Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - You’re Not Broken: Burnout, Nervous Systems & the Power of Self-Awareness - Natasha Dorsey

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Okay friends, listen. I think one of the most powerful interventions we can make in this next generation isn’t just another behaviour strategy or classroom tool — it’s helping big people understand how their own brains work. That’s why I could not wait to bring Natasha Dorsey on the pod. She's a clinical hypnotherapist, cognitive science researcher, solo parent, and soon-to-be PhD — and she’s doing some of the most important work I’ve seen around burnout, regulation, and why we’re all just so damn tired.In this episode, we talk about why the nervous system has to come first (yes, before curriculum, before interventions, before another behaviour plan), and how self-awareness is the game changer we’re not talking about enough. Natasha walks us through what she calls “internal self-monitoring,” how to reframe our autopilot reactions, and why tiny, doable shifts (like changing your grocery store or taking a different route home) can literally rewire your brain for safety and connection.If you’re an educator, a parent, a leader — heck, a human — who’s ever felt like you should be coping better, or that maybe you’re just not cut out for this anymore… please, listen to this. You are not broken. You’re likely just dysregulated. And you have so much power to come back to yourself.Follow Natasha Dorsey:@tashdorsey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Okay. As you know, friend, Natasha Dorsey, I am so grateful that we can dive into, I think some really important conversations today around And I think one of the greatest interventions in this next generation will be to have a deep understanding of our neurological functioning, how that affects our behavior and how we show up in the world, because we've done it the exact opposite most of the time, right? Like, let's be really cognizant about how we control behavior and then let's just hope the brain follows. But your approach, and I think, you know, you've done a deep dive for so many reasons around this as a clinical hypnotherapist, cognitive science researcher, you're just finishing up your doctorate, doing lots of conversations around, you know, as you started

talking about peak performance and how do we sort of optimally, this optimal human operating system, how do we get it to function well, is something I am so interested in right now. So take me back to the beginning. Okay. So take us on a little bit of a journey about how you landed here. I know it's going to be no small feat. But sort of why now in your life as a social. solo parent, are we really diving deep into sort of what makes people tick and work? So let's start

how you got here and then we're going to figure out where you're headed. Yeah, I'm going to try and make this the sweet, the sweet short journey. So I grew up in rural Albrea, small town, most of my family farm by Delaware, it's like 500 people. And that was the status quo. So I always like to start. When I was in grade one, you know, we do this classic, what do you want to be when you grow up poster, and I drew this beautiful, you know, triangle lady, and I wrote, I want to be a teacher, but I spelled it, T-E-E-C-H-R. And my teacher at the time, who I think was in retirement, told me that if I couldn't spell the word, I probably wasn't smart enough to be it. And it stuck with me. And it stuck with me

to this, I didn't realize until I was maybe 35, how much that got in my way. And I lived a lot of my life thinking I probably wasn't that smart, probably not a lot of people would want to hear me out, mostly because I am a terrible speller. My grammar's all the best, and it's still not. That's for real. In high school, I was once told I should find a rich husband, and that's what I should do. And so, out of high school, I got a trade of him hairdresser, and I traveled, I worked in Australia for a couple years on runway and doing that. Came home and finally, I was walking in the grocery store. I'm going to shout out Mr. Gray, or any one from Stelter knows his man. And I was in the grocery store, and he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, hair still. He's

like, why aren't you teaching? Why aren't you doing it? I was like, I don't know. But a week later, I enrolled as an adult student and went to get my ed degree. And finally, I just decided that enough was enough of getting in my own way. So I enrolled. It was good enough. I delayed my graduation to go to Africa. I had this cool opportunity. My grandma had been on safari, kept in touch with the guy. I found a cheap flight to Nairobi, and I just flew there by myself. And I worked with teachers in a village, helping them at you with their school discipline stuff, because they're still doing things fairly, you know, 50 years ago almost. And it was this lovely experience of getting to help teach educators. Come back, graduate from university. It was December. And there was no

jobs here at that point. That was in 2013. And so I thought, well, I'd love to travel. I found a cheap flight to Bangkok. So I thought, well, everyone said you'd never find a job. overseas without experience. They're like, okay, well, I'll give myself three weeks to find a job teaching. There. So, flash forward, I'm a secondary graduate. I got a job teaching kindergarten in Bangkok. In an international school in Bangkok. Oh, my goodness. And so that was my first teaching experience. And at the time, I was like, I'm never teaching kindergarten again. Flashboard. Now, I love working with little kids because just my knowledge has shifted and I became a mom and everything. But I worked there.

Then from there, I worked in Singapore, but I was working in management, doing some adult education on communication. From there, I bounced. I was in Canada for a bit. And I've ended up working across seven countries, primarily in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and in Canadian international stools. And what I found is that it didn't matter where I was, right, or what culture I was in. people were still kind of students at that point were struggling with the same things a lot of this executive functioning right and then how do we support them and teachers are tired and um flash forward i got pregnant with my son and i came back to canada to have there's a whole bunch

that happened in the middle there but i came back to canada to have my son and had him at that point I was working in corporate training and learning development with a company out of B.C. And I had actually signed a contract to go to China with him when he was six months. And flash forward, there were murmurings of COVID way earlier over there than they were here. And I still have a lot of friends overseas. And like, we don't know if you should. And my visa was delayed. So it was about October. My visa finally came in. And I was like, just don't, right? Because it was early. I didn't come here until about March. was about his first birthday. And so I didn't. So we stayed. And it was right around that time. It was when I was on Matt leave, I started my master's. And a lot of my research of my master's ended up

focusing on. I think I was trying to like, have always been this person that I want to figure out the why is behind everything. And I've met a lot of people who went through a lot of really hard things growing up. And then sometimes, you know, as they mature to adults, sometimes, they still struggle and I wanted to kind of understand why and how all those experiences when they were younger might have impacted them today and let them on that path of you know because sometimes it'd be some of the smartest people I know but maybe they didn't graduate and maybe they've gotten to some trouble but sort of what gets in the way of that and those narratives that happened very early exactly yeah and so that's what started on the path of learning more

about trauma and then how it affects the nervous system and where I start really dive into this sort of bottom-up approach when we're working with people, right? So we can, if you're in a school working with students, if you're not calm and regulated, well, they're going to have a hard time being calm and regulated. And if we don't ensure that that safety is there on a nervous system level and have a really solid understanding of what can trigger the nervous system, because it can be everything from, it could be a smell. will trigger the nervous system, you know, that subconscious wiring we have from memory. You're like, well, why is the student only, you know, oppositional in one classroom?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was, it was a, I heard a story once. There's a student. And every time in this one classroom with this one teacher, the student was just off the rails, couldn't sort it out. They don't through all of it. Finally, they have. They suspected their home life was probably rough. So, flash forward, parent meeting.

and they walk in and right away the psychologist on staff could smell the cologne of the father and they're like that's the same cologne that teacher was wearing right and it was kind of they're like okay well we're they have the meeting

finish it up we're going to try this so they go to the teacher would you be willing to not wear that cologne right switch it up behaviors disappear right and it was this like aha moment for me that sometimes we want it to be this big thing right

but our subconscious is so strong, right? And so powerful in terms of, so that student is trying to stay safe. So they're kicking into fight mode. Absolutely. And we spend a lot of time, I think, you know, asking this question about what is wrong with this one instead of what happened to this one. Exactly. And, you know, I mean, that's all Bruce Perry's stuff. But I, I, well, in everybody's stuff, actually. But I find that really interesting. And so that's really led you into this process now where, I mean, you do a lot of work. Can you explain to me the perceptual reframing. loop because I think you've really tied this nicely into burnout. So back that up for me because I think

so many people don't know what triggers them, why we're so exhausted in this season more than ever. I mean, we're seeing rates of burnout one and two would identify across industry and organization in North America that they're experiencing burnout. And I think the question is why. Well, you know, we should be doing less, which is not necessarily true. Can you give me sort of your your sense of that and what you're finding in your research? Well, I find that sometimes less, but it's different, right? If you've been, I'll talk about educators here, just we're on that path. If, go back to your nervous system, if you're a teacher and you've been running on autopilot, right, you're going to have your go-to belief systems or mechanisms for sorting out what's in

front of you. And if you've been in this constant state of, it's a high pressure, and often you said it's your high performance, and they're like, no, but they really are. Because they're managing so many things at the same time. And while pre-service teachers are not taught how to identify their own triggers, how to identify their own sensory needs, right? And then how to sort of not all, so we need to manage a classroom to help and support students, but we also need to support the teacher because they become the nucleus of the ecosystem. And if the teacher's not okay, just like if the parents aren't okay, well, everyone around them is much less likely to be okay. And I started diving into that and seeing what research was there on how can we support leaders,

teachers, sort of those nucleus individuals, right? And then in turn, through a passive action, actually, all their reports to students, whatever one of their team, also seems to be uplifted and reaching more towards their potential by focusing solely on the nucleus. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you talk to teachers and there's so much PD on how do we support students. How do we, it's all outward. And she's like, okay, but they're also overwhelmed, right? Right. And so we just keep adding more.

Like the intention behind this is often really good, right? Is that we're seeing a rise in, you know, an increase in, you know, mental health issues and anxiety and depression and all these things in kids. And so obviously the response to this is, okay, so we need more programming. We need more interventions. We need more training for the big people. And I think then that does the exact opposite of the intention, which is you're not enough. You need more skills. need you to be everything and everybody for these very dysregulated babies. And I often talk about

the fact that the kids aren't the problem. If the big people aren't okay, the little people don't stand a chance. So the question isn't around sort of training them to be better. It is like how are we shoring them up to regulate nervous system, their own nervous system? What are we doing? And it's bigger than self-care. You know, it's bigger than just take a bubble bath. So tell me a little bit more about where you're sort of going down in that path. What do you think we need to be doing? in this space to sort of ensure that, you know, we're not necessarily focused on the kids. In fact, we are more than ever, but not individually focused on how we make them better, but navigating this more around the staff.

What's your sense around that? So we know that when we're burnt out or even if it's a sense of overwhelm, even this word burnout kind of gets used a little bit and it's like, well, what is it? How do we define it? Well, if you're feeling overwhelmed, heavy, we know that your tolerance for stress is going to be lower. your sensory needs will become a little bit different, right? And if you never talk, a lot of people that, I don't know what that means, right? So for me, is an example. I don't mind noise except for when I'm talking. I need it quiet when I'm talking. I'll get derailed. I will get off. I'll get distracted and

then I, so with students, one of my first boundaries, right, for myself to keep myself, okay, is we don't talk when I'm talking. And it's clear and they know it's there and they know how to be successful with it. But had I never learned that about myself, oh, that's what I need. That's the mountain I'm going to die on today, right? And so often you'll find teachers, we get all this PD thrown out, we'll do all of these things. Well, we can't do all of them. And then there's, it adds to their overwhelm, right? So if you as a teacher can identify sort of what will keep you grounded so that you can be calm and stable, right? This confidence, right? So it's like, I can have this going on out here, but I know I'm grounded and I've taken care of this to keep your nervous system has to stay regulated.

You know, we were in a PD once in Edwards and we need conflict management training, you know, because there's a lot of that going on and of coworkers like Dorsey's great at that. I'm like, what? Because I don't see anything I do is conflict management. I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, no, you're great at it. But isn't that the truth? I mean, that's the truth of conflict management is really like it's emotional regulation. It is. And the greatest leaders of all time, I would say, you know, if you think about wherever you are right now, if you're thinking about the person who's led you the most or the sort of mentor that you've had,

and it could be like a hockey coach or like a favorite aunt or a cookum or somebody in your world, I promise you the skill they had was emotional regulation. They could be great at many things, but they had the ability to understand and stay connected to their own nervous system, which is something we're not born with.

No, it's a tool. And I think this is the interesting piece, you know, as you talked about, is that like I'm often fascinated right now in a world where we are trying to fix all the problems, the underlying conditions that make it ideal to learn emotional regulation have been obliterated by the input of technology and social communications and like all of these kind of things. Right. So where do you see we're going to, what are the effects that are coming down the pipe for not only like our kids? I mean,

I think that's been probably better researched, but like what about us in the middle who didn't grow up with this stuff and I now have completely overrun nervous systems? And we're trying to navigate other people through this. Where do you think we're going to land here? So where I try and tell people to start is to that really intentional self-monitoring is like my first step, right? And so say with my research, what we do is for a week, they have self-monitor. And what you guide them through it, right?

And try to help you give a, you know, there's a list, right? But what drives you the craziest, right? What is the most, like, bothersome to your nervous system? and just, oh, I've found, you know, a little bit of a pattern here. It seems to be this, and it seems to be at a certain time of the day, okay? Why is that, right? When we start asking more questions about ourselves rather than judging it, right? Well, I just, I, every teacher's been there where they're like, I was short.

I don't like how I acted in that situation. Okay, well, why? What led us to that, right? And so I was saying, I was saying, it's like, be a river, not a dam. And that's also for students, so lots of questions. but for yourself too, why is it that I'm struggling in this moment, right? Is it that I'm just, you know, I'm not a great teacher and I can't do this anymore and I, it's overwhelming and like everybody, all these negative loops, right?

That when you're in the thick of it, it can feel like that. But what if it's not that? What if it's that you actually didn't eat breakfast this morning and then you rushed to work and you didn't, maybe you don't have the tool to ground yourself when you walk in that building. A lot of people, when they're on that burnout, their heart rate is increasing the second they're at, they see that building. And how intuitive do you think we are as humans? Like, you know, generally speaking, right, are, you know, that sort of ability to self-reflect, you know, it sounds easy to do. People are like, oh, yeah, yeah. But like, how, how,

where are we at in the world of, like, self-awareness? I think, I think we think we have it. But I think we think we have it, but we don't have it as much as we do. Because often what I'll say, like our brain doesn't care for happy, only if we're alive, right? So if you're thinking about it, that would be a conscious. Can you slow down for a second? Our brain doesn't care if we're happy. Only for alive. It only cares if we're alive. Tell me about that. So what you've been doing today to stay alive, regardless of joy, happiness, success is what you will likely keep doing because that's become a neurolog, like a neurological pattern in your brain. So if anxiety has, has kept you alive because it's kept you alert. And you know what? At one point you needed that tool. Anxiety kept you safe. But your situation changed, but that anxiety is still there and doesn't really realize, oh, there are there options in this moment? And even catching people with this, okay, what if for just one second you find that other option? Just think about it and then go back to anxiety, right? So we're not going to change it immediately. But we'll have such strong neural pathways over here, right, that our subconscious, our brain, our primitive brain,

is not even thinking that there's another option here, right, which might be just to pause. It could be that simple, right? Yeah, I look at, I'll talk about this stuff with students even, with their phones and the dopamine input they're getting, and then with the no phone policy, well, some of these students, they are high on dopamine from their phones, and then if you tell them no, right, that's like taking an addict, be like, nope, right? Their brains on a suffering, conscious level are kind of panicky and they'll be reaching for those phones nonstop and a lot of time it'll a lot of teachers get into a battle with these phones I'll generally be like oh hey I noticed you back on your phone right yeah okay why did you grab what do you know did you notice like why you

went to grab it right and then I'll be like well they'll be like well not really okay well next time you go to grab I want you just notice why and I'll I'll point out things like okay well was there a feeling of angst I need to look if I don't look or and then where do you feel it? It's just that self-awareness piece, isn't it? And I think a lot of times we give those directions, and I, you know, I'm guilty of this all the time, like, okay, so let's charge our phones outside our beds, our bedrooms. And, you know, we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea, that's a good idea.

We know that to be true. But it's interesting that we're also not that good. So we don't, we tend not to do that. And I think what I hear you say in this first one is, you know, just really internal self-monitoring. And interrupting your patterns. Sorry, say again? and interrupting your, your automatic patterns. Am I running on autopilot?

Right, right, right. So it's not that you don't even have to change anything in the interim. I want you just to notice a little bit about like what happens when, what happens if. And, you know, I think there's some interesting data right now around even if phones are in classrooms, even if you bring your phone to a dinner date, even if you bring your phone in your backpack, your body keeps the score. And there is a remarkably different response than if your phone is. is left in your car, even if it's face down on the dinner table. Yeah. Because we are subconsciously, you know, neurophysiologically wired to that sense of

connection that fires in us. And it's just really the awareness. I think the more and more conversations we have about this becomes really important. Okay. So internal self-monitoring. What else? The next would be a reframing around it. Is there another option, right?

And how do I open up really the path? What I learned about neuroplasticity, it was like, boom, my whole brain was like, what? We can do that. Right. So, and then it's this rewiring. So we need to interrupt our patterns. And then let's find some other options, right? That can feel really hard.

And my first step for people, when we're like, we're going to look at rewiring, we're going to look at options here. And in order to kind of prime the brain to be ready for change, right, because change is hard and it's scary. And our subconscious is working against us on so many levels. And it's, because it's supposed to, it's supposed to keep us safe. The brain is like 2.5 times more wired for safety. Like it's so risk avoidance, right?

And the subconscious sees anything that's new as risky. So if I'm like, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go to a different grocery store every time you shop for groceries for the next week, right, for the next two weeks. Because, and people are like, they'll be like, no, right? There's just panic. But it's like, it's just grocery. It's very safe. This is very safe.

This is, you know, but it's unknown. And what you're forcing your brain to do is this new setting. Okay, well, I have to think a little differently, right? So it's, you're kind of preparing not just your brain, but also your conscious thought of, oh, I can do things a little differently, right? And the other one people always say is drive a different way home. The grocery store one, I still struggle. I'm like, I'm going to go to a new grocery store. And I'm like, oh, I don't know where anything is, right?

But you're also training yourself that you can do that. And, you know, there's a lot of research on, like, say, like lobsters at the bottom of the ocean floor. So they'll battle. And every time they battle, they become more likely to win the next time. It's because there's a genetic, there's a change happening in them. The more wins we have, the more likely we are to win. Well, going to a new grocery store is your first win. It's all you got to do. It doesn't, we don't have.

Start small. Yeah, we've got to start small. And that's how you layer that. And that's also how we make it a little more comfortable because change. When we're changing our brain, it's not that. much different than building muscle at the gym. It takes work and repetition and it's not always easy. And there's a lot of internal conflict. It's not easy. It's simple, but it's not easy in that your subconscious will keep trying to pull you back to your old habits. Right. And when you're trying to interrupt them,

it could feel like this internal pull. It can kind of feel a little bit sticky. Right. I remember when I was doing the work and I was like, oh, this feels awful. I just want to quit. I'm done. I'm tired. I don't want to do it anymore. And if you can just keep doing those little steps, it doesn't have to be big steps. It's so good on the other side. But I think sometimes a lot of when we talk about mindset or change, it's pretty fluffy. It feels really nice. But like change is not always polite and it's not always easy. Yeah.

If it's hard, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. And I think this concept of layering is going to become very, very important in this next generation because I think we're going to be overwhelmed with a magnitude of change that probably needs to happen as we adjust to a modern world of operating and parenting and working and practicing. But I think I think that slowdown of really understanding the layering process is you're not that good to change the whole frigging thing. Like so as a teacher, you're not going to undo systemic racism in a day and you're not going to be able to, you know, help every student who is struggling, you know, the 20, 50 percent of kids who would identify as lonely, that's just

not going to happen, right? So you're not that good. Your only job is to do the next best right kind thing, which is really layering that and slowing that down. When we slow that down, talk to me about the connection to the nervous system then. When I am layering, when I take that control or that responsibility, that discipline of connection back, what happens in my neurophysiology when I do that? So you essentially are training your nervous system that it's safe to take risk, because our brain doesn't really understand the difference between a big risk and a little risk, right? And it also, if we're thinking about it, our brain also doesn't know the difference really between a scary thought and a scary experience, right? And so if we're giving

ourselves these very safe, almost fail-proof ways to remind yourself that we can be safe, we're reminding our nervous system, oh, you walk into a grocery store and you'll feel a little bit panicked, but you're going to be okay, right? And then slowly, you're changing your window of tolerance for that stress, right? And for that okayness with new, that okayness with change and that I can do this, right? And yeah. And this idea of flooding the nervous system, which is quite antiquated, but very prominent in the world of psychology, right? It was a very prominent way to treat sometimes anxiety or phobias, was just to flood the nervous system in the hope that it'll learn the lesson, that it'll be like, well, shit, I can do it. Here's this. And the idea

is, you know, the data around that is, it's largely ineffective. I mean, it does work if you can push through and indicate that the body is safe in that moment. But it would suggest that it's so much easier if we just really understand this from a neurophysiological perspective that we're just overwhelmed as we are generally speaking more today than we ever have been in any generation that's come before us. So the need to really understand this neural regulation as we attempt new things or try to become more engaged or do the work as many people. people talk about to understand even what our triggers are. What happened to us? Why are we in this way? You know, is it a, is it an intersectionality, which it often is, of, you know, our story,

our neurodivergence, our ability to show up in the world, how we, the story we have about whether other people are safe. And, and where do those stories start? Can you, can you give us a sense about, you know, how, what we're, what we're up against here? Well, where do our story start? I'll use myself as an example in this, it's easy, right? So I, we were chatting before this. I was like, this is terrifying to me to talk about this and, like, be out here. I'm like, oof, just be quiet, Natasha. Everyone's going to laugh at you.

That's my internal dialogue. That would be my BS, which is my belief system of everyone's going to laugh at you. And then it's like, well, what if they don't? Okay, they might not. And often, they never do. But what I started doing the work, going, okay, well, why do I have this? Why does it feel so unsafe to speak? Why does it feel so unsafe to just own my knowledge and what I know?

And when I started, you know, reflecting in some through therapy, I was, I come from a home where my father drank a lot and was quite aggressive and my mom was a bit codependent. And she would do anything to keep me quiet, right? For your safety, like me? For my safety, right? And so then being quiet and very small became what kept me safe. So for 35 years, up until. even at you I'm 39 years I'm 40 now being quiet kept me safe right and it's only now that I'm

starting to train myself that oh I can maybe be safe and talk about this because I'm not that little girl anymore that needs to be quiet right so I'm really I am so thankful for that part of me that kept me safe and quiet and I can appreciate then they don't got to go anywhere but we grew up now and we're safe now and I have all these other tools I've learned and we're can share this now. And to have this really this empathy rather than judgment on our own, this sort of hurdles we've came over, and even our coping mechanisms. So to give ourselves that empathy and those questions of, okay, well, why did I do that? Am I just a fuck up that makes bad decisions all the time? Or perhaps was I trying my best to be okay? So true. And I think that's

that's where we often land in adulthood is I'm a fuck up. I can't keep relationships. I, you know, nobody can handle me. I'm too much. I'm too big or I'm too quiet. That always, in always, comes from a narrative that served you well at one point. Yes. Okay. So, and I think it's really establishing whether it continues to serve you well or not. Yeah. And that's, I think, the big turning point for so many of us is that it's not like you got it wrong up till now. It's that it served you well and it maybe is or is not serving you well. anymore, right? And so I love that because it really is just sort of an inventory of, you know, sort of what, what those stories got there, what they mean, and do you need them now?

Yeah, and rather than judging them, because we tend to judge ourselves a lot. We'll talk about judgment of others, but we judge ourselves. That's our habit. And if you're happy to judge you, guess what you're going to do the other people? What do you sometimes do all the time? Usually. Yeah, 100%. All right. So you talked about internal self-monitoring and the reframing around it. Anything else that you can add in that space about? Eventually, you're going to have to anchor it into so it becomes your new baseline. That becomes your new set point.

And I find often it's not like this magic anchoring of it, but you will have, it sounds so wooey, but it's not because there is actual shift in the pattern. You can see it on a brain scan, right? But it'll feel like this one day you woke up and like, oh, it doesn't feel that way anymore. And, oh, it's easier for me to look up and just, oh, I can find five things I'm grateful for really easily. And I can see that without the effort that it felt like it took for a long time. Right. And then not just anchoring the thought, but oh, how does it actually feel in my body when I feel like this great? Right. And I use this a lot with students. Often it's when they get real mad and then it's this big outward of often aggression. Okay, well, That didn't start here, right? What was happening before? And so I always have an awesome experience.

It doesn't matter how crazy it seems to me. I'll hear them out. And then I'm going to tell them what my concern might be as an adult. And then we go to the talk about where did you feel at first? And usually it's like here in our throat. Okay, well, you know, if you had, I always have them tied to a feeling because I'm can qualify it once it shifts, right? But if we have angry here and I'll be like, well, what color is it?

They're like red. What shape is it? It'd be like a spiky, well, like, perfect. It's a spiky red thing, okay? And then eventually it came here. Now, what if we learned to be so self-aware of our nervous system in our body that we can catch it. Maybe we don't catch it here, but we catch it here. And then we don't feel bad about the things that came after that as well.

Oh, I think I could because I do feel it here, but I kind of ignore it a little bit. I just made it thought that was telling me to react this way. Well, it might be a signal from your body that you don't feel safe right now and you have options. Right? And you'll see students, young people are so amazing to work through because so quickly, they'll see it. Oh, I felt way better when I reacted that little bit different. And then you'll watch and they'll go from people that they're quite reactive to their self-monitoring and like putting themselves. I'm going to sit down for two minutes because I feel like I'm here. I'm like, perfect. I love it. Whereas a month before, you'd have to be like, oh, is there going to something to happen here? Right? And you have to be right there. And it's really beautiful. And it really comes. comes down to this getting them off judging themselves, right? And as an adult coming in, like, I'm not judging you for, like, there's no judgment ever. It's one thing. It's just this is what happened. We could have made a better choice. Let's talk about what happens next time, right? But let's not center on the scenario in front of you because our common denominator in our

life is us. Okay. If I have the habit of going off the rails here, well, that's probably going to happen in the future in a different relationship, right? Yeah. So if we focus in here, Right. We can feel when our nervous system starts ticking, but we're so busy. We have such an influx of sensory. We've like forgotten that we can do that. You can feel that early if you're like, oh, I feel that in my body right there. Oh. And once you're, you anchor that awareness of that feeling in the body, it's way easier to catch it and then change your habits around it until it becomes your go-to. And they're also going to change your belief systems around it. Okay, is it that I'm a raging dragon lady? Or is it that I'm feeling uncomfortable right now, right? How do we reframe the BS,

the belief system around what you're going through and your trigger points, right? Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, it is a big process. And I love how you just sort of slowed it down a little bit because I think, you know, one of the things that happens for me oftentimes in therapeutic interventions is asking those questions that people don't like to answer, which is, where do you feel it? And I think it's so much easier to talk about what happened than where you feel it, the logistics. I mean, I know you have some experience with military and athletes. And I do a lot of work with first responders. And I find getting us out of our head in the logistics and into our body, particularly when you don't have an emotional language or, you know, you've never been talked about or you've never been

allowed or there hasn't been space to talk about emotions other than happy, sad, and pissed off, it becomes really difficult for me to say, where do you feel it? And so oftentimes it is in the core, Natasha, isn't that right? Like in the throat, in the chest, in the shoulders. And why is that? Why does, why do most of that, that heaviness of emotion land in our core? I suppose it depends on your belief systems, right? So it's funny. We'll talk about like shockers and stuff, but that's also where our nervous systems enter into the body in the same points, right? I find thematically, if someone feels it here, it's a, I'm not, I'm not speaking. when I need to, or I've been silenced in some way.

In your throat, yeah. Right? Like, there are correlations, and it doesn't matter what area you come from. And this is how I'll talk about, because again, I, you know, for me, I've learned some of the more energy side of it. And I'm like, I need the science to back it up. And what you're finding is that the, like, the science, and it's kind of like this. And you can track it in the body now, which I think is the coolest thing.

Oh, yeah. So often there, and an anger I find usually is in the gut. And it's often like a boundary or a shame, right? where that's being triggered, right? So it's this, I find too, where you're right, people can't identify feelings, like so often, especially military or often, yeah, they'll be like, what don't they'll say? I just don't like it. I'm like, well, that's not a feeling, right? And I'll say it like that, and they're like, oh, but you can frame your language.

Well, could it be this or maybe this? I don't know. And it's always like an, I don't know. Like, there's no real right answer. It's just so we can see when you're not there anymore. right there's no wrong answer to this oh I love you know what I'm so I was so impressed before we started our meeting here today you were like I needed the background and the science to support it because I'm not woo-woo and it's so funny because I have like rejected the woo-woo side of things for

such a long fucking time I needed the science so long and then people like we should light shit on fire and like um you know meditate and I was like listen I don't got fucking time to meditate okay like I don't I'm not interested I've got a few things I need to solve And it is like the greatest contribution. And there certainly is, I think, a gender gap when it comes to understanding, I think, the importance of slowing down and the physiological side of the body that is just so much more, if like we're lifting shit and working out and doing all those things, that it's better than if we have to feel it. And even in the corporate world, I mean, many of the conversations I have,

I have to be careful about how I coach them, you know, because people are still very, very disinterested investing in the soft skills. Yeah. Okay. So even by nature of that word, it would indicate it's less important. And in fact, then the hard skills or the P&Ls or the Q4s or the like whatever you're looking at. And in fact, the exact opposite is true.

Organizations, companies, businesses, institutions that are much more invested in the soft side of things, the connection, the slowing of the neurophysiology will do remarkably better. Remarkably better. You'll have with change management. So often where there's resistance. or failure is that they forgot the human side of change and what is required of the human, the humans within it, in order to create that change. And it's true. I had this internal

conflict of, well, how do I, how do I, what language do I use, right? Depending on the audience you're speaking to, right, in terms of, because you can have the concept and you can know it works and how do you frame the language depending on your audience, right, which would be a soft school, I suppose, will impact the result and whether they're going to have like a visceral, no, because if they do that, well, now their nervous system is up and they're not going to learn a whole lot because the door is just shut for that learning, right? And it's almost like sometimes you don't even have to do a whole bunch about it, but it's like you can't unsee it once you know it. Yeah. And I think that, you know, just back to sort of this idea when asking somebody

where they feel it and allowing them to sort of like, okay, give me a shape, give me a color, which is so asinine and oftentimes the things that I get the most pushback in therapy, right? you know, when you have this like, you know, whatever. I mean, you can imagine like a hockey coach or a woman that has never been allowed to feel anything. And I'm like, okay, so where do you feel? I don't know, you know? And so, all right, like, I got all the time in the world.

Like, let's slow this down. You know, that's interesting, right? Yeah, that's it perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Because I can see in your jaw. I can see in your lips. I can see in your shoulders.

You know, could we start there? And so it's sort of a little bit of a guided sense of like, and then again, you know, what color is it? I don't know. It doesn't have a buck. in color. And there's a wrong answer. It doesn't have, like, choose one. We'll switch it later. Exactly. What are you looking for? I'm not looking for anything. I don't need anything. Yeah. Yeah. So I really, really love that. What is next for you around, you know, sort of all of this

research coming to a culmination in this doctorate? What, where do you need to put all this work? Where, what's your plans here? So moving forward, so while I'll be launching a podcast in the fall, where I'm talking a lot about these tools and how they can really, help us, it's called become unbeatable, but unbeatable in our life. And that can mean a lot of different things for people. Nice. And with, I hope that I can work towards sharing this narrative, because part of what I do in this research is we're using guided imagery, right? And so instead of, you know, it's a different kind of meditation. I always struggled to meditate. I thought I failed at it every single time. And then when I started learning about things with guided imagery,

like you'd have prisoners of war who would imagine themselves playing their favorite golf course ever and then they would get out and they'd have their best ever that they've ever played that golf course right and so a big part of it is okay

if I'll be working with teachers okay well if you're walking into this room and you're expecting all the dysregulation and speaking out and no impulse control okay well you're probably going to find it right but if you walk in your perception has changed through some, a lot of it is this visualization, this identifying your own triggers, right?

It perhaps is some of what you're seeing in your students actually more your lens in it than what they're actually doing because they're just kids being kids, right? And the more grounded they are in it, what we'll find in the research, this is the cool one that I wanted to, I'm going to go off on a little tangent here, but there was this research done and they took a group of students who were essentially, they were failing out. They were on that cusp of being pushed out of the school. And they were like, they were talking about expectancy theory and that if we expect kind of greatness from people, often they'll meet us at it, right?

And focusing very much on the teacher influence, no direct work with the students. So they brought in this great teacher who just really expected success and believed they could do it. And put that teacher in for a year. And those students went from failing out to like 80, it was like 82% were in honor roll after that one year. And it's because when we expect, we believe that you can do great things. And my perception of you is that you're so capable of this and this is why and this is why. We also bring more into them. But what you'll find is the effort immediately comes back up.

They feel safer. They don't feel judged. Right. And these kids, it shifted everything for them. Yeah. They have access to all the best. And then this is where I'm like, why did they do this? They then remove the teacher, put another teacher without the skills.

And those students went right back down to all. being pushed out. And there was no direct work with the students, right? It was only with the nucleus of the room, right? And, you know, you can go down the path of it. Is it that their perception just changed? Was it that the mirror neurons are doing their magical things of, I believe in you? And then you're going to start to believe in yourself. And so that's where my research really dives into, right? And you'll see it in big corporate settings where why is there a resistance, right? But then you might find out that the, you know, the owner is kind of internally terrified of the next step because they're already burnt out. And if you help that owner get over that step, well, now suddenly the entire

crew is working better. Absolutely. You didn't work with the crew, right? And haven't we spent such a long time, you know, working with the crew? And so many times people ask me, like, can you talk to kids? Can you, like, even as a psychologist when I work, you know, at the Children's Hospital, I need you to see my kid. I need to see my kid. Yeah, absolutely, right? Like, but I need to see you first. Yeah. And the pushback. is often, well, like, so am I, you think I'm the problem? And I'd be like, yay, no. But the truth is you're the solution. Yes. Right. And so there's often problematic things that are happening at the helm of major organizations of any family system, not because we intend to hurt or we're doing it wrong.

It's because we've been doing things one way that needs just a little bit of light shine on it, shine on it. And then if that happens, that subtle shift really is sort of that waterfall that happens in that classroom in that organization in that company and so getting back to this place of sort of like we we have the answers from a you know human race perspective we're way more like than we are different and when we get out of our head and into our bodies that's where the answers just they're live they're ready for us to find them yeah yeah and with yeah and i'll oververt back to with what i'd like to do with this because it's not just support paulgus eventually this will it will become a book I said the research I'll be finished in a year or so. And I want to be sharing this understanding. And I want to equip others with the tools so that they can do this for themselves. Honestly, for a long time, that's where I was just working one-on-one, very quiet. It's like we have this individual. But perhaps it could be broader, right? And that would feel. Perhaps, Natasha Dorsey, perhaps. It could be broader. And that might be awesome.

think, well, and we need to say that on a larger, louder scale, because that's exactly what, you know, I'm still saying it quietly. I hear you and I know why that is. But the idea is to yell that a bit louder because I, you know, I think you're on to something fantastic here. And I, and I, and I so appreciate it because it mirrors so much of my own journey and, you know, doing individual work and now thinking about speaking and what business do I have to write a book and like all of those kind of things. Those are all I think, you know, part of that process of really pushing through it. And so I'm so glad. you agreed to do this today. Well, I was so glad that I was like, what? No, this is where it's like a fan girl for just a second here. But, you know, when they talk about meet someone who's ahead of you, right, and has, it helps me, oh, it is possible, right? And there are people out there that are, they get it, right? Like, you know, for me, I'm thankful that I was able to come on and share. It's my big first step in sharing. And you nailed it. You nailed it. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for hanging out with me and Natasha. I'm going to, I'm

going to tag or put everything in the show notes you can find where who new podcast is going to be and some of the things that we talked about they'll all be there for you because I think this is the only generation or the only way we need to go in this next generation to become on lonely so I hope you loved it as much as I did and Natasha thank you from the bottom of my heart and you guys hang on to each other and lean into each other onto each other until the next time we meet right back here you know the more we do this people ask why do you have to do the acknowledgement and every episode. I got to tell you, I've never been more grateful for being able to raise my babies on the land where so much sacrifice was made. And I think

what's really critical in this process is that the ask is just that we don't forget. So the importance of saying these words at the beginning of every episode will always be of utmost important to me and this team. So everything that we created here today for you happened on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home of the Blackfoot Confederacy, which is made up of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Piccani, the Titina First Nation, the Stony-Nakota First Nation and the Métis Nation Region 3. Our job, our job as humans, is to simply acknowledge each other. That's how we do better, be better. and stay connected to the good.

The Unlonelly podcast is produced by three incredible humans, Brian Seaver, Taylor McGilvery, and Jeremy Saunders, all of Snack Lab Productions. Our executive producer, my favorite human on this planet, is Marty Pillar. Soundtracks were created by Donovan Morgan, Unloanly Branded artwork created by Elliot Cuss. Our big PR shooters are Desvinoe and Barry Cohen. Our digital marketing manager is the amazing, Shana Haddon. Our 007 secret agent from the Talent Bureau is Jeff Lowness.

And emotional support is provided by Asher Grant, Evan Grant, and Olivia Grant. Go live! I am a registered clinical psychologist in Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice. The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, education, and the one thing I think we all need the most, a safe place to land in this lonely world. We're all so glad you're here. Thank you.