Wake up and Thrive
097:Revitalizing Marriages with Body-Centered Somatic Healing
In today’s episode of Wake Up and Thrive, we’re cozying up with my dear friend Becky. Her story is nothing short of miraculous, transforming her near-crumbling marriage into a love story redefined through the power of somatics. Becky’s journey from the depths of despair to becoming a shining light for others is nothing less than awe-inspiring.
We’re diving deep into the essence of our emotional and physical selves, uncovering how old wounds play out in our love lives. Imagine discovering that your body, particularly through the vagus nerve, holds the key to letting go of past pains. Becky and I chat about how somatic practices, often underestimated, can create monumental shifts in our personal happiness and our relationships.
Our talk isn’t just about healing; it’s a celebration of connection, understanding without words, and the power of the unspoken. It’s a heartfelt nudge towards the Wild and Rooted retreat we’re buzzing about – a sanctuary for women ready to dive deep, shake off shame, and truly meet themselves.
Becky brings her soulful expertise to this retreat, making it a haven for those of us craving a transformative shift. So join us in this episode as we journey through the realms of self-discovery and healing, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find yourself stepping into the retreat, ready to embrace the wild and rooted essence of your being.
Connect with Becky:
Find her on Instagram here.
Listen to her podcast here.
Let's Connect.
If you want to inquire about coaching and receiving support in helping you create stronger connections to yourself, your purpose, and those in your life email me your story here....bridget@findherwildcoaching.com
FREE masterclass: 3 Skills necessary to create intimacy in your marriage. Watch it here.
Free guide: 5 ways to find Calm: Get the guide here
Come find me on Instagram: @findherwildcoaching
Check out my website and my offerings here
In today’s episode of Wake Up and Thrive, we’re cozying up with my dear friend Becky. Her story is nothing short of miraculous, transforming her near-crumbling marriage into a love story redefined through the power of somatics. Becky’s journey from the depths of despair to becoming a shining light for others is nothing less than awe-inspiring.
We’re diving deep into the essence of our emotional and physical selves, uncovering how old wounds play out in our love lives. Imagine discovering that your body, particularly through the vagus nerve, holds the key to letting go of past pains. Becky and I chat about how somatic practices, often underestimated, can create monumental shifts in our personal happiness and our relationships.
Our talk isn’t just about healing; it’s a celebration of connection, understanding without words, and the power of the unspoken. It’s a heartfelt nudge towards the Wild and Rooted retreat we’re buzzing about – a sanctuary for women ready to dive deep, shake off shame, and truly meet themselves.
Becky brings her soulful expertise to this retreat, making it a haven for those of us craving a transformative shift. So join us in this episode as we journey through the realms of self-discovery and healing, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find yourself stepping into the retreat, ready to embrace the wild and rooted essence of your being.
Connect with Becky:
Find her on Instagram here.
Listen to her podcast here.
Let's Connect.
If you want to inquire about coaching and receiving support in helping you create stronger connections to yourself, your purpose, and those in your life email me your story here....bridget@findherwildcoaching.com
FREE masterclass: 3 Skills necessary to create intimacy in your marriage. Watch it here.
Free guide: 5 ways to find Calm: Get the guide here
Come find me on Instagram: @findherwildcoaching
Check out my website and my offerings here
Welcome back to Wake Up and Thrive. I'm so excited to be here with you guys today and share this interview with my good friend, becky. We recorded this months ago and we both have been in the background sort of planning and actually all planning. We've been planning for something that neither of us have done before, but we both have been coaching women, teaching women somatics and empowering women to have the relationships that they really desire. Becky specifically works with women to help them move trauma out of their body so that they can have the marriage that they desire. I work with women and really helping them lean into feminine energy and create the marriage of their dreams. Right, and so there's so much synergy between what we do and I just love how she teaches it. One of my favorite things about this guest is just her. She is a wealth of wisdom, but she's so down to earth, she's so relatable, she's so vulnerable. She always goes first anytime you talk to her and I just I absolutely adore her and I'm so excited to introduce her to you guys. Let her share her story, because it's a powerful story, powerful story and just, yeah, just share her wisdom that she's learned over the last few years and little teaser. I will not share what it is yet, but at the end of this episode we will finally be revealing what we've been working on very diligently in the background with another one of our coach friends, julie, and we are finally excited to put this out in the public. We've never done it before. It's something we both have always been wanting to do, it's something our clients have asked us for, and it is here and it is officially open for registration. So tune into the episode first. At the end I will share what that is, but you guys are in for a treat. Pop in those headphones, get a comfy drink, make yourself feel a little bit more comfortable than you are right now and let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Hi, my name is Bridget and this is my podcast, wake Up and Thrive. My intention for this space is to help women around the world live more awake, aligned and truly alive. I believe wholeheartedly that we are designed to live, feel and experience the full range that life has to offer, and in doing so, we can live fully turned on in all areas. My story began with sobriety and has since been an initiation into rediscovering parts of myself that I forgot about or had abandoned, learning to reclaim all of who I am has been the greatest gift of living awake, and together we will go on a journey of helping you to do the same.
Speaker 1:You can expect to learn practical tools to help you connect deeper to yourself, your purpose and those in your life. All you need is an open heart and an open mind. So if you're ready, it's time, it's time to wake up and thrive in mind. So, if you're ready, it's time, it's time to wake up and thrive. Good morning, welcome back to Wake Up and Thrive. I have a really fun interview today. I have my good friend, becky Astay.
Speaker 2:Becky, I hope I pronounced that right you did. I'm surprised most people don't Well.
Speaker 1:welcome to my podcast and my community. I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2:Me too. Thanks, Bridget. This is a good way to start my day with you.
Speaker 1:Good. So Becky and I actually met because listeners, as you guys know, two things I am so incredibly passionate about are helping women get out of their heads and into their body using somatics and I love to incorporate those tools within their marriages and helping create really life-giving marriages. And when I found Becky on Instagram, it was like a godsend, because her whole business and I'll let her tell more, but her whole business is centered around helping women heal their marriages and heal their wounding in their marriages using semantics. And as soon as I found it, I was like I absolutely love this.
Speaker 1:Not a lot of coaches are talking about the combination, but they absolutely work together beautifully. So I love to work. We very quickly connected and, turns out, we live only an hour from one another, plus, by the time this episode is airing, we will have a special announcement of an event that we're planning to host together in person. So I just feel so grateful that our paths have crossed and I'm so grateful for your time this morning with us. And, yeah, I would love to pass the mic to you and just let you introduce yourself and what part of your story really got you to where you are today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, bridget. It feels divine how we met and I'm really excited for this special announcement. I'm like counting them down the days, like Christmas. But yeah, I'm Becky Oste and I really got to this work, not because my marriage was thriving. We found ourselves, after 10 years of marriage separated, on the verge of divorce.
Speaker 2:We had this toxic dance that just picked up speed from really when I first started noticing it. It was around when we got engaged and at the time I didn't have words for it, so I just called it chase and run. Where I felt like I was chasing, he was running. Later I learned different language and lingo, like attachment styles. I was like, oh, I identify with the anxious, attached and he's more of the avoidant. You know, slash, the disorganized, and then different words, different groups and communities I got to be a part of like codependency and addiction, like gaining self-awareness as I go. But the dance itself wasn't changing. We it was just kind of picking up speed when we were good and it was good, but when we weren't it wasn't. So it was year 10 of marriage.
Speaker 2:That, um, the toxicity in our, you know, dynamic just really reached its head. And I was, I found myself. That was just my like dark soul moment of my life and my nervous system was literally in my journal prompts or in my like um, my dear God journal. You know writings. It was like my nervous system is on fire and I didn't even know what that meant at the time. I was just like please, god, help me, and I was having eczema, breakouts, insomnia. I felt very fragile mentally. I remember calling my best friend and just being like Courtney I think this is where people are before they're admitted for psychiatric help Like I feel so unstable. My world's turned upside down, like I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2:So that's when I stumbled upon a coach on Instagram who combines somatic work and marriage you know recovery and that was my first introduction to somatic work and it was game changing. I call it my last second buzzer beater Hail Mary. I was like, if this doesn't work, I've tried everything else Throughout the 10 years. We had done couples counseling, therapy, retreats, emdr, you know prayer, podcasts, books, like you name it and so this was like my last shot and it ended up saving our marriage and we went from. You know, in the early phase it just felt like survival and like, oh my God, are we really actually healing. And then to this point now where I cannot believe what we have Bridget's like completely unrecognizable. It feels like a brand new marriage. I can say it's thriving. I've never been able to say that about my relationship with my husband. So just grateful as heck. And now I get to pass this on to other people.
Speaker 1:That is so. Oh, that's amazing. I have heard bits and pieces of your story on your podcast and what you've shared to hear. Yeah, I mean, I can even just see. Just, they can't see your face, but I can see your face as you're describing like the despair that you were in.
Speaker 1:And today, right Like today where you are, you mentioned something that I think is really important. You said you tried prayer and I don't talk a lot about my belief system on here, but I think that's an important aspect, because prayer, along with therapy, it's awesome. It's not that it doesn't work, but it's one part of the experience, like, if we just think of our body, it's getting into the head, right, like all of that is. But God gave us an entire body, he gave us a neck down, and so to me, somatics is really incorporating that part of our experience. So, for my listeners, will you do me the honor of explaining to them, like, what is somatics? And then I want to jump into sort of like tangibly, how you use that to sort of make progress in your marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, most simply put, when you hear the word somatic, it just means pertaining to the body, especially in contrast to the mind. So, exactly like you said, a lot of our mainstream modalities of healing that people will refer you out to and suggest you try are all you know neck up. So all the things that we just talked about tapping into you know brain rewiring, you know affirmations, you know things that are amazing, but it really is only 20% of the puzzle. So somatics gets into the body. It's about getting in touch with your body, your actual physical sensations, getting to know the language of your own body, what your body might be communicating to you, and learning to move trauma out of the body, learning to bring your body back into a regulated state, into that ooey-gooey nervous system that feels safe and relaxed and can breathe, instead of that activated nervous system getting stuck in that fight, flight, freeze, fawn state that people might've heard those words. So that's really semantics. It's just you think body, body, body, body. So much in the body, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when you say you were sort of the anxious attachment in the marriage, explain a little bit about what that means. And then and then, somatically, what does that look like Like your nervous system? I love how you described it. You said that. I think you said I was like buzzing or something in your nervous system. So how would it, how would a nervous system feel manifest outwardly when you are anxiously attached?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So attachment theory talks about how all of us have basically a primary dominant way that we tend to show up in relationships, and so there's four main types. There's secure, which is hashtag goals. There's anxious, which is kind of the known as the fear of abandonment. You know, we can shame ourselves when we say words like this, but like calling ourselves needy or codependent or clingy, really just the fear of separation and loss, and I'll dive more into what that looks somatically. But yeah, first is secure, then anxious attached. Then there's one called disorganized. But yeah, first is secure, then anxious attached, then there's one called disorganized, which is basically a mix of anxious and avoidant. Yeah, that's my husband. Type four both of you.
Speaker 1:That's why I'm like so drawn to you Push, pull, push pull.
Speaker 2:Do you also love Lana Del Rey? I?
Speaker 1:know, but maybe I will. Who is that?
Speaker 2:Just had to ask. I feel like every type four I've met loves Lana Del Rey. I know, but maybe I will. I just had to ask. I feel like every type four I've met was Lana Del Rey. And then the last type is, yeah, avoidant, just pure like isolate. To feel safe, you know, need distance, intimacy completely freaks them out. So, with the anxious attached, how that showed up somatically was, um, anytime we were in conflict, or he needed space, or, uh, at one point he had a motorcycle, like if he wasn't responding and I was worst case scenario thinking, oh my God, what if he died on the side of the road?
Speaker 2:It would be for me rapidly increased heart rate, usually heat flushing through my body immediately cue the racing, ruminating, intrusive thoughts that I couldn't slow down or turn off. A lot of tension for me, especially my shoulders and neck. I would get massages and the massage therapist would be like honey, why are you so tight? I'm like I don't know. Am I worse than your typical client? And I had some therapists be like never felt someone like you. I'm like, oh my God, what's wrong with me? I'm so wound up.
Speaker 1:That is not what you say. By the way, if you work with a somatic coach, just so you know, we will never ask you what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's Like talk about triggering my shame. So those were like the dominant ways that it showed up for me somatically and just almost like my body took over and I needed to text him to fix it. If I was triggered, I needed to talk to him, even if he said can we not talk right now? It was just like I felt crazy, but I couldn't stop myself from kind of lunging towards him.
Speaker 1:And feel free to share as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing here. But was the anxiousness created from that relationship or was that something you brought into the relationship? Or maybe a mixture combination of both?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a combo Like. At first I feel like we had a pretty clean foundation, like as far as trust goes, but I lost my dad suddenly when I was 18, right before meeting Sebastian. He died of a heart attack my first week of college and then I met Sebastian like right after that. So he was the first male in my life after losing my dad and I was a total daddy's girl, like when my dad moved me into college. I my one of my last memories with him was I was on his back, I was an 18 year old girl and he was like carrying me around like a piggyback.
Speaker 2:So that um was this deep abandonment wound that all of a sudden the most important man in my life just disappeared, poof, without warning. I totally brought that into the marriage and I remember um, one of his groomsmen my husband's groomsman was a therapist and he was like Sebastian, just a heads up. You know her, uh, dad, stuff is gonna play a big role in your marriage, her losing her dad. And I remember thinking like she doesn't know me, I'm strong, I'm healed. It turned out to be like the single most disrupting you know wound in my dynamic with him but then with my marriage. Within the marriage, there was on both ends. You know betrayal and you know broken vows and just trust shattered, starting year five of our marriage and so it was both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, thank you for. Thank you for sharing that. I think the context can be helpful because I also think it's important to understand, even if you haven't had betrayal or something major happen in your relationship, there are a lot of women that still show up with this anxious attachment, that show up with this dysregulation in the nervous system. And you said something I would love you to kind of expand on. You said one way that it manifested, one way that the anxiety manifested in your body was intrusive thoughts, and I think often we get it wrong. We think when our thought is racing, we just have to tell ourself we're safe right.
Speaker 1:We just have to positively affirm, say our prayers, journal, get it all out and that works. But what I have found in my work with somatics is oftentimes the intrusive thoughts come from the response from the body, if that makes sense. So I'd love to hear like your thoughts on that and how you sort of worked with that example you talked about. So you find somatics, you get into somatics. How did that really help you calm the mind, calm those intrusive thoughts?
Speaker 2:Well, I think this is really helpful and this is what I tell people, and even in podcast episodes, like, if you don't remember anything I said in this whole episode, remember this.
Speaker 2:And I think this will help people understand why things like from the neck up like they work, ish or they don't, but maybe don't feel like they're getting you as far as you'd like is because we all have what's called this Vegas nerve.
Speaker 2:It's this big giant, big kahuna nerve that runs from the base of our skull to the bottom of our spine and it's like the superhighway of information for neurotransmitters and chemical messages constantly communicating within our body, from our body to our brain, brain to our body, running up and down our spine. So 20% of these messages go from our brain to our body and 80% go from our body to our brain. Meaning, when we're using modalities that are, you know, tapping into the neck up just more cerebral, intellectual, um, reading, talking, verbalizing, it's it's like great, but it's you're going to feel like a salmon swimming upstream If your body is dysregulated or activated or, um, still holding trauma from your past, like our body keeps the score of the trauma that we've lived. So when you work with the body, you're leveraging the most potent piece of the puzzle you know, working with the 80% now.
Speaker 2:And so what I found when I stumbled upon somatic work, I was like damn, why is this like working so much better and faster and like this is wild. And so that's you know. I can't remember what else you asked, but I think that can paint the picture of why you know the body is such an important piece that we can't ignore it. We really need to start with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I love, love, love. How you just saidbrally, you are only experiencing. I love this 20%. You're only experiencing a portion of the experience. That means, if you solve it in the head, you're only solving a portion of the experience. So it's not, it's not, it's not the mind is bad. Don't work with the mind, it's.
Speaker 1:We need to incorporate both, and you said it. You said it in another interview or conversation. We had that like we are fine. I'm seeing this too with my clients. It's the last step. They try everything. They talk to friends, they talk to therapists, they talk to coaches right, they try everything. But and then they, then they stumble across the body and I think one of the reasons I was so drawn to you and your work is that both of our missions is start with the body, start, get that leverage. I love that. Get the leverage, get that one up. Where you are actually. You're actually tackling the majority of your experience. It is being recorded in the body. The trauma does the what did you say? The body does keep the score. It's this memory I've also heard. The body is like an antenna, and so if your body is, you know when you think of a radio, if I'm not using the right word. If it's dialed into anxiety, for example, dialed into overwhelm, it's going to pick up and attract thoughts that match that.
Speaker 1:It's going yeah, don't you agree, though, like I, I definitely experienced that in other ways in my marriage, with my anxiety Mine specifically was related to fear and fear of safety and that sort of thing but 100% when my body was in that state, the thoughts came and they would not stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love the antenna example. That's really really good. You know you hear a lot of people just talking about you know the law of attraction and what you put out is what you draw back in. But I've never heard it, you know, described like an antenna, so I'm going to use that. It's good. Yeah, yeah, you use it. Never heard it, you know, described like an antenna, so I'm going to use that. It's good yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you use it Well. And you know the other thing I, I, my mentors, told me it's like, yes, our thoughts do do create our feelings, but what creates our thoughts it's the state of your body Like. It is the state of that nervous system and that vagus nerve you were talking about, um, so I love that. So, going back to your story, you, you stumbled across the somatics coach and then this is the other reason I love somatics is people. You start to feel a shift almost immediately, almost immediately. Um, so take, walk me through. Like you meet her, you start to understand. Well, even backing up before you started working with the body, what did you, what did you learn? How do I want to word this? How did, how did how? Is it explained to you that your body is creating your experience within your marriage? Does that make sense? Or I can reword it.
Speaker 2:Um, when I first started the program, I think what she made clear because when I came in I was really really caught in that decision of should I stay or should I go. I just feel like it was so back and forth for so many years and I could not think my way through to a point of clarity and I had tried so hard for so long, so hard for so long. And I remember her saying like you're not going to be able to have clarity or hear your intuition until you move trauma out of your body. Um, and you'll absolutely have the answer to that question in eight weeks is what she said. And part of me was like, are you kidding me? Like, did you not hear? For 10 years I've tried to find clarity and you think your little eight week program is going to do that.
Speaker 2:but it did. It did and you know that. Just stuck with me is you're not going to be able to make decisions, you know, from logic, from based from your values, based from your intuition, if your nervous system is dysregulated. So when I started, the whole goal was just learning to bring my body back into a state of regulation when I was triggered. And it was very simple at the beginning, just practicing grounding tools over and over and over again, and I kind of found my favorites. I mean, people can Google grounding tools. There's a million.
Speaker 2:Breathwork is a grounding tool that you do, and so for me it was the five senses. So anytime I was triggered early on in my somatic journey, I just remember naming five things that I could see and I still do this four things I could hear, three things I could physically feel or touch, two things I could smell and one thing I could taste. It would just what it does is it brings you out of, yeah, the mind and lost in the ruminating, the thoughts, and back into what's here in this room, kind of orienting to the space around me. And I would do that over and over and over again. I would lay down on the ground and I would imagine tracing the outline of my body, which is just seems like childish. It's like what we do on the playground, right. We trace with chalk as kids, each other's bodies.
Speaker 2:But I would do that in my mind's eye and that alludes to this thing called proprioception, which is just your awareness of your own body in space. Again, it's just orienting back to the body and that my body is its own, you know, organism its own, separate thing from my husband's. And it might sound like how could that work? But for me it just did. I would lay down and just do that. There's a bunch of different grounding tools, but I found my favorite and I started to practice that over and over and over again. Instead of my typical knee jerk reactions of trying to move towards him and fix us, I was learning how to find safety in my own body for the first time really ever.
Speaker 1:Yes, I have actually never heard that somatic tool, so I will be trying that I love to lay down in the grass that's a big one for me or just barefoot in the grass. Um, the five senses that you said, yeah, and what I love the most about both of your examples are they're very simple. They're very simple, they're very accessible. Right, and, and something else that you said I just want to bring up, cause I think I remember reading this when I was studying somatics, and a lot of times when you are anxious and you can correct me if I'm wrong, tell me if you've heard this as well it can feel really scary to actually close our eyes and to be like that.
Speaker 1:So, if you first orient and use your senses outward, so instead of going in and going, what do I feel? Sometimes that can actually ramp up the nervous system because it doesn't feel safe. So, starting with using and we're working with the body by using the body, which is what I think not many people understand how do you, how do you use the body to heal? Use the body, use your senses, and if you don't feel comfortable closing your eyes and tuning inward, of what do I feel? That feels too scary. I love, love, love that five sense example of just peeking outward right, like what'd you say? Five things that you see, yeah, and what did you notice inside as you started to do those?
Speaker 2:It would just slow down my thoughts, my breathing. I'd start to feel like almost I was bringing in this hot air balloon of my thoughts and like kind of bringing myself back down to the ground. Um, so, but some people that one doesn't work for them. Like some of my clients, they're obsessed with the five senses. Others are like nah, that doesn't work. So it's all about like trying on, like clothes shopping, you know what fits, what doesn't.
Speaker 2:And what you said is really important, because some people think with somatic work, oh, just find safety in the body, just find safety in the body.
Speaker 2:But for some people their body is not a safe place. And so even the last week there was a client, um in our community that was really triggered and in an activated, um, you know, panic response. And we asked her like does it feel safe to ground right now, to like tune into your body? She's like no, like my body doesn't even feel like a safe place to be. So in those moments we're not going to point her attention to her body at all. We're going to point it to the room around her and orient to the space around her. So that would be, you know, that's important for people to know, like you don't have to, like you said, close your eyes. You don't have to force yourself to do things if it's not feeling safe in the moment. For you, it might be more of a spatial orientation at first to start regulating your nervous system and then slowly you can titrate into becoming more aware and tuned into your actual body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. And I've heard you coach, I've heard you talk to your community and I love that. It's a constant checking in with their nervous system and their body and that's what we need to do on our road to healing. It is a constant tuning. And one thing I have found really helpful, because there's a million somatic tools out there. My community knows I teach breathwork. That's one of many tools.
Speaker 1:But honestly, if you just watch how your body you talked about the reactivity right Like for me, I used to be a yeller, sometimes still am, so when I can remove the shame, like, okay, my body needs sound, my body needs that in order to feel safe. It's being discharged right in like a really unhealthy way, but did you find any of the way that you normally would show up in your marriage? Did you find any of those patterns and sort of use them, if you will like the yelling example and use that as a way, oh, my body really needs this, like whether it's shaking, screaming, pounding, whatever I'm sort of. Can you, can you talk a little bit about the like non-sexy somatic tools?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, sometimes somatic work is not sexy and fanfare and this like grandiose, revolutionary new idea, and that can be really frustrating for a lot of people. Um, my husband's just getting into somatic work now after like two and a half years of me starting my journey. He's picked up stuff here and there, but he's beginning it really for himself and he's like man. It's like I find myself wanting to dismiss it because it's not this like big, you know confetti billboard kind of new way that's going to shift my paradigm. It's actually really really basic and people who are used to extreme emotions, extreme highs, extreme lows, that even can feel unsafe and kind of boring. So, yeah, the non-sexy stuff is I felt that that too. At the beginning I felt like, oh my God, I just paid how much for this course, like a 5k investment, and you're teaching me to put my hand over my heart and speak compassionately to myself. Are you kidding me? Like I got. I remember getting mad. Like this feels juvenile, like this is kindergarten. And then I'm like, oh, I'll try it and it worked. So.
Speaker 2:But one specific example that comes to mind is you brought up the shaking. So for me, like I was so, like rigor mortis, bridget, like there was no fluidity in my body. I was, you know, this uptight, workaholic, perfectionist, like barely breathe, like holding my breath, holding my muscles. No wonder my massage therapists were like honey, you're tight. So I remember um learning the power of shaking to release, and Peter Levine talks about this.
Speaker 2:He wrote a book called Waking the Tiger and he talks about researching and observing animals in the wild. When they come in face of danger or like life-threatening situation, after the danger has passed, they'll literally shake their bodies and it's a way of releasing trauma instead of that becoming like stuck energy, frozen energy in their body. And so I started doing that when I was mad or when I was scared. If there was some kind of danger, once it passed, I would literally like put Taylor Swift on and just shake it off. Exactly, but same with anger. You said you were a yeller. I was the opposite. There was a lot of shame and repression, of anger and rage, and I'm really just getting to the point where I'm doing deeper work on releasing that. I just went to my first rage room last month.
Speaker 2:It was awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, we live nearby. I'm coming to the next one. Let's do it.
Speaker 2:We got to pick a better one. This one actually like the radio. Their speakers weren't working in the room.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I was like that's the most important part, like this needs blasting, so we got to find a better one.
Speaker 1:I love it. One thing I want to mention about the shaking Cause. It's funny. I was on my first coaching program. I was being I was coaching in front of 200 people, right, and so I went into a full panic and this was before I even knew about somatics and she had me close my eyes and try to take deep breaths and I was like, lady, I do not like it's. It's almost like when you're mad and someone's like calm down and with my eyes are closed. I didn't know anything about the shaking or the waking the tiger I love Peter Levine, anything about his work and my body started shaking. I again, eyes closed. It's recorded now you can see I'm like, look, girl, I knew like my body knew and your body knows like it does.
Speaker 1:There are tools, there are amazing practitioners you can work with that will help provide that safe space, which I think is really helpful. But I want the biggest takeaway to know that you can start today. You can start today with really tuning into your body in those moments. I love how you mentioned it was working with the triggers. That was one of. Is that right? That was one of the first things that you really did, working with the triggers. So, moving on, another thing that you brought up I thought was interesting was that Sebastian was not into this work, which is very similar to my story, and it's a lot of women that come to me. So explain how, by you simply shifting your nervous system in your body, but he's not really doing that. How does that shift the whole dynamics? How does that shift the whole experience?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was not on board. I remember when I first early started my like recovery journey this is before finding somatic work but I was doing um a workbook and he comes downstairs and he saw it was the recovery workbook. He goes what did I do? Now I was like, oh my God, get over yourself for once. I'm actually trying not to blame you and take responsibility. Get over yourself for once. I'm actually trying not to blame you and take responsibility.
Speaker 2:But then when I invested in the somatic course, it was when we were separated and it was the first like big investment that I made without you know getting his approval or talking about it. And I remember letting him know and he was just like you invested how much money. And he was like, well, really, really sarcastically, it was just kind of good luck with that, you know, hope it works out for you. And I was like, thanks, I need all the luck I can get. So, yeah, that was his attitude at first and if you ask him now what was the shift, he will tell you and he said this before like he's done masterclasses with me. He'll just say it wasn't something new.
Speaker 2:Becky was saying or doing, it was really just her energy completely shifted and I felt a completely different vibe coming off of her. I felt, you know, just in her presence there's this settledness, this groundedness, this for the first time seeing in her presence. There's this settledness, this groundedness, this for the first time seeing in her. Uh, she's really got herself and she doesn't need me, uh, conversation, to like go a certain way for her to be okay. So that's what he'll attribute it to. And at first it was hard for him to, I think, notice the difference because we were separated. We one night I went out for bachelor night. I watched the bachelor with my friends. Bridget, don't judge me.
Speaker 1:I do not like the bachelor, but no judgment.
Speaker 2:And I was like I'm going to be out late. Do you want to stay on the couch, you know? So you don't have to drive home super late. So he did that that night. And then he woke up the next day and had COVID and we were like, oh gosh, this is interesting. And he was staying with his mom at the time and his mom was terrified of COVID. So we were like, I guess you're staying with us for 15 days and that was when we started to have these conversations, um, that were just so new for us that's the best way I can put it Like just conversations where it was honest, authentic, that that was the first time I ever saw him cry in our marriage, and that was when I got to really practice these new tools of not reading into his every facial expression and his every word and trying to figure out is he telling me the truth, is he not?
Speaker 2:Instead, I was tuning into my body and asking my body what does my body feel right now, as he's telling me whatever? It is, disclosing things that he had never shared with me and stuff like that. And I noticed my body feels settled, my muscles are not tensed or bracing, my breath is open, and it was this new experience in myself where I was trusting for the first time. My body never lies and I can trust this.
Speaker 1:Not the words coming out of his mouth, but me this, not the words coming out of his mouth, but me I have like full body goosebumps listening to you talk about it, because it that is that's so powerful, becky, like I hope you know how powerful your story is and and I hope he knows that because it is like what you described, it's that anchor into the present moment, right, and how many people walk away. And again, walking away sometimes is the option, but to have a living, breathing example of it is possible to experience the depths of mistrust and betrayal and pain and using your entire body, using your entire experience, to move through that versus learning how to communicate and talk and that all comes. But what you're describing right now is is is huge. So, yeah, I really hope that you feel what I felt, as you sort of described that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and the communication? You're right, it does come, but 80% of communication um is that the right hold on no 93, it's 93% of communication is nonverbal. It's our body language, our energy, our intonation of our voice, our facial expressions, and only 7% is the actual words coming out of our mouth. So it's yeah we get really hung up on what to say and we rehearse in our head, and it's communication has so little to do with that.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, yeah and and something else, you know again, my story, like so much of what, who I work with are women that maybe don't have this incredible rupture, but they just are feeling sort of unfulfilled and disconnected Right. And and it's somatics works with that. With that, amazingly, because it helps you get back into tune with feeling right, and we're not just talking about feeling the pain and feeling it all the way through. When you tune into your body, then you start to feel the connection and the love and the joy that's not found in your head. And when I asked my husband what he noticed, his only response is always you're just nicer.
Speaker 1:Hey that's a big thing, because what I found and you can tell me if you relate to this, but what I had found was so much of the energy like you were talking about that I was showing up in in those conversations. I was very quick to interrupt, I was very impatient, which really was a manifestation of my nervous system. I felt jittery, I felt impatient inside, I felt all over the place, and so that's what he experienced. So there was so much of our conversations that he, he didn't feel like. We're now in the stage where he's bringing so much forward now, so many of his needs, so many of his desires, and I'm like it's kind of like it's a weird place to be in, because for years he didn't feel comfortable. I used to think he just didn't have needs, but the truth was I created this environment where it's that word safety. I didn't feel safe in my body and he definitely didn't feel safe bringing anything up because he didn't want to poke the bear, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you could speak to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Sebastian said the same thing and I would feel so frustrated because for years I was like I'm a safe place, you can tell me anything, and his nervous system you know with my nervous system was like hell, no, not safe. So he did say the same thing. He's like for the first time I felt safe, being really honest with you, because I wasn't afraid of you collapsing or you know me, like just ruining your world. I knew that you were going to be able to have yourself.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and what you were saying earlier too, just about like people's bodies are so wise, like, yes, it can be amazing to have a coach or a practitioner to guide you, especially at the beginning. But like, even as you're listening to this podcast right now, and if you're in the grocery store or whatever, just asking the simple question what does my body need? Right now, it'll speak to you just, even if it's like I just need a nap, and maybe that's not possible, but trying to set aside time for being able to lay down, even if it's for a minute or two, and maybe it's your body needs to shake or maybe it is you need to freaking, go take a baseball bat to the woods and hit a tree, like your body knows, and kids do this naturally, and it's interesting that we live in a society where we suppress a lot of the natural somatic intuition. That can like stop wiggling you know all of that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, it's. And again, what we're talking about by, by suppressing the body, we are literally, they're controlling that on a day I'm going to get all political, but we're, we're controlling, like, the experience. We are, we're shut, we're. We are shut down in the world that we live in to experiencing our full experience, good or bad, high or low. How could you solve something if you're not fully experiencing it? Right, how can you really move through something if you're not fully moving through it? So, yeah, okay, I could talk to you for hours about this.
Speaker 1:I have a lot I have so many questions too about like your husband, like I. Would love to hear Sebastian's point of view too as well, cause I just think it's it's such an interesting story. It's very rare. It's very rare to hear couples nowadays. I feel like sticking out once they.
Speaker 1:I think it's very common that couples experience this. It's not very common that couples are still not just together but actually thriving and doing it from this place of whole body healing, which is just really. It's just really phenomenal. It's really cool, and I love being on the same mission as you to really help more women experience life fully, right. Experience your full experience so that you can actually move through it, whether that's in your life, business, health or marriage.
Speaker 1:And so what I would love to do to just sort of end this interview for now is if you could talk to a woman right now who's new on her journey. Maybe she's dealing with betrayal, maybe she's dealing with her own mistrust, because that's a lot of what I find is it's not necessarily created from the relationship They've come in with, just walls around their heart, closed heart, just no trust, and so these women are showing up with control, right, like they want to control everything. And so could you speak to that woman who is ready to try something new. She wants to start beginning. You sort of gave us a little tidbit on tuning into your body. But what would you tell her, what would you advise her to start doing, and what can she start doing right now?
Speaker 2:It's true, I'll give a thought, but first just to like say what you just said about the self-trust really being the biggest abandonment wound. It's like the self-abandonment in the breathwork session that you did with my group at the point in the middle of the session when you said at what point did you stop believing you could trust yourself? That was when, like, all of us lost it, and I think that really is where we need to go back to and find and rediscover and like come home to that God-given intuition that we all have but maybe haven't been taught to trust it, or maybe it's been a corroded relationship with our own intuition. For whatever reason, whether it's, you've been in communities where the authority in that community was kind of behavior control or, you know, mind control. If it wasn't, you know leaders teaching you to really, really trust yourself, that it's okay to trust yourself. So there's so many reasons, um, where we've gone wrong with that.
Speaker 2:What I would say to a woman who can relate to anything today is it's so collective and it's not your fault. I think a lot of us can be found in this just shame storm, this spiraling shame storm of like what's wrong with me? Why do I feel this way. Why am I so? Either insecure or controlling or angry or whatever the thing is, and truly it's conditioning. It's what was mirrored to you growing up.
Speaker 2:It's going back even further, generationally and ancestrally. Our body keeps the score. You literally have cells and DNA from your grandmother, great grandma, so whatever their lived experience was, that's in your body too. That doesn't even have to be woo, woo as people call it, like that's just science. That's science, yeah, yeah, yeah. So just taking the shame and the pressure away and seeing this is like damn. This is an opportunity where we live in a generation that is crazy, right, like the world is crazy, but also really, really, really beautiful, and I see awakening to this higher level of awareness and consciousness and healing than I think any generation that at least we know in recent past. So I would just say it's collective work on dissolving your shame. Offer yourself radical self-compassion and just start getting curious about what your body might be communicating to you.
Speaker 1:I love it Sounds so simple. Right, we know it's not. It is simple once you understand and feel the impact that this work can have. But, like I've experienced, like you've experienced in the beginning, it is really helpful to do that with somebody. It is really helpful. What I have found over and over and over again is that it's this line of like sometimes the most healing thing you can do is letting your unhealed parts be witnessed. It's in the witnessing right, it's in the witnessing and I think we live in a society where we try to witness just by venting, but to actually be in a room or community of women and let them see your tears, let them see your rage, let them see your grief. Sometimes that's all we need. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:It's so true, and so powerful, and so powerful. I went to Mexico on a retreat in November and that was the first time I ever let other women, see my anger ever.
Speaker 2:Like I said, that was a really big thing for me, a lot of suppressed. And I was in this session and I was just terrified, like shaking, and I remember the invitation, like just to let it out. We were like on the beach, on this yoga shala, no one around, like all the other girls were just like screaming, cursing, and I was like I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this. And I was like, oh, I'll just stand here and cry, I'll save the screaming for later, I'm not going to do this around these women.
Speaker 2:And then I was like I came all the way to Mexico, paid all this money for this retreat, like I'm going to leave it here and let it go. And so I did. That was the first time I ever just like let it out, just like screamed and out all the grief and injustice I feel like I had ever experienced in my lifetime. And I can't even begin to tell you how healing that was and how changed I feel since then. And so it can feel terrifying, but really the freedom is on the verge of that tipping point of fear For sure.
Speaker 1:For sure. So creating that self-trust and that safety first within yourself, reaching out and doing it in a community is is something I cannot recommend enough for my listeners. It's really, really powerful. I love it's so funny that you weren't in touch with your anger. I was like way too in touch with my anger.
Speaker 2:That's why we need each other.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. So is there anything else that you would love to share about somatics, about marriage, any words of wisdom to sort of leave my community with? I know you've given us a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's it, the, the training that I offer. It's a free training called three secrets to the thriving intimacy that supported a lot of women. I can give you the link in the show notes if people um want to just go deeper with the actual marriage piece. And intimacy is more than just physical connection. You know there's like 17 plus kinds of intimacy, but that is.
Speaker 1:I don't. I don't know if I need all I don't know. If I know, I'll say I'll be grabbing that guide. Yes, we will put that guide. I also. I'm curious your program that you lead is it for women who have experienced betrayal or who who would be a good fit for your program?
Speaker 2:Yeah, not necessarily there are women in the program who've experienced betrayal, but it's for just the high achieving wife who wants to reclaim harmony in her marriage by moving trauma out of the body, and so really it's just somebody who finds herself disconnected or spinning her wheels. She's tried everything else to reclaim that connection with her husband and somatic work is the missing piece. That tends to be the woman that comes in here. It's not people's first introduction to healing. It's usually like their last pit stop. So the program I run is called root to rise. It's a six month women's group coaching program and, um, yeah, if you're interested about that, you can reach out to me on Instagram. I have a team member who would just see if you're a good fit for that and see if and how we can support you. And if the program itself isn't a good fit, we'll still point you in the direction of some resources or someone that might be better.
Speaker 1:Amazing, and I've met her team members. They are. They are amazing as well, so I will put all your information down below. Becky also has a podcast called I do breakthrough, no your breakthrough blueprint.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry, your breakthrough blueprint, so I will link that as well. She is a wealth of information and my favorite part is just the vulnerability and the authenticity that you will get with hearing her story. So, becky, thank you for being here. Yeah, it was so good, it was great. I hope you guys enjoyed that episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. Becky really is a wealth of wisdom. Go and find her. Check her out on Instagram, go listen to her podcast. Find her. Check her out on Instagram, go listen to her podcast.
Speaker 1:You will love everything about her, I promise, and I am finally ready to reveal what we've been working on and what we are inviting you into to become a part of with us, along with our friend Julie as well, who's another master level somatic coach. So you're getting three experts for the price of one, which is incredible. And what we are inviting you into is our first ever in-person three-night, four-day retreat on the Eastern Shore in the USA, and it is going to be an incredible weekend of not only relaxation, fun, sisterhood, rest, restoration, right All of that is so important. We will leave plenty of open space for you guys to really escape the noise and relax. It's a beautiful setting, but we also are going to be doing work. We're going to be doing healing work together with women in person, because, as we have coached hundreds of women combined over the last five years, a running theme that we have noticed is that so many women are afraid to claim what it is they want, whether it's in their marriage, in their friendships, in their business, in their health, in their life, in motherhood, whatever it is. Women are not, we're not speaking up, we're not. First of all, we're not in touch with what it is that we really want, and then, when we are in touch with it, we don't feel like we deserve it, we don't feel like we're worthy of it, and so we're not claiming it, we're not having it and we are miserable.
Speaker 1:So many of us are walking around and we've healed aspects of our life, but there's still more. We want more. We know that there's more, we just don't know how to get there. And so, for us, what we have found, over and over and over again, is it's learning to break through the shame, learning to break through the stories of not enoughness and really coming back into the truth of who you are, coming back into feeling liberated, to really say what you want to say, say how you feel, go after the things you like and love and need and desire and create a life around it. It's an incredible way to live. We all are doing it in our own life and relationships on so many different paths. Right, these tools have taken each one of us on different and unique paths. So this is not just for women that fit into a box. This is for high achieving, independent, busy women that are ready. They are ready to break through their shame stories, they are ready to claim their desires and they are ready to feel anchored anchored in who they innately are.
Speaker 1:So we are inviting you into a four day retreat called Wild and Rooted. It's going to be in October 2024. It's October 10th to the 14th, so it's a long weekend. All you have to do is get yourself there. Once you get yourself there, everything will be provided. We will have all of the nourishing food for you, all of the adventure set up. You don't have to think of a single thing. You will be getting breath, work and workshops and coaching and sisterhood and community, and I could go on and on and on, but you are going to want to be in the rooms.
Speaker 1:We are opening this up first to our community that includes all of you guys and then we will be opening it up even larger, to the public at large. There are only 10 spots available for this retreat, so if you have been wanting and craving in person, like I have, you are going to want to be in the room. So you can click the link below and you can look at all the different pricing options. There are payment plans available upon request and we really believe if there is a will, there is a way. So if you want to be there and you just don't know how you can make it financially, please reach out to us. We will hop on a call with you. We will make it work. We are a stand for a women's yes, we are a stand for your desires and we will do what we can in our power to help you claim it. So I hope to see you guys there. It's going to be an incredible weekend. I'm sending everybody so much love and I will see you next Monday.