaos, if I'm yelling and shouting, it means that I'm being listened to. It means that I'm leading. It means that somebody's listening to me. It means that I'm being seen in the way. So all of a sudden, maybe you get into a new relationship where you're not having to yell and shout to be listened to. This person is like, yeah, okay. You know, calm, cool, collected. And they're like actually listening to you. They're retaining the information. They're falling up with, you know, commentary. And then your body says, this person is scamming me. You know, this is scam, you know? And so like, let me find up in your life. - Is this you're so good at love bombing? - You're a bomb bombing me, you know? And it's like, okay, like let's keep our feelers out. Like let's keep, you know, like don't let like all the guards down all at once. But it's like maybe not everybody's out to get you. And so sometimes like really safe relationships feel threatening to you, to your nervous system. And so basically how that manifests is now, you're gonna sabotage it. You're gonna pick a fight like, well, everything's right. So like I didn't yell today. So, you know, like me, let me find something to yell about. Let me find the flaws. And like let me prove myself right to the point where I push you so hard. And when you like actually like say, hey, don't do that. You know, and I'm gonna be like, see, I told you. I see, I told you. - No, you don't need blah, blah, blah. - Yeah, it's like, okay, but you're like, you literally bullied me for the last six months. And so like, why are you so shocked that like, I finally said, hey, don't do that, you know? And so from a nervous system perspective, essentially a lot of bodies don't really know how to deal with the calm. And another word of it is kind of boredom, you know? Like, it is the experience of like, if there is no chaos, am I still like, am I still okay? Am I still behaving from a piece of compassion? Is that normal? Like nobody shouting, I don't have like gossipy friends. I don't have like, you know, a lot of like female friendships have this wound wound as well. - That's the way they connect. - Yeah, it's talking shit or like mean girl energy and you're like, oh, wow, like a group of women who are supportive and they're like not trying to give me some like, you know, side eye about my project, like putting me down for every dream and hope that I say out of my, out of my mouth. And so now you start to be suspicious. And so basically that window of tolerance or essentially that flow state is being in, in a position where, yes, you still do need to like, have protection. And I describe it as like, your house, right? Like you have your home and you should maybe lock the door and like, you know, check that like certain things are in place in order for you to like feel at home. But if you're like sitting at your desk with like a knife all the time, then if you're ready to be attacked. - If you're ready to be attacked, like have reasonable protection for yourself, get your ring camera, you know? - Right. - Yeah, get a, get a fence. - I don't know, like, get a, get a, get a knife. - Yeah, they should be able to protect yourself without building a fortress. - Exactly. And so like that fortress energy. So even if logically, you know, like I live in a relatively safe neighborhood, there has never been like a history of me like having to be worried about this. Like maybe there's no like reasons for that. But because you're subconsciously and actively doing things that make you feel like you need to protect yourself all the time to the point where you're like walking from room to room with like a literal knife or a weapon in your hands. It is, it is essentially signaling like, I am not safe. And at the core of what your nervous system does, it is, it just wants to feel safe. Emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, energetically, financially, socially, in all the ways. It's like this big antenna says, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? - At all times. At all times, but it doesn't want to be this active all the time. - Right. - Like the healthy nervous system knows to turn on, it also knows how to turn off. So if I do hear. - It might even grow off. - Yeah. And if you're, that's when you get the chronic illnesses. That's when you get the stomach issues, you know? - My suggestion is by other people. (laughing) - And that's what happens to me too, when like I'm experiencing like something that is terminally in my life, my head is so clear. My emotions are so clear, but I stop, I stop being able to sense what my body is doing. So then I over, over eat, my digestion is compromised. I'm like not understanding that I'm full. And then yeah, and like the signals of the somatic body becomes a little compromised. So other people, other people's cues, like you were mentioning like, oh, a little retail therapy, you know, it's the sense of like, how can I get something, how can I get like a feeling? - Yes. - How can I get a feeling? So you named a dopamine and sometimes it's just like a feeling, you know? - It's something other than static. And you know when I've noticed this the most lately, since I'm really attuned to all of this and I'm like, why am I not feeling agitated? You know, this is a great problem to have, but I'm so in love with my fucking life, that I do this, I get so much from this and every single therapy session, right? Cause I'm being authentic to who I am. It's a great energy exchange. So like, I have a very good time, but you know, when I'm doing this, I'm here, I'm in this. I'm giving a lot, but I'm receiving a lot too. So then I'm at this like amped up stage. Like the other day I gave my first symposiums, like talk to a group of mental health professionals. I was on fucking cloud nine. I didn't schedule well around that though. Like to, I didn't know my adrenaline was gonna get that high and then fucking crash, but see it got high. And then I did give myself like an hour break in between and then I had two therapy clients. And then like that evening I had a therapy client and then a podcast. So it was like, okay, I didn't schedule that right. So not only did I just crash and I was exhausted, once I recovered from the exhaustion, I was like, I'm for work, what do we can do? Like I don't know what to do with myself. That's a part of learning this, is to learn to manage those flows, you know? - Yeah, and you know, what you brought up is also something like when, I mentioned I work with mentoring aspiring healers. So a lot of coaches, therapists, nurses, doctors, people are essentially in the wellness profession who are lit up and who receive like life force from doing their work. And something that I always mentioned to them is that, you know, you don't actually do any of this work for other people. Other people receive value from you, but you're actually doing it for yourself. - Absolutely. - And it's a selfish way to think about it 'cause like we wanna be martyrs, we're like, oh my gosh, like look how like helpful I am to everybody. - Right, I know I'm so far past that, but I totally don't know what you mean. - Yeah, and it's like, oh, I wanna be so like helpful to people and like me being of service and these people are often like pouring from empty cups when they're trying to get for others. And that refilling of that cup and we hear this analogy all the time, like you gotta fill your cup and then give to others from the overflow. But like when you're in overflow, that's also something to manage because if that is your new baseline, you have to extend your cup, you know? - Yeah, and I'm like, how do we do that baby? 'Cause that was really fucked up for a few days. - Exactly, exactly. There's the up and down of the chemical, like the body settling down. - I was like, okay, this is homeostasis. I know exactly what this is. You know what I mean? - Exactly. - Okay, let me get up and do something, but thank God I knew that because before I would've spent money, I really didn't have. - And people don't know that. And you know, sometimes like when, and this is like outside of healers or whatever, but like sometimes when there's like a really big event that is so exciting that happens, the next day chemical depletion, next day depression, because you're like, how do I match this peak that I just experienced? And I know this, I mean, I know this for many reasons, but one of the reasons, one of the things that I see in a lot of my clientele is like right after they get married. You know, like they're marriage, like the wedding is like such a high that like you've been like anticipating, working to, and it's like, and society plays a part in like why. - Sure. - It's supposed to be like the biggest, best day, like you're not supposed to have any good things after that. You know, it's like it's on a pedestal, but then afterwards, it's like, well, and then what? You know? - That's how I was after I graduated with my masters. I was like, what, you just get to work. - Right. - Hey, for the rest of the month, I literally thought, I went into a deep dark depression back when I graduated in 2007, because I was like, I mean, you know, I was also going through my Saturn return, so what happened? - There you go. - But like, I was not good. I was like, I can't fucking imagine a life where I just wake up every day and go to work, and that's all I have to look forward to. What the fuck? And that's what I thought. But I mean, that is what life is if you don't like go be intentional. And yes, for me, I really, I, a lot of times I'll be like, at the end of a therapy session, I'm like, well, do you feel better? 'Cause I do, I'm sorry. Like, I feel really good. Like, you feel good? Okay, good, you're good too. But yeah, like, I, in the sense that I feel like I'm gifted and that this is my purpose, I'm doing stuff for a, but all of this is my lived experience that I'm now sharing with others because if people can find peace, well, hell yeah, you know? And this is how we create change in our environment is to share our gifts with others. So I, but I do know I do get a lot out of it, but it did tell, it did make me think, okay, I need like an actual fitness and health routine. Like this, if I want stamina in that, if I want to do a lot more speaking engagements and, you know, workshops and things like that, I need a routine around that so that I can meet here. 'Cause I was like, I don't want to be Miley Cyrus out there, you know, on a wrecking ball and then in a hotel room by myself fucking Snorton Coke because that's what you do. I was like, this is what they're talking about when they're the high of the crowd and then they're alone in the hotel room. It's not loneliness really. It's I don't, I'm seeking and I don't know what I'm seeking. So what do I need in this moment? - Yeah, and you know what in Eastern philosophies that concept is really just called contentment. And it is like very different from what happiness is because of that reason, 'cause it's not like you're happy or sad. It's contentment of like the present moment, you know? And it's like this part of when you said, okay, like after I experienced the high, then like what's next? You know, and that can be an addiction too, especially for people who are overachievers, people who grew up in unsafe environments where they had to like always think about their finances or think about their achievements or think about what's next. It's embedded in their nervous system to seek, to want, to find something else to fix, to find out something else to heal, to be on this like healer's trap. It's like this, it's like a guinea pig on this hamster wheel that's going in circles and part of contentment is to say, how can I balance having goals? 'Cause not having anything that you're looking forward to is on the opposite side of the spectrum where it's like, nothing matters, nothing. Now you're like, you're whining on that end where perhaps a lot of us exist on this like burnout hustle culture energy. So we're always in the pursuit of a goal. We're always in the pursuit of not enoughness. And from the nervous system, that is your body feeling unsafe, that if I don't stop working, if I don't stop hustling, if I don't stop achieving, if I stop achieving, then I'm not gonna be enough. And somebody's not gonna like me. I'm not gonna be good enough to marry. I'm not gonna be good enough to be a partner. I'm not gonna be, my parents' hard work is not gonna pay off here, you know, like whatever like your narrative and storyline is, it's the sense of I'm not good enoughness. And so contentment is to say, yes, I did these things. So you do get to celebrate the successes 'cause it's not to say like nothing, nothing matters. 'Cause I think as humans, we have given things the meaning and purpose. - Yeah, sure. - So you do get to celebrate your graduation. You do get to celebrate your whatever, right? Like you should. And also that can't be your entire worth. Like your worth. - You can't be constantly moving like what you view as the pentacle. You can't be trying to climb Mount Everest all the fucking time. But there's training, there's load, there's off periods. There's, you know, like there's gotta be a time when you're able to just chill. But to me, I feel like that's a part of flow, you know, that everything is what it is and you attract what you need and you send out what others need. And that content really is just about, I'm in this moment and this is the moment I'm supposed to be in. Whatever that is, a high, a low in between, whatever. - Yeah, and I think, you know, like as you age or just have different types of life experiences, especially around like grief and losing people and just like not like the achievement parts of it. They're like the really like painful parts of it. It reconfigures people's understanding to like what flow is, you know, and what what I teach is flow breath work and part of what flow breath work is, is essentially being able to regulate your nervous system to this middle ground and studying it from an energy science perspective, studying it from elements and how different elements actually influence the way that your emotions process to your body, how different seasons can contribute to that. So it's not just this one thing or the other, it's a holistic perspective of how, yeah. And like you are going to fluctuate and you're gonna fluctuate up and down depending on, for example, a big one for people is winter time. Like we have seasonal depression, the big bad, you know, like the seasonal depression. And so if you're trying to force yourself to work in the same way that you do, and for example, the fall time, you're not going to really do yourself a favor because your energy levels, your reserves are more than different, your chemicals are different, the sunlight is different, the resources in the environment are different in the winter time. - You gotta be different. - You're gonna be different. And sometimes I don't think we understand that as people, we are part of nature. And so if you ever want to understand like what and how your energy should fluctuate this season, you look outside. So like, what are the trees doing? What are the plants doing? So in the winter time, they're not trying to bloom. They're conserving their energy to the roots, the animals, they're not like out and about. They've already done the primary hunting and the work, the acorn collecting, the-- - The harvest period, really. - Yeah, the harvest period in the fall time that leads into this conservation season of the winter time. So in winter, when we're initiating and we're doing and we're (mumbles) that's just not how you're functioning. - You're gonna have to see some riby? - It's not in season, it's a download season. Conservation is a very upper chakra elemental season where a lot of people get a lot of like unique ideas and the two-parter to that is they think they need to act on that idea right now. And the action part happens in spring 'cause spring is more so the energy of life. It's about the planting, the cleaning, you get the spring cleaning energy, things that are refreshing, the reburting, like cleaning out the soil in order to harvest different things later, right? Like this is like the planting season. And so for people when they're coming into spring, you intuitively understand like your energy cycles in that process, you're coming into this rebirth. And so that's when you start to implement the ideas that you've downloaded into the winter time. And then so that's a down and an up and a down and an up. And then we go through other seasons too. And actually a lot of people misunderstand what energetically summertime is. It's actually a low season. It's a simmer season, but because in society, we think summertime is our free time. - Yeah, they're done getting it. - Yeah, you're actually supposed to like chill because your more active physical hard work is gonna come in the fall time where you're harvesting, you're like making sure that you go is the Virgo energy. It's like, don't waste your time. Be real with your shit, you know, all this kind of stuff. - It's time to categorize, organize, take in, get it. - Exactly, like do you want to survive through the winter or you want to die? You know what I mean? - Exactly, you are right now. - So you can't waste your time. You can't waste your attention. You can't waste all of that. So that's why you rest through the summer, you know? And resting doesn't mean you don't do anything. It means like, so summer season is, in elementally, is a fire season. But fire doesn't mean passion and active. Fire is also like slow cooking, you know? So the things that you planted in the spring, it's like just let it marinate, like let it get juicy. - It's amazing, yeah. - Plimmer, and so you still get to open the pot and like stir it and like be like, oh, this needs more, you know, basil, this needs more. You can still touch it, but it's not like this. Let me do this kind of thing. - Yeah, I'm learning this, yeah. This is elemental, this is seasonal, this is rhythmic, this is flow. - The same as a woman in her cycle. - 100%, like, yeah. So in science, we call it infradian rhythms, all trade in rhythms, circadian rhythms. And you can learn more about that. I have an episode about it on my podcast as well. But essentially like your nervous system distregulates, the circle it back to like nervous system, your nervous system distregulates when you're behaving outside of the particular season that you're in. So if you're forcing, if you're forcing and not flowing, because like as soon as you slow down, you're like, I'm lazy. - And it is a force if you're not doing it in the right season, no matter what your intention is, you are trying to force something instead of flowing. Oh, I love this. - Exactly. And then you listen to the word linguistically, it's called burn out, right? So when you have fuel and you use too much of it, then you have no more of that fuel. So if you're using it, using it, using it, using it, it's literally the fire season, you used it up. Instead of simmering fire elements, like there's five elements, and different ones do different things. We'll be here before the hours, if we were talking about. But basically like the fire, right? Like so there's like simmer fire, but then there's also like hot passion, let's go do it fire. And that fire is not the fire that you think is in the summer. And so because of like the cool stuff, 'cause the sun does to plate chill a little bit. - Yeah, you're not supposed to dehydrate it. You're supposed to go to water, you're supposed to do cooling things. It's a balance of energy. - That must be why I have been so fucking cold to water. Okay, that makes sense. - Yeah, like the water, the shower, like so if you're not by body of water, if you're not by swimming pool, like if you could shower, you'll feel like it's a refresher because what is the balance of fire? It's not to put out your fire. It's to say, how can I cool down when I'm already active, when I'm already heated, when I'm already doing that? So if you're a physical constitution, like if you're naturally more heat-intuned or you're naturally more watered-tuned and you can connect this to like, you're a strategical chart if you want, I'm not sure if there is a correlation to like, you're very gentle. - Right. - But intuitively, if you look at yourself and you're like, I'm more hot-headed, I tend to get more heated or I tend to get more like, let me go, let me go fix this. Like let me troubleshoot and let me get this done. If you're more towards that, you're probably functioning under for more fire energy. And so you want to do things that balance that instead of add to it. So these people who are like already hot on the hot end, they're doing exercise that is even more heated. So instead of going to like-- - I'm always like, this fucking hit is not what you need to be doing. - You need some yoga. - You need some yoga. - Yes. - You need some feeling. You need some like, yeah. And it's not to say like, yeah, exactly. So it's not to say like, totally don't do exercise or don't move or don't do anything, but do something that is just like a little bit more cooling to the body rather than it overactivating and heating up the system that you have. - This makes so much fucking sense because I was ruled by the fire in me, I was. And it makes sense why certain things made it, I got too hot in certain activities and I couldn't do it. But I just had a realization. My call to water is new. I've never felt this call to natural bodies of water the way I knew very recently in the last month. Like it was the bomb to my soul that I never knew I needed until I ran into a little waterfall in two different places, in two weekends in a row. And I was like, God, I love water, what is this, what is it? But it's because I just like really settled into flow about a month ago. Like I've really reduced my fire to find flow because I've always tried to over control everything. And, you know, I've been on this journey like the hardcore shit for about since last October. But, you know, it's an evolution. So I just kind of got to this place about a month ago. So now I'm fucking being called to water. I take showers all the time. I do cleansing rituals in the shower all the time. And now I love natural bodies of water. So, okay, I was just a realization for me that that makes sense if I'm feeling flow all the time. That's why I'm probably feeling called to water. But I have been like, I feel like I need a little more balance in this. Like I feel like I'm not doing enough. - Yeah, totally. And I mean, it's worthwhile for you to look at the other elements as well because I mean, all of them in balance is flow. So it's not just like balancing the thing that is overactive. It's also balancing the things that are underactive, right? And so it's like, where is that center moment for you? And there might be certain seasons where you're really called to the water spirit, you know? And it's just like, you're in that moment, but that doesn't have to become your entire personality because certain other seasons, you might be very much in that ether element. Like I said, winter time is a super ether element. Summer time is a fire element, you know? Or a fall time is an earth element. - Right. - Air element, you know, air elements are on the springtime. So there is like this sensation of like imagination, right? So every one of those elements are associated with different emotions too. So particularly during like an air element time, which is oftentimes in the spring, well, which is in the springtime, you'll find that you're daydreaming your imagination. It's very airheaded. So always listen to linguistics, like in listen to the language, it's like airheaded. - Well, not an air sign, so yeah. - Head in the clouds, you know? Imagination is very daydreamy. But if you get too carried away there, now we're imbalanced. And some people don't know how to be in the air element because they think that going to imagination, now they're going to be in metal-adaptive daydreaming or they're going to start feeling panic about, you know, like thinking about things that they don't have and it makes them feel bad about it. So there's a dissonance between like, I want to think about like what is possible for me, but like it just feels like such a far away reality that, I don't know, I don't even want to, you know? Like it doesn't feel good for me. So now they're too grounded, right? So now they're too realistic, right? So the opposite of that, there's no balance of that. And like, should you not be grounded? No, absolutely learn how to be grounded. But then there's also two grounded. - Sometimes you got to float, you know? - You got to like be tethered, but then also untethered at the same time and where is that position? So that's what we see in a lot of people when they're learning to regulate their nervous system or when they're specifically in their healing journey is that they're too far on one side of the spectrum. So when we talk about it in nervous system, it's hyper or hypo. When you talk about it in chakras, it's overactive, underactive. When you talk about it in elements, it's too much or too little. So it's the same concept, it's up or down, like you want to be in the middle. And so that untettering process of like, I'm too grounded to the point where I can't even like imagine, I can't even like activate my imagination or I'm always in my imagination, but I can't act upon the things that I'm thinking about because I'm working from fear. So now you're solar plexus that are activated. So now we're talking about fire energy. Why is the fire depleted to the point where you need the fuel to act? You need fire in order for passion. So when you say like hot and heavy, that's a heat energy. When you say like, I'm fired up, that's a heat energy. When you said like, I got the spark, that's a heat energy. - Right. - So it's all in your language that says like, the fire is the motivator. But if you used up the fire in wrong places, 'cause you're trying to do too many shits that are like not important to you or you're like forcing the thing that's not necessarily like what it is that you want to spend your time on, you're going to not have enough reserve. You're going to have to spend time to recuperate that reserve back in to be able to do the action that you want to do. - Well, and I think too, and I will let you go after this, I'm sorry. But I think that again, this has really confirmed to me to that the compassion I can offer myself in a low or a high or any other place is all of this is just communication from my body to me to tell me go in this direction for now. Let's flow back over here. Let's say like, I don't need to view this as me being weak or anything else. I've learned to hear my own voice and my body's voice. That's all it is, is direction. And it's not criticism, it just is. And I can just go with the flow. - 100%. And when you say it is, it just is, it's like, yeah, that is the contentment, right? Like that is like the middle ground of like, let me just be here, let me like myself, let me bother, like, let me bother giving a shit about myself so that I can help myself through this present moment. - 'Cause I really believe no matter what, my worth and value don't change. Who I am a person, change, you know? - Yeah. - Okay, well, I'm obsessed with you. So, you know, I'll be your latest listener on that podcast. If this is the type of shit you're talking about, I'm here for it, so I'm so excited about this. And I will make sure in my intro and in the show notes to provide all of your leads, okay? - Perfect. - Thank you so much. - Thank you, Melissa. - Thank you so much for having such a mistake. And I've got to figure out just how to make my calendars talk to each other. 'Cause I worry about this happening a lot and today's the first time it actually happened. And so I'm gonna have to change some shit. - Well, thank you so much. - You're welcome. - You're welcome. - All right, Melissa, thank you for having me. I'll talk to you soon. - Okay, thank you, bye-bye. Have you ever heard of the Winter Arc? It is where you get your shit together before the new year instead of waiting until the new year's over. So let's do that together. You can begin by joining me at my workshop, November 9th, 2024. It is a Saturday for this first event so that I could give a lot of people an opportunity before Thanksgiving, before Christmas, before the new year of beginning to work on becoming your most authentic self, your most aligned self, you're the best-highest version of yourself. It's possible, guys, so join me. You can find the link anywhere on any of my socials. You can search Eventbrite for finding your compass, becoming aligned with your most authentic self, and the link is also in the show notes. - Thank you, I hope to see you there. (upbeat music) ♪ Emotionally inevitable ♪ - Hey, hey, hey, what do you say? Listen, first and foremost, please make sure that you have provided this podcast with a five-star rating on whichever platform that you are listening. If you want to support the show, please rate, like, and share. Also like, comment, and share on any social media posts that you see for me on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. Please follow the podcast Facebook, emotionally unavailable podcast. You can shop my foot online, store, or schedule a one-on-one with me. Emotionally unavailablepodcast.org. I'm offering what I'm calling non-traditional counseling, astrology readings, and tarot readings. And thank you so much for listening to the emotionally unavailable podcast. (upbeat music) ♪ Emotionally inevitable ♪ - All right, I hope you liked today's episode. Again, you can find her links in her bio in Instagram, and they are in the show notes. So I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Guess that's all. So, until next time, let's all just keep swimming. (upbeat music) ♪ Emotionally inevitable ♪ N-D-E-P-E and cut.