Why Overthinking Keeps You Stuck and How Embodiment Sets You Free

This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required compatibility and availability various 18 plus I wrote a little song to remind you. Choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value. The Cambria Hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar. Have a bar. Bring a date, your squad, or even your mom. Book direct@ChoiceHotels.com what if the very thing you've spent your life trying to escape is the place where your healing begins? Most of us have been taught to think our way through pain, anxiety and uncertainty. But what if the answers we've been searching for aren't in our heads at all? In this conversation, I sit down with somatic coach and educator Chelsea Horton to explore why true healing happens when we stop performing, stop overthinking and start coming home to our bodies. Because sometimes the path forward isn't about figuring it out, it's about feeling it. Enjoy the show. Welcome to make it a great one with Dr. Dan. This show is all about bringing hope, connection, awareness and wisdom through meaningful conversations that inspire us to be expanded versions of ourselves and have a positive impact on humanity. This is your space to pause, reflect and reconnect with who you are, what you care about and who you want to be. We have this moment, this day, and this life. Let's make it a great one. Today I am speaking with Chelsea Horton. Chelsea is a somatic coach, educator and founder of Healing Embodied where she trains wellness professionals and leaders to integrate somatics, creativity and emotional healing into their work. With a Master's degree in Dance and Movement Therapy, she combines body based practices, nervous system healing and trauma informed care to help people move beyond traditional talk therapy and fully process emotions in their body. After burning out in community mental health, Chelsea built a business rooted in humanity over hustle and co creating a thriving embodiment coaching program that teaches practitioners to lead with presence, intuition and creativity. Author of the Mental Health Relief Journal and host of the Healing Embodied podcast, Chelsea's work explores anxiety, shame, religious trauma, inner child healing and embodiment. Chelsea, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait. I've been listening to you. I've been listening to you talk. I have been diving into what is important to you about this work. And as we move into that, literally move into that, the first thing I wanted to ask you about is what led you to dance movement therapy? Yeah, it's kind of like a unicorn degree, but most people have never heard of it. But it is a master's level degree. And I got my undergraduate degree in counseling, just counseling psychology, thinking, like, okay, I want to help people in a meaningful way. I'm really interested in psychology and how the mind works and emotions. And I also wanted to understand myself better, But I couldn't see myself just sitting in an office talking to people because I'm a theater kid, I'm a dancer. And that has always been something really important to me and something really meaningful to me and the way that I express myself. And I just wondered, like, how could I combine these two things that I'm passionate about. Psychology, helping people heal and move through things. And also movement and dance and expression and creativity. Like, is there a world in which those two things can come together? So I started doing some research and I discovered dance and movement therapy. And I was like, holy crap, I can't believe that this is a thing. That there's a whole field for little weirdos like me, Drama kids, thespians, right? Like, yes, there is a world for unicorns like you. Yes, yes. And so, yeah, I got. I started my master's degree in 2015, graduated in 2017, and it. It transformed me personally. I mean, going through that program, it was very experiential. And I learned just how in my head I was. Even as a dancer, I realized how much of my life was lived in my mind and what I thought about things and what I thought about myself and what I thought about I should do or shouldn't do. And so much judgment and inner criticism. And just going through that process for myself, as I was learning to facilitate it for others, it just changed the way that my brain worked. It was wild. I've always found something we've been talking a lot about is the difference between presence and performance. And the interesting thing is high achievers, performers in any of the facets of life are performing right? And when we're performing in some way, we're putting on a show, right? Whether we're putting on a show at work, at home, with our friends, at school, for our professional endeavors. And you in your intro, I loved hearing the word presence a few times because it's this seeming duality. But it doesn't have to be like, we're going for Integration where one can perform in a different way while being fully present. I was literally thinking about this exact thing, and I never articulated out loud because it was like a shower thought like yesterday. And I was like, the difference between performance and performance art. And I think it's that exact thing. When you feel like you're constantly performing in your life, there's an unconsciousness to it. You feel like you have to be a certain way in order to be accepted, in order to be safe, in order to be okay, in order to be good enough. Versus I'm consciously kind of stepping into this different version of me. And it feels like an art. It feels like expression. And while I may be aware that I'm playing a role or showing up in a certain way, like right now, even on a podcast, I might not always talk like this when I'm just chilling on the couch with my husband. But can I be really present and see life as a performance art versus I have to perform in order to be safe, worthy, whole, accept it. I like that. Yeah, I like that. So the idea of performance as an art rather than. All right, we'll see what comes out here. Rather than necessity to be of value rather than for survival of. In order to belong, in order to be value worthy. It's. It comes from a. It's a whole. It's a totally different place. 100%. Yeah. Okay. And to push this further, because I think we are aligned here. Is there. They come from different places. So where you talked about the mind. Right. And. And this is where you speak out. I want to say, like against talk therapy or even in your own field. And somatic therapies where people resort to talking because it's familiar and asking questions. It's sort of where it's. It's only unlocks so much. And what we are talking about is being in your body. Right. So there's performance where we're in our head. Yes. And then there might be performance art where we are going to your next word. Embodying a way of being. I love the way you put that. I love the way you put that. Because even going back to that, me being a dancer, example, before I learned to be present in my body, even though I was a dancer, so technically I was in my body. I was so in my head when I was dancing. How do I get the steps right? How do I look? You know, is. Are my lines clean? You know, what. What does this look like? What? Versus just being in my body and letting my body express by being just so present. No, Matter what it looked like, no matter what, if it had any sort of technique at all or not. And I think that's also a really powerful metaphor for how a lot of us just move through our lives as we're moving through our lives, making choices, going, am I doing this right? Should I, shouldn't I? We're criticizing ourselves. We're wondering, what does this look like to other people from the outside versus can I be so present with myself, my emotions, my inner world, my body, and I live my life from the outside in, regardless of if it meets other people's expectations of what I should be? The shoulds, yes. As Albert Ellis, the pioneer of rational emotive behavioral therapy, RBT used to say, we shouldn't, don't, should on yourself. Stop shooting on yourself. And the shoulds get us all the time. They get us all the time. I mean, and the shoulds are whether it's familial expectation, societal programming, or even our own internal harsh critic, which usually comes, usually comes from somewhere outside first before it's internalized. Right. And all these shoulds. Yeah. I so relate my. I was a competitive tennis player growing up and if I look back and say, like, what was the number one reason that I did not consistently perform to the expectations of like, my potential and my coaches, what they thought I could do and what I was able to do in less high stress situations? It was, I was in my head, I was worried about what was going on around me. I was, what would people think if I lost? What would happen if I don't play my best? What and all that stuff does, right, is it just takes us out of our power and our natural abilities and our joy. Really? Yeah. That's a great metaphor as well. It's like, okay, we think that being in our head and criticizing ourselves and overthinking things is the thing that's going to make sure we get it right. We don't mess up, we do everything perfectly. But ironically, it's the thing that actually caps us from experiencing the fullness of what we came here to experience, of just the joy of being alive, the joy of playing the sport, to see what am I capable of here without all this fear of what might happen, what might go wrong. And when we're in our heads about that, we actually play a very small game. Yes. Staying small. Right. Being small. Staying small. And well, when we think of different traumas that people experience. I know you work a lot with trauma, you work with a lot of things, but trauma we don't get through Life without at least a number of little T's, let alone some of the big ones. Staying small is safety, security, survival. Right. And fully being ourselves or fully stepping into our power. That's scary. Yeah. It's so vulnerable. And I love that you. You brought this up. Because sometimes we can judge or shame ourselves for playing small. We're playing small because we're judging and shaming ourselves. But then we judge and shame ourselves for playing small. And I love that you brought it back to. Okay, get curious of how is playing small actually trying to protect me? Where did I learn this? How is this trying to keep me safe? Can I see the positive intent in my overthinking mind, in my fears of making a mistake? Instead of being like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just be more present and be more blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Can we actually go, wow, thank you to the brilliant mechanism of my body for keeping me small? Because my body believed at some point in time that that was safer than opening myself up and being vulnerable to getting hurt again. And you're right. Being in our power is actually incredibly vulnerable. Right? Power. True power. Not just like, power over others. True power is actually really vulnerable. And it makes me think of how often we talk about fear of failing. And the flip side of that is some people think that actually a bigger fear for many is a fear of success. Right. A fear of. Of being big, of being our full selves. Right. Like, what does that bring? Like, what will happen when and what will people expect of me? And what will people say about me? So I. I feel like it's. It's fascinating, right? The. The continuums of. Of our abilities, our growth potential, and how there's, like, these notches. They. They go, but they go both ways. And it's like, how do we. How do we dial them up? Like, how do we step out? Step up, step out, elevate. Or I think what you'll say is also, how do we step in? Yeah. To ourselves. Yeah. And I think the first thing always is actually learning what it feels like to feel safe in your body. Before we even go into expansion and growth and being really big, do you even know what it feels like to just feel safe in your own body? Because for most of us, moving through this world, through life experiences, through traumas, through pain, through relational wounding, we kind of learn that our body is not a safe place to be in because maybe we felt emotions, pain that were just so overwhelming, and we didn't have the support or we didn't have the inner resources or we were shamed for feeling the things that we were feeling. And so then we internalize this belief like my body's not a safe place to be. Feeling is not safe. Feeling at all is not safe. And so it's first, I mean, that was a big thing for me. I was so afraid of failure, I was so afraid of getting hurt that the thought of like really, really taking a big risk and opening myself up to more hurt, like didn't yet feel safe. I used to be incredibly anxious. I was a very, I was so. I had so much anxiety, really intense anxiety. And I, I know now in hindsight, going through the process I've gone through, that was my protective mechanism of oh my gosh, how do I overthink everything so that I don't get myself into a situation in which I might feel the pain that I'm already feeling? I'm already feeling this pain based on life experiences that I had. And so there wasn't really this big reference point of what does it feel like to just feel safe in my body? Because I had only learned to find safety, AKA predictability and certainty and control, perceived control in my mind. So if I could control every outcome and overthink every worst case scenario, I feel this sense of control. But to actually learn to feel safe in my body without knowing what is going to happen next, without knowing if I'm going to fail or not, without knowing what the outcome's going to be and learning to just feel safe in my body, like it literally, I swear to you, it changed my life. And it was only from that place did then the expansion become possible in the way that it has for me. Yeah, it's going in, right? It's going in and feeling. Ultimately learning to feel at home in ourselves. And when we're anxious, among other feelings, like the last place we want to be is in ourself. Ugh, it feels horrible, terrible. And this of course, where we go and seek people seek all the different ways to distract, to numb, to medicate, to not feel that very human, very human experience. Yeah, I mean, I was like, if I let myself feel this, what's going to happen? Am I going to feel this way forever? Or is it going to confirm something I used to be afraid of? Was am I going to confirm that all my worst fears are true? If I let myself feel this, what am I gonna find out inside of myself? I was just so afraid of what was going to happen on the other side of just really letting myself feel the fear and feel the fullness of the hurt. And it was, you know, at times it's like this ego death. You know, you're like, I'm gonna die if I feel this feeling. And, you know, luckily I being as part of the dance therapy program, learning some internal resources, also having my own therapy, learning that I could feel those feelings and actually transform them and that they weren't going to kill me and that they weren't going to stay around forever and that there was so much freedom on the other side of just letting myself move with the feelings instead of avoid, fix, numb, try to get away from. It's very. It sounds very Eastern in the sense of accepting, noticing, allowing. Right. As opposed to more of like the Western of like, power through. Yeah. Like push away, get rid of. Yeah. Which. Which energetically, we know, just causes more. More challenges. How did you move through? Yeah, yeah. How did you through them? It started with relating to my anxiety differently because for so long it was. The thoughts were so loud. The thoughts, they really hook you. The thoughts are very seductive. Like, your mind knows your worst fears. Your mind is a brilliant horror film director and will play on the screen of your mind everything that you're so afraid of. And it. That. That pulls so much of your attention. And so all I was paying attention to was my thoughts. And I'm like, if I could just keep thinking about them and find some corner of my mind where I find the answer and I figure it out and then all the thoughts go away. Well, I tried that and spoiler alert, that did not happen. It only caused more thoughts and more things to be worried about and more things to be afraid of. Like, my mind could literally come up with things until the end of time to be afraid of. And so I had to start shifting my focus from the endless hamster wheel of thinking to, okay, what do I notice in my body when I feel anxious? Where do I feel it? And it would be like this dropping feeling in my stomach. Okay, stay. Stay there. Stay. Don't go into the thoughts. Stay there. Okay. Then it's this tightening in my chest. Stay there, stay there. Notice that. What is it? What are the sensations? Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it dense? Does it spread throughout my body? Stay there, stay there, stay there. Okay, if that energy, if this emotion, this energy in motion, wanted to actually move through my body, how would it want to move? And so I would shake, I would dance, I would move. I would, like, let the energy move, because that, for me, that's fight or flight energy. It was like, I need to There's a threat. There's a threat. There's a threat. And that energy is actually meant to mobilize you from a threat. But if the threat is just an imagined scenario in your mind, and you're just sitting there thinking, and this energy, this fight or flight energy, has nowhere to go. It just keeps fueling your thoughts, and those thoughts keep fueling more fight or flight energy, more fear. And so I was like, what if I just let this energy move through me? What if I moved with it instead of trying to think my way out of it? And I remember, like, the first time that I felt relief in my body without coming up with any sort of mental solution. And I was like, the. Wait a minute. Hold on. What? And it. Magical, right? Yeah, like magical. Yeah. Oh, this so resonates. Okay. Few things. One memory, which just flashed before my eyes. Middle school, lying in bed. And I would go through my checklist. Like, in hindsight, remembering my checklist. Okay. Do I need to worry about this? No. Do I need to worry about this? No. Do I need to worry about this? I had this, like, these things that were going on, and I got to the end, and I remember one of these few nights that it was, whoa, I've checked them all off the list. Every single thing seems to, like, be resolved or have a plan or nothing I have to worry about. Awesome. Lay down for, like, you know, lay there for a couple more seconds, and then wait. What am I supposed to be worrying about? Right? Because the brain always finds a way. So I so relate to that. And the other thing I was thinking about as you were talking was, thoughts are so fascinating. Okay, first of all, we are taught that we have to think. Everything's through on the West. We have to think everything through, have a plan. What are you thinking about? This even. I mean, the importance of cognitive behavioral therapy. We'll talk about the different therapies and cognition and metacognition and changing your thoughts. All valid. And as I was hearing you talk about your experience, I was thinking when you talked about the energy. It's interesting that in our human bodies, the anxious energy or the anxious process gets turned into words. Yeah. Yeah, they get turned into words. Because when you had your aha. What the moment, it was because you didn't need words. Yeah. Wow. I love the way you put that. Yeah. And yes, we have a mind. We have thoughts. It's important to look at that. And we're not floating heads in jars like, we are so much more. Our human experience is so much more than just the thoughts that we think we have this body, which I. I say that our body is our living, breathing storybook of our life. Our body remembers and patterns around our experiences. And so if we're not addressing the body that learned to be afraid, we're always going to find new things on our checklist. We're always going to come up with new things to worry about because your body is still saying, I'm still afraid. Let me come up with reasons to justify this feeling of being afraid and try to fix this feeling with trying to resolve the thoughts in my mind. I've been thinking about this. Well, tell me if this is relates. I've been thinking about spending, because I spent a lot, have spent historically a lot of time in my head and going from the head to the heart. And I find, and this is where I want to work our way to the idea of embodiment. Great word I'm interested in. Like, how do we put words to that? Is we go from that. When my. I'm in my head, I'm thinking, I'm worrying, I'm strategizing, I'm playing mental jumping, jumping jacks. And this is a lot to say. Like, it's fun to think. I'm not talking about the fun thinking stuff. I'm talking about the stuff that is tormenting us or bothering us. And then when I'm like, I'm gonna drop into my heart, it's a completely different experience because the thoughts go away, they fade away or they get really soft. And then I can just be in my body or in my heart and things seem simpler. Way simpler. So much simpler. So usually when we're in our heads and trying to think of things in our heads, we're typically in a certain emotional state. So maybe it's like a little bit of stress, like a low hum of stress or frustration. We're trying to think of things from that energy. And our, our thoughts are a direct reflection of our emotional state. So if my emotional state is, I'm a little stressed, I'm a little frustrated, and I'm trying to think of things from that energy. It's going to be kind of chaotic, it's going to be disjointed, it's going to be all over the place, the neurons are going to be firing in all sorts of chaotic directions. But when I can slow down, literally like place a hand over my heart and begin to shift my emotional state from maybe a low hum of stress or tension or worry or frustration, and I can literally soften my body and Soften my emotional state and drop into my heart and feel that I'm okay in this moment. Feel that I'm right here, right now, I'm okay. Look at me, my heart's beating. I feel my hand supporting my body. Then my emotional state begins to shift. And if our thoughts are a reflection of our emotional state, our thoughts begin to change and they become more coherent and they become more clear and they become more simple. It's like when I feel that I'm safe and I'm okay, and I feel like dropping into your heart is when you remember that place that, like, all is well, I am whole, I'm okay. Then your thoughts are going to reflect that versus the kind of static from the stressed emotional state. Let's have everyone do this with us right now. As I was watching you, I was just like, oh, we all should be doing this with you. So lead everyone through kind of as you just did. So everyone, let's take a moment so we can experience with Chelsea what it feels like to be in our heart and to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, first, take a moment to find a comfortable supported position. Feel your body being supported by the chair, your back against the chair, your butt in the chair, and place one or two hands over your heart space and feel the support of your hands on your body. Notice the weight of your hands against your chest. Notice the temperature of your finger, your top hand on the hand underneath. Maybe the top fingers feel cooler and the bottom fingers underneath feel warmer. Notice the sensation of your hands against your shirt or your skin. Notice that you're breathing and feel how your chest moves in sync with your breath, That you didn't have to force each breath, that your body already knows how to breathe and breathes for you without your control, without your thought to feel your breath. And maybe with your hands, you can begin to notice and sense your heartbeat, the rhythm of your heart beneath your chest. Noticing how your heart is beating without your control, your conscious awareness your heart is beating for you. And if your body can already do two of the most important things that keep you alive without you needing to think about it, can you trust that maybe your body has wisdom to offer about other things in your life too? That you can soften the need to think through everything and trust that your body's got you, that if you're breathing moment to moment, you're okay. If your heart's beating moment to moment, you're okay. Even if you don't have everything figured out, the two most important things that need to be happening are Happening. Your heart's beating, your lungs are breathing. And taking as long as you need to anchor into that. Tuning into your heart space, into the wisdom of your body. And from that space, notice what becomes available. Notice what new ways of thinking become available. Ah. Take a breath. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome back, everyone. Hope you weren't driving during that. Thank you. Yeah, it should be a disclaimer. You know, I was going to move us into talking about what embodiment is, and I think we just had an experience. We had an experience of embodiment right there that you led us to. It makes so much more sense when you feel it rather than talk about it. It is hard to put into words for those where words help with framing. How do you find the words for the name of your business, the name of your podcast, the name of what you do? Right. Embodiment Healing. What is that for you? Yeah, I mean, I feel like words. We have certain associations with words. Certain words have certain, like, emotional connotations, certain frequencies. It's not that words are. Don't matter, but certain words unlock certain things based on our understanding, our experience, our. Our lived definition of that word, how that word was used, how it. How it's felt. And so something like my business coming up with the name for that. I. I just remember, I think I was in my bedroom at the time and I was just dreaming about, like, my career and what I wanted to do, and just like being in that. In my heart and just being in that space of I'm okay, I'm safe, and I'm dreaming. I'm just allowing. And I can't remember exactly how, but it really felt like the name just dropped in, like feeling embodied. And I remember looking it up, seeing if the website was available. I'm like, the website's available. Oh, my gosh. The domain. I bought it right there. That's what you do. It's a sign. Yeah. Yeah. I find the idea of embodied meant and being embodied. It's. It's the same sort of feeling to me in terms both in feeling and in its elusiveness to words as presence. Yeah, right. We're like, be present. Okay. Like, that has form and you could talk about what being. Be here now and da, da, da. But presence feels beyond being present and being embodied. I feel like just nicely. It. It seems like it goes with the idea of presence and being embodied is to be grounded. I'm gonna try to give it words here. To be grounded, to be rooted, to be, to be. It's almost like to live the experience. Yeah. Yeah, it's. And to just be in relationship with your body. Like, you. You're aware of your body. Your body isn't this hindrance to your life. You know, we're like, oh, man, I wish I wasn't so tired. I have so much to do. Right. Like, we. The mind tends to kind of overrule the body, and our body's this hindrance, this thing we have to overcome. Especially for me, coming from conservative religious backgrounds, like, your body is the place where sin happens. You know, your body. Like, we're. In so many ways, we're taught to try to overcome our body or override our body or punish our bodies and try to morph them into what our mind wills them to be. And to me, it's like, how do I partner, Be in partnership with my body, which is the whole point of being a human. Right. Like, if we're, you know, for a spirit having a human experience, why am I trying to override the human experience? To be human is to feel. To be human is to have a body to burp, sweat, be hungry. You know, like, to be human is to be in this body. And there's only. You get one body and you get one. Maybe, I don't know. I don't know if I believe in reincarnation. Maybe, maybe not. You get one chance to be a human, I mean, at least with your consciousness. And so, like, why not experience everything that you can experience in this life through your body to just feel what it feels like to be alive? Well, this takes us to the somatic work because we know that whether it's a multitude of little T traumas and. Or some big T traumas, the natural human body response is to not be in our body, to not feel, to numb, to dissociate as a coping survival mechanism. Yeah. So I. A lot of the work that you and your colleagues do are to, of course, help people get back in touch and be in their body. And so leading into this, where. Where does talking therapy in your experience, professionally and personally? Like, where does it lead you to? And what are the signs to people if they want to add somatic. Somatic work and. Or are finding the talking therapy is just. It's not getting them where they think they need to go. Yeah. So, like, to me, I know it's probably not a clear line, but there's a place for everything. And I know you have feelings about this. You have thoughts about this. Yeah. I'll use myself as an example. You know, when I was really, really anxious, I was just seeing A talk therapist. This is before I went into my dance therapy training and before, I mean I sure didn't know of any body based therapists at the time. This was back in, you know, 2013 when I was. My anxiety, my anxiety was really, really high. 2013, 2014, body based therapies were not as well known as they are now. But I remember it was like every session I would come in with a new hook, a new thought to think about and we would spend the whole session kind of talking through it, reframing it and that would be helpful and I would understand. Okay, I understood how my parents divorce played into my anxiety and like I, I started to build this like framework or this context of like why I was so anxious and maybe some of the things that were contributing to it. Again really, really helpful. But it would only provide like a temporary relief. So I'd come back into session and just kind of have a new loop to loop around over and over. Because again the mind can come up with a million different reasons to be afraid. And my mind sure did do that. And so there's only, I mean I could have been in talk therapy forever and I think a lot of people are. And so for me there was this recognition and my therapist even recognized it too, that I was hitting a wall, that like there was definitely growth up to a certain point, A lot of awareness, a lot of like insight which was really helpful. But I was hitting a wall, like I wasn't really progressing further. Overall, my anxiety was still very much there, even though I had a lot of understanding. And then when I got into my dance therapy program and learned how to start working with my own body, it was a very experiential program. They're like, you need to, you need to do your own inner work around this if you're going to lead someone else through. Was like things would unlock so quickly, so quickly. And it was like all that cognitive insight finally could land in my body because my body was no longer in survival or fight flight or in all that fear and all that emotional patterning. So I think it's when, when it's time to start incorporating the body is when you're like, okay, I know there is everything to know about myself cognitively. I understand my past and how that impacts my present and I understand how the beliefs and like I understand this stuff, but something still feels like it's not shifting in a way that's like really making a difference in how I feel on a day to day in my life. Well explained. Well explained. Yeah. And just like most fields, there's different approaches to the work within the field. And you're a teacher of teachers or a practitioner of practitioners. And how. What have you found is like, you have some important messages that you are teaching. And what, what are these? A couple of these key differentiators that you are feeling like really make an impact and a difference in the work. And if one is going to be doing the work, like you need to be doing these things. Yeah. For a first big differentiator in how we teach, our certification program is that your humanity as a facilitator is not a liability. In a lot of trainings are like, don't bring your emotions into the room. Be a blank slate. Don't like, kind of be clinically removed. And don't like a lot of practitioners we've worked with that came from other kind of trainings. They learn to kind of be afraid of their own bodies in the room and afraid of their own humanity. And like, oh, gosh, what do I do if my own emotion comes into the room? And all you're taught is like, compartmentalize. If your own emotion comes in the room, compartmentalize and come back to it, which there is absolutely time and place for that. That's necessary. And what I have found through my work as a somatic practitioner and what has created such amazing and beautiful results for people is that when I show that I'm human and for example, what. You know what I mean by that. So if my client's telling me something that really has hurt them and they're feeling a lot of grief or pain around something, instead of me being the calm, composed, kind of blank, neutral presence, I might do something like, I'm going to put my hands over my heart and like, I'm going to show that I'm feeling this with them because I'm human and I feel things alongside of you and with you, I call this embodied empathy. So I'm not just going to be like, wow, yes. I'm going to feel like, be in my own humanness as another human being is sharing with me things that maybe they've never shared with someone else. And what my clients have said about that is it allowed them to feel safe to feel their feelings even more because my body unconsciously communicated, it's safe to feel your feelings fully here. I'm not afraid of your feelings. I will feel them with you. I'll be alongside of you. I'll be the co. Regulator, I'll be the anchor. I'm not afraid of my own Feelings. And I know that actually my own feelings that come up, I can. I've learned how to use them as part of the intervention and use my own somatic awareness to lead the session versus, oh, crap. My own emotions are coming up in the room. And not to say that I make the session all about me in any way, but it's. How do I use my own humanity to help deepen someone's experience of their own humanity? Which I feel like that's not something that's really taught in a lot of trainings. That's. Yeah, that. That just. That alone, I think, just speaks to embodiment. Right. Like embodied empathy. I love that term. I have not heard that. So that is yours. Hear that, everyone? That is Chelsea's embodiment. Yeah. Because this is. This goes back to the idea of being present presence as, gosh, we. We, like, work so hard to be something. It's like all day long, like, and. And then. But that's interest during the day. But then we're supposed to be working on to become something. And what you're talking about is fully showing up as you are is the necessary and primary mode of healing. Yeah. And I would say for all of us, for being as we are, fully present as we are, fully embodied as we are, as opposed to the striving and the running and the seeking that take us all away from ourselves. Yeah. And if I'm a practitioner, and I'm unconsciously I'm trying to be a practitioner, I'm trying. I'm trying to present myself that performance, that unconscious performance. I'm trying to present myself in a certain way so that my client thinks that I'm good at my job, so that I feel good about myself. I lose access to being really deeply present with someone. And on an unconscious level, they are not going to feel fully safe to be all of who they are if I am not feeling safe to be all of who I am in that moment. If I'm trying to be something and get. Be in my head. But what's the next intervention? What's the right thing that I should do there? Oh. Oh, gosh. Am I doing this for me? Is this for me or is this for the client? Is this for me? Is this for the client? What should. Well, should I go here next? Should I go here next? What's gonna be the right thing? What's gonna be right thing? If I am so in my head as a practitioner, then we can only go. Even as a somatic practitioner, we work. We even trained other somatic Practitioners to do deeper somatic work. Even somatic practitioners can be up in their head about the next somatic intervention. And so how can you feel safe in yourself, in the moment, without knowing what the next thing is going to be, but without being 10 steps ahead? And be so with your client's body and be so in your own body. I'm not abandoning my body. I'm not abandoning my client's body. I'm with both at the same time. I trust that the next thing is going to unfold from that level of presence, not from knowing all the answers are trying to like, show how competent I am. Back to simplicity, back to simple. Right. And what you're saying applies to parenting, it applies to leadership, it applies to all of it. Yes. And the work of us becoming in the truest form or reclaiming our authentic selves is often to work through all of these blocks, these traumas, the stuck energy, the barriers, the programming, all of the things that as we've grown up, who we've thought we needed to become, or the armor that we put on, or the dissociating or numbing, all this work is in service of coming back to ourselves. Yeah. I remember in grad school, one of my professors who was a Buddhist and a dance therapy instructor, he said you have to unlearn everything that you've learned so that you can learn what you need to learn. So the becoming process is actually a lot more about the unbecoming. Everything that you're not. Yeah, you need to unlearn everything you've learned so you can learn what you need to learn. Yeah. Okay. The unbecoming. I like that way back to ourselves is the unbecoming. Well, you seem like you're, you're having fun. And your middle name, Joy, I feel like you are embodying your name. My mom would love to hear that. And you've done this pretty quickly, you know, I mean, from when you graduated to when you had your. We didn't get into it, but you're after your two year burnout. And I. Those of us who have worked in the systems that are, are there for, to help for good. I mean, they're just tough systems to work in. And from you having your burnout relatively, I mean, in fast form, like, you know, like two years worked really hard and then like, oh man. And then creating what you've created out of that next developmental crises, existential crises. And it has not been that long, temporarily from what you have built with your classes and your programs and your coaching. So I would Say that you are an example to us all to follow where one is being led and allow it. I'm receiving those words. It means a lot. It means a lot. Sometimes when you're on the inside of your own life, it's, you know, feels like you're like, I've been doing this forever and it's taking so long. Right. So it's, it's. I get it. I get it. Receiving those words. Thank you. And lots of hard work. Of course, lots of hard work goes into all of it. So thank you. Thank you for sharing. And you're. And you're putting your. I mean, you share a lot. You share a lot. So tell people where they can find all of your resources and your offerings and any work that they would choose to do with you. For sure. Yeah, you can go to www.feelingembodied.com/forward/connect. On that page, there's going to be a link to book a free call with me. Whether you want to be a client and do your own somatic healing or you want to learn to become a practitioner of this work and completely transform your career and do work that feels like an extension of your freaking soul, you can book that call with me on that page. There's also you can get our free resource library full of podcast episodes about somatic healing and little trainings and session demos. If you're like, what the heck does this work look like? What is it? That's a great resource to opt into. Otherwise you can find me on social media. I'm on Instagram probably the most. Healing Embodied and your podcast? Yeah. My podcast? Yeah. The Healing Embodied podcast. Yeah. Interviews and solo. Solo. Yeah. Both. Yeah, that's both. Chelsea, thank you for a wonderful conversation. Oh my gosh, this was amazing. Thank you. I jived a jived with this conversation. So thank you for. For being such a gracious host. Chelsea's authentic and shares her own personal experience with led to her professional work and calling. Here are five key takeaways from our conversation. Number 1. Presence is different from performance. Many of us spend our lives performing for acceptance, approval or safety. Real freedom begins when we stop performing and start showing up fully as ourselves. Number two, Anxiety lives beyond our thoughts. Understanding why we're anxious can help, but lasting change often happens when we learn to work with the sensations and energy stored in our body. Number three, Safety is the foundation of growth. Before we can expand into our potential, we must first learn what it feels like to be safe in our own bodies. Number four, healing isn't becoming someone new. The journey is often an unbecoming letting go of old patterns, beliefs and protections that no longer serve us. And number five, your humanity is not a liability. Whether you're a leader, parent, coach or clinician, your authentic presence can be one of the most powerful tools for connection and healing. This is a call for us to lean into ourselves, into our bodies, to not fear the feelings as uncomfortable as they can be, and see what they have to tell us so we can work through them and become more fully ourselves. We are interested in what you think about this episode, so please feel free to leave us a comment at drdan Peters on Instagram or reply to any of our social posts. Thank you for listening for being a part of this amazing community. Please share this with anyone and everyone you think will benefit. And as always, we have this moment, this day, and this life. Let's Make It a Great One. This has been a Peters and Rossi production. Make it a great one with Dr. Dan is produced by Amber Miller. Our engineer is Phil Rossi. Theme music is Uplifting Folk by awesome Music. Artwork by Kelly Dwyer. Follow us on social media rdampeters. For more information, visit drdampeters.com. Sa.