Shifting from survival mode to embodied presence and alignment with Anat Peri

Hello and welcome. I'm Julie Fouch, the founder of the Art of Feminine Business, the author of the Witchpreneur Quiz, and your podcast host. Today's guest is Anat Perry. Anat is an inner child expert, a TEDx speaker, the founder of the training camp for souls.

With over 20 years of experience, she trains coaches and healers to create lasting transformation by working with the nervous system, relational patterns, and subconscious imprints. She is known for helping people move beyond insight and into real, embodied change that breaks lifelong patterns. Welcome. Yeah, good to be back, Julie.

It's our second time. Yeah, it's great to have you back. I'd love to hear what's changed since last time we talked. So give us the update.

What's happening in your world? Oh, my God. I don't even remember when it was, but it was definitely over a year ago. And so I would say right now I'm holding duality in my life, personal life and professional of, like, so much goodness and so much unknown that I need to just surrender into.

So it feels like a death and rebirth. And my word for the year is alignment. And as exciting as it was to declare that, I've also now, what, four months into the year, noticed the reality of that of how much um gets to fall away that hasn't been in alignment and at the same time having to sit in the like in that unknown in between because what is fully in alignment isn't fully there yet so man watch what you asked for yeah yeah it's amazing when we name our year when we take on that how much opens as a result of that intention so congratulations so as we jump in talk about why so many women entrepreneurs wow i can't even get words out today why do so many women entrepreneurs feel successful on the outside but then on the inside they still feel disconnected or unfulfilled yeah well i mean i could relate to this one personally but i'll start off by saying it's that their success was built on adaptation not the word alignment not on necessarily alignment so a lot of women learned early on to that they have to perform that they have to achieve that they have to meet expectations in order to feel safe in order to feel loved in order to feel like they're enough so they build businesses or, you know, roles in companies that look successful, but actually are driven by an old survival pattern.

So on the outside, it works. On the inside, it feels empty. I know for me, it felt like a lot of pressure or exhausting. And what's happening, the system is operating from I have to instead of I get to and I choose to.

And this feels like a full freeing yes to me. And sometimes that yes is actually saying no to things. And yeah, not in the overgiving or overworking of stuff. So yeah, I mean, for me, there was a time in my life where like on paper, everything looked great.

I was doing all, I was, I mean, I've been in personal development for 21 years. So I was in all that. I understood my patterns. I knew the language and still, I was very stuck and unfulfilled.

I was stuck for the first eight years in, in relationships, in, um, in different companies that I worked for in trying to launch things and startups. And what I realized was that even though I had the insight, my body hadn't changed yet. So I was still reacting from the same way in relationships, same way that was modeled to me. I was still feeling the same pressure internally that I felt to keep performing or showing up.

Or if I can make it here, then I could go do what I really want to do. I worked with a few startups living in New York City and there was so much potential there. And I was like, oh, well, you know, I got good skills and in sales and this and that. Like, I'll just make it here and then I'll go do what I really want to do.

So it's kind of like putting off what's really true for us and ultimately overriding myself. Why do you think so many women do that? Why do they override themselves? Yeah.

Well, it's because they don't know that they're underneath it, that it's something that they learned. They learned that if it wasn't safe to be seen, that they have to hide or sabotage their visibility. They learned that love has to be earned. So they overwork and they overgive.

That was mine for sure. and that, or that they learned that if receiving felt uncomfortable growing up, that they'll struggle with money. They'll struggle with support. They'll struggle with charging their worth.

So ultimately it's rooted in the relational. It's rooted in their childhood. It's rooted in whatever was modeled to them. The script was developed predominantly by time they were seven years old by mom and dad, by what they saw, what they heard and what they felt energetically.

And that imprint gets imprinted, not just in the subconscious of like, these are your beliefs, this is the way to be, but deep in your nervous system. And so even as we in the world now of Instagram and AI, where we could go and ask any question, like, why am I still showing up this way? Or how do I stop doing this? Or you're on Instagram or listening to a podcast and you hear all the reasons why, and you could connect the dots.

That's still not enough. It understanding that at the core of it it rooted in your nervous system and your nervous system chooses based on what familiar not necessarily what better for you or what you actually say that you want How do you change that? Like what, what would the first step be? That's a good question.

So changing that. So let's, let's, let's take an example here of somebody that knows that they are on the verge of burnout, let's say, in their business. And there's so much to do. And the belief is like, I can't, I can't slow down.

I have to get all these things done or else my business will fail. I won't have the money I need. So they're constantly operating in overgiving and the overdrive and longer hours and less balance in life. Is that a good example?

Right. A couple things. One is understanding that what is familiar in their nervous system is that overworking, that chasing, that they don't trust. the slow, the slowness, the pace.

They don't trust that they're going to be supported. And there isn't capacity for that way of being and behaving. So you have to work at the level of the nervous system and see the nervous system responds 10 times faster than your mind does. So your mind may say, well, I know that like I should stop and take a break and relax because I'm starting to feel all the stress or, you know, my kids need me or my husband wants to spend time with me.

But the pattern of being used to seeing that you have to work hard because that's what was modeled or you have to keep going or if you don't, things will fail, that feeling of fear of that loss is so deeply programmed in that that will take over quicker than your mind saying, I should slow down. I should take a break. And so learning to work with the nervous system, because see, the nervous system is always working for you. It's listening for safety or threat.

And what's a threat to someone like that is actually slowing down. And so there's multiple steps, and we'll see if we could just summarize this for the point of people getting an idea of this. Asking yourself questions of like, go down the rabbit hole with, and if I did, what would happen? And if that happened, what would happen?

And if that happened, what would happen? And start to see all the things that you are resisting or protecting yourself or running from happening. And if that happened, how would I feel? And see if you could take yourself through this simulation, so to speak, of that thing happening.

Like if I don't get this done, then I won't, then that client will be dissatisfied. Then they're going to cancel with me. Then I will lose $2,000 a month. All those stories that we tell ourselves and slow it down to the impact it's having as a reaction in your body.

specifically noticing the sensations that are happening. Does your chest get tight? Does your throat close up? Is, is, is, is your head spinning?

Like whatever the sensation is as you go through that process and just note that, right? Like, okay. Yeah. So when I think of doing that, everything tightens in me.

I just, I become this tight ball or I get so overwhelmed. Well, I can't breathe. Right. So just notice whatever that is and note that.

Now let's work backwards here because that's that quick reaction is happening already. But the reason that you're not able to course correct and instead you're going into the same, well, I'm just going to keep working. The reason you're not able to course correct is because your nervous system right now is working for you. It's protecting you from all these what ifs.

and so now it's learning how to work with your nervous system and so you identify those things you want to slow it down and know that before you get into what I call the ocean of your emotions where a lot where you need to really learn to ride the waves or you're going to drown you want to prepare yourself for that just like a surfer they're going to put on a wetsuit because the water on the pacific ocean is damn cold and they're probably going to stretch their muscles a bit and so the preparation that we need to do before we address what's underneath all of this for us.

That preparation is first connecting with our breath. And I have a free guide, if anybody wants, on my website, and we can link it here called Cultivating Safety, where you're learning to build that safety in your system through specific breath work and gentle breath and tracking what's happening in your body. This is the warm up where you're cultivating safety. You're saying, okay, I'm going to intentionally create safety, even though there's this perceived threat.

So learning to do that. And then from there, introducing back whatever that moment is going into that simulation slowing it down and seeing when I imagine doing that like taking a break from work ending for the day even though there's five more hours of work for me to do my system contracts and I feeling and then you start to name the sensations that are there like it a tightness in my chest so you look to name the size the shape the temperature the texture the weight whatever you can around it and the reason you do this is that the nerve system uh its language is sensations.

So when you speak in sensations, you are working with your nervous system. You're communicating to it. You're letting it know, hey, get curious here with me instead of threat, threat, protect me quickly. And so you are accessing a part of the brain that is creating that curiosity and that connection to be with what is there.

And so now instead of the nervous system being knowing, oh, it's a threat, I need to protect you, put you in fight, flight, freeze, please continue the same pattern over and over again. We could actually go into observing it, working with the nervous system, getting curious, which is like training the nervous system for whatever is behind that door. It's like, imagine your computer and you want to create a new program, a new simulation. This is the code.

The code comes from learning to name the sensations and learning to be with whatever is showing up in that experience. It's because your emotions and your sensations, that's your energy. And when that energy is expressed, the nervous system can learn it as something that is normal and safe. I mean, you think about emotions that for some people feel safe, quote unquote, and the same emotion could feel completely threatening to someone else.

You grow up in a household that's chaotic. You're used to chaos. You go on vacation where there's like nothing to do but to chill on the beach and drink a pina colada and enjoy the sun. And you'll find yourself feeling anxious and probably either feeling like you need to have five more drinks or getting into a fight with your partner because you're so uncomfortable with the peace.

So it's not even about good, what feels good, what feels quote unquote, what's negative, what's a positive emotion. It's what's familiar for your system. that is what is okay what the gatekeeper aka the nervous system says you can pass through and so when we're learning to be with it in this way to observe this name the sensations and then ask yourself what emotion is there for me and allowing yourself to express that emotion So now you're in the water, you're in the ocean of your emotions.

And whatever that emotion is, whether it's fear, I'm afraid, I'm anxious, I am discouraged, I am panicking, I am annoyed, whatever that is. By the way, you can look up the mood meter. If you Google mood meter, there's an image of many different emotions. So we could expand our emotional vocabulary.

So see if you could tap into like, well, how do I feel about just stopping right now and not working? or and and and then allowing yourself to express it the way a three-year-old expresses it you ever watch a three-year-old express an emotion it's a full body experience yeah it's not just oh i am scared it's Can you allow yourself to do that? That's riding the wave. When you do that, what you're doing is you're amplifying the experience that you've been suppressing.

And when you amplify it in that way, you're coding, you're programming, you're training your nervous system for this energy. you're training it for i could be with fear and be okay and be okay so going back to what i said before around your nervous system is always responding 10 times faster than your mind does in 0.2 seconds your nervous system responds in two seconds it reaches your conscious awareness so you know if you're ever on the highway and you're driving and somebody slams the brakes in front of you and you manage to slam the brakes, like how quickly that response is.

Yeah. You've got your nervous system to thank for that. It's amazing. Yeah.

And so it's the same thing. And so what starts to shift is when you program it in, you'll notice that you're able to align with like the fact that deep down your heart, deep down, you really do want to stop for the day. You don't want to burn out anymore. And you notice your ability like, oh, I didn't, I didn't even think about it.

It didn't even take your presence away. You'll be more present in your life because those emotions, and this was just an example we gave you really can apply this to any emotion. You just trained your nervous system. You expanded its capacity to now be with an emotion, be with energy that before you said was a threat.

And so now you're more resilient that for me, this was something I went through and, um, uh, January, 2024. So just two and a half years ago. I came out of two years of trying to recover my business from something that happened with my former CEO. And I didn't notice how much I was stuck in this survival pattern of, I just don't want my business to fail.

I just don't want to lose it. Right. and constantly doing things that I didn want to do in order to make sure that never happens And so what I just shared with you guys is something that I went through that I experienced in January of 2024 that opened me up to a whole new area of now what I speak about and what I teach. I myself had to face the fear of my business that at that point was eight, nine years old, not, not, not surviving, failing.

And I had to feel that fear in my system. And it was stuck in my solar plex, actually, that when I actually sat with it and screamed and cried for about 90 seconds, by the way, guys, it's not that long. The resistance is much longer than the actual, like being with the emotion and expressing that emotion and energy. I kid you not, swear on my mother's life.

I felt something unlock in my solar plex, meaning I lost my breath. If you ever get punched in the solar plex, you will lose your breath. Like you will have no breath. For 10 seconds, I was, and then I was flooded with ushy gushy yummy energy.

And from that moment, it shifted for me where I could be with no result. I could be with fear of failure in business or in anything. I could be with it. I can let it be there and still choose to act in alignment with the way that I know my higher self really wants to show up in life.

Oh, that's awesome. And you have, you mentioned you have this gift that will help our listeners do the same thing. Can you tell us again what the gift is? Yeah, so it's my cultivating safety breathwork and somatic practice.

So it's a guided audio. It's seven minutes guided and then five minutes of just music. And you want to do the whole thing. It's about 12 minutes.

Because in those five minutes of just music is where your system gets to recalibrate. what's there so it's kind of like the first seven minutes is warming you up into getting into the ocean of your emotions and then you get in there um and and and i've had people tell me all kinds of experiences that they've had from it i'd say one of the biggest initial one for a lot of people is they fall into deep sleep amazing in that moment like it could be middle of the day. And that's because when your nervous system is working for you, it, it, you are in constant overdrive.

Yeah. It's working to protect you. It is working. It's running, it's running, it's running, it's running, it's running.

So here you are finally cultivating safety and like, it's okay. It's okay to stop. It's okay to relax. You are safe.

You no longer I need to run from the tiger being chased that the recalibration actually happens in like, oh my God, I literally passed out for a good 20 minutes and it like resets something for them. For other people, it's, I didn't realize how much I was holding emotionally and I finally burst and like let myself have that big release. So it's powerful and it's something that you could do every day. And once you even learn what I'm guiding you through, you could do it anytime.

Most of it you could do anytime, even while you're driving parts of it, you sleep while you're driving. But meaning there's parts of it where you're really just learning how to regulate in the moment. yeah um and and be so in tune with your body that you are caring for it throughout the day which by the way entrepreneurs it's important for us we could get so sucked into our work or our zoom meetings that we're not in touch with ourselves anymore and at the end of the day you feel like a blob on the couch that you say, I need to self-care now.

Let me give you a little insight here. That's not self-care. That's self-repair. You went way past it.

And so this guided, this cultivating safety audio is also going to train you how to stay connected and working with your nervous system throughout the day. So by the end of your day, which sometimes may be an extra long day, and it doesn't even mean extra long day of work and taking care of family and the house and whatever else, and to still feel like you are in your power and energy, like you resourced yourself. It's going to teach you how to resource yourself throughout the day instead of go, go, go, and then having to repair.

But in the beginning, it's going to support you in repair. That's amazing. We're going to put the link to that in the show notes. So everybody gets that and all the other ways that they can get in touch with you for this amazing work.

Thanks for coming on again and sharing this wisdom. Yeah, thanks for having me back, Julie. You're very welcome. And to our listeners, let's just take a deep breath together.

Notice what landed here for you. This work is really about allowing yourself to embody a new way of being. So, you know, one small step, one, one moment of meeting yourself with compassion can change everything. If this episode speaks to you, please share it with someone who's ready to hear this message and make sure that you're subscribed.

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