Dana Skaggs (00:01.336) Hello and welcome to Phoenix in Flame. Joining us today is Carolyn Swarra. Carolyn is a leadership consultant, a team coach, a certified Dare to Lead facilitator. Now that's from Brene Brown's book, Dare to Lead. And a two -time bestselling author. Her award -winning book, Evolve, The Path to Trauma -Informed Leadership. brings new focus to an often ignored yet critical leadership component, the nervous system. Carolyn, welcome to Phoenix in Flame.
Carolyn Swora (00:40.395) Woohoo, thank you Dana, excited to be here. I was like, am I the phoenix, am I the flame today? Maybe I can be both. Right.
Dana Skaggs (00:42.67) Both. That's it. We're both. We're always both because I love to hear both sides of the story and owning both sides owning when we're in the flame, when we're in the heat, when we're feeling like we're just burning down to a pile of ash and what that feels like. And I think as human beings, we all can know what that feels like. And then also the process
becoming the phoenix. What does that look like? And it's different for every person. But I love the fact that we absolutely own both sides of that, at least on my podcast we do, because that's the truth. And being a psychotherapist, I hear people's stories. So I know that we both have, you we all have both sides of that. So, you know, you have 25 years, and let's just pause, 25 years of corporate Carolyn Swora (01:19.54) Absolutely. Yep.
Dana Skaggs (01:41.364) experience. And I am fascinated with what prompted your interest to be in looking toward like the trauma informed approach. So I'm gonna stop talking so much and just kind of let you tell us, yes, what you would like us to know about you and your Carolyn Swora (01:58.133) Let me go, yeah.
Carolyn Swora (02:02.039) It's, know, hearing you say 25 years makes me realize, whoa, I am not 45 anymore, or 40 anymore. It feels like that's like the perennial age that I'm at. Well, I think, you know, the name of your podcast sums it up. How did I find this path into trauma -informed leadership? Because there were a lot of flames going on in my life and a lot of reckoning
what the heck is going on here and why does this feel so hard? Like the older I got, the harder things seem to feel. And I just thought that there was something, I just have always had this sense that life is meant, life has the opportunity to be a little bit easier and a little bit lighter. I mean, that's sort of the headline, Dana, to be honest. I didn't know what this word trauma meant at all. had some very old...
preconceived thoughts that it was, you know, a physical wound or it was something that happened not to people like me, right? It was sort of this sort of like embarrassment to it. And I had this really unexplainable experience with a colleague where we were just collaborating on a piece of work and I just suddenly broke into tears when they asked me to do something.
And a friend of mine who was also in that conversation, she called me after and she said, are you okay? Because I mean, yes, I'm a crier, but I haven't ever had like just an unexpected tears out of nowhere situation with a really kind colleague. Like this person is not like what you might envision when you hear of like bad, bad interactions at work. And this friend of mine said something about being trauma informed. And I was like, what? Dana Skaggs (03:49.678) Bye.
Carolyn Swora (03:54.645) What is that? What's that word? What do mean? And I had never, it just, I don't know, was just right time, right place. And I just started looking up what that word meant. And I'm a bit of an academic, like, I like to go down that. And I started, you know, looking into the work of Peter Levin, Gabor Matei, Dan Siegel. And at the time I had been crafting and writing a book for my son, so my second book, and it was gonna be called The Perfect Widow.
So between that book and where I was at with that book and this experience where I had just spontaneously started to cry and didn't know why when somebody asked me to do something led me into this space and it just became really personal. I wanted to understand myself better and I wanted my boys who at the time were 17 and 18, they're 19 and 20, 21 now.
I wanted them to go into this next chapter of their life without my baggage. I didn't want to pass things on to them unknowingly. So that's sort of the longish answer to your question. Yeah.
Dana Skaggs (05:04.258) I love it. I love your answer. I have several questions and I'm just going to kind of just toss them out and let you field them however you would like. So one of my questions is in your research, both from your own personal experience, which by the way, listeners, in her book and Carolyn's book, Evolve, she is very open about Carolyn Swora (05:10.507) Yeah, go for it. Yeah.
Dana Skaggs (05:28.12) her, which I love on Phoenix in Flame, because that's a requirement I have for my guests, because we're all living it anyway, so we might as well just talk about it, just admit it, say it, so that we can all kind of sit in that space together and feel like it's okay, because we're not alone. Other people are going through this too. So your book is fabulous for explaining a lot of different things of what you went through. So I'm kind of wondering, one question is, when you started digging into
Carolyn Swora (05:34.049) Totally. Dana Skaggs (05:54.882) this trauma thing, what does it even mean? How does this apply to me? I'm interested in what you discovered and also how you felt like in the corporate space, how sometimes, like you mentioned something in your book about how our past is actually can be in our present. And so I would love to hear you just talk about those two things. Carolyn Swora (05:59.263) Mm -hmm. Yep. Carolyn Swora (06:11.873) Yeah, absolutely.
Carolyn Swora (06:16.791) Yeah, so when I had that moment I just explained, I had ended a 17 -year career in Big Pharma. And it was a wonderful career, wonderful opportunity. I had the opportunity to do a lot of leadership work, to be a leader in a lot of different situations. So I've been down that leadership path and I did really well until I didn't do really well. So when I did leave the corporate world, I left with a really...
small sense of self worth, which was very opposite to who I knew I was inside. And so that was sort of another factor into why I was so interested in this. Like, how could somebody be fairly confident? I never considered myself like a real egomaniac or like wanting control. But I hit a certain point in my corporate career where I just I couldn't. couldn't exist to the same level. What I know now
there was a lot of unhealed emotional wounds, that's the word I like to use for trauma, it feels a little bit softer, that were living inside my body that I didn't have conscious awareness of. So how does that impact leadership? Every day, every day. You know, we all have life experiences where we have emotional wounding. And that's part of growing up and who we are. you know, part of the reason I wrote this book was to take the stigma and sort
Carolyn Swora (07:57.158) bust some myths around this word trauma. And again, that's why I like to use the word emotional wound, which came from Gabor Matej, which just sort of makes the point of entry a little bit softer, right? Because it can feel not comfortable, at it did for me to say, yeah, I've had trauma. Because I don't want to be a victim. Like, don't look at me like that. So that was sort of one piece is, know, when I...
I just emotionally was having a hard time dealing with the differences of opinion, the conflict, all the change, not being able to get things right for everybody all the time. And the higher you get in a corporation, of course you're going to have, you need to have healthy gut dialogue. You need to have conflict. Those are conditions for a high performing team.
So I took it upon myself to think that I was the problem, that there was something within me that was quote unquote wrong. I mean, there's a lot wrapped up into that day and we can get into gender stuff. Like there's a whole lot of things, but I knew there was something that I needed to figure out about me.
So that was one piece. The other thing that had happened is I had been trained in the Dare to Lead community. And so I became very familiar with with Brene Brown's research. And this is where a bunch of things came together. So I'm teaching people basically how to be vulnerable at work.
And when I went down that little path of research to understand this concept of being trauma informed, I was going through my notes. There was like 25 pages of notes. Like you get three days with Brene. It's like, I'm, I am writing like voraciously and yeah, it was like, my hand was sore at the end of those three days. and I went back and I looked at my notes and it was like on page three of 25, I had highlighted and circled.
Carolyn Swora (09:51.665) that she said, I don't even remember writing this down, but it said one of the biggest casualties of vulnerability, or sorry, one of the biggest casualties of trauma is the inability to be vulnerable. And I swear it was one of those moments in my life where everything all came together and I thought, damn, this is what happened to me and my leadership. And I was only able to be vulnerable.
as long as I could control things, as long as I could, at least like that's kind of where it all came to. And you hit a certain level in an organization and you just can't control things and you can do your best trying to control things and you'll bring yourself out. So that was a real moment. And then, and then it turned into, well, if I'm going to ask people to step into this concept of vulnerability,
I need to understand more about this word and what it means. And that turned the book from The Perfect Widow, because originally it was called The Perfect Widow, it was more of a memoir for my boys, and that turned it into a leadership book. Because I thought if we are going to truly change our workplaces, then we need to understand how this, our relationship, our individual relationships,
with this word. And so that's why I wrote the book. it's an invitation, because if you're trauma -informed, you're not forcing anything on anybody, right? Agency and choice and safety. It's an invitation for people to explore what this word means and how it could change how they lead.
Dana Skaggs (11:30.434) That is fantastic. I love the way we're looking at the corporate space because most people, you know, they're going to work. There's an office that they go to, however big or however small, whatever the nature of it is. And most of us spend the majority of our days there, interacting, trying to be productive, trying to deal with the pressures of work. And then we go home and we're kind
weaving back and forth between those two landscapes. I love the way you're pointing out when we talk about trauma, something that some people may or may not understand. People say that big T versus little t traumas and people think they'll say, well, know, if I haven't been raped, if I haven't been, you know, assaulted, if someone hasn't tried to come at me with a machete, if I haven't been brutalized by my parent,
then I haven't been traumatized. This is just quite simply not the case. There's different levels and that's why like, you the way you were terming it, like the emotional wounding, looking at it this way and how this carries into impacting our ability, obstructing our ability to be vulnerable because that feels scary to be vulnerable because we have to be real. Carolyn Swora (12:32.161) Right.
Carolyn Swora (12:52.011) Yeah, it does. Right. And and we need to always have a sense of safety in our body. So, you know, after I finished writing the book.
the journey wasn't over, it's still far from over. And you know, that's when I discovered the details of Stephen Porges's Polyvagal Theory, which is, you know, again, a reference to our nervous system. And now all these things are making sense about how our body protects us and these wonderful adaptive strategies that it puts in place to help
you hit a certain point in your life where those strategies are not working for you. And you can do something about it and it's hard, right? So like, hello flame. But the Phoenix has, you know, for me, I was like, the Phoenix has to rise out of this flame. And if I'm, I just consider myself an average person with stuff that's happened in my life, like many of us that I downplayed.
And I don't want to pass that on to the next generations. And so if I'm going to go on this learning journey, hey, does anybody else want to come with me? That's really what prompts me in all of my work. And to come back to a part of the question you had originally asked, I spent all of my time in the corporate world running from my past.
no, it's okay. no, that's not that's not part of this, right? Like there was a lot of denial. I mean, a good chunk of my career seven seven years of my career was spent raising two boys and caring for at the time my husband was terminally ill. So I spent six years
Carolyn Swora (14:41.631) As I said, caring for two boys, running a household. I got two promotions in that time and Dana, I started a business like a year and a half before my husband passed away. And at the time you could not tell me that I was running from my past. Like no, all that, that's fine. yeah, by the way, my dad died six weeks before my husband died. And I just was like, no, I just kept moving and moving and running, right? Like I could feel safer if my body was moving.
And now I know condition patterns, condition tendencies to help me feel safe. And the best way I felt safe was by moving and moving away from things that felt uncomfortable, like deep feelings of grief and like sadness and all these other things.
Dana Skaggs (15:26.594) I have heard this before from people saying is basically as long as they stay kinetic, as long as they stay active, then they don't have to because they they've told me they said Dana, I don't want to slow down because if I slow down, I know what's waiting for me there. I have thoughts and I have worse yet feelings waiting for me there and I don't want to slow down long enough to feel them.
And so I have to keep going and that works for a while and really on the surface and I'm sure you could attest on the surface, these individuals can look very, very productive and successful and they are. But that only if we're doing that as an avoidance tactic as a defense mechanism, because we're trying to hide from something that will go to a certain point and then we're going to gas out because the pressure is going to keep getting higher and then we're not going to be able to handle it.
Carolyn Swora (16:06.918) Yep. Carolyn Swora (16:23.799) Yep. Totally. mean, I had a burnout, official burnout in 2007. Yeah. So two years before Paul passed away. And you know why I took the leave of absence from work? A former boss of mine took me out for lunch. Unbeknownst to me, my mother had called her Dana Skaggs (16:25.228) So.
Carolyn Swora (16:45.479) they were trying to get me to recognize sort of the state I was in. And I went to that lunch and I was like, I just need somebody to give me permission to tell me it's okay to slow down. And I don't know, we were five minutes into that lunch and her name, her name is Carol. She's like a friend and mentor. This meant means so much to me.
And she said something about, it's okay. I don't even think she finished her sentence. And I was just like, I just needed somebody to tell me it was okay. And I walked over to our office and I told my manager, said, I can't do this anymore. I have to take a leave. And you know what her response was? I don't know how you've made it this far. She's like, we've got you. We've got you. You go and you get like, you get better type thing.
Right, I just needed to accept it myself. And even when I did walk into that leave, I remember telling that the agency was managing the short -term disability leave. said, you know what, I just need about a week of sleep and I should be good. Thankfully, these professionals knew better and they really pushed me. They're like, well, then I accepted the one month plan.
and then it turned into a six month plan. And I went back to work after six months and you know, they didn't let me go back to work until I had a nanny in place. And again, I was like, I can do this, I've done it before. And they said, your situation is not gonna get any better.
Like you're going to lose your husband. I had shared that with them. So we need to know that you have the supports in place. And I did get a nanny after that. And so why do I share all that is I might've been a bit better, but I still was not fully into a mode where I could think through and accept what was really happening to me.
Carolyn Swora (18:47.765) right, that I was going to lose my husband, that I was going to be a single mom with these two boys. And I had aspirations to, you know, do things in the corporate world and look around and see what success is. And for me, if I just continue to exist in both worlds and keep them separate, I would be fine because I wanted that success that I saw everyone else having. And hey, like I did, you know, I said I had promotions, I went on trips, I went on top performer trips.
Dana Skaggs (19:11.523) Mm Carolyn Swora (19:16.605) while Paul was in his final years and even after he passed away. And I still didn't think I was doing enough. I still didn't think I was successful. So again, you know, this is when these coping strategies, they keep us above water. But inside I was sinking, but I didn't know I was sinking. I just knew I was losing myself.
Dana Skaggs (19:40.522) Mm -hmm. You know, the avoidance thing, let's be honest that in the short term, it can be quite helpful. We just have to be, mean, long term, it's not a good thing, but sometimes in the short term, we need it. Short term, sometimes if something's overwhelming us at home, sometimes the work can be a place of solace where we have an escape from the huge emotional burden that might
sitting at home and we just can't feel it all the time. We can't think about it all the time. And so sometimes work can be a wonderful solace for that. But when if you're talking about something long term, if you want to, I talk about, I've got a keynote coming up. I'm to be talking about the difference between marathon and sprint. Now, if you, if you want to go the distance, if you want to keep going, if you're at your company and you love it, if you see other people performing well and you're thinking,
I absolutely could do that and I don't like the fact that they're doing so well and I can't, I mean, I'm glad that they're doing well, but I could do the same thing. It's just like if we want to stay somewhere long -term and we want to be successful for ourselves and for the business long -term, then at some point we've got to do exactly what you're pointing out. We've got to address what's under the hood, so to say.
Carolyn Swora (21:05.621) Yeah, yep, absolutely. And I think, you know, where my work is now is really in this area of vertical development leadership, which is creating more capacity within us to deal with the complexities of what we have to manage in our workplaces. And this notion of embodiment and really allowing our bodies to be present in the moment.
And that was my big leadership gap or miss. I had no embodiment. I was not living in the moment, right? I was running. I was always looking at other people what like why I can be I can be just like them. I want to have the promotions just like I'm seeing everybody else, which by the way was often men. Sure, I'll go have my two kids and I'll look after my terminally ill husband and and
I still want all those other things, right? I wasn't in the present moment. I wasn't living in the moment. I mean, there were so many wonderful things about having a situation that I had, because I didn't take work home alone a lot at night. I could, I was still very successful with all that going on. And so I tried to be present at home as much as I could, but I certainly didn't have my computer open on my bed doing work at night.
as often here and there. Yeah. So, you know, there were certainly some great things about it, but at the core.
And where I'm really committed to with my leadership training now and leadership work coaching and consulting is how can we recognize that this brain and body are one? It's not the brain and the body separate. And when you look at our workplaces and I mean, this has happened through decades and decades of socialization, but it's like more and more and more and more. And we really treat our bodies like machines.
Carolyn Swora (23:09.843) I don't want my children, I don't want other people's children, I don't want the next generation to treat their body like a machine and really sort of be disembodied. This is where when we can be in the present moment, which I spent very little time in. Dana Skaggs (23:17.858) Mm -hmm.
Carolyn Swora (23:27.691) We can create more, we can be present to each other more, we can just feel more fulfilled, right? Like, yes, I know our workplaces are busy and hectic, but they don't have to feel like we've fought a war every day we come home.
and we don't need to feel this sense of overwhelm if we can bring in some of these new, I'll call them new skills, they're not new, they're not new at all. Being embodied has been around forever as long as there's been bodies. So how can we bring these back into ourselves?
Dana Skaggs (24:02.25) I really love what you're saying. And it's so important. It kind of brings to mind a book from Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score. I've read that book twice. And it's just amazing because the body does keep the score. And I'm wondering if you could share your thoughts on if someone is listening and they're really resonating with what you're saying, but they're wondering what symptoms
would my nervous system, what would I notice in my body if to let me know that something's off that I need to slow down, I need to switch gears, that there's something that I need to pay attention to, I'm in an avoidance run and I don't even notice it. If someone suspects that they might be doing that because if they're doing that, they don't really want to hear what we're having to say.
But there's a part of them that might be listening thinking, know, that might be something I'm doing. So listeners, if you're thinking that you might be doing what Carolyn has been describing in this avoidance, this run, ignoring your body, then just listen, just consider there's a possibility, right? There's a possibility. So what would you share with them that
If there's a possibility that they might be doing that and they're listening now, what are the symptoms of the nervous system on overload that they might could look for to be indicators that, gosh, I think that might be me? Carolyn Swora (25:43.637) Yeah. I really believe, so I think like symptoms, I guess I have a hard time answering that because I think it's going to be different for everybody. I'd say how able, maybe the symptom is you find it really hard to be in the present moment.
maybe for whatever reason, like I've got lots of thoughts to do, you know, I'll hear a lot of people say, in coaching and just in keynotes and workshops, they'll, they'll share that they have been given a diagnosis of ADHD. I hear that a lot. In fact, like a date, it really doesn't go by where I hear that. And so.
Carolyn Swora (26:29.653) What, you know, maybe you have a diagnosis of ADHD, maybe you have a lot going on in your life and you have to run at this pace. Is there a little bit of space for you to consider what's your relationship with your body? And not in its physical form, like not how much do I weigh or what size am I wearing? Because that's often where we can go, men and women. But
Am I listening to this body that's talking to me? You know, I'll, I remember back in the day, remember when we had radios that had a dial and you'd go to, right? And you'd, and then you'd like, you'd find clarity when you landed right on the part of the dial. And it's really, do you feel really dialed in or tuned in with how your body is communicating with you? And if the answer is anything but a resounding yes. Dana Skaggs (27:07.992) Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Carolyn Swora (27:28.417) then there's a bit of space to learn about yourself. There's a little bit of space to just tune that in a little bit. And that can look different for different people, right? For me, my nervous system dysregulation took on the form of movement.
Right? Like it was, it was, you know, in the, if we use the terminology of the state, like it was in a sympathetic drive. and then there were times where I was in complete shutdown, right? We call that dorsal, like a polyvagal theory, dorsal vagal shutdown. You know, when I would go to a movie theater growing up, I could never stay awake for the whole movie. Well, and now I understand why. And it was a joke with all my friends. I fell asleep in the, in Titanic. I don't remember movies. And now I know why it's because I was forced to slow
And my body was like, okay, thank you. So, you know, recognizing these states and understanding those three primary states in polyvagal theory, that connected ventral vagal, that sympathetic fight or flight sort of activation, and then the dorsal vagal state, we need all three of those states. However,
we can unconsciously fall into that sympathetic and dorsal bagel state. So I guess what I'm trying to say is there's always an opportunity to fine tune that dial and listen to those cues, those sensations. I used to just ignore them and be like, God, stop it. I don't have time for this. Dana Skaggs (29:01.166) I might get time for that.
Carolyn Swora (29:02.175) Yeah. And now like my body lights up and there's things that happen all the time. instead of thinking, gosh, like my back sore again, it's like, wow. Okay. Thank you, body. You're telling me something. And, just, just trying to create a compassionate relationship with what my body is trying to tell me.
And that, so I guess like, you know, I know your question was more about symptoms, but I'm going to come at it sort of like maybe like a differential type, unless you're really tuned in, because some people really are, it's brilliant. But I think honestly, Dana, our entire lives are spent finding this balance between being tuned in, trying to avoid, because like you said, those strategies, we need them sometimes. And for those of you listening, if you're like, I have no capacity to even take this on right now.
Dana Skaggs (29:49.923) Mm Carolyn Swora (29:55.179) then that is fine too. Like I didn't have capacity to take on all that I needed to during that frame of, during that timeframe. There was a lot of stuff in my history before I'd even gotten married that I had run from. So of course I didn't have the capacity to deal with his illness and the depth of that emotion.
If you find it one day, that's great. And if you don't find it one day, hopefully you're still moving through the world treating people with kindness and compassion. Chances are you're probably not. But you know, we can only be as kind to others as we are to ourselves.
Dana Skaggs (30:31.406) That's it. 100%. You know, as I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking about I'm preparing a keynote. And by the time this airs, I will have already given it. But right now it's in that pre -stage where it's not really I've got to hone it. And then I've got to and I'm telling you some of the symptoms that I have because my listeners, I'm just very, very honest and blunt about things. But I mean, Carolyn Swora (30:47.264) Mmm.
Dana Skaggs (31:01.886) my gastrointestinal system doing some interesting things these days and sometimes my body feels like it's vibrating. Sometimes the skin on my scalp feels like it's like crawling and so that's not all the time but I think that it's also important for us to look at when we're experiencing these things. I have a tendency personally that I will sit with Carolyn Swora (31:06.411) Right. Carolyn Swora (31:10.412) Yes.
Dana Skaggs (31:31.596) and I would just like bring it in. I'll like accept it and almost like hug it in and rock with it. Like I'm not going anywhere. I'm not walking away. I'm not backing down. I'm bringing this in. And if my gastrointestinal system wants to do its thing, if my body wants to tingle, if my scalp wants to crawl, okay, then we're going to do that. We're going to give my body space to do these things. And then when my body's finished processing what it needs to process, we're going to keep going.
Carolyn Swora (31:38.078) Ugh. Carolyn Swora (31:42.455) Yep. Carolyn Swora (31:59.927) Dana, I said in, when we did my podcast, I was like, I wish I had you around like 30 years ago. I might even say 40 years ago. Cause like how many, like, did you do that naturally? And that's what led you into psychotherapy or did you learn that as a result of your training? Because that's in essence what I think like, if we could do more of
we would be so much more comfortable with ourselves and be able to work through the emotions instead of having the emotions work us by just trying to resist them. Dana Skaggs (32:30.626) Yeah. Yeah, well, in answer to your question, I just kind of organically do it. But I think at the core of it, to be brutally honest, because of some trauma that I went through growing up, it was a resistance to trusting other people with my emotions. And so I, and I developed this whole, you
boardroom mental headspace thing that's pretty fabulous based on internal family systems, but I feel like I could always trust myself. And so I guess it sort of stemmed from I'm not, I'm not going to necessarily reach out to someone else when maybe I should. That's, that's my area of weakness that I need to work on. Cause we're very open about that here on my podcast is, you know, what are areas. So I,
I have a hard time sometimes trusting that someone else is gonna be there or that they're gonna understand me or that they're gonna care. And I don't feel like going through all that mess. I know I can always trust myself. And so I think it kind of organically flew out of that when I could just kind of bring in my feelings and just sit with them and just rock back and forth and just let my body do its thing. I just respect that it's processing something in there. I just give it permission to do that. And then...
Carolyn Swora (33:38.912) Mmm. Carolyn Swora (33:48.875) Right. Dana Skaggs (33:51.392) and then move forward because when we're in business and we're at work, we need to be able to perform and we need to do, we want to do our best. And so if what we're experiencing, is it incapacitating us or is there some kind of a skill or coping strategy like I feel like you have in your book that would help people
manage and know what to do with these feelings and what to do so they can keep going so it doesn't have to waylay them, it doesn't have to incapacitate them because life is hard and what we go through is hard but what we do with it, I feel like you're pointing out, is so crucial. What we do with what happens. Carolyn Swora (34:19.595) Right.
Carolyn Swora (34:29.301) Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And the reality of our workplace is like transformation, not just change, like transformation is ongoing. And as AI takes on a bigger and bigger role, that's just going to continue to challenge our capacity as human beings to cope with massive change. And
that's not going to stop that change. So, you know, I feel like 2020 finally showed us, right, humans, you're either going to change how you're doing and interacting in this world or I'm going to take you down. And I feel that that's in a place, a lot of people are in that place now where it's like, okay, damn, this isn't working, but how the hell do I get out of this, these again, conditioned tendencies, patterns. Dana, people in workplaces and programs that I do now.
I I can think of something just recently. I 60 people in a room doing breathing exercises together, knowing that that's a strategy to bring yourself into the present moment. And I looked around the room and you could hear the audible breaths. And I thought, you know, this never would have happened two years ago. People would have thought that was weird or self -conscious. Did everybody do it? There was, you know, probably a 1 % that chose not to. And that's totally fine, too.
My point is is that people are so much more open.
Carolyn Swora (36:08.151) to these concepts and there is so much science around it. These are not new things. The breath has always been with us, right? Our nervous system has always been with us. It's getting activated big time in a world that doesn't shut off. So how can we learn to partner with our body and to be friends with ourselves internally and love ourselves? And again, that L word, scary, didn't like that word for 50 Dana Skaggs (36:17.528) That's
Carolyn Swora (36:38.105) my 52 years. But that's in essence what this is, is building a relationship with ourself and coming back into our body. It's not new stuff. We just lost touch with it.
Dana Skaggs (36:48.286) No, but yeah, and we need to be reminded. So Carolyn, the things that you said today are fabulous and we're out of time today, but I want to make sure that my listeners know how to get in touch with you, how to find out more about you, because I'm certain they've heard things. They're like, my gosh, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I've got to find out more about Carolyn Swarra. So what I have is carolynswarra
Carolyn Swora (37:13.579) Yep, that's the kind of home base for everything. You can find the podcast on there, the books, the work that I do. I've got a weekly newsletter that goes out as well, and it's really practical. I talk about Polyvagal, I give you a daily practice and just sort of tell you what's going on for me this week in the leadership space. And yeah, so I've been getting great feedback on it from people who are like, wow, this is really helpful, kind of helping me think about things that I hadn't really thought about before.
Dana Skaggs (37:42.414) That's wonderful. Carolyn, thank you so much for spending your precious time and bringing your wonderful wisdom and experience to Phoenix and Flame to share it with myself and with all of the Phoenix and Fame listeners. Thank you so much. Guys, I know that you have heard multiple things today from Carolyn that you're thinking, you know what? I have a best friend. Carolyn Swora (37:55.637) My pleasure. Thanks, Dana, for having me.
Dana Skaggs (38:07.082) I have a co -worker, I have a family member who absolutely needs to hear what Carol and Suara has to say. Take this podcast episode, copy and paste the link, send it in text, send it in email, post it on your favorite social media sites. Let's grow the Phoenix and Flame community so we can help each other know we are not alone. Thank you for spending your time with us. I'm Dana on Phoenix and Flame.