The Power of Connection: A Mother's Path to Healing with Kayla | 008
Motherhood rarely unfolds the way we imagine it will. I sit down with Kayla to talk about the unexpected turns her journey has taken — from two very different postpartum experiences to navigating her daughter’s rare genetic condition and a challenging NICU stay. She shares how quickly life shifted and how those seasons reshaped her understanding of strength, identity, and resilience.
When her own health began to decline and she was later diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, Kayla was forced to look deeper. Discovering the mind-body connection and somatic therapy changed everything. What once felt like her body failing her became an invitation to understand her nervous system and begin healing. This conversation explores trauma, resilience, and how our hardest chapters can sometimes guide us back to ourselves in a completely new way.
Key Takeaways
- The nervous system plays a foundational role in both physical health and emotional resilience
- Trauma and chronic stress can manifest physically when left unprocessed
- Healing often begins with curiosity toward your symptoms instead of fear
- Learning simple somatic tools can create a sense of safety in the body during overwhelming seasons
About the Guest:
Kayla Brazier is a community builder, event curator, and Somatic Practitioner based in Kamloops, BC. She is the founder of Fullest Table, where she designs elevated dinner experiences that bring women together around beauty, conversation, and nervous-system-centered connection.
https://www.fullesttable.com/
About The Host:
Dr. Christelle Oliver-Dussault is a family physician with a clinical focus on aesthetic medicine, women’s health, and psycho-education. Her work is grounded in a holistic, whole-person approach that integrates medical science with a deep appreciation of the mind–body connection. Alongside her clinical practice, she is deeply committed to medical education and mentors the next generation of family physicians through her work with the Department of Family Medicine at the University of British Columbia.
She is the founder of Reclaim The Pink Within, a community created to support women through life’s most profound transitions. This project was born from personal experience. After becoming a mother, Dr. Oliver-Dussault became aware of a quiet but profound shift in her sense of self, one she had long observed in her patients, yet only fully understood once she lived it herself. What had once been a clinical observation became a deeply personal insight, shaping the lens through which she now supports and guides other women.
You can connect with her on Instagram at @drchristellemd and @reclaimthepinkwithin
Website: www.getyourpinkbackproject.com
Email: info@reclaimthepinkwithin.com
Medical Disclaimer
The Reclaim The Pink Within podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only. The content shared in this podcast reflects the personal views and professional experiences of the host and guests and is not intended to replace medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
While Dr. Christelle Oliver-Dussault is a licensed physician, this podcast does not constitute a doctor–patient relationship. Always seek the advice of your own qualified healthcare provider regarding any medical or mental health concerns, diagnoses, or treatment decisions. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical advice because of something you have heard on this podcast.
Thank You for Listening
Thank you for spending your time with us and for being part of the Reclaim The Pink Within community. This space exists because of women who are willing to listen, reflect, and engage in conversations that are often kept private. Whether you are in the midst of transition, questioning who you are becoming, or simply seeking connection, your presence here matters.
Your willingness to show up—for yourself and for others—is what makes this project possible.
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New episodes are released regularly, each offering insight, reflection, and shared experience.
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Transcript
I think probably the number one tool that I use is called somatic
Speaker:tracking. I was first exposed to that through that Tell Me About Your Pain
Speaker:podcast. And it is so relevant for
Speaker:everything in life, not necessarily just pain, but for sensations
Speaker:and uncomfortable sensations and emotions in general. Yeah, really cool.
Speaker:But there are so many things that I learned along the way that I've taken
Speaker:with me and that are part of my toolkit now. Super. Tell me a little
Speaker:bit more about somatic tracking for those listeners who haven't heard of that concept
Speaker:before. Okay. How do I start? I just, when I get into somatics, I just
Speaker:wanna like explain the whole nervous system. I get really carried away.
Speaker:I'm so passionate about it. But essentially the idea of somatic
Speaker:tracking is locating an uncomfortable
Speaker:sensation. Actually, it doesn't even have to be uncomfortable, but for the purposes of what
Speaker:we're talking about now, locating an uncomfortable sensation in your body
Speaker:and following it, getting to know it, understanding it, and
Speaker:just watching it from a place of kind of curiosity rather than
Speaker:fear. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode.
Speaker:Today I have with me quite a special woman. Kayla is her name,
Speaker:and we met a few months ago thanks to social
Speaker:media. I was new enough to the community of Kamloops where I
Speaker:live now, and I was feeling isolated and
Speaker:in the need to connect with other like-minded women.
Speaker:And through Instagram, I saw her company called Phyllis
Speaker:Table, who curates events, uh, to
Speaker:connect women. Different theme: supper club,
Speaker:conversation, connection. And I went to one of
Speaker:her events and absolutely loved it, made some wonderful
Speaker:connections. We have stayed in touch since, and she
Speaker:gave me a lovely opportunity to speak at one of her events on motherhood and
Speaker:ambition a few months ago. And over our multiple coffee dates,
Speaker:she just seemed like the perfect person to bring onto the podcast to talk
Speaker:about her own experience of motherhood, the struggles that she
Speaker:has faced, and how that's impacted her and how she has navigated that.
Speaker:So Welcome. Thank you for making time
Speaker:to chat to me today. Before we dive into
Speaker:your journey to motherhood, would you mind sharing with our audience a little bit
Speaker:of who you were before you became a mom? That's an
Speaker:excellent question. I have always been
Speaker:a creative, I think, first and foremost.
Speaker:I have bounced around from thing to thing, a lot
Speaker:of different kind of career ideas, ambitions.
Speaker:Enthusiasms. And, um, right before I
Speaker:became a mom, I was running my own clothing line. I had
Speaker:a natural fiber loungewear line,
Speaker:um, and this was before COVID hit, before loungewear was cool, so I feel like
Speaker:it was at the right time. But,
Speaker:um, but, uh, yeah, and I, I absolutely loved it. I loved making
Speaker:clothing, um, it was such a fun creative outlet. I got to work in a
Speaker:studio alongside one of my best friends who has a clothing line as well,
Speaker:still does, and she kind of taught me all of her knowledge, which was
Speaker:beautiful. Before I was a mother, I was a
Speaker:wife. I honestly got married pretty young.
Speaker:Um, and so I have been married to my husband now for 8 and a
Speaker:half years. And I've always been an
Speaker:extrovert. Um, I think, I think I denied that for a
Speaker:really long time. Um, but I'm a people person through and
Speaker:through. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that really shines through, through all the work that you
Speaker:do. Um, so tell me a little bit about
Speaker:your your first pregnancy and how things shifted for
Speaker:you, uh, with your firstborn? Yeah, good question.
Speaker:Pregnancy is not a beautiful state for
Speaker:me,
Speaker:to be honest. I've dreamed of being a mother my whole life. I've always wanted—
Speaker:I always wanted to like have that beautiful pregnancy experience that was
Speaker:like this beautiful, gorgeous goddess earth angel just
Speaker:carrying life and blossoming. Um, not that.
Speaker:Not that for me at all. I have
Speaker:a really hard time. Yeah, I have a really hard time being pregnant.
Speaker:Yeah. And, um, yeah, during that first pregnancy, my business
Speaker:definitely struggled. My ambitions tanked.
Speaker:Uh, I really tried hard to keep things going and
Speaker:with my clothing line and, um, kind of just like
Speaker:maintained for a little while. And then I got, I got pregnant again really, really
Speaker:quickly after my first. I had the most glorious,
Speaker:gorgeous postpartum experience. With my first, which I don't
Speaker:think a lot of people get to experience. So I feel super blessed for that.
Speaker:It was the best year of my life. Absolutely.
Speaker:Um, and it was so good that I just couldn't wait to do it again.
Speaker:And I ruined it by getting pregnant again,
Speaker:thinking, oh, it might be different this time. Um, and it was much
Speaker:worse. It was much worse the second time. Yeah.
Speaker:So halfway through, actually not even halfway through my pregnancy, I was probably
Speaker:still first trimester. Um, we were living in Victoria at at the time,
Speaker:and I said, you know what, I need my mom.
Speaker:I can't do this. Uh, so we packed up our whole life and we moved
Speaker:back to Kamloops, which is my hometown. Yeah. Tell
Speaker:me a little bit about that wonderful first year, because I think it'll be nice
Speaker:for women to hear, because a lot of the times on these calls we've talked
Speaker:about the struggles, but I think it's important to hear about positive
Speaker:experiences as well. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker:Um, I was young I was 25,
Speaker:just turned 25 when I had my first. It was so novel,
Speaker:I think, was the main part of it. Like, I had been dreaming of this
Speaker:having a baby thing my entire life, and I was one of the first in
Speaker:my friend group to have a baby, actually probably the first.
Speaker:So it made me feel special. And I
Speaker:was so deeply, deeply in love with my baby, just like
Speaker:madly deeply. He was a great baby. He
Speaker:was super, super easy. Since then, that has
Speaker:changed. He has become a far more challenging child.
Speaker:But that, that first year was, I don't know, it was magical. It was blissful.
Speaker:My husband and I's relationship actually was still pretty new.
Speaker:Um, we had a bit of a shotgun, uh, immigration marriage. So
Speaker:we had known each other for 6 months before we got married. And,
Speaker:um, so about a year and a half before we got pregnant, we'd only been
Speaker:together. So there was still, you know, a little bit of that kind of honeymoon
Speaker:phase that we were working through. Living through. And,
Speaker:um, Victoria is a gorgeous place, beautiful city,
Speaker:very walkable. And our neighborhood was lovely. We loved the place we were living,
Speaker:and it was such a lovely time of year. It was just coming into fall,
Speaker:so we would just walk around the city together every single day with the
Speaker:baby and watch the leaves change. And yeah, I don't know,
Speaker:it was special despite like a pretty traumatic birth and delivery. It
Speaker:was a really special time. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It sounds like you had some
Speaker:lovely moments of bonding with your husband as well too. Oh, did you notice a
Speaker:shift in your relationship, uh, once, uh, your
Speaker:baby came along? For the better at first.
Speaker:Yeah. Mm-hmm. Just kind of, we were moony over each other. Like, look at what
Speaker:we made. Yeah. Look at this beautiful thing that we made. Um,
Speaker:when the second pregnancy hit, that's when things started to get
Speaker:tough for us. Mm-hmm. Understandably.
Speaker:Um, second pregnancy, I was like basically out for 9 months. Okay. And
Speaker:my husband was taking point on parenting with
Speaker:our 1-year-old. Mm-hmm. Um, and it was, yeah, it was
Speaker:really hard. I had to stop working. Um, I was like on the couch. I
Speaker:mean, I probably don't give myself enough credit. I, you know, I survived, but
Speaker:it was really hard for all of us. Mm-hmm. For sure. And probably not what
Speaker:you all expected either. Not at all. No.
Speaker:A lot of unexpecteds through the journey. I'll say that.
Speaker:Yeah. Tell me a little bit more when baby number 2 came along.
Speaker:How did that transition from 1 to 2 go? So my
Speaker:second child was born with a rare genetic condition.
Speaker:So it was really awful. It was
Speaker:really, really horrible. Towards the end of my pregnancy,
Speaker:I could barely stand up. I was in
Speaker:so much pain. I knew early on, I had an intuition
Speaker:that the baby was gonna come early. I knew he was coming before
Speaker:my due date. And he did. I went into labor
Speaker:at 37 weeks and I was
Speaker:bursting at the seams. He ended up, despite
Speaker:being 3 weeks early, he was 10 and a half pounds and he was
Speaker:posterior. Yeah, he was upside down. So
Speaker:he actually, he came out flat. He wasn't breathing
Speaker:and had to be resuscitated. I gave birth to him at home.
Speaker:So he was taken immediately to the hospital And when he
Speaker:got there, he, they checked his blood sugar levels, which is actually a
Speaker:miracle. Like if he hadn't come out flat, that, that his blood sugar probably wouldn't
Speaker:be checked. Cause that's not protocol at birth. Yeah. It is protocol in the
Speaker:trauma bay at the hospital. So they checked his blood sugar and it was at
Speaker:1.2, which is like nearly dead. So they were
Speaker:able to get him stable, his blood sugar stabilized. And
Speaker:we spent the first month of his life in the NICU. So that
Speaker:was just really tough. Like I had a 2-year-old at home. He actually, he
Speaker:wasn't even 2 yet. He was 1 and a bit.
Speaker:Yeah. Who again, I felt I had to abandon basically to be there for the
Speaker:baby. Yeah. At our NICU, in our NICU at the time,
Speaker:we didn't have like separate rooms, so I wasn't allowed to stay the night there.
Speaker:And we were kicked, like NICU parents were kicked out of the space a lot
Speaker:and we just kind of had to stand outside while they were talk, the doctors
Speaker:and nurses were talking 'cause of confidentiality reasons. So it was
Speaker:really tough. It was really tough. And at the same time we were like peak
Speaker:pandemic, peak COVID times. Yeah. And it
Speaker:was, uh, like the worst fire
Speaker:season our city's ever seen. So it was 40, 49 degrees on the day,
Speaker:49 degrees Celsius on the day he was born. Started raining.
Speaker:And you pushed. I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the
Speaker:postpartum period was just like a disaster, to be honest. My
Speaker:granny also died while My baby was in
Speaker:hospital, so I didn't get to go say goodbye to her. And she was— her
Speaker:and I were very close. And we were just
Speaker:navigating this new thing. He got
Speaker:diagnosed about 3 days after he was born with a condition called Beckwith-Wiedemann
Speaker:syndrome. Okay. So there was just so much up in the air, so
Speaker:uncertain. It's a spectrum disorder, so we didn't know what we were really dealing
Speaker:with. So it added— there was just so many extra levels to the
Speaker:postpartum period that I
Speaker:wasn't expecting, and that added a lot of strain
Speaker:and challenge for sure. How did it affect you?
Speaker:Um, I got really sick actually. I, uh, my body
Speaker:shut down when Wyatt, our second born, was about
Speaker:18 months. And actually I should go ahead and say too that
Speaker:during this period of time, we actually attempted to move to England
Speaker:as well, which is where my husband is from. So We, at one point
Speaker:during this whole thing, I think Wyatt, I think Wyatt was 4 months old.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. I think when Wyatt was 4 months old, we put our
Speaker:whole house into a shipping container and got on a plane and moved to
Speaker:England. Well, attempted. We lasted 7 months before we were back again. But,
Speaker:um, yeah. So, uh, just to add
Speaker:some more to the perfect storm. Um, so
Speaker:isolated and sick. In a country I didn't know
Speaker:very well. I mean, I had my, my in-laws and stuff there, but it's still
Speaker:a whole other world. And despite English culture being pretty close to
Speaker:Canadian culture, it was still a culture shock for me.
Speaker:Didn't have my people, was postpartum, nursing, so many
Speaker:emotions, trying to navigate the medical system anew
Speaker:in England. I was like on the phone crying every day
Speaker:to try to get some help and to get some support with my
Speaker:baby. Um, so I started getting sick,
Speaker:like I started having a million different symptoms during the time that
Speaker:we were in England. The first one was chronic post-viral
Speaker:symptoms. Okay. So I had a sore throat
Speaker:constantly. Um, my sinuses were always infected and in
Speaker:pain. I had a sore ear
Speaker:all the time. Um, my chest was always sore.
Speaker:I started having like body aches and pains. I
Speaker:became chronically fatigued. Laundry list, like
Speaker:my TMJ, which I've had for a long time, but it flared up really, really
Speaker:badly. Okay. I, there's so many things
Speaker:I had at one time. I wrote them down and I think I had like
Speaker:21 different symptoms. Okay. So I just felt like my body was
Speaker:shutting down and, and, uh, I, I, I was like, I think I'm
Speaker:dying. Like I must have cancer. And we came back to Canada.
Speaker:I went and saw my doctor, had every test done in the book.
Speaker:He basically diagnosed me with chronic fatigue syndrome, ADHD,
Speaker:and depression, which all of those things were,
Speaker:you know, in my opinion, a lot of them were kind of like, it felt
Speaker:like they were like a catch-all for when,
Speaker:when we don't know what's wrong with you, we kind of put you into these,
Speaker:these buckets. He offered me antidepressants.
Speaker:I said, no, thank you. Cause that's just not really my thing. I've been on
Speaker:them before. I didn't want to do it again. Again. And
Speaker:it kind of, after that, yeah, it was really disheartening.
Speaker:I woke up on New Year's Day when Wyatt was about 18 months old and
Speaker:I was like, I can't live like this anymore. I couldn't get outta my bed
Speaker:for a while. And I decided, yeah, I decided
Speaker:I couldn't do it anymore. So I, you know, I went down a rabbit hole
Speaker:after that. And
Speaker:during that time of sort of spiraling body shutting
Speaker:down, was there a moment
Speaker:where a light bulb went off or
Speaker:you recognize, okay, this isn't— I need to do something
Speaker:different. Yeah. How did you know?
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I did what most people do when they're in health
Speaker:crisis is I, I went on all the diets and
Speaker:I saw all the specialists and to like rule out certain things.
Speaker:And I saw all the alternative practitioners and the
Speaker:naturopaths and the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I still felt
Speaker:terrible, honestly. Symptoms would go away for a little bit and then come
Speaker:back. And then my mom sent me a podcast and it was called The
Speaker:Cure for Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs.
Speaker:And I listened to one episode of this podcast and by the end of the
Speaker:podcast, I was symptom-free from listening to a podcast.
Speaker:And I know that sounds nuts and it felt nuts, but
Speaker:I was like, oh my goodness. Something's happening here.
Speaker:And that's when I recognized that I had a mind-body disorder and
Speaker:that there was nothing physically wrong with me. And just
Speaker:knowing that that was real and that was true and that was a possibility
Speaker:gave my nervous system enough safety for the first time in I don't even know
Speaker:how long to turn off all those alarm signals that have been causing my
Speaker:symptoms. Was there anything particular in her
Speaker:podcast that she said or that was covered
Speaker:that made you have that lightbulb moment? I don't know if there was like
Speaker:a specific phrase or anything, but it was, um,
Speaker:it was just like realizing there was nothing wrong with me, I think.
Speaker:And understanding that how the nervous system works
Speaker:and realizing that it was actually doing what it was supposed to be doing in
Speaker:order to keep me alive, basically.
Speaker:That was what really made me feel like a sense of
Speaker:safety in my body. Okay. And I settled.
Speaker:Yeah. And then the symptoms all came back. Yeah. How long did you
Speaker:say it came back? I would say it lasted a few days
Speaker:where I was just like free. Like I was like, I'm gonna go for a
Speaker:run. I'm gonna eat a piece of cake.
Speaker:I was so excited. But then yeah, as soon as life hit again
Speaker:and stressors started to come back, my nervous system kicked back into
Speaker:old familiar patterns. Yeah. But it was a, it was a starting
Speaker:point. Light for me, and it opened up like this Pandora's box of possibility. And
Speaker:I mean, understandably, I went down the rabbit hole
Speaker:and I started learning everything I could possibly learn about the nervous system.
Speaker:Um, I, I would say I was probably about 85%
Speaker:healed within 3 months. Wow. Give or
Speaker:take. Um, which was like a whole new lease on life.
Speaker:Did you do any courses or one-to-one therapy, or what did
Speaker:you find? Or is it just more listening or reading? What did you find helpful
Speaker:for you? So I started with just like absorbing as much information
Speaker:as I could on the subject. I listened to endless amounts of that
Speaker:podcast, The Cure for Chronic Pain. I found the work of
Speaker:Dr.— not doctor, he's not a doctor, he's a therapist— Alan Gordon
Speaker:and Ilan Ziv. They have a book called The Way Out and a
Speaker:podcast called Tell Me About Your Pain. And that was like massive
Speaker:for me, that podcast. And I found the work
Speaker:of Rebecca Tolin. I did a little bit of her course.
Speaker:At the time there was a business called Somia International. They've
Speaker:changed, or no, they were, they're Somia International at the time. They were CFS
Speaker:School, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome School, by Jen Mann and Cardin
Speaker:Rabin. So I did some of their course and then I got
Speaker:certified. I became a somatic practitioner and nervous system
Speaker:coach. So I did a whole bunch of learning and courses on
Speaker:that. And yeah, here I am.
Speaker:Turned your struggles and your pain into a career, really. I
Speaker:mean, it's not my main career, but it's certainly—
Speaker:yeah, but it's— yeah, I do see clients one-to-one, um,
Speaker:and I love that, and I, I probably always will because
Speaker:sharing what I learned feels so good. But actually,
Speaker:it's starting to beautifully translate into another world,
Speaker:into the world of, um, Phyllis Table. Which is fascinating
Speaker:to watch how the nervous system affects every part
Speaker:of life and how it factors so deeply
Speaker:into community building. Yeah. You
Speaker:mentioned that a lot of the podcasts and books that you read were related to
Speaker:chronic pain. Where did you feel pain when your nervous system
Speaker:was activated? Well, I've kind of everywhere,
Speaker:to be honest. The worst was like the— yeah, I mean,
Speaker:there was a lot of specific places I had like facial pain, I had
Speaker:ear pain, throat pain. I had neck pain at one point. I had back pain
Speaker:at one point, jaw pain. It was mostly focused
Speaker:up here. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker:And was there anything in particular along your
Speaker:journey of learning that you find you still use today that's very
Speaker:helpful to you? Oh yes, absolutely.
Speaker:I think probably the number one tool that I use is called somatic
Speaker:tracking. And I was first exposed to that through
Speaker:that Tell Me About Your Pain podcast. And it is so
Speaker:relevant for everything in life, not necessarily
Speaker:just pain, but for sensations and uncomfortable
Speaker:sensations and emotions in general. Yeah, really cool. But there are
Speaker:so many things that I learned along the way that I've taken with me and
Speaker:that are part of my toolkit now. Super. Tell me a little bit more
Speaker:about somatic tracking for those listeners who haven't heard of that concept
Speaker:before. Oh, okay. How do I start? I just, when I get
Speaker:into somatics, I just want to like explain the whole nervous system. I get
Speaker:really carried away. I'm so passionate about it,
Speaker:but essentially the idea of somatic tracking is
Speaker:locating an uncomfortable sensation. Does
Speaker:actually, it doesn't even have to be uncomfortable, but for the purposes of what we're
Speaker:talking about now, locating an uncomfortable sensation in your body
Speaker:and following it, getting to know it, understanding it,
Speaker:and just watching it from a place of kind of curiosity rather
Speaker:than fear. It's incredible to see what comes
Speaker:out of it. Like, it seems so simple, but it really— it
Speaker:makes a big difference. Yeah, it does. And it's quite a new
Speaker:feel in terms of mind-body connection and can be really helpful in trauma work as
Speaker:well too. Throughout this whole process,
Speaker:was there a moment where you felt like you didn't recognize yourself
Speaker:anymore, like you felt completely lost, like you had no direction?
Speaker:Oh, a long moment. Yes.
Speaker:A big, big giant moment.
Speaker:Um, I would say probably that, that 18-month period
Speaker:from when my second son was born on was probably,
Speaker:yeah, that it was an 18-month moment. Yeah.
Speaker:Plus some, probably some scattering. Very possible.
Speaker:Yeah. And there has been, I won't lie, like ups and downs and there have
Speaker:been big moments where I have felt that again since then. Like it's not a
Speaker:linear process at all. Yeah. Um, I have
Speaker:had a lot of setbacks, but I know now that I have the
Speaker:resources to come back again, so it's not nearly as
Speaker:devastating. Yeah. Do you have any specific red flags that
Speaker:you recognize in yourself that help you kind of take the foot off the pedal
Speaker:and be like, okay, I've got a little bit too much, or
Speaker:my jar is about to overflow? Yeah. For me,
Speaker:because the physical symptoms were so big, those are kind of my telltale
Speaker:signs. I always start to get ear pain. Ear pain is my first tell
Speaker:that, that I'm overly stressed, um, and
Speaker:insomnia, probably, like not being able to sleep because my brain's just like rolling
Speaker:like crazy. Yeah. And then what are the
Speaker:tools that you tend to connect to when you pick up on the ear pain
Speaker:or the mind wandering? Yeah, so somatic tracking
Speaker:is my go-to. Um, I love to use a technique called pendulation,
Speaker:which is essentially like focusing on— I mean, I'm sure
Speaker:you're familiar with these, but, um, it's focusing on the uncomfortable
Speaker:sensation and then resourcing a positive sensation in the body and kind of
Speaker:between the two. And then my other
Speaker:most used would probably be like intuitive
Speaker:movement or shaking. So I think that one of the most
Speaker:powerful tools in somatic work is movement,
Speaker:and it can feel really uncomfortable to allow your body
Speaker:to move in ways that don't feel familiar,
Speaker:but to allow energy to move through the body that way
Speaker:is like super, super powerful. So often when I'm having a
Speaker:time that feels challenging, I I will commit for like a
Speaker:single song. That's my container, one song at first, so it doesn't feel too
Speaker:overwhelming. I roll out a yoga mat, yoga mat, and I just let
Speaker:my body move in the way that it's telling me to. That's
Speaker:beautiful. Yeah, it can be— our bodies are often ahead of our minds.
Speaker:Um, and so we'll get signals from our bodies like you were saying, and
Speaker:then you can try to use, you know, accessing your thoughts and
Speaker:working on those, but oftentimes You'll need to work on the body,
Speaker:get outta your head and work on the body. Yeah. It's the foundation. Absolutely.
Speaker:Yep. And I do wanna name too that like there are a lot of seasons
Speaker:when I am having those kind of cues come
Speaker:up that something is wrong, that I'm feeling dysregulated for a long amount of time
Speaker:and I don't do the work, you know? Yeah. Like even as somebody who is
Speaker:a somatic practitioner and somebody who's been doing this for a long time now,
Speaker:right? Sometimes I ignore it. And I don't do the work and I lay in
Speaker:my bed instead and I watch Netflix and like, that's probably not
Speaker:always the right choice. Actually, it's definitely not always the right choice, but sometimes they
Speaker:just, that's the way it is. Cause that's life. And eventually I find my way
Speaker:back. And sometimes you do need to give yourself
Speaker:permission to pause like that and just lay in bed. And I
Speaker:think a lot of times in ambitious people like yourselves, these
Speaker:feelings of guilt will come up when you're trying to take your foot off the
Speaker:pedal and rest and It's okay to give
Speaker:yourself permission to not use the tool and just
Speaker:watch. As soon as it becomes a job, it's also just like
Speaker:no longer like effective. I always say that to my clients. I'm always like, if
Speaker:there's a should or a need attached to it, please don't do it.
Speaker:If you can't approach it with a sense of curiosity and maybe even playfulness,
Speaker:then don't do it. Or that's
Speaker:regulation. Yeah. Is there anything else you'd
Speaker:like to share for our listeners, for any maybe mom who's
Speaker:pregnant or someone who's got in the throes of it, who's
Speaker:struggling, that might give them a breath of fresh
Speaker:air or a bit of hope?
Speaker:Just because of my personal experience, I'd say like, look into the nervous system,
Speaker:start learning about your nervous system, however that might look, whether
Speaker:it's a book, and I have lots of resources that I can share,
Speaker:or a podcast, or if you want to talk to a
Speaker:somatic practitioner, even just like a discovery call.
Speaker:Um, yeah, just start educating yourself a little bit about how the nervous system works,
Speaker:because like I said, like even just having that information
Speaker:can create such a lovely felt sense of safety. That can be a great
Speaker:starting point. Thank you for that. I'm going to finish with the
Speaker:quote that you sent me, which I absolutely love,
Speaker:um, and I think speaks to to, you know, your ethos and how you
Speaker:run multiple aspects of your life. Enter through
Speaker:the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that
Speaker:leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But
Speaker:small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life,
Speaker:and only a few find it. So thank you for sharing that with
Speaker:us. Thank you. That's from the Book of Matthew in the Bible. It's
Speaker:such a cool— I probably couldn't think of that. But it is. It's
Speaker:beautiful, isn't it? Yeah. And something that everyone can
Speaker:take with them and interpret in their own light. So
Speaker:the good stuff is on the other side of challenge. All of it. It is.
Speaker:Yeah. And there's so much to be gained from the work. And
Speaker:I think you provide so much to our community in all the different facets
Speaker:of your work. And so if someone is listening and hasn't heard about
Speaker:somatic therapy, I invite you to explore it further. And
Speaker:I'll include some of the resources that Kayla mentioned so that
Speaker:you can explore them. Take care, everyone. Yeah, thank you.
