Episode #443 – Functional Freeze: The Hidden Nervous System Pattern Holding Women Back with Beatriz Albina

Cherylanne Skolnicki:

I am Cherylanne Skolnicki and this is Brilliant Balance, the show for those of us who still dare to want it all, who have big dreams and bold ambitions. I think we deserve to have a big full life and the freedom to enjoy it. So let’s design our next chapter together for brilliance, not burnout. Each week I’ll bring ideas, insight, and a fresh perspective to keep you growing into a life that feels as good as it looks brilliant. Balance your life your way. Now let’s get started. This is episode 443 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast, Functional Freeze, the Hidden Nervous System Pattern Holding Women Back with Beatriz Albina. Okay, today’s episode is for the woman who really looks like she has it all together on the outside, but inside maybe not so much. You know the feeling, right? You’ve read the books, you know the boundaries to set, you’ve done all the mindset work, but then like the big moment comes and you freeze. You overexplain you people please. You say yes when you mean no. And afterward you wonder like, why do I keep doing this? And my guest today says, the answer isn’t really a lack of willpower or discipline or even self-awareness. It actually might be something much deeper. And it’s a nervous system pattern that she calls the functional freeze. So joining me today is Bea, I’ll call her. Beatriz Albina. She is a UCSF trained family nurse practitioner, a somatic experiencing practitioner, a master certified somatic life coach, and the bestselling author of End Emotional Outsourcing, A Guide to Overcoming Codependent, Perfectionist, and People Pleasing Habits. She also holds a master’s degree in public health from Boston University, has been working in health and wellness for more than 20 years and has helped thousands of women regulate their nervous systems and break free from the patterns that keep them stuck in overgiving perfectionism and people pleasing. Bea is the host of the Feminist Wellness podcast. I love that title. Her work has been featured in outlets like mindbody, green Well and Good, and Goop. And she brings a trauma-informed, science-backed and deeply compassionate approach to helping women reconnect with their bodies and reclaim their self-trust. I am super excited to have her on the show today. Please help me welcome Bea to Brilliant Balance.

Beatriz Albina:

Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.

CS:

I’m so delighted to do this. We’ve been chatting off camera and I’m already like all warmed up and ready to dive in deep. You ready to go?

BA:

Always, always. I was born ready. Always

CS:

Ready. <laugh> you before we start this, you have done some really big interviews like you have been on the circuit. Do you have a favorite, like a memory from having shared this work all over the world now?

BA:

Oh my gosh. What a fun question. My friend Carl Ental has had me on her show a couple times and that’s always a hoot because we like try to pretend like we’re not giggling the whole time, but we are. And then she’s, she’s way better at being professional than I am. I just start cracking up and making jokes. So that’s always super fun, right?

CS:

You have to do a lot of editing,

BA:

I think. Yeah. But I think she leaves in the parts where I’m saying something embarrassing. I think that makes it to press, which is pretty good. I

CS:

Love it.

BA:

I love it. Yeah. And the book was picked up by Oprah. It was in like Oprah’s word of the day thing. And that just makes, you know, that just makes me squeal. ’cause I was like, you know, of course

CS:

I wondered if that one, that was my, that was my prediction is what the answer would be. Yeah. If you get to claim that Oprah’s picked it up, you you should

BA:

Claim it.

CS:

Listen.

BA:

Yeah, listen, <laugh>, I mean, come on now. So fun. That’s pretty wild.

CS:

Yeah. Talk about a functional freeze. I think that would be my reaction. So let’s start with that phrase. Okay. Yeah. In our episode title, I wanna get into a little bit of your backstory, but I want people to get what they came for right at the jump here. So the phrase in our episode title, functional freeze, what is

BA:

It? Yeah, yeah. So functional freeze, it’s a mixed nervous system state where you have sympathetic nervous system activation. So that’s the gas pedal, that’s adrenaline, norepinephrine, eventually cortisol that’s go, go, go, go, go. The lions are coming. Look busy. You gotta run, you gotta do, you gotta write hypervigilant moving fast, hype, sympathetic activation. Yes. And it’s happening at the same time as the dorsal vagal shuts down. So that’s the break. So that’s disconnection. That’s at its extreme. Dissociation being catatonic, but in everyday life it’s, wait, what? Oh, sorry, I just went a little dorsal when you asked me that really personal question and I just met you two minutes ago. We’re in a business setting. What? Sorry, I just bla or we’re talking about something really triggering in my relationship and I just blank stare, huh? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Huh? Like deer in the headlight possum playing possum Cherylanne.

What that, so just let’s feel into that for a minute. You’re checked out, but you’re gunning it, right? You’re flooring the gas, but you’re slamming the brake. So what does this look like? Well, the lights are on, but nobody’s home. You’ve got enough sympathetic charge, enough adrenaline to keep you moving through tests. You’re doing the tests, you’re maybe doing them well, you’re maybe getting really fancy degrees. You’re going to really fancy schools. You’re getting all the certificates, you’re all the tech tick boxes, you’re ticking ’em, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But the dorsal vagal shutdown has disconnected you from actually feeling anything.

CS:

So is there a macro micro here? Like the first thing you were describing felt to me like the micro response of like in the moment, and then you sort of went up to what felt like more of a macro explanation. Yeah. Is that right?

BA:

Yeah, it can be. Yes. So yeah, the gas and the brake are sort of like, they’re, they’re both really, right? It can be sort of a general way of being and an acute

CS:

Response. Okay. So that’s what I was hearing. Yeah. Is like, if I’m in a moment, you use this example of I’m in a business setting and you’ve asked me a deeply personal question and I’m kind of stunned into silence. That’s the micro response. Yes. And if I do that over time where I’m Yes. In this hypervigilant state, and I’m having experiences on the regular that I’m trying not to feel, then that’s more like the macro explanation. Yes. Okay.

BA:

Exactly. It’s like your system found a way to be both hypervigilant and numb at the same time. Yes. Right? So yeah, you can’t feel your own needs, your desires, your boundaries, your limits. There’s often some dissociation from the body going through the motions of a life that doesn’t feel like your own. Mm. But again, you’re getting all the attagirls. Yeah. Look at how impressive your little life is. ’cause you’re not stopping. You’re just going and going. And so functional freeze is when your body’s saying like, all of this is too much. So I’m shutting down your access to feeling while keeping your body moving.

CS:

Oh boy. Take a pause on that. I’m shutting down your access to feeling while keeping your body moving. Dang. I mean, that’s gonna hit right between the eyes for 90% of our listeners. I fear. Yeah. How widespread is this pro? I’m gonna call it a problem. How widespread is this phenomenon?

BA:

Yeah. It’s most of my clients. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I dare say like a significant number of my friends over the years mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? Where you’re just like gunning it. You’re, you’re capable and collapsed. <laugh>. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So you look fine from the outside, but nobody including you realizes how far gone you actually are. And so you might not even realize that. Your friends might not even realize it until it makes me

CS:

Sad. The

BA:

Bottom falls out sad. Well, it is sad. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

CS:

Both. I think we

BA:

Amazing.

CS:

I mean it’s protective, I suspect. Right? Exactly. Response. So let’s talk about that. So why does this happen? How is it a protective response?

BA:

’cause your body’s frigging amazing. Mm-hmm. It’s like, girl, this is too much. All of this. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Really, you’re supposed to have kids, but there’s no village. And you’re supposed to work full-time, but there’s no village and you’re supposed to commute an hour, but there’s no transportation ’cause there’s no village. So you wait what? Right. And then you went from the gifted and talented program into a high school, a high school that stressed you out and a college that stressed you out. So you could go to grad school that stressed you out. And when did you actually deal with all the lumps and bumps and the tiny and the huge traumas along the way? Never mm-hmm <affirmative>. And now you’re 45 and the perimenopausal floors have fallen out of all of it. And you can’t sleep. You just lie awake thinking, how did I get here?

CS:

Yes.

BA:

So it’s protective because you have to keep going. Yes. Does this happen to Yeah, it happens to any, all human.

CS:

Does it skew, is it, does the data skew by gender? Like does it look like

BA:

It? There isn’t data.

CS:

There’s no data. Huh.

BA:

There’s no data that I’ve been able to find. It would, yeah, it would be really subjective data anyway. ’cause there’s not like a way to measure this.

CS:

So it’s a phenomenon men and women could both experience. But your experience as a practitioner is you work often with women and it is kind of epidemic proportions among women.

BA:

It is. It is something I see a lot in the women I work with. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Like a lot. A lot. You

CS:

Use the term emotional outsourcing. Like I, we can see your book behind you. Yes. So can you explain what that means?

BA:

Yeah. Emotional outsourcing is the term I created as a replacement for the terms codependent, perfectionist, and people pleasing. And it’s when we chronically and habitually source our sense of the three most vital human needs, safety, belonging, and worth from everyone and everything outside of ourselves instead of from within at a great cost to self.

CS:

Okay. We’re just gonna have mic drop moment after

BA:

Mic,

CS:

Drop moment with you, aren’t we? Okay. So let’s unpack that a little bit. The three most important needs, safety, belonging, and you said a third worth, worth

BA:

I matter. We’re

CS:

Outsourcing them to other people’s opinions. Yeah. Rather than from inside ourselves.

BA:

Yeah. And not trusting that we’re arbitrary enough of whether we’re good enough to exist.

CS:

Yeah. Like its external locus of control. We’re looking out there hundred percent saying, am I enough? Is this enough? Did I do enough? Right. That whole enoughness, do I have enough to be safe? Do I have enough to fit in? Am I worthy of anything? And you were looking to other people to answer that for us, rather than just having a knowingness within. Then of course the answer is always yes,

BA:

Of course. Yes. But it’s really, you know, when we just, the knowingness within, when we’re in that functional freeze,

CS:

It’s gone within, there’s no, within what’s within mm-hmm <affirmative>.

BA:

I mean, unless you think it is, is it okay if I have a within Carolyn, is that okay with you? Are you mad at me? Oh my gosh. Are you mad at me? You must be so mad at me. I’m so sorry. Right, right, right. So there’s no connection with the within. So who are you even asking other than everyone around you? I

CS:

I think that’s really true. I have a teenage daughter, well, one teenage daughter and one now in her early twenties and, and a son in the middle. And I think really watching them navigate that sense, the developing sense of self. I wonder where the onset of this is because they do think, we look as children externally to our parents. We look to eventually to our peers to tell us, am I doing this right? And I, I think we don’t stop looking to our peers to tell us if we’re doing it right. And because of that, we sort of abdicate that sense of self to other people or, and in your words, outsource it. Right. Same language.

BA:

Right. But I don’t think we need to fully outsource it. No, I think listen, so like part of it’s just being a human mammal, right? Right. We’re pack animals, we need to co-regulate and we do get a sense of belonging from the collective. That’s really important. Sure. Right. So this isn’t like a pro rugged individualism kind of framework at all. Exactly. Quite the opposite. And we can look to our peers and the people we love to see, like, are we doing it right? But against an internal rubric of knowing our own values, knowing what matters to us, having our own inner compass mm-hmm <affirmative>. And in emotional outsourcing, we meld with people instead of seeing them as them and me as me, and then getting curious.

CS:

Okay. Say more.

BA:

And so that’s

CS:

What does it look like to get curious,

BA:

To get curious to say, well, like I’m just thinking about teenagers. Like all the cool kids are smoking cigarettes. Okay. Am I way out of, do kids even smoke anymore? Am I really showing my age? They

CS:

Vape

BA:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Popcorn, lung kids.

CS:

I know you

BA:

Camel wide. It’s like normal, normal people get with it. Do those people that exist smoke

CS:

Don’t. Nineties

BA:

<laugh> miss smoking. I, well, I,

CS:

Yeah. Don’t we miss all the things that we did in the nineties?

BA:

Yeah, I know. Listen. Right. A glass of wine and then being able to sleep.

CS:

Exactly. Good,

BA:

Good times. Exactly.

CS:

You can have it, you just can’t have it and end sleep. It’s, you

BA:

Choose. No, that’s right. That’s not allowed anymore.

CS:

Exactly.

BA:

Yeah. So, right. All my friends are, all

CS:

My friends are doing it,

BA:

Are vaping or doing whatever the hell they’re doing. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And then you have that internal rubric that says, this is aligned with who I am and what I wanna do or it’s not.

CS:

Yes. And so this is so critical because where does that knowing this come from is the question. Right? If we don’t know where my values and beliefs sourced, if not from other people, I think this is the path to adulthood. And I think we get stunted somewhere along the way. Yeah. This is fascinating.

BA:

Yeah. Yeah. This is, that’s the process of emotional maturation is to know who you are and what matters to you. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right. And what’s true to who you most authentically are in any given moment of development because it’s, it’s perennially shifting, right? Yeah. You can’t kiss the same girl twice. Right?

CS:

Right.

BA:

But knowing who you are along the way allows you to make decisions that align with what you actually want. Right. I I was talking with a patient or a client the other day, um, who’s an md, jd PhD,

CS:

Never enough education.

BA:

What the f And she’s always just wanted to make jewelry.

CS:

Oh gosh. <laugh>. That’s a lot of, but yes, I know md,

BA:

Jd,

CS:

PhD, I get it. I it, and

BA:

She’s board certified. She did a full residency.

CS:

I get it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

BA:

Right. And so here she is at the other end of that, because that internal rubric wasn’t there.

CS:

Right. All that time, all that I’m, this is what mom and dad wanted. This is what society wants. Yes. Yeah. So we, I, it’s so interesting how our work overlaps. It’s very distinct. You’re in a distinct space. But the overlap is, I talk a lot about expectations and where do these expectations come from? And where I’m seeing the intersection is if, if we’ve absorbed the expectations of our family, of origin, society, our educators along the way, right. And that becomes our rubric for how we’re gonna live our life, then what we have never added into the equation is what do we actually want? Right? So what are our own expectations of ourselves? Are they fair? How do they map against these other ones? And when we continuously outsource that, those expectations to other people, we land in these scenarios you’re describing about the PhD, JED, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, and, and I, I see it every day, right? I see women who’ve spent decades in a career path that they have no business being in and don’t want to be in, but don’t know how to get out of, or a relationship or a geographic location or something that’s like, I’m here not because of me. I’m here because I don’t know what would happen to my relationship with this other person or entity, you know, or my, ’cause I think relationships with society at large is just reputation. It’s, that’s like, that’s the same thing. And I think we worry a lot about reputation as well. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the intersection that I’m seeing is, okay, we’re growing up in a sort of soup, or the expectations are set by other people. We’re adopting those as our own. We’re saying I’m only okay if I’m meeting all, if everyone else is okay with me.

And then we’re ending up in a situation where we’re getting to these, this kind of chronic functional freeze in which we have lost touch with what we actually want. That is a really fascinating progression. Did you know that beyond hosting this podcast, I also directly support women leaders at the intersection of work and life as a member of Bold. You get direct access to me, the women on my team, and a peer group of exceptional women who are rewriting the rules and redefining what it means to have it all together. Go to brilliant balance.com/bold to learn more and apply for your spot today. So what does one do about it if we find ourselves in that situation?

BA:

Yeah. Well, I do highly recommend finding a grownup to help you, right. <laugh>. Because realizing these are very young parts of us that are like stuck, completely freaking out and stuck. Because again, all of a sudden you wake up and you’re like, what? This is not my beautiful life. Right? Right. And, we are co-regulating humans. Right. We are co-regulating by design, and it’s really vital to have people by our side who can be that ground for us. Yes. While we’re finding our own internal ground. Right? Every village had a midwife and a healer and a bunch of witches and Right. Like, yes. Every village had elders. Yes. Had Crohn’s that could support us, and we’ve lost connection with lost them. Yes. So find a grownup. Find a grownup, hold a grownup’s hands. Look for the helpers, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So then on a practical level, well, yeah, what do we do <laugh>, right?

Like what, what do we start to do step by step? We need to come back into our bodies. Yes. We need to come back into connection in our bodies. So breaking the cycle of emotional outsourcing isn’t about mindset shifts alone. It has to be about rewiring the nervous system and body patterns. Right. So that you can feel safe existing as your own whole person. ’cause you, you brought in expectations. You’re not the central character in your own life. Right. And when we’ve spent our entire lives orienting towards others, right. Hyper attuned to their emotions, walking on eggshells, anticipating needs, then the nervous system is wired to prioritize external safety over internal stability. And so that’s why I bring somatic practice, body-based practice into my work. Because emotional outsourcing melds us with others. And we have a lot of role confusion. Who’s the grownup here?

Who’s, you know, I’m the eldest daughter, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Who’s the grownup in the room? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I’m always the grownup in the room. <laugh>, I used to always spoiler alert, I always the spoiler alert. Right. It’s me. But now I can not choose that because I have somatic practice to help me come back into my body. Right? So before we can shift outward behavior, we have to feel ourselves as a separate person. And that’s, that’s something so many of us don’t feel. Right. I am me, I am this embodied animal. So one of my favorite practices is ridiculously simple. And it’s so wild to have studied all this stuff for like over 20 years and yes. Be giving these super simple practices, but it’s what we need. Right? Us SmartyAnts tend to like the simpler the better. Yes. I agree. Yeah. But we wanna make it a 473 step process.

I know, right? It creates skin. We skin smart here in our brains, but our bodies need very simple things. Yeah. They need kindergarten and level. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. This one might be pre-K actually. Okay. So set an alarm on your phone three times a day and you’re gonna ask yourself the question, what am I feeling right now? No. The point of asking this question in the subsequent questions is not to get an answer. The answer’s irrelevant. It frankly doesn’t matter. The goal of this work is to have your body, your nervous system, all of the bits of you here, are you caring about your opinion? Mm. Hear you being the one, the arbiter of what’s true for you. Mm. Right. Because when you’re in that functional freeze, there, there is no there, there. Yeah. So how does everyone else feel about you? Outward, outward, outward. So we turn inward in this most simple way, check in, what am I feeling? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? It’s a pattern interrupter. Right?

CS:

And so what I am feeling is not the emotional feelings per se, it is the physical sense. Like when you’re, when I’m thinking about embodiment, I’m thinking physically, what am I feeling? Not like how am I feeling right now?

BA:

Yeah. So that’s the second part. Okay. So I leave the first part pretty open because so many of my clients, especially when you’re in functional freeze, and most folks in emotional outsourcing are also in functional freeze. It tends to overlap. And in my experience, they don’t know what emotion they’re feeling. Right. Like, at all. And so starting to build your own internal map, your own repertoire of like, what is, this is actually really tough

CS:

Or they don’t have a vocabulary for it. Like you kinda get the big three and then it’s like, I can’t get beyond the big three. Yeah.

BA:

Yeah. Mad, sad, glad. Right? So we start with that vague, what am I feeling right now? And then go into scanning the body if it’s safe to go inside the body, where is there tension? Where is there ease? What sensations are present? What can I notice? And then adding a small act of self-honoring. So something as simple as stretching or putting your hand on your chest or adjusting your posture. Yes. Because so many of us will sit really weird to keep other people comfortable. Yes. Right. Like, oh, I’m, I’m doing the thing again. Yes. Okay. So fascinating. And again, it’s really just about you saying like, knock, knock self, you matter to me. Yes. Yeah. This

CS:

It is amazing. You, the, some people will have heard me tell this story before that I worked for 15 years at Procter and Gamble before I started this company. And I had kinda like one of those big corporate jobs where you ran around a lot and we’re very busy all the time. And I vividly remember, I would get to the end of the day and realize I had to go to the bathroom so badly. And it’s only because I had not checked in with myself at all from the time I arrived at that building until, so I clearly had to go much sooner. Right, right. But completely disconnected and tuned out. Yeah. From that physical, I didn’t know I was hungry. I didn’t know I needed, like, I didn’t know it was hot or cold or, and that is to me as I share that with the listener, like that is, that is what we are talking about here. Yeah. When we say like, long-term disconnection, not having an awareness that you are chronically contracting your abs. Why are you doing that? Right. That a hundred percent of every day your stomach is like clenched, you don’t even know you’re doing it. Right. Yeah. I bet that is an epidemic within this listenership.

BA:

Oh yeah. I mean, I know it is in mine, in yours and in anchored my program. I think pretty much everyone, when we talk about biological impulses Yeah. What you were just sharing has to pee, needs to eat, rest,

CS:

All that interception. Don’t

BA:

Even get me started about rest. Of

CS:

Course. Right. You don’t know you’re tired, you’re just in complete denial of being tired. I’ll sleep when I’m dead. You know, that was my favorite phrase. There’s plenty of time that goes through all the, oh, I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Uhhuh, <affirmative>. And, now, I am very, very mindful about sleep and quite addicted to it. So I think, I think this territory of saying, look, there’s again, when we started at the beginning with the micro and the macro, you have these micro moments in which you kind of sizzle because there’s a disconnect between what you’re like body knows is true and what maybe the externals are telling you to do. That conflict is what’s driving that acute functional phrase. This more chronic functional freeze is more about I’ve habitualized over time a disconnection. I’m disembodied. Right. And I’m actually, I am making this body do what everyone else needs it to do, but I’m not actually asking it what it needs or wants. Yes. That decent paraphrase.

BA:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got it. There’s no internal reference point. Yes. Right. And so that’s what these really simple practices are to help you reclaim that internal reference point, because we’re not the center of our own universe at any point. So

CS:

What am I feeling is the first question,

BA:

What am I feeling?

CS:

And then this could be physical sensations or emotions. Second one is

BA:

Scanning the body,

CS:

Scanning the body.

BA:

Where is there tension? Where is there ease? What sensations are present? And then give the body what it wants.

CS:

Yes. I eat a glass of water. I’m sitting here right now thinking, oh, you know what my body’s telling me. You’re really thirsty <laugh>. Like, so thank goodness I have this right here. But that’s just wild from Yeah. In prompting you to ask that question. I bet everybody listening had something come up. Yeah. You know, my shoes hurt, my whatever. Yes. Yeah.

BA:

Yeah. I was,

CS:

I was reading a book that was recently, I don’t remember, it was a novel I think, but it was talking about this idea of how much stimulus we get every day that we have to tune out and ignore. And I was sitting on an airplane while I was reading it thinking about, okay, just stop for a second and tune in. And like the auditory stimulus was overwhelming. Yes. But my brain had tuned it out. I wasn’t aware of it at all. Because as a survival instinct, we’re tuning out a lot. I think that is, there’s a protective mechanism, right? It’s not really a flaw. It’s like a survival strategy to have some of this stimulus reduced. Can you talk a little bit about why that’s important? And then maybe like, what happens if we really open the aperture? Does it ’cause that’s what you’re encouraging people to do

BA:

Well, but in a controlled way. Right? So it’s the hypothalamus that decides what information, what sensory information makes it past its circuit board and goes into conscious thought and triggers reactivity. So that’s why it decides things like, is this smell of smoke enough to wake her up? Right. Or is this bladder full enough to, to wake her up? Like your blood is still sending, I’m full, I’m full signals to your brain. And the hypothalamus is modulating, we’re

CS:

Gonna saying

BA:

Let’s let her get 20. My girl’s in rem I’d love to keep my girl in rem give a 20 there bladder. I love this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We have to modulate. Mm-hmm. Or we won’t survive. But the thing to remember is that in the Savannah of evolution, there was so much less to modulate, like you said mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right. And I think any of us who’ve spent time, like back country time or out in nature. Right. Your sense is really attuned to the smallest things like a chipmunk walking in the woods so quickly. You know, I’ve taken to wearing those little loops. Earplugs not sponsored. Yes. Like on the subway. ’cause when the doors open and it goes ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It’s not that it’s too much for me. And it’s not that I can’t tolerate it, but

CS:

It’s

BA:

A lot. It’s that I don’t want to

CS:

Right.

BA:

And I think that, but like speaking to what we’re speaking of like in emotional outsourcing that I can tolerate it becomes the end of the story.

CS:

Yes.

BA:

Because who’s rewarded? The easygoing girl. Right. I got this Good girl. I’m fine, I’m

CS:

Fine. It’s that I’m fine. There’s, I think it was, oh, I’m gonna misattribute this and I hate it when I do that. I won’t attribute it right now, but there’s somebody who, I think it’s Janine Roth that she did an mm-hmm <affirmative>. She does like a big audience full of people and says to them like, would you like to be more comfortable, do you need to adjust your position or something? She’s gonna lead a meditation. And they’re like, no, no, no, I’m fine. Yeah. And no, you can, you can be anywhere. You can sit anywhere. You can do anything. Do you wanna adjust your position? No, we’re fine. Like no one will move. They just continue to say, I’m fine. They’re sitting in these, you know, terrible conference chairs and she runs into this experiment of, if you literally could sit anywhere in any position or you telling me this is actually how you would be sitting.

And of course the answer for nobody is Yes. Right. Right. But we’re conditioned to say, no, I’m fine. Do you want a blank? I mean, I was at the doctor, would you like a blanket? And we’re No, no, no. I’m fine. Why? Why am I fine <laugh>? It would be so much better to have a blanket. Right. So I think that the conditioning of just dishonoring or not even looking for the easy places to take the easy wins is I love this path of like, let’s just give ourselves the chance to give our bodies what they want and see what the reconnection enables.

BA:

Yeah. And it is it, I find it really helpful to both encourage myself and my clients to do these things and to let ourselves off the hook a little bit. Because I think when we hear like, ugh, you’re right. What is wrong with me? That I don’t just get, say yes to the blanket or the cup sea. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Or whatever. Right. Like why not? Ugh. They’re really powerful forces that really benefit from us completely ignoring our bodies. It’s true. Right. There’s powerful forces. Patriarchy, white settler colonialism, late stage capitalism. They all thrive when we write large, but particularly human socialize as women. When our intuition’s turned off, our discernment’s turned off when we’re not in our bodies, but we’re just playing somebody else’s script. I’m fine, don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

CS:

Over and over again,

BA:

My feet are in an Epsom salt bath right now. Oh,

CS:

<laugh>. I love this. Aren’t they really?

BA:

They really are. I walked like 30,000 steps today. My feet hurt. That

CS:

It is amazing. I

BA:

I love it. I’m taking care of myself. ’cause then I get, if I was sitting here with Feas, that hurt. Yeah.

CS:

You’re not doing a great interview. It

BA:

Would be disrespectful to you, to me, to both of our audience, to the good humans who are here. And so I bring that up to say, when we take care of ourselves, we actually do take care of the collective.

CS:

It’s so true. You brought something up for me. My family’s been teasing me that I said, I just don’t wear shoes that hurt anymore.

BA:

Amen.

CS:

You know, I just don’t, and I don’t, I have been asking myself, did I not have an awareness of how my feet felt for decades? Or did something change? Because it is a radical. I’m telling you I cannot wear certain shoes like that. I wore all I was telling my son. I used to walk through, I traveled all the time. I walked through airports in high heels all the time. Oh yeah. There’s, you could not get me to walk through an airport in a pair of heels today.

BA:

No. Period. Absolutely. No ma’am.

CS:

Like, no way. Mm-hmm. No way. And so I really would love to know, like, did I tune in? Not that you can answer this. I suspect it’s that I tuned in that I was completely just disregarding that sensation. Yeah. And that once I noticed it, I was like, oh yeah, no, I’m not doing that anymore.

BA:

<laugh>. Yeah. I mean there’s also the vampiric nature of youth. Yeah. Right. But like stuff just, I don’t know, it would, doesn’t, I played rugby in college. Oh

CS:

My gosh.

BA:

What? Yeah. And it would just like, I’d be all bruised up and in pain and bleeding in like a hot mess. I was like, whatever, I’ll be fine by Monday. And I was

CS:

Yes. Youth. I miss it. Yeah.

BA:

I miss it

CS:

Too. Yeah. Well this is, I wanna kind of bring this home. I think I could talk to you all day. I mean this is insane.

BA:

It’s so fun. I’ll come back. What am I doing?

CS:

Fascinating. Subject matter. So I think that I wanna leave people, we left them with a simple practice that they can do to start just reconnecting to self if this is a pattern that they recognize in themselves that I am pretty disconnected from what I need from what my body needs from what my human animal needs. Right. I’m disconnected from that and I wanna get reconnected. We gave them practice. That’s a starting point. Yes. If they want to go further, I know that you have a meditation that you’ve generously offered. Yeah. I want them to be able to find your work. Like can you share some of those things with us?

BA:

Absolutely. So on my website, which is riz, B-E-A-T-R-I-Z albina.com/free meditations, if you go there, you can download this whole suite of, there’s a boundaries exercise, an inner child meditation, a nervous system orienting exercise. And um, it’s FREE. There’s no reason not to go get it.

CS:

Perfect.

BA:

Yeah. Uh, it’s, it’s a really nice set of guides. You just download them to your phone and they’re yours forever.

CS:

Fantastic. Yeah. And then that’s also the website, kind of the jumping off point to any of the rest of your work, including your book.

BA:

Yes, exactly. There’s details about the book. There’s, um, still free gifts for folks ’cause it’s only been a couple months since the book came out. You can learn more about working with me in anchored or my other courses and you can get links to feminist wellness right there.

CS:

That’s awesome. And where are you located in the world?

BA:

I am officially in New York City,

CS:

Brooklyn. As soon as you said Subway, I was like, this is gonna be New York and 30,000 Steps <laugh>. I was like, those are my two clues. <laugh>. That’s so great. Well, fantastic. I hope the next time I get there I can find my way to you. ’cause it’s, I would love to spend more time in your presence. That’s for sure. That’d

BA:

Be a blast.

CS:

Bea. This has been such an insightful conversation. I mean, I just, I know I learned a lot, I connected a lot of dots. I know so many women listening are gonna feel really deeply seen by the ideas that you’ve shared. You know, that what looks like going along to get along right is actually maybe not so helpful over the long term. And that there is in fact another way, right? Yeah. Some practices that we can explore. And for those of you listening, if you would like to go deeper into this work, if this is resonating with you, I hope that you’ll find Bea’s work online. We’ll link to it in the show notes and start exploring some of these approaches for yourself. It really, I think, can change a lot when we’re in tune with who we are as a human and we honor our humanness and don’t try to override it in the name of being good to everyone around us. Awesome. So, Bea, thanks so much for being here again. Have a great day everyone. Thanks for listening. Till next time, let’s be brilliant.