Ep #158: Stop Your Stress Cycle with Bryn Bamber

 

 

You are listening to episode 158 of the Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you stop letting the stress cycle shut your business down. Alright, let’s go.

Welcome to the Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m. Amy Latta, let’s dive in.

Well, hello there, my friends. Happy Tuesday. I have a super fun podcast for you today. I am interviewing Bryn Bamber. I bonded with Bryn by the pool during a mastermind event earlier this year, and we became fast internet friends, and we talked a lot on that day about, patriarchy, and stress cycles, and regulating your body’s nervous system.

And I knew this was a topic that was just perfect for those of us who let ourselves shut down, because we don’t know how to move past it. So, I wanted to interview Bryn about what it means to complete the stress cycle and why it is so needed. I mean, obviously it’s so needed. This is a great tool for you.

What we’re going to discuss in this podcast interview is a great tool for you when you shut down. You know, like when your prefrontal cortex, your Gigi brain, it’s like it goes offline. It shuts down because you’re simply experiencing too much stress in your business. You know, obviously that stress is so frequently self-imposed, but we make this person’s comment means something.

We are working and working and working and working and not getting anywhere. We know how that stress can come up from any number of sources. And she’s going to share her six-step process to getting your Gigi brain back online in this episode. Super, super good.

And I do want to include this programming note that this is a conversation between two white women was focused on completing the stress cycle, but we do veer into some epigenetics and intersectionality comes up and the effects of patriarchy and trauma, not just on white persons, but non-white persons as well.

Again, not the initial topic that we were talking about, but it does come up and I want to note that it does highlight the need for an intersectionality expert to join this conversation and to join me in a future episode, because I know that is a needed conversation.

So, with that, please enjoy this conversation on the power of completing your stress cycle when you’re a business owner.

Okay, friends, I’m so excited for this conversation we’re about to have right now with Miss Bryn Bamber. Bryn is a trauma-informed coach who’s got her eye on the patriarchy. She loves talking somatics, and she helps folks already tapped into their spirituality, complete the stress cycle so they can do what they want to do in this world.

Amy: Hi Miss Bryn, how are you?

Bryn: Hi. I am doing really well. I’m excited to chat with you today.

Amy: Me too. And I also want to share that Bryn is a great example. She and I just met back in April, right?

Bryn: Yeah, yeah.

Amy: We just met back in April. We met face to face, at The Life Coach School’s Mastermind, and she connected with me behind the scenes on Instagram, she stayed on my radar. We clearly bonded pretty quickly in person.

Bryn: Yeah!

Amy: I’m not sure if there might not be a picture of us with arms and legs a intertwined!

So, you know, yeah, maybe that might be a possibility. But then you also like professionally said, “Hey, let’s stay in contact.” So just dropping a little nugget out there for my people of like, when you make those connections with people, be willing to say, “Hey, I felt it. You felt it, and you want to stay in touch with one another?” because Bryn did and now she’s on the podcast with me. So, six months, six, seven months later, she’s on the podcast with me.

Alright, so, I love your work because anybody who listens to this show knows, you know, I have really come into my own in terms of, I’ve always talked about there are no rules and there is no judgment.

And it’s always been on a very thought level because that’s how I was trained as a coach. But I also have a really strong intuition and have ignored that in the past. And this past year, my listeners know that I’ve brought all that up. I’m now talking about, Oh, now where did the rules come from in the first place?

Oh crap, that was the patriarchy and here’s why we need to talk about that. And so not so much smash the patriarchy as much as being aware of it in your own brain.

Bryn: Totally.

Amy: And also, of course, when we go up against the patriarchy, our nervous systems freaks out.

Bryn: Totally … totally. I mean, yeah. I mean, just even from that, like, epigenetics, right? Trauma, there’s research now that trauma is passed down from generation to generation. So, there’s one study that, like a light flickered, and then the rats were shocked, and with the baby rats, even though they’d never experienced that, when the light flickered, their nervous systems tensed up.

Amy: This is so fascinating to me. So, I’ve heard the word epigenetics enough to know that this is a thing, and really what we’re talking about is trauma that our ancestors experienced, is in our DNA.

Bryn: Yeah. I’m not a scientist. I love science, but I’m not the one doing the experiments with the rats. So, I don’t know how it is, but I know that there is now evidence that it’s happening. I guess it must be in our DNA. I don’t know what else it would be.

Amy: Gotcha, Gotcha. So how is this showing up? Like, how do you when somebody comes to you, what are they usually experiencing? You know, trauma informed, which sounds very, very cool and exciting, but what does that mean?

Bryn: I think one example that folks listening to this podcast will relate to is like trying to show up authentically in your marketing.

Amy: Yeah.

Bryn: And being terrified and not showing up at all. Or doing that dance of putting yourself out there and then hiding and because, you know, for our women in the past, it wasn’t safe to take up a bunch of space and be opinionated and go against the status quo, which coaches are, Right?

Coaching is like relatively new, and it’s not mainstream yet. I mean, it’s getting more and more and more mainstream every day. But even a woman selling something is not celebrated very much in this culture. And you know, one example, and this is an epigenetic, this is within our lifetimes is, if you think about Disney movies and the Disney movies I watched, I know they’re getting better.

You know, like every year there’s like a new Pixar film that’s like starting to break this, but when you and I were growing up, it was like the Little Mermaid who gave up her voice to find man.

Amy: She literally gives up her voice to be with a man, doesn’t she?

Bryn: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy: And that demands very differently now than when I was a teenager. That movie came out as teenager.

Bryn: I love that movie. And, and they gaslight us so hard because the soundtrack is so amazing, right? They’re just like, “she’s pretty and she’s creative.” You know, there’s so many things that attract me to this character. And then she gives up her voice.

Amy: Oh my God. The patriarchy won, by putting it on a good soundtrack!

Bryn: Totally, totally, and your teenage brain was not developed. I guess I’m a couple years younger, you know, even younger brain was not developed, and this is the input that’s going in, you know? Snow White was unconscious, and she was kissed to wake up sleeping.

Amy: Sleeping Beauty was my absolute favorite. Wasn’t she unconscious?

Bryn: Oh yeah, yeah. Sleeping Beauty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there’s a non-consensual kiss, which is like, very much celebrated in the film.

Amy: So funny.

Bryn: And, and the only independent women, single women, women making money, is Cruella Deville.

Amy: Oh my gosh. She has to kill dogs. She’s evil. And so, if you just think about our brain, our brains are developing.

Amy: I’m just cracking up because I’ve never thought about that. The only representation that we have of entrepreneurship.

Bryn: Female entrepreneur.

Amy: She was an entrepreneur! She literally killed puppies.

Bryn: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy: All of a sudden, I’m looking back at my entire childhood, my sister’s entire childhood. I’m like, “No wonder we’re the way that we are!”
Bryn: Totally. So, you go out and you say, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to be a coach. I want to sell my stuff. Of course, your nervous system is going to freak out because it’s like, “Oh, that must mean I’m greedy. That must mean I’m like Cruella.

The only way for me to make money is to do something shady and unethical and it’s all in our unconscious. Right? It’s not like you’re literally like sitting on Instagram trying to write a post and you’re like, “I’m cruel.” But if you watch these films, and I just use Disney as an example because it’s so universal, but this is in every part of the culture.

Amy: This is just about the Rescuers. I don’t know if you remember because that’s a really old one. That Rescuers is where this woman who’s super greedy, kidnaps children in order to get money, and the Rescuers are these cute little mice, but she’s like this helpless little girl. So, I love the analogy of using Disney because it is so pervasive in our society.

We celebrate it. My, my goodness. We’ve got two giant theme parks just right here making millions of dollars every year.

Bryn: We’re just still celebrating these characters.

Amy: We’ve tried to modernize them a little bit and bring them into like the 21st century. But no wonder from like, even like 2, 3, 4 years old, we’re telling little girls.

Bryn: Yeah. And the movies are changing, and you know, I just watched Turning Red by Pixar, which is like the first picture Pixar movie that the director was female.

Amy: Yeah.

Bryn: The producer was female and it’s amazing. So, it’s changing. I’m so glad that it is, but for everyone listening to this call, I mean, unless you’re in 2050, maybe, right? But most people who are listening to this, we’re in 2022 or 2023, whenever you’re listening, like you probably saw these films. This is what created the wiring in your brain when our brains were developing, they’re the most malleable, they’re the most classic.

So yeah, when you think about, I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to make money, there’s going to be all these unconscious beliefs of, well you’re greedy, or you have to do something bad in order to do that. And the only way, in the Disney universe at that time, the only way to be taken care of financially was for a man to do it. And then you’d be attractive to the man however you can. And that’s how you “make money.”

Amy: Yeah. And it’s really interesting because I’m thinking about how some of my clients are no longer thinking “Oh, I had to be at attractive for a man.” But they are still thinking about, “I have to be attractive,” whether it be like physically attractive. But I get a lot of clients who are like, “I don’t look or dress that way. I’m kind of plain and I don’t want to have to change who I am.”

So, first of all, they’re describing themselves as kind of plain because they don’t have lash extensions or whatever, you know. So, like even in that, like we are still trying to appease or appeal ourselves in an outward way even if our audience is females.

Bryn: Yeah. And it’s so in our DNA that, you know, sometimes you will be judged on how you look, and we have to make a choice. I don’t want to say don’t think about your appearance at all, because it has an impact, but to think of it from a way of understanding the patriarchy, understanding those influences, and also understanding that your appearance can be creative. It can be for you.

I went through a phase in my feminist journey where I was like, you know, F men and F appearance, and I’m going to look as like dumpy as possible because I don’t want to dress up for men. And then at one point someone was like, Yeah, but what about you?

Amy: Yes.

Bryn: Seeing yourself in the mirror, “what do you want to see? What about dressing up for you?” And I was like, “Oh my God, it didn’t even cross my mind.” It’s like the person you see the most is you. So, what if you put on an outfit that made you feel good or made you feel confident?

And so, you know, I’ve kind of been on that journey of being like, “Oh, what’s my style?” Not my style to attract a man or even attract a client, but, “what’s my style that is who I am that is expressive?”

Amy: Yeah. What does that look like? If you and I talk a lot about having a relationship with yourself and what that relationship is, and also with your business also, but I think this is a good conversation as far as like, you know, you’re taking care of your body. You’re taking care of you for you, and it can look like whatever you want it to look like.

Sometimes taking care of me is not getting out of my pajamas all day, staying in bed and eating popcorn. I watched all of The Partner Track this weekend. Oh my God, it was so good! No brain required. Sometimes that is what self-care looks like and so yeah, that’s a great conversation when we’re talking about, like you should still look fancy, and we’re just painting it in a different form. No, no. It’s like what would you want to do for you?

Bryn: Yeah, and when you think about it from business point of view, it’s like, who is your client? Is your client a woman who’s struggling with the patriarchy and you showing up without any makeup or with a big zit or something, could be empowering, right?

To just show up on an Instagram Live or, or reel, or whatever. With looking “not polished,” sometimes that’s the best marketing because if your client is someone who’s struggling with perfectionism and always being perfect, that can be liberating for them to someone showing up like that.

So, it’s, you have to think about, you know, who is your people? If you’re pitching to a coach at a corporation, you might want to follow the corporate rules a little more.

If your client is a mom who’s struggling to get everything done and is trying to be perfect, but they can’t be for them, then you showing up in sweats and not put together could change their life. Could liberate her.

So, you know it’s a complicated question. I don’t think there’s one answer, but I think to see the forest for the trees, to see that the patriarchy is having an influence here.

Amy: Absolutely. I think one of my most popular reels from a few months ago, over the summer sometime, was skin issues on my face. And now at 48 years old, I have rosacea. What’s happening with my skin? And I did some research and it’s very common, particularly for Caucasian women in their forties and fifties, they can develop this, and so, I posted a reel when I had at the worst outbreak, like it was like the worst it had ever been.

And I literally made a reel … an online entrepreneur with gray hair and glasses, and I had no makeup on. I didn’t use a filter. I had so many comments. It was just like what you said, it suddenly just planted this seed in people’s brains that I can show up like me.

And I would even say for those people who are pitching to corporate coaching, because there is kind of a level, I don’t know if the corporate coach wants to see me in my pajamas.

What would the corporate version of showing up as you look like? I think you can still find a way to like show I’m not perfect and I’m still highly capable and what that look like for that audience.

And it might look a little different than say, my audience, which almost all my people are at home, online, some of them are still working part-time or fulltime in their jobs, but they’re all trying to build a business either outside of that or doing it fulltime. And sometimes running your coaching business looks like pajamas and a hair tie, from your bed.

I had a conversation with Vikki Louise. That was and interview I did a couple months ago, and she did the entire interview from her bed.

Bryn: Yeah. And that’s so important to show and that’s so important to set that example. So, I think we just want to see the forest for the trees. And you know, I heard Kara Loewentheil talk about it, and she was talking about, not patriarchy, but she was talking more about white supremacy and racism.

But she was like, it’s risk management and risk tolerance and, yeah, you might not want to show up like you did in that reel if you were a woman at a corporate job, and you might want to.

Amy: Yeah. And I think you you’re right. And I do want to be clear, I don’t know that I have spoken to this in an interview yet, but I do think it is important because I do have a client right now who A. does talk to a corporate person on LinkedIn and B. she is a non-white coach.

And she raised her hand and I’m so glad she did of like, I don’t know if I can do that for multiple reasons. You know, and not just, but like she’s, you know, the expectation of her as a non-white female in a corporate setting. Can she do as much as say I would do, and it was a really great conversation, and this is what I think is so important: we are acknowledging that sometimes we do face different realities.

Bryn: Totally. Patriarchy exists today. White supremacy exists today.

Amy: And so, she’s like, “I can’t do that. I won’t get here. So, we just coached her to the place of being able to recognize what’s happening, acknowledge it, process our feelings about that, and then figure out how.

Again, like I said, figure out how she’s going to show up as authentically as herself as she can be. We, we talked a lot about code-switching, which is a, a term, where again, as a non-person of color, I know, as a white woman, I don’t have to code-switch too much. We, we really don’t have to, but it is this idea that you are presenting one version of yourself and then behind, you know, over here is who you really are and you’re constantly switching back and forth.

Bryn: You know, my partner is from Trinidad, and he literally changes his accent when he talks to his friends back home versus the way he talks to me, because if he uses the accent he uses with me there, they’re going to have some feelings about it. And then, you know, with me, in Canada, people are going to have feelings about it.

Amy: So, I think it’s about addressing that reality that these things do exist, processing your emotions through it, and also figuring out how to show just a little bit more of who you truly are, so you aren’t having to put on an entirely different facade in order to be.

And so, I do think that’s an important conversation to have of, you know. That’s still part of this too. I want to acknowledge the realities of every single listener in here. And then there’s people who have disabilities, people who have a learning disability.

Bryn: Like, there’s so many layers depending on how many layers you experience, and you know, one of the things I took away from Kara’s podcast was, you get to choose. Every female person of color is not going to make the same choice, every white woman, or every person with a learning disability.

Maybe you want to take a bigger risk and maybe you won’t get as many jobs, but maybe you’re willing to make that statement and maybe you aren’t, right? And, and you get to choose.

Amy: It’s a really good conversation for the coaches that are out there, you know, listening to this. And it’s just a really great conversation to realize that I was taught in a modality that was like, facts are facts, and that’s it.

But I think there’s also so much for us to just learn when we truly listen to what our clients are saying and what our audience might be saying, and just then say, “alright, how can we come together on this?”

Bryn: And there is research on discrimination on the basis of sex and on the basis of gender and on the basis of race. Like that goes in the C line. That is a fact that if you have you know, another famous study is like with resumes, if you have a female name or a name that would be perceived as foreign, you get less interviews. It’s like widely documented. So, this is a “C” that racism or discrimination on the basis of race still exists.

OK, so that’s the C, what do we want to think about it? And then what do we want to do from there?

Amy: So, you talked about, when we were talking about having you on the podcast, you talked about completing the stress cycle to help us work through all of this stuff that’s swimming in our head

Bryn: Totally.

Amy: Talk to me about what it means to complete the stress cycle. What does that look like?

Bryn: Yeah. So anytime you know, you’re going to write or, or create a reel, or write a post or do something for your business, respond to an email, even respond to a DM, and you start to get nervous for whatever reason.

And it might be the patriarchy and it might be something else, the best thing to do is to step away from your computer, step away from your phone, and it doesn’t have to take a long time. I think sometimes people think they need like two hours. It’s like, no, you can step away for a minute. But to complete that stress cycle because when we go into fight our flight, like fight, flight, freeze.

When our nervous system gets activated, blood flows to your arms and your legs and your jaw so that you can run or fight. It’s this amazing system that is so good. If there is a bear or there is a fire, there is an acute emergency in the present moment, not something that’s going to happen in two months.

But if there is like a raccoon in the room, you want to be stressed, it’s going to help you. And you get this kind of tunnel vision. You get this black and white thinking where you’re thinking things are either safe or unsafe. And that is great. If there’s a bear and you see a tree and the tree is safe, you want to climb that tree.

I don’t want you at that point to be like, “Oh, I want to think outside the box of which tree to climb.” In an emergency, it’s amazing. The problem is that as humans, we have a prefrontal cortex that’s planning and can think about the future, which is what makes us different from chimps, right? Is that we can think forward.

But then these two parts of our brains, the wires get crossed. So, we start panicking about something in two months, the blood rushes to your arms and your legs, but you don’t have to run because you know you’re worried that the DM, that the client, if you don’t respond properly, you are going to lose the client or whatever.

So, completing the stress cycle helps your body get back into the state where there’s more blood flow to your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of your brain that’s creative and can think outside the box and can figure out how to solve whatever problem or figure out what to post.

Amy: That’s such an effective visual because I think we know that it’s happening, but then we’re like, “What’s happening? Why did that prefrontal cortex suddenly get real dark, real fast?” So, I love this, like, I can actually visualize all the blood, the oxygen, the nutrients have pulled itself away from my thinking. It literally pulled itself away from how I solve problems. Has moved to the part to fight.

Amy: What’s the mouth part? To the jaw is fascinating.

Bryn: Biting.

Amy: Oh, I’m like, what is that?

Bryn: If you think about a dog, when they get upset, they’re growling.

Amy: I literally was like, “what?!” So, you’re just talking smack?

Bryn: Say you’re yelling, screaming, you’re banging, running arms and legs.

Amy: Got it. Okay. Okay, okay. I was like, Why your job? So, I can literally visualize as you were describing that the blood, the nutrients, the power is literally draining away my thinking ability and moving towards, and that’s happening when you get an email or a private message from somebody who says, or this is what a lot of my, my clients are so afraid of, or my audience is so afraid of, is that they’re going to finally remove that filter from their self and post that big, bold idea and someone’s going to have something to say about it in the comments, sometimes from a stranger. But sometimes it’s from a family member or close. Like that’s what’s happening. Even though it’s clearly not a tiger getting ready to eat you, your brain doesn’t know the difference.

Bryn: Exactly. Exactly. So, the reason you want to step away from the phone, you want to step away from the computer is so that you eventually go back, but that you have your creative planning brain online.

So, the easiest way to complete the stress cycle, the most effective way, there’s a bunch of different ways, but the easiest, most effective way is to move your body in some way. It can be walking around the block; it can be dancing. You put on your favorite song, get up and dance, It can be doing a wall set.

Everyone is a little bit different, and all of our brains are obviously a little bit different. So, you want to find something that feels good to you. You don’t want to get yourself, like, if you get really embarrassed dancing, you don’t want to add stress to the stress cycle, right?

But if you love dancing, then that’s perfect. If you love walking, then go for a walk.

Amy: Choose what you already have.

Bryn: Yeah. What’s already soothing to you. It already feels good to you in some way. Because if it feels good, it means it’s working, right?

Amy: Yeah.

Bryn: It means that the stress is kind of draining out of you because you don’t feel relaxed when you’re in a stress cycle, which you don’t want to be if there’s a bear, right?

Amy: Right.

Bryn: So, any kind of movement, it can be like just jumping up and down. It can be doing a bunch of pushups, and if you don’t have a lot of time, you know, sometimes I would get really stressed right before a certain client because, you know, we’re working on some issue that is difficult.

And so even to just five minutes in between sessions. Even to just stand up and do some squats or something in that three-minute window before I have to go into the next Zoom call, can help your body because in the olden days you would run, right?

If there was a lion, if there was a bear, you would exert your body in some way, and this is how evolution worked. That’s what completed the cycle. It wasn’t that the lion was gone. It was that you ran or that you climbed or that is how the hormones were.

Amy: Oh, fascinating.

Bryn: Okay. So, you know that’s one of the times when thought work doesn’t help, right? And, and I think we’ve all had this where you’re trying to coach a client on something, and you can see the logical answer and they aren’t getting it. Sometimes it’s because they’re in a stress cycle, so their prefrontal cortex is not online, so even though it’s a very simple kind of thing where you’re like, “you’re not an evil person.” or whatever, you know, right?

Whatever they’re stuck on, in that kind of scenario, even to just have the client take a few deep breaths or just have the client stand up,

Amy: Yeah, stand up, that’s what I was thinking. Stand up and do like a big overhead stretch. Just to like move even in those moments.

Bryn: Yeah. Let’s go around the room. One of the things I often do is say, “check if there’s a lion.” When my clients’ nervous system up, it’s like, “is there anything we need to run from?” Listen, “smell the room.” Smell is one of the older senses, so it can be like very impactful for some people to just smell. Does it smell safe?

Amy: Oh, that’s so interesting. Yeah. Like, activate your senses beyond just what’s going on in your head, but actually like sight, smell.

Bryn: Yeah. Yeah. Does it smell safe in here? And we don’t want people to get perfectionist around completing the stress cycle. Like we don’t have to step one, what was step two? And we don’t have to go to zero, right?

If you can just get a little more breathing space from your anxiety, that can be super powerful. So, doing these things, it’s not always going to get you to a place where you’re in bliss, right? Or complete relaxation. But if your anxiety was a 9 out 10 and we can get it down to a seven, that’s huge.

Amy: Yeah. Sometimes feeling just 2% better, that’s something that we learned in, in feminist coaching certification. If we could stop trying to like, get to a hundred percent better and just be like 2% better. You’re like you said, that’s, we’re looking at just that ability for our prefrontal cortex to come back online with us.

Bryn: Yeah, because your prefrontal cortex being back online 2% more or 20% more. That’s huge.

Amy:  And I love this idea because I’m thinking about scenarios, it doesn’t happen all the time. I think for most of my people, the anxiety, we’re all going to die comes when they’re home alone in their office and they’re reading that message.

Bryn: They’re anticipating the message. Anticipating writing the post that they can’t write because they’re like, “well what if so and so doesn’t like that?”

Amy: Yeah. Yes. That’s really fascinating. Like we might trigger a stress cycle just even thinking about the possibility. So, here’s something that you can do, but I love this idea that let’s say you’re in a scenario where you’re literally face to face or Zoom to Zoom with somebody, and stress cycle is triggered, even if it’s just standing up or maybe even if it’s just in that moment, taking a deep breath.

Now, I’ve always considered taking the deep breath, just like you’re regulating your breathing, but that’s also an opportunity to ask myself, “what am I smelling right now?” And looking around like your ability to do that in front of the other person, and they don’t go, “Oh, this person’s clearly completing a stress cycle or not.”

Like, you know, that you can incorporate some of these ideas right on the call. You don’t have to box up that anxiety in an attempt to power your way through the rest of the conversation. You actually can, even if it is just maybe, you know, stretching your body in front of them for a moment. You know, what do I smell? Do I smell?

Bryn: And you can always, if you have an impulse to do a couple deep breaths, you can say, “you know, here’s a trick of a trade …”  If your nervous system needs regulating, lead the client through something and you do it too. “It seems like this is a stressful issue we’re talking about so let’s take three deep breaths together.”

Amy: Oh, I love that. And it’s really funny because I have done that before. I have two groups at Free to Paid Coach, and I have the Mastermind and I have started both of those from feeling a little frazzled. “You know what guys, today let’s just get grounded for a moment,” and I’ll take them through a hand over the heart and, it’s for me.

Bryn: Totally. And I remember in my training program, we had to do sessions in front of the whole class, and a teacher was there and then the client would leave and then we would get feedback from the class. And I remember doing this one session and this broke my brain. So, I led her through this long grounding exercise at the start.

And then we went into her issue and, and it was a cool session. We got somewhere with her issue. But at the end, the client was like, “that long breathing thing at the beginning was like a waste of time and I had this big issue and …” she said the rest of the session was great, but I wouldn’t spend 5 minutes of our 20-minute session doing a grounding exercise. It was 20 minutes because it was in front of everybody and then she left the room. That’s how it worked, and then I got feedback, and it happened that day that the executive director of the school was the one supervising, like was the one helping us with the session. And she said to me, “you needed those 5 minutes of the grounding, and the reason the rest of the session went well is because you grounded yourself. So even though she didn’t like it, that was the most important thing for you to do. You did it for you, not for her.”

And that’s what created the rest of the amazingness, because it’s true, if we’re leading a session and we’re ungrounded, we don’t have our prefrontal cortexes online, we’re not online.

She was like, “you have to put your nervous system first.” Which to me, again, growing up in the patriarch, it’s like give, give, give. Always be generous. Your needs come last. And this was like a real wake up call for me. It’s like, oh, for me to be the best coach I can be, the best practitioner I can be I have to take care of my needs even if the client doesn’t need the breathing exercise that day.

Amy: And it’s interesting because we can stand outside of that and see that because you did the 5 minutes, those 15 minutes were super powerful. Whereas, you could have just done the full 20 minutes no grounding.

And maybe, and the client may not necessarily understand that, but you understand that. And the most important thing is that they come away with what they needed. Even if there was a part of it that was like, that wasn’t what I needed, but the other 15 minutes were, so yeah.

Bryn: To put our needs first, I think is revolutionary and something where, especially being socialized as women, we’re not taught. We’re taught that that’s selfish and greedy and all these things, but really, it’s like, no, this is what is going to actually help your client is if you’re in a good state.

Amy: Yeah. So, completing the stress cycle, is there anything past that?

Bryn: We’re removing our body; we’re checking in with our senses. Other ways to complete the stress cycle that are kind of fun is when we read a story or watch a movie, our emotions mirror the emotions of the main character. So, you know, you don’t want to necessarily watch like a murder but you know, like I’ve had clients say. “I’m obsessed with the Golden Girls right now.” And it’s like, yeah, that’s probably taking a break watching an episode of The Golden Girl.

Amy: Because there’s a 21-minute or 22-minute arc. Little mini arc in every single episode. And nothing too crazy is ever on the line.

Bryn: Yeah. And so, you can complete your stress cycle. As a kid, I was always taught TV is bad, TV rots your brain. And now, as an adult, I’m like, “oh no, this is actually can be a tool for completing the stress cycle.”

Amy: That’s so interesting because we started this conversation with Partner Track! Oh, it comes full circle. No wonder we want to watch all of Brigerton or Partner.

Bryn: Yeah. I mean, the trick of it, the multi-session series, which I watched it too. I loved it, but like when they end on a cliff hanger, it’s like, oh, then your stress cycle ends, but you have to watch all 10 episodes before you get the resolution or you know, I sometimes do it where I’ll watch, you know, 5 minutes of the next episode. You know how sometimes they end on a cliff hanger and if you just watch like 5 more minutes, you get to the conclusion.

But yeah, TV, movies, comedy, laughing completes the stress cycle. So if you like comedies or, or comedians or if there’s something that’s funny to you.

Hugs … any kind of positive social interaction, because when you think about the way that the system was developed, if you’re being chased by a lion and a neighbor opens the door and you go in and close the door, you’re going to see the neighbor’s face, and so sometimes even just seeing a face that’s not menacing, right?

If it’s someone who’s mad at you, that face probably is not going to regulate your nerve nervous system. But, even something as simple as someone complimenting your earrings and having a little positive social interaction.

Amy: And this makes sense because when I’ve been highly stressed sometimes the best thing, I can literally feel everything come down just by, you know, my son walking in the door, and we get a hug, and we hold it for just like a little extra second longer and I can feel all of that.

So, so interesting. It’s just interesting. Through the course of this conversation, I can see all the different ways I’m already doing this.

Bryn: Because it’s natural, it’s instinctive. And I think to just honor all of that, to honor watching Partner Track, to honor taking those couple extra seconds for the hug. Any of the things that you’re already doing that are helpful.

So, yeah, I think there’s research on the 30-second hug , where it’s like you hug, you hug until you kind of melt, you know? Even kissing completes the stress cycle, masturbating. A lot of us are working from home now, so.

All of these things, if there was a lion, you couldn’t do it, right? And if there was a lion, your son wouldn’t hug you, you know, you’d be in it too.

Amy: If there was a lion my husband, and I would not stop to have sex, or I would not go get a vibrator!

Bryn: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, all of these things that are just teaching your body, your nervous system, that it’s safe. Hey, you’re in a safe right in this moment. You’re safe. And one of the things I always tell my clients is the fight or flight system is amazing. It turns on in a split-second. You hear a loud noise, and you’re awake, you’re aware.

And so, we don’t have to keep it on just in case, you know, even if there is something physical that you’re worried about in the future, you can relax now because it turns on in a second. We don’t have to keep it on just in case something is coming.

Amy: Yeah. And I think probably the larger conversation here is knowing that nothing’s necessarily gone wrong. Like of course my nervous system is turning on. Yeah, of course. My stress cycle just how I’m wired. There’s, you know, for any number of reasons, it’s an evolutionary fight or flight lion coming to me, or it’s more on the epigenetics end.

I don’t think we think about that and, you know, to kind of bring this conversation back to where we started of just so many things that our ancestors were punished for and were trying to do, we’re trying to do, and that is affecting us today. And so just having that awareness, because half of the struggle we have with you know, completing our stress cycle is that we’re bearing it under mounds of shame, what’s wrong with me? Right?

Bryn: It should be easier. It’s not a big deal. I just want to write. I just want to write 400 words and post it, or I just want to make this 30-second video. This is no big deal. What’s wrong with me? But yeah, you’re totally right that it’s like, no, this is generations of social conditioning that we now know gets passed down probably through the DNA and it totally makes sense that you’re freaking the fuck out or I don’t know. Can I swear? I’m sorry.

Amy: Yes, yes. Swearing is allowed on this podcast. One of my episodes a couple months ago was literally “How to Stop giving a Fuck.”

Bryn: Okay, perfect. Right on track. But yeah, it makes sense. And I think the kind of next-level of that I’m just coming into my awareness now is that life is not supposed to always be happy, rainbows and butterflies. Like, I’m reading this book called, Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore, and he says when you think about a singer, if a singer is technically perfect and they can just sing beautifully, but there’s no emotion, there’s no feeling that singer’s never been through anything. We don’t love that music. We love Adele who’s voice is full of pain and suffering and strife and it offers us some comfort or, resonates with us in some way.

And so, every artist and even every coach, you know, we don’t want a coach that just had like a perfect life, and everything was just super easy for her. And she’s just like, Why is that so hard for you? You know, we don’t want that coach. We want a coach who’s been through some stuff, who’s been through some anxiety and some struggle and some strife, and that’s what brings depths to our coaching.

At one point, I was working for a nonprofit and I made a mistake, a medium-sized mistake, but I took it super-hard, and I was really scared of making another mistake. And it would take me a week to write like a 200-word email because I was editing and re-editing and re-editing and I couldn’t send it.

It would, it would take me a week to work up the nerve to send and to start to normalize that kind of stuff and who knows whether it was probably patriarchy, and you know, it’s probably a bunch of things that took me to that spot, but we want to work with people who’ve been through something similar and, you know, sometimes gotten to the other side and sometimes who are in it, and we’re not totally healed or perfect or, you know, it’s not solved.

Amy: It’s like I’m always talking about how the reason I can function where I do is I realize, “oh, some of this stuff is inherited trauma, the patriarchal learnings or, you know, rules that were like, I haven’t solved anything, I just know how to not beat myself up about it, be aware of it, process through it. It’s like I’ve just shrunken the timeline that it takes me for the fight or flight to come up, and then to me be able to move forward. It’s not about eliminating it.

Bryn: I think you totally hit on something there where so much of fight or flight is like we have the initial anxiety or the initial shame or whatever.

You get that DM from the angry person or whatever and then we judge it. So, then we have two layers of fight or flight. Right? Because it’s like, “Oh, now I feel ashamed, or I feel anxious.” And then it’s like, “Oh, but I shouldn’t. It’s not a big deal.” And then that just doubles the amount of emotion we have to process.

So, I think, yeah, sometimes even just sticking with the first level of emotion is the goal, it’s just to have that initial anxiety and to be like, “you know what? It makes total sense that I’m freaking out.”

Amy: Yeah. And I think, you know, as we kind of wrap up this conversation, I can tell that where my brain is going to is, we started on a conversation about generational trauma and epigenetics and we are all in a position to, again, not solve, not eliminate, but wrap up stress cycles of our past traumas.

The more we learn, the more we are teaching the next generation, and there’s always going to be strife in human existence.

Bryn: But we’re breaking the cycle.

Amy: Yeah, there’s a term I’m looking for here. Yeah, yeah. Like we are breaking some of these cycles and I think that right there is so exciting to think about because again, the more we can bring like humanities, prefrontal cortexes back online, the faster we complete those track cycles, then like we are all elevating here.

Like we really, really are. I think this is an really exciting time to be living through, even though we look outside our window and we’re like, “what is happening?!”

I actually think that’s a symptom of the fact that so many of us are starting to break these cycles and we are starting to see what’s possible. And so, we’re seeing like an up uplevel and like truly powerful thinking right now. And so, like this conversation is really helping me see, “Oh, I’ve like said that, and I’ve thought that for like literally years,” but now I can be like, “Oh, this is what we’re doing.”

Bryn: Yeah. Yeah. We’re breaking cycles of patriarchal trauma and maybe white supremacist trauma or maybe some other kind of struggle that you’ve gone through, but you can break the cycle by being kind to yourself when you freak out.

Amy: The too long, short of this: be kind to yourself when you are freaking out. Everything is okay. Take a walk, smell your environment. Remind yourself you’re okay. Watch Golden Girls.

Bryn: Whatever TV show you’re obsessed with, any TV show that you feel soothed by is probably helping you complete the stress cycle.

Amy: So good. Alright, Miss Bryn, how can my people connect with you?

Bryn: I am on Facebook and Instagram. I’m Bryn Bamber on Facebook, and on Instagram I’m @brym_bamber

One other thing that just kind of popped into my head as we were talking is the concept of the witch wound, which is partially through the history and the stories we tell as a culture and maybe part of it is epigenetic too, but women who are powerful, women standing up, taking up space in the world like that, there can be a primal fear that comes up when saying, “I’m a coach and I can help you.”

So, I have a podcast episode. I can’t remember what episode it is now, but I have an episode of my podcast. It’s called The Witch Wound. My podcast is called Sacred Goals if you want to check that out.

Amy: So, The Sacred Goals Podcast if want to look for the episode. Send it to me and we’ll make sure that that information is in the show notes. So, we want to look for The Witch Wound episode of the Sacred Goals Podcast by Bryn Bamber.

Bryn: And then the final thing is I have an anxiety video. It’s like 10 minutes long. I call it an anxiety training, but it’s not really a training. It’s me leading you through an exercise that’s kind of breathing and feeling. And so, it’s one of those great tools for when you’re in the stress cycle, so it’s free and you can get it at tinyurl.com/anxietytraining

That’s a great 10 minutes. Turn the video on and just be led through and it’s probably the most listened to video by my clients.

Amy: So good. And they say, you know, some people have their anxiety completely go away and some of them just get, you know, that 10% rejection that gives them a little more space to think about so they know what to do next.

Amy: Yeah, so good. So that was tinyurl.com/anxietytraining. And again, we’ll make sure that that’s in the show notes also.

Bryn, thank you so much. Again, I’ve run past episodes that talk about fight or flight, etc., and I’ve got some feedback from people saying this is either brand new to them, or they say “I’m so glad that you are having these conversations because I think this is the piece that’s been missing for a lot of us in our coaching practices,” and I just want to thank you for sharing your witchy fabulousness with me today.

Bryn: It was so fun. I love this conversation. Thank you for having me.

Amy: Absolutely! Oh, my goodness. Thank you, Bryn. I loved this conversation. I hope that you loved it too. I learned so much about my own body, and it’s funny because I do this work already, but I find every time I have a conversation with an expert, I learn just a little bit more on how to handle my own stress cycle.

I love that we get to choose what soothes us, that completing a stress cycle looks different for everyone and like, isn’t that how we do business? There is no one size fits all in growing your business and managing your business and how you choose to run it, and how you choose to handle your own body and your stress.

So that was probably my biggest takeaway is, you know, choose what soothes you, choose what works for you. That is the theme here. If you haven’t picked up on it and all the links that we talked about, you will be able to find in the show notes. So, make sure that if there was something that we talked about that we mentioned a link for, check the show notes. That’s where you will find it.

Alright, can you do me a favor? When you are on Instagram this next week, please like this post in the newsfeed on Instagram @iamamylatta and share to your stories, make sure that you tag @iamamylatta and tag @bryn_bamber

Tag the both of us. Let us know what you needed to hear today that was in this episode so that others can use it as well. I’m so excited to see what you create in the world, and I’ll talk to you next week.

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Thanks so much for listening to The Confident Coaches Podcast. I invite you to learn more. Come visit me at amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.