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Welcome to The Vermillion Podcast, a free audio library of business strategies, creative inspiration and industry knowledge for actors, filmmakers, writers and anyone looking to activate their creative potential. I'm Nisha Culver, a writer director who helps artists build the careers that they dream of. I really hope that this podcast inspires you in some way. Thanks for tuning in.
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I'm going to talk today about mental and
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support.
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it's a very challenging time for people in the United States.
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I will speak as somebody who is deeply worried about our country and about the state of our government. I'm deeply worried about censorship, particularly of artists,
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and
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I fear for the future of our country
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of our planet.
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So
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this is what a lot of the people in my network and community are also thinking and feeling.
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There's a lot of
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terror,
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deep, deep resentment, anger, rage, panic. And I think all of that is completely normal.
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On top of all of the trauma of trying to be an artist and figure out how to survive
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while being a creative and all of that,
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you know, has been around for
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thousands of years of artists trying to find their place in society.
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So
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to say that,
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it's,
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a hard time to be
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a sensitive artist is like,
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duh, like understatement of the frickin year.
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And I want to offer what I have found to be
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extremely supportive tools that anyone can pick up and utilize to get
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into a better place.
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Five years ago, I was not in a good place, and I long story short, I've talked about this before, but,
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I was going to get married to somebody. I was madly in love with him. It was not a healthy relationship, and I didn't realize at the time. So when he left me,
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I had
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no network. And I had nothing.
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Nothing prepared
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for my being out in the world alone.
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I didn't have, support system set up to catch me. And I also didn't have I don't think I had almost any of these tools. So mentally and emotionally, it almost broke me.
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I had to figure out tools real fast to get okay, because, I mean, I think it was one of the most
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challenging things that I've been through as an adult.
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I was beyond devastated, like beyond. So anyone who knows what that's like to feel like,
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I don't know how I can get through this or
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I've lost everything.
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The roof over my head. I've lost this person forever, you know, stuff like that.
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I want to give you these tools that helped me during that time. Because now K-2, five years later
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and all this horrific stuff is going on in the world that is, you know, a matter of life and death.
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It's
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not politics, it's life and death for people.
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So I want to acknowledge that. And I also want to say that
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I am doing
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so well because of these tools.
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But
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I want to empower you
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to be in the mix of what's happening globally and nationally,
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and also be okay because you can't really do much good if you're not okay.
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You can't really change what's happening around you. If you're not feeling at your best or at least
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functional.
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These tools will help you to get functional.
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you do have to actually work them right. You can't just like
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say, oh yeah, that's great and then not do it. You actually have to start to use them. But if you use them
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just like, you know, exercise and good diet and all that, you will see results.
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I promise, I promise, promise. So
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if you look around and hate what you see happening in the world,
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get yourself to a really good place. I now have more energy. I have more optimism.
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I'm more emotionally regulated. I'm able to take on stress
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in much larger quantities and for longer than ever before.
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My sleep has improved. My physical health has improved.
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I am happier,
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and I'm
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making more money and
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my career is in a better place.
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My relationships are in a better place. So
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I really attribute it to these tools that I'm about to outline for you right now.
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So if you're ready for deep transformation,
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emotional release, and psychological
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evolution improvement
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of where you are now.
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I invite you to to try on just one of these this month and see how you do.
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The first one that I want to talk about is seeing a therapist. And I'm kind of mad about it.
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You know, it's the most common on this list is the thing that when people say, are you getting support, you have someone to talk to. They mean a therapist, right?
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Most of the time. So
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yes, it's very accessible. It's kind of socially acceptable now. But
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I find that there's a lot of bad therapists out there.
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People are overprescribing psychiatric drugs are overprescribing SSRI and Adderall.
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And so I don't want to default to this as even the
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main,
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point on this list. It's not the best option. And,
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I don't think it's one that everyone should go to. It's just the one that is sort of the gateway drug to a lot of other healing and improvement modalities, and getting to initially cultivate some form of self awareness.
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A lot of times, the first touchpoint that people have with creating self awareness
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improving their mental emotional state is in therapy. So it's fine if you can find a good one, it can be really good and if you find a bad one, it can be a waste of your time.
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So
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when you're
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considering therapy,
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sample a few different practitioners and see what you think and definitely think twice before jumping on the meds because
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for example, there's evidence that SSRI increase the likeliness that you're going to develop Alzheimer's.
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Well, I don't like that. No, thank you. And there have been times when I've come really close to getting on SSRIs
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and something in me just said no. And now the more research I look at about SSRI is, the more I'm really, really glad that I never started
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for me, it's a very personal choice.
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This is not going to be
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for everyone, but just for me.
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The meds,
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they would have prevented me from looking at the deeper issues and getting to the heart of what I needed to examine, whether it was,
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integrating exercise as a critical part of my day or, reevaluating my relationship with my family or
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changing careers, which I've done several times, and really getting to the root of what structurally do I need to change about my life in order for me to feel okay again?
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This isn't everybody. There's definitely cases where, you know, someone's really in need of,
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medical intervention from a psychiatrist. So I just want to say
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even given all that,
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I still think that
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psychiatric meds are overprescribed.
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the next tool on this list is eMDR.
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It's kind of an offshoot of psychology, and it's a special kind of treatment where
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you essentially whether you're guided by a therapist or not, you're linking up the left and right hemispheres of your brain in order to process trauma
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fully for the first time.
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It's really incredible.
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It's the most effective PTSD treatment out there, and it's really intense as well, because you go back into the memories that are bothering you or the point of trauma, and you essentially re-experience it and give yourself a positive outcome
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while doing eye movements left and right. And the eye movement is what get your left and right hemispheres talking to each other in the brain,
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so it's extremely effective.
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You can look up a YouTube clip if you want and see, you know, they have like the light beam moving back and forth.
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Or you can also pay a couple hundred bucks and have an eMDR specialist help you with this.
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I've done a little
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bit of it. It's extremely effective.
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And scientifically, it's the most effective way to treat PTSD and complex trauma.
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So the next tool that I do daily is hypnosis.
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And I do it in the form of an audio guided audio meditation.
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So it's kind of
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like a hybrid of meditation and hypnosis. But
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hypnosis works.
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It goes straight into the subconscious brain, which is what is driving the bus most of the time, not our conscious brain. Our conscious brain has very little processing power, but the subconscious is really driving most of our decision making during the day and during our lives.
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So hypnosis goes straight to the subconscious,
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gets to what I call opening the hood and tinkering with the engine. And I just think it's great you just have to be in a trance state to receive new programing or create your own programing of, you know, how you want to perceive things that are happening or that have happened. It's not so much changing events, it's changing your emotional relationship to those events and it works.
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So I do this daily, anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes a day, usually audio, usually while I'm getting ready. But you can go a lot deeper in with, professional hypnotists or
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psychologists who do hypnosis. And you can
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basically,
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blackout during the session, you don't remember what happened, but, I've never done that.
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I've always been curious. But
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anyway,
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hypnosis works. I really recommend it. And
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it's great.
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The next tool is meditation.
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This is less about changing your relationship to things that have happened, and more about becoming calm, centered, regulated, and aware
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of things that come up in your body and in your mind and heart.
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Meditation
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changes lives. It's changed the lives of many men that I know.
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Less women I mean, this is just me, but I've heard more from the men in my life that meditation has, quote, changed everything for them. I don't know why that might be if it's because women are naturally more self-aware anyway. But yeah, meditation is great.
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first of all,
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it doesn't need to last a long time.
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You can sit for five minutes and that's meditating.
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It doesn't need to be an hour a day. I know people that hold themselves to a really high standard, or get stressed out if they don't sit for an hour a day and it's like, doesn't
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that's a lot of time. Like,
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I don't know that I have an hour a day to do anything other than eat and work and maybe work out, but,
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a lot of friends who have never done it before, they think that it's to keep your mind clear.
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And if your head isn't clear, and if you're thinking thoughts and you're doing it badly that you're failing.
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And what's so fascinating about meditating is the act of it is the return. The return to
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your focus, the return to openness or your breath, or
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a clean slate, an empty mind, a blue sky, whatever it is,
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if thoughts come in that's not failing, that's natural, that's normal.
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Right?
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We can't stop our minds from having thoughts come in, but we can just turn the attention just a little bit toward what we want it to look at instead.
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So if you spend five minutes or an hour sitting
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and you catch yourself thinking crazy thoughts for that full hour, it doesn't mean that you failed at meditation. It's just how much are you gently returning
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to your point of focus?
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All right. Next on my support list is
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Somatic movement.
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One of the things that made me want to record this episode at all was a very powerful somatic movement class that I hosted last night
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with my weekly Vermillion members, and I. I've done enough somatic movement as a student, and I've taught enough classes, co-taught, with my mentor, Kathy Hendrick, who is a somatic healer and an incredible, incredible artist and woman
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that I'm able now to hold space in a way that people can really
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have quite profound experiences in the room.
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And this is what occurred last night, this class that I had.
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Somatic movement, for those that don't know, is
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allowing your body to move the way that it wants to as it's processing emotion. So it doesn't matter what it looks like on the outside. What matters is your connection to your own emotional life and how you allow alchemy in the body
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to
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have the emotions move through you so that you can
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have more emotional freedom and also ideally, get to a better and better feeling place and not have anger or grief or fear stored in the body.
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This is my understanding of somatic movement.
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A lot of people have different definitions of somatic therapy, but
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somatic just means body based. For me, this is the
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peak, version of somatic movement therapy. What I just described. So
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in this class that I had last night,
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everyone enjoyed their movement section.
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Like we split off initially did a group movement where everyone was moving at the same time, and then individuals would do a movement piece in front of the rest of the group.
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Piece is kind of the wrong word, more just like they had allocated time to move solo
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and they picked
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their own music for that.
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Everyone really enjoyed it.
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One person in particular had the most powerful somatic movement.
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Presentation, I guess,
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that I've ever seen.
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And they really were
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fighting some demons
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and were going to a place that it was obvious to everybody. Not many people are willing to go,
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it was heartbreaking.
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it made us fall in love with them as a person, as an artist.
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It was so vulnerable. It
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just I was like,
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basically shouting from the sidelines along with this person.
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And
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they stopped at the end of the dance and were just standing in the middle of the room
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sobbing.
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Really, really powerful. What somatic movement can do for you as a person and as an artist.
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you know, they were comforted and they were taken care of in that moment. So it's not like we left them out to dry.
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But just to say that if you have never tried a somatic movement class, I highly, highly, highly recommend.
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And Kathy Hendrick is a master at it, so look her up. I think it's. Hello, kathy.com. But anyway,
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check her out. And she teaches all the time. And she also does private coaching.
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Which brings me to my next point.
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One of the best ways that I have gotten mental and emotional support is through coaching.
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You might say, that's funny.
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Misha, you're a coach.
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Yeah,
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I love coaching people and I love getting coached.
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It's this really powerful axis of energy that, I don't know, I just do really well both ways. Like, I love that one on one
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attention and feeling really seen by somebody who can hold me fully in a non-judgmental, safe space and who
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who knows more than me.
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It's so comforting and relaxing to pay a coach who knows more than me and has coached like hundreds, if not thousands of other people and just can see the bigger picture, can see my blind spots. I love feeling like somebody knows me and can see me better than I can see myself.
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And I love doing that for other people.
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Because at this point, I've been coaching
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in one form or another for
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15 years.
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So most things I have experienced before in that client setting, most, you know, it's it's hard to shock me. It's hard to tell me something. I haven't heard before.
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Coaching works
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if you're ready to be coached. It works. And
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having somebody point out your blind spots and give you strategies on how to get to where you want to go, is just the best.
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just
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works.
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So if you can afford it,
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I say do it because coaching is awesome.
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Go to cover 1000000.com and check out my coaching,
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offerings. I have one on one. I have group coaching. The group coaching is dirt cheap. I think everyone should do it.
00:18:56:18 - 00:19:03:15
Unknown
And the one on one coaching still sell cheap for coaching, so I try to make it affordable for artists.
00:19:05:02 - 00:19:07:21
Unknown
The next two points
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Unknown
are connected.
00:19:09:03 - 00:19:16:09
Unknown
They're also really important. I've talked to you through some more like self
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Unknown
moderated or professional tools, but the next two are about your network. The first is your community.
00:19:24:09 - 00:19:25:21
Unknown
Do you even have one?
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Unknown
Many of us do not.
00:19:27:15 - 00:19:30:04
Unknown
There's a loneliness epidemic
00:19:30:04 - 00:19:34:01
Unknown
across many, many different
00:19:34:01 - 00:19:37:21
Unknown
nations and, you know, genders. It's certainly not just men.
00:19:37:21 - 00:19:42:10
Unknown
The digital age is really pulling us
00:19:42:10 - 00:19:47:17
Unknown
apart from each other and out of our bodies and up into our heads. And God knows where.
00:19:47:17 - 00:19:53:13
Unknown
I was just on the subway today, and I saw an ad for a friend.com, which is
00:19:53:13 - 00:19:54:18
Unknown
demonic, in my opinion.
00:19:54:18 - 00:19:58:02
Unknown
And I friend that you can wear around your neck
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Unknown
to replace,
00:19:59:27 - 00:20:00:21
Unknown
guess
00:20:00:21 - 00:20:06:11
Unknown
either the absence of friends or the existing friends that you have. I think that
00:20:06:11 - 00:20:10:03
Unknown
years from now we're going to look back and we're going to study that and we're going to say,
00:20:10:03 - 00:20:12:08
Unknown
yeah, that's really where,
00:20:12:08 - 00:20:13:12
Unknown
humanity
00:20:13:12 - 00:20:19:05
Unknown
fell off a cliff in terms of our social fabric was with AI friends.
00:20:19:07 - 00:20:20:03
Unknown
Anyway,
00:20:20:03 - 00:20:21:13
Unknown
who is in your community?
00:20:21:13 - 00:20:24:06
Unknown
No one. Well, can you build one?
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Unknown
Can you start to go to the places where people do the things that you care about and start to do it with them, alongside them? Yeah, it takes energy. Get up,
00:20:31:17 - 00:20:34:21
Unknown
get out of your bed. Get off your couch right now.
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Unknown
Go outside,
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Unknown
go to dog park, go to, meeting.
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Unknown
Go to a volunteer
00:20:43:12 - 00:20:44:08
Unknown
situation.
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Unknown
Start a start a meetup, start a monthly dinner club.
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Unknown
Go to a party, meet some people. Right.
00:20:53:05 - 00:20:55:23
Unknown
This community aspect
00:20:55:23 - 00:21:04:03
Unknown
is going to be so important for getting through the next few years. And if you
00:21:04:03 - 00:21:05:19
Unknown
don't know
00:21:05:19 - 00:21:09:08
Unknown
where to start in terms of receiving community,
00:21:09:08 - 00:21:11:03
Unknown
give community,
00:21:11:03 - 00:21:12:07
Unknown
you can still
00:21:12:07 - 00:21:14:24
Unknown
give. Put yourself in a position of empowerment
00:21:14:24 - 00:21:19:13
Unknown
and say, I can reach out and be a support for somebody else.
00:21:19:13 - 00:21:20:05
Unknown
So let me just
00:21:20:05 - 00:21:24:20
Unknown
start there. Volunteering at the animal shelter, volunteering in a,
00:21:24:20 - 00:21:26:07
Unknown
elderly care home,
00:21:26:07 - 00:21:28:07
Unknown
volunteering in a high school
00:21:28:07 - 00:21:33:17
Unknown
create community. And that will help you feel like
00:21:33:17 - 00:21:37:09
Unknown
you're not alone. You matter.
00:21:37:09 - 00:21:42:22
Unknown
Your life matters. It's also one of the things that increases lifespan. People who
00:21:42:22 - 00:21:47:04
Unknown
alone die earlier.
00:21:47:12 - 00:21:51:07
Unknown
And people who have community live longer.
00:21:52:02 - 00:21:57:05
Unknown
So this brings me to the next tool, which is friends. Friends different. The community
00:21:57:05 - 00:22:02:07
Unknown
friends are so great.
00:22:02:07 - 00:22:06:21
Unknown
This is something that I am working on
00:22:06:21 - 00:22:08:11
Unknown
and
00:22:08:11 - 00:22:10:06
Unknown
I have on my,
00:22:10:06 - 00:22:13:21
Unknown
manifestation list goal list. Same thing for me
00:22:13:21 - 00:22:18:04
Unknown
for this year to make one new, really close friend.
00:22:18:14 - 00:22:26:18
Unknown
I'm really curious about friendship. I want to do a whole episode about this and possibly about making friends as an artist, but
00:22:26:18 - 00:22:33:03
Unknown
it's like community. Except even better because somebody knows you on an intimate level
00:22:33:03 - 00:22:34:27
Unknown
and gives you that feeling of
00:22:35:00 - 00:22:35:26
Unknown
I matter.
00:22:35:28 - 00:22:39:11
Unknown
My life has purpose. I'm not alone.
00:22:39:11 - 00:22:42:07
Unknown
So much of what drives
00:22:42:07 - 00:22:45:21
Unknown
digital consumption and addiction
00:22:45:21 - 00:22:48:06
Unknown
is a lack of friendship.
00:22:48:18 - 00:22:50:04
Unknown
It's a huge problem
00:22:50:04 - 00:22:56:18
Unknown
because the lack of quality friendships drives us to seek connection
00:22:56:18 - 00:23:00:22
Unknown
online and in digital spaces, which then
00:23:00:22 - 00:23:03:00
Unknown
rewires our brain. Literally. It
00:23:03:04 - 00:23:12:17
Unknown
Overconsumption causes brain damage, and that makes us less inclined to go out and form new friendships, which then drives us further and further into digital consumption.
00:23:12:17 - 00:23:13:24
Unknown
So.
00:23:14:20 - 00:23:25:03
Unknown
Really think about, okay, do I have enough friendships in my life? Who do I hang out with? Not just companionship, but who can I emotionally,
00:23:25:11 - 00:23:27:26
Unknown
who can I come to for emotional
00:23:27:26 - 00:23:33:29
Unknown
support or even unloading? Like, if I just need to cry or get something off my chest?
00:23:33:29 - 00:23:42:13
Unknown
Fortunately, my boyfriend is also a very good friend to me, and I'm able to just process emotionally with him.
00:23:42:21 - 00:23:47:27
Unknown
But I'm actively looking for close friends where I can.
00:23:48:08 - 00:23:52:19
Unknown
Be myself in a really emotionally safe setting.
00:23:52:19 - 00:23:55:27
Unknown
I think they're hard to come by, so if you have good friends,
00:23:55:27 - 00:23:57:15
Unknown
keep them close.
00:23:57:15 - 00:24:00:15
Unknown
Especially right now.
00:24:00:23 - 00:24:05:21
Unknown
The last tool on my list is self support,
00:24:05:21 - 00:24:08:04
Unknown
specifically brain and body health.
00:24:08:04 - 00:24:13:13
Unknown
This might be the number one thing that I recommend for
00:24:13:13 - 00:24:17:00
Unknown
being okay psychologically right now.
00:24:17:00 - 00:24:19:01
Unknown
Or always, but
00:24:19:01 - 00:24:22:25
Unknown
it's one of the things that I have found to be the most impactful
00:24:22:25 - 00:24:29:12
Unknown
on how I'm feeling and how well I'm coping, brain health and body health.
00:24:29:12 - 00:24:34:02
Unknown
And, you know, in my 20s and early 30s,
00:24:34:02 - 00:24:50:04
Unknown
I probably didn't take very good care of myself. I wasn't prioritizing sleep. I ate foods that weren't particularly great for me, and I was drinking alcohol. And that doesn't sit well with me.
00:24:50:04 - 00:24:53:05
Unknown
Also causes brain damage. So
00:24:53:05 - 00:25:03:27
Unknown
once I started to exercise daily and really be aware of my sleep and and prioritize sleep,
00:25:03:27 - 00:25:06:21
Unknown
I started to feel a lot better.
00:25:07:05 - 00:25:20:18
Unknown
I mean, I continuously increase my levels of stress by how much I take on. I'm running two full time businesses right now, but I'm able to do it because I fixed my brain and body health.
00:25:20:18 - 00:25:24:11
Unknown
If I didn't have good brain and body health, I would not be able to do what I do.
00:25:24:11 - 00:25:30:23
Unknown
And there's no like cheat codes or shortcuts to that.
00:25:30:25 - 00:25:34:21
Unknown
It's not like I'm slamming energy drinks. I mean,
00:25:34:21 - 00:25:49:11
Unknown
drink coffee, but not a ton, and I get enough sleep and I work out and I have cut out the people, places and things in my life that consistently make me feel bad.
00:25:49:11 - 00:25:50:24
Unknown
So
00:25:50:24 - 00:25:55:06
Unknown
check out your brain in your body health and see, am I showing up for myself?
00:25:55:06 - 00:25:58:10
Unknown
Am I caring for myself or am I
00:25:58:19 - 00:26:01:00
Unknown
kind of pushing my actual
00:26:01:00 - 00:26:17:27
Unknown
needs to the side in favor of trying to achieve some sort of daily to do list? Because I can promise you, you're going to achieve your goals a lot faster and better. If you are putting your brain in your body first and making sure that
00:26:17:27 - 00:26:24:13
Unknown
the machine is running smoothly and efficiently, and also hopefully
00:26:24:13 - 00:26:27:09
Unknown
happily right.
00:26:27:11 - 00:26:33:24
Unknown
Life is great if you check off a whole bunch of accomplishments, but if you're miserable doing it, what was it all for?
00:26:34:17 - 00:26:43:01
Unknown
I'm thinking of you guys. It's such a terribly disorienting time
00:26:43:01 - 00:26:44:22
Unknown
and
00:26:44:22 - 00:26:46:18
Unknown
my heart is with you.
00:26:46:18 - 00:26:52:10
Unknown
I'm here for you as much as I can be, and if you're in the weekly group, then you know what I
00:26:52:10 - 00:26:52:16
Unknown
mean.
00:26:52:16 - 00:26:53:26
Unknown
And you know that I. I
00:26:53:26 - 00:26:54:03
Unknown
mean
00:26:54:03 - 00:26:54:27
Unknown
it,
00:26:54:27 - 00:26:56:13
Unknown
but
00:26:56:13 - 00:27:00:19
Unknown
I hope that you can get the support that you need
00:27:00:19 - 00:27:07:05
Unknown
and that this list might open up some options for you of places to go for that support.
00:27:08:21 - 00:27:20:03
Unknown
Please take good care of yourself and if you can, and you have the resources, take good care of somebody else for a moment today to. I'll see you next week.
00:27:20:03 - 00:27:45:15
Unknown
The Vermillion Podcast is sponsored by Vermillion, a home for artists. We offer classes, coaching and community for creatives and innovators in the arts. If you're ready to find your voice and build the life of your dreams, we are here to support you every step of the way. Check out Club vermillion.com and schedule a free call today.
