If you're here, I think you're probably here because you have a greater ambition to then just cope with life. Does that make sense? Who here wants more than to just cope with life? And how do I now build capacity for a larger life? If I want my nervous system to be larger, if I want my life to be larger, I need more capacity because what we really want is consistent, sustainable growth. Does that make sense? We want consistent, sustainable growth. And I'll give you a basic example. Okay?
So I get body work done by a physician once a week. And I started this practice in 2020 when I couldn't walk for 6 months and it took so long to get on the calendar for the for the individual. And usually, for body work with physicians, they see you for a short period of time and then when the issues go away, you stop seeing them. Except what I realized was is I didn't wanna wait a month or 2 to get on somebody's calendar. I wanted consistent support.
And because I'm always putting myself under additional pressure, I didn't feel like it was enough to just resolve the pain that I was in. I wanted to help relieve pressure regularly. Does that make sense? Right? So literally this week, I got a, chiropractic adjustment from a evidence based chiropractor, and we've been working on readjusting some things. And the tension went from my feet previously to my hips. Now it's going up my spine. Yesterday, wouldn't you know, sorry.
The day before, I got my, thoracic spine adjusted, which is mid back, and it felt amazing. Then yesterday, it went out because the fascia was trying to keep the spine in place in the dysfunctional pattern. So then yesterday, I had a physician manipulate my fascia to help it go back and to help support the new structure. I didn't have to get the physician on the phone. I have a weekly
meeting with both of them. I have a weekly adjustment, and I have a weekly, physician, doing body work on me because I know I'm gonna be putting myself intention from now on. So I need consistent regular support to recognize that when I push harder in with my body, I need to adjust it. And so the idea is to make sure that you have insurance plan and you're thinking ahead because here's a mistake that people make. Lots of people make this mistake. Who here has ever play with me
for a second. Who here has ever hit a version of a rock bottom or a plateau? Anybody? Who here, once you got to enough pain, was like, I need to change this Kipp, and then you started to change it. Who's ever done that before? You had enough pain. You had a threshold. You're like, I have to change this no more. Okay. Who here, once you started to change it, started taking new action? Who's Has ever done that before? You gotta change it. Gotta do new action. Yes? Play along with me. Yes? Okay.
Who here, once you started taking new action, eventually got a different result. Is it ever how that happened? You hit a plateau or a bottom, you want to make a change, you hit emotional threshold, you took new action, you got a different result. Okay. Who here then, once you got that new result, assumed that that would just be how life is from now on? To find out later that that's not the case. Who here's
ever made that mistake? Okay? So let's be smart about pattern recognition and recognize that it is a mistake to think once you've created momentum, once you've broken free, it's just going to keep doing that. That's called recency bias. Right? What you want is you want to set yourself up with support, with community, with coaching, with practitioners that can be with you, and you want to think about what were the things I had in
place that got me successful. And then continue the things that kept you successful in place, not diluting yourself to say, well, I'm good now, because that doesn't happen. And then all of a sudden, next thing you know, you fade out, and then who's never had this happen? We're, like, you maybe did this. You had the rock bottom. You changed your life. You took new action. You got support. You got a better result. You stop doing the things that got you the result, and then you hit a
different bottom. Who's ever had that happen before? Right? And who's ever been once that happened go, wait a minute. What was I thinking? I I wish I had that support, but it's harder to get that support when you're in those bottoms. Does that make sense? So we talk about create your next level plan and support team. This assumes that you've created momentum, and now we want to reinforce and maintain the situation, the con the support that has helped you get here to help you get to the
next level because we know that stuff's gonna go awry. Does that make sense? Right? And we wanna have support in place. And so intelligent people who would who value, always growing, have a support team in place from now on, and they do not delude themselves into thinking that once they're successful, they're gonna stay that way. Does that make sense y'all? Nobody told me that in the beginning, but does that make sense? Let's personalize it for you. Okay? So the first
step is all about meeting your nervous system. So what does this mean? Well, meeting your nervous system is 2 parts. The first part is to understand the nervous system, and then we wanna understand your nervous system because we all have a very similar physiology in terms of nervous system structures. However, the way that your nervous system interprets an event and the way that my nervous system interprets an event is
very So we all have a vagus nerve, for example. We all have a sympathetic nervous system, for example, but the way that your sympathetic nervous system or mine interprets events is very different. Who follows? Does this make sense? Who here has ever seen somebody be triggered by something that doesn't trigger you? Has that ever happened? And vice versa. Who here has things that trigger you that don't trigger other people? Right? So we have to understand how the nervous system
works in step 1. And so what that means is there's a a a the emerging, cutting edge science on this is Polyvagal theory and we've been teaching Polyvagal theory. We introduced Polyvagal theory to the coaching space. We've been teaching it longer than the Polybital Institute has been around, and Stephen Porges, as I shared with you in the first
workshop, has endorsed, our next book which is really a beautiful thing. And so, like, polyvagal theory is the science of the autonomic nervous system to make it safe enough to change your life, to heal, to grow, to restore. The majority of, people are using polyvagal theory for therapy, for healing, not for for growth. And so we wanna understand how the nervous system works both to release the past and build a new future. And when we really look at, your nervous
system, not just the nervous system, but we look at your nervous system. Your nervous system has a certain capacity for these different emotional defenses, anger, grief, sadness, intimacy, closeness, etcetera, excitement, all those different things. And so what we wanna build is meta affective awareness and skills. So what that means is in polyvagal theory, we basically have, a stoplight that's inverted. So we think about green at the top, yellow in the middle,
and red at the bottom. And the red part of the nervous system is your dorsal vagal branch and and that's part of the parasympathetic nervous system. It's below the diaphragm. And this part of the vagus nerve is responsible for dissociation, checking out, immobilization, etcetera. We move up the nervous system to the sympathetic nervous system, which is primarily up and down your spine, that's fight or flight. That phrase was coined in the 19 twenties, I believe. Okay.
But the sympathetic go up and down your spine, which is mobilization. Then we have the ventral vagal branch or green, which is, you know, more of a regulated nervous system. We have health, growth, and restoration that becomes possible. We get our prefrontal cortex online. And what we have to recognize is we go from green to yellow to red based on how much challenge we experience. So we drop down states based on how hard things are. And the way to maintain green or yellow instead of
red is to not do it by yourself. Polydaglial theory helps us understand that coregulation is a biological imperative. So we have to understand how this nervous system works, and then we have to understand what makes you green, what makes you yellow, and what makes you go red. What makes you check out and go red, dissociate and check out and avoid? What makes you go yellow, which is fight or flight? What makes you feel green? What makes you feel safe? Right? That also has a
physical component to it. So there's emotions associated with each nervous system state and there are physical sensations associated with each nervous system state. We wanna understand that and each nervous system state has a corresponding mindset. Right? So in dorsal, the mindset is life is too dangerous. I can't go on or something like that. The mindset of sympathetic is I'm overwhelmed. This is too much. The mindset of ventral is what was I worried about the whole time? Life is great.
Right? And so it's important to understand that each state red, yellow, and green has a corresponding physiology, nervous system response, body response or somatic response, emotional response, and thinking response that man all that manifest in different behavioral responses based on what's happening in your life. And so as you increase challenge and make life harder, we drop down in
states based on the response to how hard things are. And so it's important to understand that when we talk about meeting your nervous system, we have to both understand how the nervous system works and then how your nervous system works because we cannot change anything until we understand how it works. Does that make sense for you? And not how it works for somebody else, but how it works for you. Y'all with me so far? Is that making sense? Yes? Okay. Perfect. So I'll give you an example. Okay.
So we look at Dan Siegel's work with the window of tolerance. Right? Some things will make you go into, a regulated state here. If you go too high, the hyperarousal, you get fight or flight. Right? I'm unsafe. I feel threatened. So there's certain things that make you feel this way, and there's certain things that down regulate you into dissociation or hypoarousal
where I'm I'm, you know, avoiding and now I'm too overwhelmed and I freeze. So we wanna understand what keeps you in this zone, and then guess what? Then one of the things we're gonna start to do is push you slightly outside the window and start to expand your window tolerance so we can widen your window tolerance. Widening your window helps you build more capacity. Does that make sense? So that you're not as you don't have to be taken out by things that used
to take you out. You can you can navigate the challenges of these states more. Does that make sense y'all? Is that tracking? Y'all tracking me so far? Okay. Beautiful. So that's step 1. That's just step 1. By the way, most people never do step 1, but they are they do all these modalities first. Like, let me go do cold plunges and saunas and psychedelics and stuff like that. I've been doing a lot of research in psychedelic space. There is no conversation about
the nervous system in that space. There's no conversation with the nervous system in most spaces. So it's important to understand that we know how the nervous system works and then how your nervous system works, 1st and foremost. The second step then okay. Exactly, Donna. High level coping. The second step is safely navigate hard emotions and discover your
window of tolerance. So now, we have to understand what are the things that trigger you to create too much hyper or hypo arousal, and to create a plan to challenge and expand your window of tolerance. So here's how the nervous system works. Here's how your nervous system works. Based on that, how can we start to challenge you? Because we're y'all, we're coaches. We're not therapists. We're not mental health people. Right? We are not medical people. We help you grow.
If you want more life, more money, more love, more joy, more of everything, We have to build more capacity, which means we have to challenge you. But here's the thing. We don't wanna challenge you to a point where you collapse or burn out. Some of you push yourself so hard until you burn out, and you're like, Mastin, don't challenge me. Jenna, don't challenge me. How could you? Right? And it's like, wait a minute. We're not talking about overwhelming your system, but we are saying let's
slowly build more capacity. Just like, if you've never worked out, we're not gonna put you in the gym to bench press £500. That would hurt you. Who follows? This makes sense? Right? So you wanna increase that challenge over time.