Well with Arielle Lorre - 81: Victoria Albina NP, MPH - Overcoming an Activated Nervous System + Habitual Thoughts

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

In this episode I am talking to Victoria Albina, NP, MPH about why we are all in heightened states of anxiety, how our environments are affecting our nervous systems and how our nervous systems are affecting us. We talk about how to shift from a state of anxiety to one of being grounded and present; how to get out of fight or flight; how to recognize and change our habitual thoughts; why not having control is wildly liberating; what being a hospice nurse taught her about life and presence and so much more.   www.hellorory.com/BLONDE for a Free consultation and your first order for just $5! www.FXChocolate.com with code BLONDEFILES at checkout for 20% off your order. Visit https://alorecovery.com/ if you or someone you know is in need of addiction treatment.   Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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would auto-hue Zonorger's underzor Go to your reisadviseur or SunnyCars. The following podcast is a dear media production. Hey, welcome to the Blond Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness.

From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there is so much information out there, so I'm here to help you navigate it all and live your best life. Thanks for listening. Let's get into it. Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. Today, I'm talking to Victoria Albion.

She is a nationally board certified family nurse practitioner. She has her master's in public health. She is also an herbalist and a life coach and a certified breathwork healing facilitator. And she's the host of her own podcast called Feminist Wellness. This is such a relevant episode because we talked a lot about what it's like having a constantly activated nervous system and how that affects us. We talk about why this is happening to us right now. and how to begin to make changes to shift from like a fighter flight stage to being more present and grounded. I think a lot of people, myself included, feel this right now. And she has great tips on how to identify why this is happening, how to identify our habitual thoughts and the resulting feelings that they produce and what areas of our lives may be triggering us. And we just had such a great time talking. So enjoy the episode. Okay, welcome Victoria. Thank you so much for coming on this show. So excited to chat. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

Why don't we start by just having you tell the listeners a little bit about you, about your practice, and how you came to do what you do? I feel like people in a helping position usually get there because of personal experience. So I'm curious what your trajectory was like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I use she her pronouns and I am coming to you from occupied Lenape territory, also known as Brooklyn, New York City. I am a holistic nurse practitioner, breathwork meditation facilitator and life coach. And I am the host of the podcast feminist wellness. And yeah, you hit it right on the nail. I came to this work because I was super duper sick for the first like 30 years of my life, real casual. I had, wicked, bad, irritable bowel, all sorts of digestive issues and the depression and anxiety that are part and parcel of those conditions. And so I went into medicine thinking that that was the route through which I could help people the most. So I was a primary care provider and I did holistic and functional medicine for many years, eventually opened a private practice here in New York City. And I came to realize through my own journey, my own healing work, and through working with

hundreds of patients, that while the physical health is absolutely vital, there's no mental health about physical health, no physical health about mental health. There was something really, really missing for so many of my patients as had been missing for me, which was mindset. So really looking at our habitual thoughts and the molecules of emotions that they release into our body, our feelings, that vibration of energy within us. For me, there was a lot of codependency, people, pleasing perfectionism, effectively really externalizing my sense of self and my valuation of myself and really thinking deep at my core that what other people thought of me was really important, often more important than what I thought about me. And all of that kept my nervous system really

jacked, which kept me in that loop of being really, really sick. Wow, there's a lot there that I get into. But I think it's so important for people to hear about the component of mindset. And I think people, I don't know, to me, it seems like people are kind of waking up to that a little bit. We're realizing that we can't like green juice our way into perfect health and well-being. And I've had my own experience with this. And, you know, I've really come to realize, and I talk about this a lot, that my nervous system is the driver of everything, of all of these physical symptoms that I experienced. I've had gut issues for years and I did everything. And it was like, why is this still happening to me? And then I've started to realize, you know, I have old traumas and I'm

constantly jacked up. And I'm in an industry where it does seem to matter what people think about me. But now I'm realizing that that's all an illusion. So we can't wait to really get into all of this with you. So can you talk about your own journey a little bit? Like especially with your IBS, because a lot of people that follow me do have gut issues and how incorporating your mindset led you on a path of healing? Yeah. So I was sick from when I was a baby. There were all these foods I couldn't tolerate. This is a sweet story. I'm from our Argentina and my mom, I couldn't tolerate cows milk. And so she would drive four hours to Buenos Aires to buy soy milk.

Oh, with all we know now about giving an infant soy, right? But she didn't know it's what she was told to do. But it just is like, it's sweet, right? Right. Just doing her best with what she had. Anyway, it's all we can do, right? So, yeah, when we moved to the U.S., when I was like three-ish, we left behind a really tight-knit family unit.

We all lived in the same building, which is really sweet. We all were on different floors, but it was just like a big collective where I had cousins and aunties and my grandparents, right, and like this whole family energy. And we moved to the U.S. where we were really isolated and really alone and didn't have a community. And I bring that in because I think that's a lot of where my own habituation

towards isolating myself, thinking that I had to manage all of my problems. I couldn't ask for help. No one could help me, right? That I was terminally unique in my physical ailments and my thinking, my mindset, right? That I think all sort of started then in that early immigration story and feeling really alone. And also feeling like a really weird kid because I was, right? Like I was this Argentine who brought like steak to lunch at like MLK Jr. Public School in Providence, Rhode Island. Kids were like, what are you eating? We have Capri San. And I was like, Are you from Rhode Island? Sorry to interrupt you, but. If we're talking about Rhode Island, you can always interrupt.

What is your connection to the greatest state on earth? I'm from Barrington. I went to Moses Brown. Shut your mouth. Shut your mouth. Get out of here. The Rhode Island pride is so real. It's so real. Oh my God. I love you. all your work beforehand. Now I'm like, oh my God. That's wicked. I love it. Yes, we stick together. Oh, we sure do. So I grew up right down the street from Moses Brown. Yeah. Like literally three blocks down the hill. Yeah. That's so crazy. So funny. What are the chances. All right. So you know,

Rody. Like the most parochial like kids would be like, oh, were you born at women and infants? Oh, no. Then you're like not one of us. And I was like, okay, I guess I will never, ever fit in anywhere ever, right? Yeah. Oh my gosh, roadie. Wild. All right. We'll have to have a separate call. Yeah. Or we should start a podcast called like just talking about Rhode Island. I think everybody from Rhode Island would listen, actually. Okay. So our readership will be about 12 people. Yes, but they'll be dedicated. Yes. Yes. I love it. Drinking Dell's lemonade. Okay. Oh my God, I'm loving this. So, yeah, so all right, let me refocus.

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Again, that is allo recovery.com. From the offices of Create and Cultivate, I'm Jacqueline Johnson. And this is Work Party, a podcast for working women that support each other's successes. In each episode, we bring in leading female powerhouses for career real talk in BS free advice. Ready to create and cultivate the career of your dreams. Well, welcome to Work Party, the podcast. So belly aches in the great state of Rhode Island, just feeling like this weird kid who didn't fit in. And I grew up thinking that what I was feeling was totally normal because I had no one to really talk about it with. Right. And so I actually like remember this day. It was like my first week at

college and looking at my new roommate and being like, oh, I have like this wicked bellyache. And she was like, oh, no. And I was like, oh, no, it's okay. My stomach hurts all the time. And she was like, that's not normal. And I remember being like, what do you mean? Doesn't everyone have a bellyache all the time? I was just so habituated to it just being my like constant norm that I didn't sort of understand that another way was possible, right? Like another way of living and feeling. And so too, with the codependency, perfectionism, people pleasing, all those survival mechanisms that my absolutely brilliant, amazing inner children had picked up as survival mechanisms, right, as ways to help me, like, prove to the world that I might be this weird foreigner,

but like, I'm a good girl. And I get A's. And I, like, am in the play. And I excel in the play. right? Like, I'm proving myself and I follow all the rules. And all of that led me to hold down the truth of who I am and like all of my weirdness, all of my, not all of it, but so much of my authenticity, which like we can talk about the wellness industry and how everyone, like, has the same Instagram using the same font. We can go to there. But it really kept me repressive. the truth of my nature and my authenticity and all of these ways that I can now, all these years later, look back on with love

and say, I was just trying to survive, and I did a great job. And there was a consequence, which was I stayed physically sick and felt depressed and anxious all the time. Because when you're repressing the truth of who you are and how you are meant to shine in this world, like, of course you're anxious about it.

makes sense. Like, that's logical to me. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because I, I grew up, as I said, in Rhode Island. I went to private school. On the outside, everything looked really good, right? I had friends. I was engaged in academics and extracurriculars like you. But I also felt on the inside, like I was just a little bit off, a little bit separate from everybody else, a little bit different and I couldn't put my finger on why, but my solution was drugs and alcohol. So that, you know, that took over my life at 18 and I'm now sober six and a half years. But yeah, but since getting sober, I had to deal with the stuff that came up. And it was all of the things that you're talking about. And it's the people pleasing and trying to be something that I wasn't.

And, you know, really, when I got sober, I had no clue who I was. And so it's just been like a constant evolution. And it's interesting. because finding myself in this line of work, more and more it feels very inauthentic, even though I try to be my most authentic self. You're still presenting an image to the world that isn't real, right? And I'm finding myself lately, especially where I am on my spiritual journey where, you know, I'm very disillusioned with it. And I had like two weeks ago, I had kind of a meltdown over school. And I was just kind of at a breaking point with stress and I wasn't doing my meditation and all of this. And I was just kind of off. And I had to like post an ad that day where I'm like happy smile. And I was just like, this just feels so wrong. And that kind of stuff for me manifests as sickness and gut issues and the constant hijacking of the nervous system and all of that. And I think so many people, people are living like that, especially with social media and just especially in like the pace of

our life and what we prioritize and what we, you know, just this rat race. It's crazy. Yeah. So I feel like like it's no wonder everybody is anxious and depressed and having gut issues and but it feels like we're at this kind of like breaking point. I don't know. I hope so. I mean, I really hope that people are just waking up to the fact that the most important thing that you can be in your life is radically honest about who you are in your life. Like, just be you. I know it sounds so trite, but like it's so real. And to nerd out, because I will always nerd out. Is that, is your pocket protector firmly in place? Because that's important. Just kidding. Your pocket protector for nerds.

I was like, my what? I love nerding out. Okay, good, let's do it. So it's like my actual favorite activity on Earth. So when we are talking about a jacked-up nervous system, for folks who don't know what we're talking about, the autonomic or automatic nervous system has two main branches. And this is ancient as being a mammal.

This is old, old, old. So one branch is sympathetic. we've all felt sympathetic activation, fight or flight, freak out. It used to be way back in the day that that state was only triggered when there was an actual lion, an actual Puma, an actual bear coming to eat your face. And that was that. But these days, it's like you post a picture and you're like waiting for likes and waiting for likes and waiting for likes and you're getting activated, getting activated. Or for those who have a boss, you get an email from your boss being like, where's that worksheet? Where's that hand? Where's the thing? And before you can even pause to process it,

into anxiety, into worry, into future tripping, into stress. And so in that state, adrenaline, nor epinephrine, and eventually cortisol from your adrenal glands are sent out wildly throughout your body. This is not a problem if it happens here and there. And we actually need this activation energy to do things like get out of bed and put on pants and open the Zoom and parents, small humans, or bigger humans or ourselves. But what happens is this can get out of balance, right? Where we're having more activation energy than our bodies can tolerate. When we're in activation, when we're in fight or flight, just think about it logically. Like if a lion was coming to eat your would you stop and digest a cheeseburger?

I wouldn't. I mean, no. It's the first thing that shuts down, right? Exactly. Yeah. And next, your thyroid stops converting T4 into T3. You're not turning cholesterol into the hormones that we need for a healthy period. This is why one of the ways that stress stops your period, right?

Like there's these knockdown effects and through your entire physiology, including changes to the expression of your DNA. DNA. Whoa. Right? So yeah, back to green juices and like I'm supporting my detox with this green juice, which like I love a green juice. Someone please hand me a green juice, right? And our true detoxification systems are methylation, acetylation, all these fancy chemical things in our bodies happen when we are not freaking out over the little things. So to bring us back to say mindset is everything. Like, yes, green juice, but you actually have green juice within you. You don't need to drink it, right? So that's sympathetic. The other branch is parasympathetic,

which has two branches of its own. So there's within that rest and digest, which is that calm state where you're safe and social, you're looking across at someone who's smiling at you, but like a sincere smile where you can see the crow's feet, right? You can see all those little wrinkles which are beautiful. There are signal that, you know, that someone is actually there and present versus like there's this woman in my building who smiles like this. It's like just her lips barely move and it makes me like I feel that activation energy. I'm like, I don't trust what you're doing with your face. Right. Are you going to hit me? Like what's happening? I feel my shoulders go up. Yeah. So then the other side of that parasympathetic is that I give no more.

I cannot anymore with this, which is immobilization. So in animals that looks like a possum, plaguing possum, or a deer in the headlights, in humans that can look like depression. It can also look like a lot of what happens in codependency and perfectionism and people pleasing, right? This story, this energy, this feeling that I can't anymore. I'm not getting listened to. I don't matter. My feelings don't matter. What I want and need just doesn't. matter. So like, yeah, sure, we'll have pizza tonight. I mean, I'm going to have like a terrible bellyache for the next four days from the gluten and dairy, but like, I can't. I can't. Right. So in that state, we are also not digesting, thyroiding, reproductive hormoning. Like, none of that

stuff's happening from that I give up posture. Right. So I bring this up because the more we are aware of what's happening in our bodies, the more we can lovingly interact with it. And I don't think that any of these nervous system states are wrong or bad. We just get to understand what takes us to wear so that we can lovingly support ourselves. If you guys follow me on Instagram, you may know that I have recently overhauled my skincare. And let me tell you, it was a game changer. Like, unbelievable, the results that I've seen in just a few months of adding in. And I'm just a few months of adding and removing some key ingredients in my skincare routine. So the key for me was having somebody guide me instead of just randomly buying whatever other people tout. So I have to tell you about

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changes to your treatment. This is imperative and for me this has been critical in nailing down a plan that actually works. Having someone guide you takes all the guesswork out of it and with Rory, you get that and there are no commitments and you can cancel any time. So just go to hello rory.com slash blonde. That's H-E-L-L-O-R-O-R-Y.com slash B-L-O-N-D-E to try out your own personalized treatment for just $5. Again, that's hellorory.com slash blonde for a free consultation and $5 for your first order. I know for me the most helpful thing has been, they've been a few things. Radical acceptance. Yes.

Acceptance of this moment. Exactly how it is. and that doesn't mean that I accept all of the conditions, but I accept this moment as it is, right? And that allows me to be present. Right. Because as soon as I get off in the future or in the past or in the thing that has to be done, any of that,

I'm getting into that activated state. Yeah. So those are so important. But I'm curious like, but I never really know how to tell people how to do that. So if somebody is listening to this and they're like, this sounds like me, I'm constantly activated. and I'm like, go, go, go and stressed out, or I've given up.

Where does somebody start with that? Oh, I love that question. So awareness, acceptance, and then action, right? So folks love to try to jump to changing your thoughts, first and foremost. But where we actually get to stop is by coming into a deep and profound understanding of our habitual thoughts and exactly what you said, accepting them. Because often we are in suffering, not because of the circumstance, but because of our thoughts about it, right? Like pushing it away. So thoughts like, oh, I wish he wasn't doing that again. Right. Oh, I just want them to email me back. Why won't these people like my picture? Right. Like, why is it not the way I want? So when we're asking those why questions in that way, in that like, denying reality kind of way, that's always a huge hint that we are not in acceptance, right? We have

stepped out of acceptance and into a questioning of life, a resisting of life on life's terms. And it's really important for me to say that there's a huge difference. When I'm talking about resisting and emotion and political resistance, political resistance, go for it. Like, I will be with you on the front lines. Let's go storm the Castile. Like, the, you know, You know what I mean? Because that's the action part of it, right? Right. Right.

I am all about storming the castle. Like, let's go do that. But I mean that internal resistance to feeling our feelings, which is also a protective mechanism, right? We can honor our inner children who told us feelings are very scary and bad. And we get to remind our inner children as their own most loving parent. That's the process of reparenting, right? Is to show up for them, recognize.

them, honor them, and let them know that they are safe with us as adults. So jumping into their, it's a big jump. It's a big leap. I get that. So for me, it starts with the small awareness. And it can start with one minute of mindfulness, which is a recommendation that I love to give folks. So when you're making a cup of tea or coffee, when you're pouring water, when you're taking your supplements when you're about to turn on the TV and check out. Whatever, you know, pick a thing, it really doesn't matter, but pick one moment and bring your attention, your presence, your awareness, fully into yourself, your body, your mind for that one moment. Right? Like, I turned the kettle on. Oh, I just got a little joy. Like, oh, I got, I can smell the coffee,

and that's exciting. I now feel the anticipation, like that excitement that I get to like pour that cream and have that beautiful cup of coffee, whatever it is, or like that moment before you step into the shower. So start by noticing these sweet little moments of life and really getting present to what your body is saying in those moments. And then you can expand it out and out and out. so that you can then turn your awareness inward to notice the little teeny tiny spark of resentment,

that little itty-bitty bit of irritability. So having done this work for quite a long time, the other night I turned to my partner and I said, dude, I have that like on a scale of zero to a, I'm going to murder you. I've got like a zero point two irritability in my gut. So I'm going to like go to the roof and do some jumping jacks because this is activation energy. don't know where it's coming from yet, but I can feel it somatically. Like I can feel it in my body. And I would really prefer not to pick a fight with you at night at night. Let's skip that. So I'm going to go attend to myself and attend to my physiology. Specifically, when we are in panic or a freeze,

what's really helpful to bring us back from panic and let me know if any of these resonate for you. but exploring textures. So I will touch my fingers together and just feel the texture of my fingertips. I'll feel the texture of my clothing. What we want to do is to bring our bodies back into this moment, smelling lavender. Things that are heating tell the body that it's safe to not freak out because the body's like, oh, I'm sitting by a warm fire.

Fire keeps lions away, right? So like holding a cup of hot tea, like a hot liquid, can tell your body you don't need to freak out. So a warm blankie, a weighted blankie, these things can really help. And then stretching can really help to bring us back into parasympathetic, a prolonged stretch. Because again, just if you think to yourself, what is the opposite of running from lion? Do that, right? Like you're not going to stop to like find that asana if there's a lion chasing you. Right.

Right. So get on the floor. Find your hamstrings. You may have lost them. They're there. But find them. And then for a freeze, we would do the opposite. So it's consign kind of counterintuitive.

But if you are frozen, go towards cooling. And so drinking something cold or chewing on ice. and then orienting to time and place. Because what happens is that our nervous systems kind of get lost and don't recognize that we're in a safe environment, saying, of course, that you are, right? If you are in physical danger, please don't do any of these things. Call 911 and run, right?

But if it's not that. So looking around and naming the things in your environment, so you might say, lamp, pen, amethyst, microphone, an air conditioner, closet. But orienting yourself to the space to remind your body that, okay, in this moment, I'm feeling unsafe. I'm feeling either worked up or frozen. But it's not the physical reality.

Not to deny your emotions, but to orient yourself enough that you can tap into that higher wisdom and you can tap into your cognitive capacity to know that you are safe. So I kind of freaked out about this company on my last podcast, but rightly so they are taking one of my favorite things, chocolate, and combining that with supplements. I mean, it doesn't get better than that. So FX chocolate is a supplement company that has chocolate literally down to a science. So they have created six different supplement variations. Exhale, focus, thrive, defend, superfood, and zen. each one lending targeted support to a specific need. They have nutraceutical ingredients like Ashwaganda, Rishi mushrooms, CBD, Gaba, Lthianine, and they are expertly packed into a handcrafted square of sugar-free, keto-friendly, dark chocolate. Chocolate is not only a more enjoyable way to take your supplements, but it also increases your body's ability to absorb supplements, making it more effective.

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I mean, we're just kind of living in a time of chronic overstimulation, chronic stress, right now we're going through something unprecedented where, you know, nobody knows what everyone's stressed out. It's crazy. So how can we go about healing ourselves long term? Yeah. So there's all sorts of things we can do from like the supplement world, right? Managing our circadian rhythm, meaning our wake and sleep cycles. All of that stuff is super duper vital. And I again think there's nothing as important as mindset. So when you find yourself worrying, I recommend slowing down, taking a big deep belly breath, and then a long, slow exhale, because it's breathing off all that CO2 that actually calms the nervous

system. So a deep belly breath can actually rev you up more. Did you know that? No. Yeah, it's really interesting because your diaphragm signals to your body, time to run. Right. Yeah, it makes sense. Gosh, because like, why would you need more oxygen? Oh, right. Right. Running. It's all very logical when you

stop and think about it, right? But if you have the energy to, well, then everything must be okay. Okay. So taking that big, deep, belly breath, long, slow exhale and looking at your habitual thoughts, understanding that it's not the actual circumstance at hand that is leading to your thinking, or leading to your feeling, rather, It's your thoughts about that circumstance. Right. And I always, you know, caveat here, we're not talking about, I'm not talking about genocide or racism. Right.

Those horrifying things that are inherently bad in my worldview. But I'm talking about the uncertainty of not knowing if school is starting, right? So it's a duality, both recognizing that it is normal and natural and okay to feel like really worked up or uncertain or confuse or worried, and that once you've felt that through your body and really experience the fact that you're feeling that, you then get to decide that you're going to choose a different thought to create a new feeling in your body.

Because if not, you're just going to stay spinning and ruminating in that old thought, which will either have you taking action in ways that don't really make sense, right? Like calling 10 girlfriends and asking them if they're, they're sending their kids back, right? Like, it doesn't really get you anywhere versus finding that calm place of listening to your intuition, right, checking in with yourself,

taking it internal, which is not to say not to get advice, but I think, do you know what I'm saying, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think I can only speak from my experience, but like my judgment of things, that's what creates problems.

Yep. Excuse me. And I'm always wrong. Always wrong. I mean, the things that I thought would be the absolute worst things to happen to me in my life were actually the best things, you know, and vice versa. Some things that I thought would be really good turned out to be not so great.

So I try to reserve judgment. Obviously, like you were saying, there are things that are inherently bad, things that are inherently good, but it really helps to come back to that place of acceptance in the moment to be like, I don't know. Right. It is. It just is. And I don't know. Yep. Yeah. And to not allow your brain to run away with you and tell you stories. Like, well, this moment is more uncertain than ever. Right. That's not true. Right. Right. Life is, I was a hospice nurse. Like the number of people who are like, dude, I was fine yesterday. And now I'm lying in this bed with you, like talking to you. And I'm like, yeah, life is uncertain. Yeah, I feel like this whole thing has kind of like smashed the illusion that we ever had any kind of control or any kind of sense that we knew how things were going to go. We never did. Never. But I think now people are just kind of coming to terms with that.

Yeah. And I honestly think not having control is like the greatest gift I've ever been given. Right? Because if the only thing I can actually control is my own thinking, feeling, actions, results, then like, that is so wildly liberating. Yes. Right? I don't have to pretend I can take care of someone else's feelings or create their feelings. I can't create results in someone else's life. Like, that's not possible.

Like, talk about an exhale, right? Such a relief. So good. Yeah. I like to ask my guests, what, is one thing that we are all probably doing that we should not be doing. And maybe one thing we're not doing that we should be doing. I think that most of us are beating ourselves up all day long.

We are judging ourselves for like having thoughts that aren't aligned with our highest self. We are beating ourselves up for not getting everything perfect. We're beating ourselves up for having shame about being ashamed, right? Like we are taking what could be really helpful tools, and we're turning them against ourselves. And we're so, so many of my clients just spend literally all day looking unconsciously or subconsciously, rather, looking for the next thing to treat themselves like crap about. and it really keeps us down. And I think this is, you know, I work with humans who are socialized as women, and I think that this is a real, it's an epidemic, you know, of just treating ourselves

really, really poorly while doing all the hashtag self-care everything, which I think can be a real buffer, like a way to push away our real feelings of inadequacy, shame, guilt, of not really attending to our own hearts and minds and looking at our thoughts, the thoughts that are keeping us revved up in that sympathetic dominance or collapsed into that freeze, that dorsal immobilization.

Instead of looking at our thoughts and how they're keeping us stuck in these old stories, we're taking bubble baths in which we're like watching Hulu at the same time. Let's be real. We're having the third glass of wine. we're like we're doing all the like hashtag self-care but it's it's not what we really need we need to stop being mean to ourselves right and that has to come from the level of the mind right that mind-body

interface where it's not sustainable yeah yeah it's almost like I mean I think this is a whole other conversation but like performative self-care right yeah it's all off formative authenticity and And it's like, what are you really doing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like we're marketing ourselves to ourselves. Right.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I get it, right? It's really hard to drop those stories because all those good girl narratives were like baked into us. And we've any, you know, scroll your screen for like two minutes and you'll get 15 stories. I'm like, I love a good face mask.

Mm-hmm. But if it's not aligned with truly loving myself, Right. So if I'm putting on the face mask and I'm looking in the mirror and I'm like, oh my God, you have these pimples. You look so gross. Like, is that face mask self-care or is it just more self-flagellation? Right. I don't think it's a net positive. Yeah. Yeah. So what is something we should all start doing? Oh my gosh. Managing our minds. Really, really, really, really pausing when you feel upset, when you feel worried, when you're ruminating, when you're, when you're, you're scrolling around through your mind for like that thing you said wrong three days ago. Not with the goal of like, okay, here's a thoughtful loving evaluation. Let me do this in a different way next time. But rather just once again to beat yourself up when you're future tripping. I really want to encourage everyone on the planet to pause.

Take that big deep loving breath. Check in with your physiology. Check in with your body, with your spirit. and ask yourself what you're thinking that's keeping you in that thought loop. Because those loops can be paused. They can be, they'll come back, right? That's the, this is lifelong work, this adulting and being a human and reparenting. But you get to start somewhere and you get to start with managing your adult mind

and seeing where your inner children are getting activated, upset, frozen themselves, and what messages your body and your inner children need you to hear. And like, you get it as a mom, right? Like, if you don't listen to the three-year-old at your knee, right, they start out and they're like, Mama, and you ignore them. Mama, you ignore them, right? Like, all of a sudden there's Legos flying and there's a full-on tantrum because they just want attention and love and care.

And so, too, with our inner children. So we get to show up for them with gentleness. And say, like, I'm here for you, sweet one. Yeah. Love it. Amazing. Well, you have a podcast of your own. I do.

Where can everybody find you? How can they work with you? All of that, good stuff. So my podcast is called feminist wellness. And it is on the Apple podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, Pandora, like all of the things. And it's free. And it comes out weekly on Thursdays. You can find me on the Instagram at Victoria,

Bina Wellness. I give good gram. And you can head all over to Victoriaalbina.com right on the homepage. You can put your email in and get a set of free meditations sent right to your inbox. There's an inner child meditation, an orienting exercise, which we talked about for the freeze response, a boundaries meditation, body scans, which are helpful for the panic, fight or flight response. And I'm going to be adding a perfectionism one there. So I'm going to be. need to do that one. Yep. I will send it to your way special ahead of time. Thank you. My pleasure. So yeah, you can grab all of that in there. Yeah. We will have all of that in show notes. So you guys can just go click and get all of that. And thank you so, so much for coming on.

You and I will chat later. Yes, yes, we will. And yeah, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you for all you do. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. I'm always posting about each episode there,

or over on my personal page at Ariel Lorry. Thank you.