Full Transcript
0:00
Welcome to the fully expressed podcast with Karenna.
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I am your podcast host Karenna Soto.
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Welcome back to the show where we have conversations that invite you into living a life, fully expressed, creating relationships where you can feel fully expressed, having a business, a career where you feel fully expressed and really, really stepping into your most authentic version of you.
0:24
I truly believe that we are all meant on this earth to evolve, expand express live fully as the gift that we have on this earth is so important to do that.
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And there’s so much that comes from that by stepping into uncomfortable situations, meeting our edge, listening to the whispers that invite us into more and really going after what we like, what we want, what we feel and really embodying this fest express version ourselves, being with all of the ways of life for everything that comes with it, the lows, the highs, the neutrals and just truly absorbing all of the beautiful that comes from that.
1:12
So, thank you so much for being here.
1:14
Today is going to be a follow up solo session to last week’s session.
1:19
If you didn’t get a chance to do that.
1:21
I dove deep into what does it look like to truly navigate hard conversations?
1:25
And we didn’t just go there.
1:26
I actually talked about what can come up for you when you are navigating a difficult conversation, what the different communication archetypes look like in the middle of conflict and truly showing you representing what is available to you when you’re able to step into a fully grounded, open hearted heart, centered, open curiosity, compassionate curiosity, space and how you can open up that space by leaning into conflict.
1:57
You know what I truly believe when it comes to difficult conversations and when we avoid this conflict, we hold this messiness.
2:04
Yes, it’s very vulnerable.
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Yes, there’s, there’s so much that comes up during that time, but we must lean in to receive the depth that we’re looking for in relationships.
2:14
This can be applied to romantic relationships, platonic relationships and professional relationships.
2:20
We are constantly relating to every single person that we talk to.
2:25
Whether that’s a new friend, whether that’s a best friend, whether that’s someone that we’ve been in business with for a long time or new, whether it’s someone that we’re trying to romantically be intimate with.
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Those are all different types of relationships and the skill set of mastering communication is so important.
2:45
And like I mentioned in the previous episode, if you didn’t get a chance to listen to it, I highly recommend you circle back to that at this point.
2:51
You know, communication has skills, right?
2:54
There are skills and tactics and frameworks that I can teach you and show you.
2:59
But this is also an embodied experience and what we don’t realize when there are hard topics or hard conversations or saying hard things when it comes to communicating with someone else that can trigger a somatic experience, it can trigger a trauma response.
3:16
It is essentially touching very vulnerable parts within us.
3:20
And if we don’t know how to navigate those one, we could miss out on the connection.
3:26
Two, we end up running into those communication barriers that I talked about.
3:30
So really assumptions and judgments, lack of listening, our own human defense system that’s trying to keep us safe from what we’re feeling in those hard conversations.
3:40
And so today, I want to piggyback off the last episode and I want to dive into what does it mean to somatic experience these hard conversations and, and truly where I want to come into and I want to get started with this is I want to invite you into how does your body feel when you are in the middle of having a hard conversation?
4:01
You’re saying hard things or you feel like something someone says, says something and it triggers you.
4:07
What do you feel like that in your body?
4:09
And some of us can completely disassociate.
4:12
So maybe you aren’t even in your body for a second, like you completely almost like you can’t hear the person talking, maybe you start daydreaming about something else.
4:21
Your mind goes somewhere else.
4:23
That’s a, that’s a sign of disassociation.
4:25
Maybe you’re someone that finds themselves just like frozen in their body, like you can hear what they’re saying, but you really don’t have the words to respond to what they’re saying.
4:36
Maybe you’re someone that immediately gets worried about what you did wrong, right.
4:42
Maybe you’re noticing that and in your body it feels like the energy is going inward versus the energy is going outward for someone that gets more intense in their expression.
4:52
Maybe when something hard conversation comes up, someone brings up something really sensitive to you.
4:57
You feel frustrated and angry and you want to like lash out at them.
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So the energy might be going outward.
5:04
You might feel the anxiety feeling in your chest, your mind might start spinning your throat might actually clog up.
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You know, when you have that frog in your throat or maybe your stomach starts to turn and you can feel like all different kinds of symptoms like as if your stomach is getting upset, maybe you just feel the butterflies in your stomach, maybe it rushed me.
5:23
Maybe you rush to the bathroom.
5:26
There’s so many different sensations that we can feel in our bodies when we are having a trauma response.
5:33
And the very first thing is that I want to invite you to start getting familiar to how your body is feeling.
5:39
So when you notice a sensitive topic come up or a certain conversation come up or when you’re in the room with someone that makes you feel a little edgy, makes you feel a little anxious, makes you feel uncomfortable.
5:50
Take note of what your body is feeling.
5:52
Do you completely?
5:54
Just pause and hold your breath for a second.
5:57
Do you want to run away from the conversation?
5:59
Like, do you find yourself wanting to distract yourself?
6:02
So you end up distracting yourself with your phone?
6:04
Maybe you distract yourself by leaving the room completely.
6:08
Maybe you distract yourself by wanting to change the conversation.
6:11
These are all different signs that our systems, our bodies don’t necessarily have the capacity to be with whatever is going on in that moment.
6:21
And it’s so important for you to notice that.
6:23
And so why is this happening?
6:25
So I kind of touched on this, this the way that the subconscious mind works and how, what does it mean to actually be triggered?
6:31
So let’s say you hear a word, a situation, our our systems have what we call in the brain.
6:39
I’m going to get the right the ambi I can never say this.
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You guys and I’m so sorry, ambiguous.
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They’re the boat, they’re on the sides of our brain.
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And what those do is that they are constantly looking it at and paying attention to our surroundings.
6:58
And when something happens that triggers us, there is this chemical reaction that is sent into the body.
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And so what does that actually mean?
7:07
It’s, they are stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol that flood our system when we do not feel safe for some shape or reason.
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And the way that our system is saying that it doesn’t feel safe is because it is perceiving a certain event.
7:24
So this can be someone’s body language, this can be a certain topic, a certain word, it could be someone’s energy about them that our body is filtering and saying, oh OK, I have seen this before and it goes through your subconscious mind and it looks back at past experiences and it creates that past experience and it creates its own reality.
7:46
So to us that ends up creating a thought with it creates an emotion which creates a somatic experience, which is the part of us that ends up releasing these chemical reactions, which tend to be like adrenaline or cortisol that completely flushed the body because it’s trying to protect itself.
8:01
It’s a stress response to something that we do not feel comfortable with.
8:05
And so this comes up for us in the middle of difficult conversations and the way that it represents itself in the body is very similar to what I talked about.
8:15
So maybe you’re disassociating, maybe you’re anxious in your chest, maybe you feel the heaviness, maybe your body starts racing.
8:21
You can feel the sweatiness in your palms.
8:23
You can feel the anxiety coming up, you can feel your throat being constricted and your stomach starts to turn and clench.
8:30
There’s this contracted that comes up in the body.
8:34
Maybe you feel the energy going inward, maybe you feel the energy going outward.
8:39
Maybe you feel like you want to get the fuck out of a situation.
8:41
Maybe you feel like you want to completely avoid the conversation.
8:45
These are all kinds of trap trauma responses for us to pay attention to when we are in the middle of hard conversations.
8:52
And you know, the biggest thing is that comes up for us in the middle of hard conversations is a sense of vulnerability.
9:00
It’s a sense of, you know, we get triggered, something comes up and, and the key to feeling connected to feeling, seen to feeling, heard, feeling closer in relationship to someone is that vulnerability.
9:15
But when you are being asked to show parts of yourself that could be potentially rejected could be potentially judged could be to take, to potentially take it for a different situation.
9:26
Your system’s going to want to close down.
9:28
And so when you are feeling these responses in your body, what that’s coming up in these hard conversations, or maybe there are specific topics that make you feel this way.
9:38
The goal is to get curious because your, your body is just responding to a moment that it doesn’t feel Satan.
9:44
And so what can you actually do in those moments?
9:48
So the very first thing if you’re by yourself, take a pause, take a breath, big deep breath.
9:53
If you need to, you could always walk away from a conversation and say, hey, you know, I need about like a minute, two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes just to regulate my nervous system.
10:02
Because right now when you are activated like that, when you are triggered, like that, you are dysregulated.
10:08
And when you are in a sense of dysregulation in your body, it’s going to be so much more easy to respond in a, with an emotional response to the situation, which is what creates the emotions and what creates the conflict or what creates the ability to not fully listen or hear what’s going on in the conversation.
10:27
So once you notice these things coming up in your, in your soma, in your body, which Selma stands for a living body, and you start to feel the experience of your, your somatic body of your body.
10:39
Somatic, take a second to take a breath, bring your breath to that area.
10:43
Maybe you want to put your heart on your chest and see how that feels.
10:46
Maybe you want to put your hand on your belly and see what that feels like.
10:50
You can start to pay attention by putting your taking in your breath, holding that part of you, whether it’s your throat, your chest, your breath, and just find a way to regulate yourself again.
11:00
If you need to step away from the situation, go get a glass of water, go outside and get a t take a big deep breath, maybe use some cold water on your face.
11:08
These are all these little tactics that you can also do.
11:10
One of my favorite ways to regulate your nervous system and animals do this today.
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If you haven’t already heard this before, you know, animals will naturally shake to give their self a natural reset of their nervous system.
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They do that so fluidly, they do that so easily.
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It’s like integrated, it just comes to them and we have the ability to do that as well.
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And so I absolutely love shaking out my entire body.
11:35
I also love like tapping or like really deeply padding the different parts of my body so I can move the energy that’s happening.
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And then once I am doing that, I am imm giving myself the opportunity to move into stretches and doing whatever my body needs on, really bringing myself in my body and helping the energy move.
11:53
And so wellness tip don’t drink coffee on an empty stomach.
11:57
You all might have heard of this from me, but your hormones do not love you drinking coffee on an empty stomach within the first hour of waking up in the morning.
12:07
If you eat a solid breakfast, a balanced breakfast with protein and carbs, your system is going to love you for that.
12:16
Your body is going to love you from that I am someone that dabble with coffee.
12:22
I enjoy the experience of coffee and I also try not to drink coffee daily.
12:27
But if I am going to have some coffee, I am going to make sure I have food in my system.
12:34
I’m also going to wait till about between 10 and 12 o’clock to have a cup of coffee and see if that helps how supported and see how you feel.
12:45
That is one of the things, the other thing that I want to invite you into is when you’re in the middle of a difficult conversation, expressing yourself through your words, also gives you an opportunity to express the emotion.
12:59
And so if you can find the space and the capacity to say something along the lines of like, hey, I really want to share with you what’s coming up for me and what my body is experiencing and you can simply say like something along the words of like, I feel really anxious right now.
13:15
My throat is closing up.
13:17
What’s coming up for me is XYZ.
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And the more that you practice doing that, the more opportunity you’re also giving the opportunity to use your voice as a way to express your experience.
13:29
Now where you’re probably going to say is like, well, I don’t really want to say all those things out loud.
13:33
What if they, they make something of them?
13:35
And I get that and I fully understand that.
13:37
But if you can realize that emotions are just energy and motion.
13:42
All they want to do is move.
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And if you can feel empowered to express yourself while being unattached from your experience.
13:51
So just knowing that this is a part of you that wants to move through you, this is a part of you that wants to be expressed.
13:57
This is the part of you that’s asking you to spend some time with it.
14:00
So saying it out loud would be really helpful as well if inviting the person that you’re in conversation with doesn’t feel safe in this moment.
14:08
When you step away from the conversation, like going for a walk and stuff, start talking to yourself out loud, allow yourself to process what’s coming up for you.
14:17
So you can truly work through that, right?
14:19
This, this emotion that’s running through you and you’re feeling it in these other ways through your body.
14:25
It is an emotion that wants to be expressed, it wants to move, it wants to be released.
14:31
And most of us today don’t know really how to do that because we’re so used to suppressing it.
14:37
We haven’t been truly taught how to fully release it.
14:40
We’ve only been taught how to ignore it, avoid it, manage it, stuff it down.
14:47
So then we don’t have to fully feel it.
14:48
But the truth is if we don’t lean into learning how to be with these emotions in real time, when things are coming up for us they’re just going to compound and build on top of each other and then you’re going to experience those situations where you might understand this or relate to this.
15:04
But have you ever been in a conversation where you’ve been so patient and then all of a sudden you blow up because you’ve had it or have you ever been in a conversation where someone where they’re super calm?
15:15
You’ve had the conversation with them a million times and then all of a sudden they blow up out of nowhere.
15:20
Those are examples of when someone has not been with their emotions, it hasn’t manifested itself into this extreme response because it didn’t have the space to fully express itself.
15:33
It didn’t have the space to find what it needs or wanted.
15:37
Now, the next part to this that I think is very important is that if you find yourself being deeply triggered and extremely triggered and none of these practices are actually working with you, I want to invite you into working with a somatic practitioner.
15:52
Unfortunately, at this time, I’m no longer offering one on one coaching or one on one support for somatic healing sections.
16:00
But if you do need someone and you are interested in working with someone actively on this response that you may have, I highly recommend with someone and I definitely have people that I can refer you to.
16:14
But inviting someone into this is such a great opportunity because you’re giving yourself the opportunity to practice it in moments that are not as heightened, right?
16:23
When you are in these situations or these experiences or in these hard conversations, when you’re communicating with someone, its so much more difficult to regulate yourself.
16:32
Versus in a somatic experiencing session, you have the opportunity to dive deeper into, into this and to this part of you and you can create space for it.
16:43
You can be held, you can be safe, a somatic practitioner can fully equal to you in a way that allows your, your nervous system and your body to create a bigger window of tolerances for these experiences and truly understand and unravel what’s going on with the different parts of you that are coming up in the body.
17:03
And so I share that with you because I really do think it’s important, but you can always use the practices that I use in earlier and shared this to help you regulate yourself.
17:14
And I also want to remind you is that, you know, by leaning into these hard conversations, by really finding your way to express yourself fully in a romantic relationship and a platonic relationship and a business partnership or with coworkers, you were practicing expressing and giving parts of you the opportunity to be here too.
17:37
So many of us don’t even give ourselves the full opportunity to be fully expressed in these relationships.
17:43
We’re doing ourselves a disservice by leaving parts of us or us behind.
17:47
We’re doing ourselves a disservice by not fully listening to our voice when it comes to this and really listening to these parts of themselves, and these parts of us are coming up and they want to be here for a reason.
18:02
And so just truly inviting you into that.
18:04
Now, the last thing I want to say is that, you know, I’ve also talked so much about the fully expressed community that I have online where we meet once a month.
18:13
And in this community, we do have these kinds of conversations.
18:16
We open up the space to talk through these things.
18:18
And if you’re interested in joining a community of women that we have different kinds of conversations and feel out the different parts of ourselves.
18:28
And you want access to me over slack because there’s also the ability to talk to me separately.
18:33
I’d be happy to support you in these kinds of conversations through Slack at a high level and be there for you.
18:39
And I and also come join this group of women that where we are having these taboo kinds of conversations.
18:45
We’re stepping into that edginess, learning what it is to feel fully expressed in our own way and finding that for ourselves in both our lives, relationships and business.
18:56
If you have any questions about what it actually looks like to have a hard conversation, highly recommend you go to the previous episode if you want me to dive deeper into the somatic experience that could be happening.
19:09
And what are the steps that you can take from there?
19:12
I would love to send me ad on Instagram at I AM Ko SOTO.
19:17
But the biggest point and take away from this episode that I want you to listen to and pay attention to is start to pay attention to how your body is feeling in these moments.
19:29
When you are saying hard things, when you are talking about specific topics, feel into that.
19:33
Where are you feeling it?
19:35
And then realize that you’re having a response to this and try to pay attention to where that is coming from, where that is in your body.
19:45
And use one of the techniques that I shared to regulate yourself in the moment.
19:50
You are in the middle of these conversations.
19:52
And lastly, if you do want to dive deeper into what is the the actual physical response or trauma response from feeling activated or triggered like this.
20:01
So you can really create the capacity and the window of tolerance to hold these kinds of conversations.
20:08
Because when you can learn how to hold these kinds of conversations and really lean into these different topics in life that make us feel a little edgy, a little overwhelmed.
20:18
There’s so much growth in that.
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There’s so much connection, there’s so much opportunity to see and love and understand.
20:27
And I would be more than happy to dive more into that if you have any questions, just send me ad M on Instagram.
20:32
Like you guys do all the time.
20:34
I absolutely love hearing from you in the next couple episodes.
20:39
You’re gonna get to hear from some amazing guests.
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One is a spiritual psychologist and the other one is a therapist that has also blended therapy with coaching and spiritual practices and breath work and how she’s brought that all together and like truly highlighting these holistic gaps.
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And I really think that when we are finding the different tools to learning a life fully expressed, there are these different ways and modalities that allow us to step into that and that give us permission, but also just give us the runway to step into that.
21:12
And so keep an eye out for those next two episodes that are coming up.
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And there’s also just amazing people that are in the lineup.
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And if you found this episode helpful, I’ll be about it, write a review, share it with a friend because I would love to get more and more of this information out there.
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So sending you all love into this week.
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Thank you so much for listening and I’ll talk to you soon.
