Ready to Hit Reset? How Leaders Can Stay Sane, Healthy, and Productive During Long Periods of Chaos

Ani
Hi, and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. Good morning, Brian.

Brian
Morning, Ani.

Ani
How are you feeling today?

Brian
I am feeling well because it's nice and bright and sunny here, and spring abounds here in the Adirondack Mountains.

Ani
Spring has sprung. It takes forever.

Brian
It does, but there's- Running around here. Birds are chirping, there's sun that's shining, and snow, a melting and all that stuff.

Ani
Our cat was chasing the squirrels that are out yesterday. Well, I thought he was chasing them. He was inside, of course. But it was really fun to see all the critters out and about.

Brian
Yeah. Of course, we have one of those bird feeders on those Yankee flipper bird feeders. It's the best. When the squirrels land on it, it spins and spins and spins and spins and spins.

Ani
It's our favorite form of entertainment.

Brian
It's our entertainment all winter long.

Ani
Here in the Adirondack Mountains, watching the squirrels spin off the birdfeeder. You got to hand to the Yankee flipper company, though, because this has been the bane of everyone's existence for all of time, trying to get the squirrels out of the bird feeder. They actually figured it out. They did. It's really quite remarkable.

Brian
I mean, you don't know how many contraptions I tried to build myself to keep the birds out of the birdfeeder?

Ani
Brian actually had this- That just didn't work. This section of little spikes that he put on the house because that didn't even work.

Brian
It didn't even keep them down.

Ani
It didn't I feel like everybody's- They're picking their teeth with it.

Brian
It's like, it's spikes. It just didn't- Again, buddy. No problem.

Ani
Anyway- We are on episode 75. As you can tell, we're very excited about spring here in the Adirondacks.

Brian
Right. Today's theme is, are you ready to hit reset yet?

Ani
I think that's one of the things that I so appreciate about spring, actually, Brian, is it feels like a reset starts to happen, especially after a long winter here.

Brian
Sure. Yeah, for sure. As a part of what happens here in the long winter here, but all over the US and all over the globe is what everyone's really talking about is the frenetic and chaotic pace of change that's happening with the current administration here in the US. And whether you like the changes or don't like the changes, we're not going to talk about those. They're changes. And whenever there is a chaotic change and sustained change, I mean, most recently, the President of the US said that they're just getting started.

Ani
So there's more change coming. I think that the changes, Brian, feel like quite an upheaval. 

Brian
Upheaval, yeah.

Ani
Not uplevel. They feel like quite an upheaval almost on a daily basis. And it's on top of an already frenetically paced society. It really is. We're already a society that is going at full throttle because of our technology living in our pockets and the notifications going off all the time. We're already living, I think, at our max capacity for stuff going on. Now with change on top of it, I think it just really... Honestly, I think it blows a lot of people out of their window of tolerance.

Brian
Absolutely. Like you said, it's not just change. It's the frenetic, chaotic change. 'Sign an order, pull it back. We're going to do this, we're not going to do that. We're going to do this, and then not that'. That's the thing about- It's so unpredictable that that level of unpredictability is really distressing for the nervous system, actually.

Ani
Absolutely. We were talking about spring to get started on this episode, and that's a predictable change. I know it's happening every year. I know what happens here. First it starts as muddy, and then the sugaring starts, and then the sun's going to come out, and then it's going to go away. I know what to expect at a time, but these unpredictable changes.

Brian
Unpredictable changes that feel like they're being forced on us. Actually, the one semi-political thing that I will actually mention is that the director of... I don't exactly remember who his last name is, Vot, I believe. But the director of operations that is a part of this administration came out and said in a meeting that their goal was to traumatize federal workers. Oh, God, I didn't hear that. They actually wanted federal workers to be traumatized in the morning, so they don't want to come back to work. I don't even know what to say about that, to be honest with you. When I heard that, you would think that nothing should really be appalling anymore with what's going on. But that was like, Oh, so there's actually an overt decision on the part of this administration to traumatize people directly. So I'm not even sure what to say about people who consciously... Their aim is to traumatize other people.

Ani
Sure. Let's not go down that rabbit hole. I think that's what's happening, though. Obviously. And not just the federal workers. A lot of people are feeling traumatized.

Brian
So the way that trauma is happening is with this rapid, unpredictable, chaotic change. That's actually a mode of traumatization is what I'm saying. Absolutely. Part of the plan in order to do that is to create so much change, so much upheaval that people can't get their bearings.

Ani
Hang on, just back up and say that again because I think that bears repeating. It's a part actually of traumatization that things change rapidly.

Brian
Yeah, exactly. In developmental psychology, in early childhood development, one of the things that causes unhealthy attachment disorders in children is when there is a regular chaotic upheaval and constant change in the family unit. That makes a lot of sense. Even within interpersonal relationships when something is given and taken back, and then we're going to do this, we're not going to do that. Okay, now we're going to do this. The child cannot actually learn to predict what's going to go on in their environment. That actually creates dysfunctional attachment disorders. We know that those are adverse childhood experiences that lead to trauma loads in a child's nervous system. And those are firmly linked to physiological and psychological poor health outcomes as people get older. Correct. So there's a firm link to that.

Ani
So what you're telling us is if we don't do something proactively about it, then what we're looking at is mental and physical health epidemics coming down the pike because so much trauma is happening.

Brian
Exactly. And so then we get in the debate about, well, but I like the changes that are going on. Sure. Some people are praising and lauding the changes that are happening so rapidly. Sure. Again, I'm not debating whether or not we should like them or shouldn't like them, anything like that, because I think everybody is allowed to have their own feeling about it.

Ani
Sure. I encourage the listeners that this isn't actually the point is to get on one or the other sides here. If you can have this conversation with us with an open mind, you're going to get the message-Correct. Rather than getting sucked into one side or the other in your polarization and your perceptions.

Brian
Let's just back up a little bit and do just a little physiology intro here around stress and change. Stress is important. We actually need stress. Developmentally, we need stress. Developmentally, we actually need change. Here at the Somatic Coaching Academy, we're all about change. We actually help people create conscious change for themselves. I have a result they don't like now. I want a different result tomorrow or next week or next month, so how do I go about doing that? We're actually in the business of teaching our students how to help other people have conscious change and how to help our own clients have conscious change. It's not like we're against change. We actually love change. Yeah.

Ani
Like you said, stress is a part of that. Yes. I remember when I first met you so many years ago, you were really hanging your hat on this message, even back then, because you refused to do a workshop around stress reduction.

Brian
Yes, exactly.

Ani
You would call it stress balancing or something like that. I was pushing on you from a marketing standpoint. But, Brian, people want to reduce their stress, and you're like, 'That's not physiologically appropriate'.

Brian
I still hang my hat on that.

Ani
I know. I get it. It is a really important message. I think it's really extra timely right now, actually. If you're a practitioner or you work with people, likely that's if you're listening to this podcast, you might think that the best thing to do is try to go out there and reduce everybody's stress right now.

Brian
Right. Yeah. I think the idea of reducing is moving people's stress loads in the better direction because, yes, probably by reducing them, you're going to balance them naturally.

Ani
A lot of times when we try to just reduce, we're re-stuffing stuff, too. What we're talking about is actually consciously moving through these changes.

Brian
Exactly. Let's just go back to stress and change. Stress is important, and change is important, but in the right doses, for sure. That's where I think we want to lean in here. It's an appropriate dosage of change in stress if we want to maintain a healthy nervous system. What's a healthy nervous system look like? Well, it looks like people that can make really good clean decisions. Healthy nervous systems look like we're emotionally regulated in a relationship, so we can have really clear communication. We're not creating more destruction in our relationships or in our communities. Balanced stress within ourselves. A balanced nervous system looks like a healthy body, a flexible body. No gut... Health, really. If you're like, Hey, I want to be healthier, then you got to really look at, is your nervous system balanced? At a core, is your stress balanced? And so we come back to this idea of, Well, but I like the changes, but I don't like the changes. Actually, your nervous system doesn't really care too much whether you like it or don't like it. It's the matter of what's the pace of the change. And there's a stress index.

Brian
It's called the Life Change Index Scale that we pulled up to chat about a little bit here in the podcast. And I'm sure there's some way we can put a link to this somewhere that people can find it. Probably put it in the show notes. In the show notes or something like that. And so the researchers in the '60s looked at a whole bunch of the most common life events. Then they looked at how people going through those life events, how it related to their stress load. The scale at the top of the scale is 100, the bottom of the scale is 11, because that's the least stressful thing. We'll talk about what they are in a moment. It'll just toss some numbers out. It's a pretty extensive list, so we don't have time to read through every one of them, but we'll pop some numbers out at you. The idea is that if within the year, you experience any of these stressors, life changes, then you add up the numbers and you get a total number for the year. If you have over 300 points when you take the exam, you have an 80% likelihood to develop a serious illness in a reasonably short period of time.

Brian
If you have between 150 and 299 points, you have a 50% chance that you're going to develop an illness in the near future. If you have less than 150 points, then it's only about a 30% chance that you're going to develop something in the near future thing. Can we look at some of the numbers? They're not all "bad things" is what we want to point out.

Ani
I've read this before, but I didn't catch one that just made me giggle. I'll say it in a second. But at the top of the scale, we have death of a spouse at 100, actually. It's a big one.

Brian
Hundred points, yeah. That's the highest one. That's the highest. Any highest single, most stressful life event, as you might imagine.

Ani
Then the next one is divorce at 73. You go down just a few and you get to marriage, which is 50.

Brian
Marriage is supposed to be a joyous, happy occasion. Not stress. But not stress-free. Not stress-free.

Ani
Not too much farther off from divorce, to be honest.

Brian
Exactly. It's only 23 points lower than getting a divorce. It's half of losing your spouse.

Ani
Three points below that is marital reconciliation.

Brian
Reconciliation is 45 points or 47 points, something like that, right? It's funny. It's just stressful. So it's stressful to get married. It's stressful to separate. It's stressful to reconcile. It's all stressful.

Ani
Yeah. Getting fired at work is on there. You've got a personal injury. Then you've got pregnancy.

Brian
Pregnancy, which, again, oftentimes is a joyous, happy, desired event, and that's 40 points on this scale.

Ani
Here's one that's neutral, business readjustment. I mean, what's that?

Brian
And also change in financial state.

Ani
Yeah. So it's not- Change in financial state.

Brian
It's not just a negative change in financial state. It's any change in financial state earns you 38 stress points on this scale.

Ani
Yeah, I could add me up on a few of these.

Brian
Yeah, so go down a little lower. Check this out. Once you get in the 20s, look at all the change. Change in work hours, change in residence, change in schools, change in recreations, change in- Change in social habits. Right, so we're just talking change, change, change.

Ani
Change in eating habits. This is the one that I was laughing about, and I guarantee you, Brian, when was this done? 1960? Yeah. I guarantee you this is a higher number now. What's that one? Christmas approaching at 12. Christmas approaching. I guarantee you that is higher.

Brian
Well, is that 12 for each kid that you have or each in-law that you have in the family around Christmas?

Ani
It's 12 for each day leading up to Christmas.

Brian
Because it does say on the scale, too, if you experience these more than once in a year, then you need to multiply it.

Ani
On the first day of Christmas, my stress level needs to be.

Brian
I'm looking at trouble with in-laws right there, locking at 29. If you have trouble with in-laws every day, you just got to multiply that 29 by how many times are you having trouble with your in-laws.

Ani
Okay, so this is my point. Life is hard enough, Brian. Life is stressful enough just by being alive. Yeah.

Brian
If you're over 300 points, then there are 80% chance that you're going to have a significant illness in the near future.

Ani
What number did you say again?

Brian
Over what? Over 300 points.

Ani
I just can't imagine how many people out there could get close to or up to 300 points using this scale and adding in some of the current events that are happening.

Brian
Well, just consider all the changes. That's what I mean. If you look on this thing, every time there's a change in your life, every time you look at the news and there's a change that can impact you, the Department of Education, half of the Department of Education is gone now, which affects not only schooling, but also funding for... I didn't share this one with you. That's how Pell Grants and lots of funding is done. We have kids in college. For us, it's like, Okay, so what happens with that now? There's all these things just get tossed up in the air.

Ani
There's so many. We could just go on and on.

Brian
Anyway.

Ani
Some people are being affected more than others.

Brian
More than others, for sure. Absolutely. Honest about that. Here we are, folks. Wow. Change, change, change, change, change, stress, stress, stress, whether you like it or not. The nervous system, whenever there is a change, the nervous system needs time to adapt. That's the idea. 

Ani
The nervous system needs time to adapt and so few of us take the time, make the time, have the time to do that on the regular. People are so stinking busy.

Brian
I would actually even mention also, Ani, that right now, we talk a lot about core centering. We talk a lot about doing your daily core centering practice, like brushing your teeth, like flossing your teeth. We need to do that to keep our nervous systems healthy. That works really well when the outside world is relatively stable. Because when the outside world is relatively stable and we're doing our core centering practices every day, we can actually start to build a reserve of resilience within our nervous system so that when things get challenging, we have the reserves in order to be able to manage it.

Ani
It's like putting cash in your savings account. Exactly. In your savings account.

Brian
In your savings account. You're not regularly using it. But nowadays, when there's change every single day after day after day, the core centering practices, they barely are enough to keep your head above water.

Ani
You need them so that you can keep your head above water as best as possible. And we need more. Exactly. And we need more. We need resets.

Brian
Yeah, we need resets. I think that's really what we want to lean into right now. For leaders out there who are leading organizations, teams, people, for coaches out there who are working with the people who are experiencing upheaval and stress, those sorts of things.

Ani
For therapists who are also working with people who are stressed out. And by the way, a lot of absorbing that secondary load. For moms and dads and caregivers out there. Resets. So we're serious about this, by the way. We like to have a good time. Having a daily practice, and we're going to talk about this in an upcoming podcast really soon. Having a daily practice is imperative right now, and so are resets. They are non-negotiable.

Brian
At this point, they're non-negotiable. Because here, again, here in the US, and globally, because everything that happens in the US affects the whole globe, at a minimum, we're looking at the next four years of chaotic... In a lot of ways, I was going to say destructive change, but because things are just... That's how it's being laid out. Things are being gutted/cut. Sure. That type of change, again, rocks the nervous system, and that's not going to go away for the next four years. Let's just accept that. That's not going to change. We need to plan ahead. We have our daily practices, but our daily practices, they're going to gas out before four years because we just won't be able to keep our head above the water that long. What we're doing, what Ani and I are doing in our life is we're planning ahead, and we're planning these, what Ani is saying, reset periods. We're just calling them resets, reset periods. I already personally have three planned for this year, three reset periods. I don't know how many you have actually planned.

Ani
Yeah, well, I'm thinking three. I'm wondering, are they the same ones?

Brian
No, the last one, I'm doing a thing.

Ani
You're doing a thing?

Brian
Well, we'll talk about in a minute. I'm doing a thing, too. You're doing a thing, too. Okay. What is a reset period?

Ani
But yeah, I mean, I'm even looking into 2026 and putting this on my calendar now as well. Absolutely. I'm restructuring my year according to needing a little bit more space and time for adaptability in our resets.

Brian
Yeah. So let's talk about what a reset is not, first of all. What a reset is not a family vacation. It's not a family vacation. That is not a reset.

Ani
He said it's not a family vacation.

Brian
So that does not count, people. So if you're like, Oh, I'm going away with my family. That is not a reset.

Ani
It's one of my favorite things that comedians do. We went to see Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan a few months ago this winter. Both of them did a set about how stressful it is to go away with your family. It's just so hilarious.

Brian
Yeah. Of course, we were there with our kids, and I think we were laughing a lot more than they were.

Ani
They don't have a reference point yet to understand.

Brian
It's not a family vacation. Reset is not a work trip to a nice location. That's not a reset. So reset is not a really nice work trip. It's not tacking a couple of days on after a work trip. It's not a family vacation. What else is it not?

Ani
It's not a family vacation.

Brian
Just keep coming back to that. It's not a family vacation.

Ani
It's not going on a yoga workshop for three hours on a Saturday, Brian. Correct.

Brian
Yeah, exactly.

Ani
Yoga workshops are great, but that's not what we're talking about.

Brian
Lets what we're talking about. So let's talk about what we're talking about then, because the purpose of a reset is to deeply reset the nervous system.

Ani
Yeah, and it takes a few days.

Brian
It does, actually.

Ani
It takes a few days to do it, and you can feel the difference. And if you don't know what we're talking about, then you need to take a reset so you can get a reference point for what it feels like to reset your nervous system, because then you'll go, Oh, that.

Brian
Oh, my God. I never realized how stress-intense I was because now I feel like this. Holy cow. That's a deep nervous system reset.

Ani
Once you have that sensation, you have that feeling, you have that anchor to then go back to, Oh, that's what I'm aiming for, actually, is that point at which I go, "Aaaaaahh".

Brian
Yeah, totally. Let's talk about the qualities. What makes a reset period a reset period? Based on the research we've looked at and knowing a lot about the nervous system and the process as it goes through.

Ani
Run retreats for- And have our run our own resets for a number of years.

Brian
And doing our own reset periods in the past that we haven't really qualified this way. We've done this stuff before, but now it's like this stuff actually needs to become a regular part of our life in order to not only really basically survive the next four years, but to thrive beyond that also, because we want to be able to thrive beyond the next four years. And if our nervous systems are totally tanked and frayed, and injured, then we won't be able to do that. At some point, you have to pay the piper. Your body has to recover, which is basically what burnout is. If we don't proactively plan for deeply reseting our nervous systems, we're looking at again, another catastrophic burnout epidemic like we saw after COVID.

Ani
Let's just say that. That's what leaders are looking at, by the way, if they don't take this seriously to put things in practice for and with their people.

Brian
For themselves.

Ani
For themselves and for their people. For themselves and for their people. Burnout is already a big, bad problem, but we're looking at more.

Brian
Yeah, this is just pushing people over that edge. Okay, so the very first important quality of a reset period is safety. When someone is in a reset period, there absolutely must be a felt quality of safety. They need to feel safe there wherever it is.

Ani
I think that's one of the things about taking a family vacation. You just don't know what's going to happen. I remember the family vacation where you busted your hand trying to open an avocado. You don't want that stuff to happen. You need to be able to just... You can't take a deep breath unless there's safety.

Brian
You can't be worried about looking over your shoulder and who's behind me and who's going to do this, who's going to do that. There absolutely must be an element of safety so that you can let your guard and hypervigilance down. That's the first quality. For some people, that's really hard. Just that step. Just that step.

Ani
Well, yeah. Some people don't know they're in that state. Without the awareness that you're in that state, you don't know you're in that state, first of all. Exactly. Then people will go on these reset, let's just say vacations. We're not saying the reset has to be a quote, unquote, vacation. They all of a sudden create all kinds of chaos around them, Brian, because their patterns are so wrapped up in that hypervigilance. They don't know they're doing it. They just start creating problems and chaos and stuff.

Brian
Yeah, exactly. So safety. So there has to be an element of this feels like a safe place, a safe environment, safe people that I am with during my reset period. So that's very healing for the nervous system right there alone. So that's step one. So step two is you are not responsible for taking care of anyone else's basic needs. You're not responsible for feeding anybody else. You're not responsible for clothing anyone else. You're not responsible for bathing anyone else, toileting, driving. What else?

Ani
This is caregiving - kids and parents and grownups and other people.

Brian
Spouses and neighbors. Yeah.

Ani
A part of that is that... Well, maybe it's not a part of it, Brian, but an add-on is that ideally somebody else is helping to take care of your stuff.

Brian
That's a bonus. Yeah. The bonus is that you don't have to take care of your own basic needs.

Ani
To be able to get your healthy good food made for you, have your dishes be done, those kinds of things, not have to sweep the floor and clean the toilets and stuff. That's just a mega bonus.

Brian
Yeah, that's the bonus. The basic thing is you don't have to take care of anyone else's basic needs, only your own. A bonus is if someone else is actually helping you take care of your basic needs. That's a really important bonus. Not a requirement for the reset, but definitely a bonus. Okay, so that's number 2. Number 3 is no work-related activities.

Ani
It's so hard for people, especially nowadays, because our email for a lot of people is on their phone. It doesn't have to be, by the way, just saying, social media or whatever. And we can't do anything without our phones because it's so connected to everything that we do. So no work-related activities. It means that you're not checking your email once a day to make sure that you're in the loop.

Brian
Yeah, you're not directing your team. You're not telling other people what to do, what has to happen. Literally, you need to have a wall or a barrier or a boundary between between you and your work world for sure. I would even say your caregiving world as much as possible also, because we already said not take care of anyone's basic needs. But also, if you're someone who takes care of other people's basic needs, you have teenagers and that stuff, you have to find as much as possible to be able to make sure that they're taken care of so that when you're in your reset period, that's not something that is affecting your nervous system.

Ani
Yeah, you need somebody else to be on call.

Brian
Yeah. No work activity. That's definitely really important as well. Okay, so the next one is one of my favorite ones is be in nature. Actually, there's a requirement that you have to have someplace where you can be in nature.

Ani
I don't even think we have to say anything else about that. Nature's so healing, and everybody knows it.

Brian
Yeah, so much research around it.

Ani
You feel it. You just know it. And there's research around it.

Brian
Yeah, you feel it, and there's research around it. So be in nature. Does it matter what nature? No. Just get outside in nature. It could be in the woods. It can be at the ocean. It could be at the park. It could be at the whatever. But find a way to be in nature. That's a really important element of a deep reset period for the nervous system.

Ani
One of my most curious and favorite parts of a Tai chi practice, Brian, is the gesture about watching the clouds pass. It's like this important part of living a healthy life is is taking the time to just watch the clouds pass by. And being in nature, it gives us an opportunity to allow those things, the breeze moving through the trees.

Brian
Yeah. Yeah, really good. Okay, cool. That's another element that has to be met to have it be a deep reset. Okay. Eating good food. Nourishing food. Yeah. I like the word nourishing. It's good food, but there's something more than just... It's healthy food. It's nourishing food. That's a little different for everybody, by the way. It might be nourishing food for me, it might not be necessarily nourishing food for you.

Ani
Yeah. Nourishing food for you might be coffee at three times a day.

Brian
Probably not. But wherever you're doing this reset period, make sure that if you're going to a retreat center or something to do these kinds of things, make sure there's a variety of food that feels nourishing for you.

Ani
Yeah, because think about it. If you go somewhere and you're concerned about the food. I'm not sure if I'm going to get what I need. I mean, that puts you back in the safety issue right back at the start. You need to know that your needs are going to be met with that.

Brian
Yeah. Nourishing food and then nourishing people. It's not just cool people. What's that?

Ani
Which is like nourishing food.

Brian
Nourishing food, yeah. Yeah.

Ani
It's not just cool people.

Brian
Yeah, it's not just as cool people or smart people. It's actually people that nourish you. That just being with them nourishes your nervous system. It replenishes. When I think about nourishing, when I think about nourishing food, you know what occurs to me is bone broth. Because I feel like bone broth, there's something maybe calling it bone broth that it seeps into your bones. I know it comes from bones, but it's seeping into your bones and making your bones stronger. The deepest part of your body gets stronger.

Ani
We're looking for bone broth people.

Brian
Yeah, we're looking for bone broth people. We're looking for people that when you're with them, they seep into your nervous system and it feels like it just rebuilds your cells.

Ani
Again, back to safety. This makes sense.

Brian
Yeah, all the way back. Okay, cool. What else we got? Daily somatic practices. As a part of the reset period, it's not just sitting around on the couch or lounging at the ocean. Watching TV? Yeah, no watching TV. Actually, maybe we should say that one. It's like no TV. Might actually be a good for the reset period also. But it didn't make the cut the first round.

Ani
Yeah, no social media, no TV.

Brian
Well, certainly no social media, I would say. We're adding that one in right now on the spot. No social media while you're in the reset period. But the idea is that every day, probably a few times a day, you're doing somatic practices. You're healing your nervous system. Because that heals your nervous system in a very active way, not just a passive way. We could lay around for a long time and our nervous system would heal. But if we do somatic practices, we are actively directing the healing into our body where we need it most and under our nervous system where we need it most. You got to have periods during the day where you're doing somatic practices on the regular. Yeah. Okay.

Ani
You didn't say this yet, but it's got to be at least a few days.

Brian
Yeah, at least five days. The reset period, and I know up to this point, people are listening and they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, at least five days. Oh, no, I can't do that. I can't get away for five days.

Ani
I was going to say four, Brian. What I'm interested to know is five in the research?

Brian
Five is, yeah. There's a tipping point that happens after three days.

Ani
That's what... Right.

Brian
But here's the thing, right?

Ani
But you need that tipping point, and then you need a little extra time on it.

Brian
Exactly. Yeah. Most people, in my experience of leading retreats for a really long time is that it takes at least three days just to wind down the nervous system.

Ani
Right. We've seen that over and over.

Brian
Over and over. It's very predictable.

Ani
You're not escaping that. If you think you're going away for two days and there's going to reset, you might get an exhale or something, but it is not the same as the three-day. Exactly.

Brian
The three-day let down. Exactly. That three-day let down, it winds down the nervous system. By the way, this is assuming that you have a garden variety amount of stress that you're carrying anyway. If you're really stressed out, if you really have a high allopathic load, it might take you longer than three days, by the way, just to wind that down. This is a general observation saying it needs to be at least five days because it's going to take you at least three days to just wind down the nervous system. Then that gives you a couple of days in order to start, again, nurturing and refilling, rebuilding and getting a reset, what's going on. Ideally, it's longer than five days, to be honest with you, it's longer than that, but it's got to be at least that five days.

Ani
If you are one of those people who's listening and was like, 'You had me until you said five days because I can't take five days'. We could talk about all kinds of mindset resets around that, but really? Can't afford not to? Kind of thing. Also, listen, if you need a reset, the universe has the resources for you to do it baked in. It's a matter of being resourceful and creative and allowing yourself to understand that this is a need. Just to take this soapbox for a second, I think it stands like this that unravel the patriarchy, Brian. This is really important stuff.

Brian
I look at this from the long term. The long term is that after the extended period of chaotic and disruptive change that we're going to be in, not everyone is going to get through that. They're not. Because their nervous system will shut down, it'll become unraveled. And after that period of time, it'll either take them a really long time to recover or they just won't make it through. And listen, assuming we actually make it through these next four years with all this change, I want to be healthy at the end of this because I want to be a part of the world that's rebuilding something that is healthy, nourishing, and safe for as many people as possible. I would love to say everyone that might be a little bit too pie in the sky, but for as many people as possible. But the people who actually make it through this period will be the people who are able to rebuild.

Ani
The people who are healthy and still have the energy to do it will be the people who can rebuild.

Brian
Exactly. That won't happen without these regular reset periods. That's why I'm saying, Hey, I have a busy job. I travel a lot for work, got a family, kids in college also. I mean, all those kinds of things. I'm committed to this over the next four years, at least to set these periods, at least three, four times a year, every quarter, doing a reset so that I can be healthy at the end. That really has to happen that way. The last element to a reset is a level of intentionality. So not only planning the resets, I think that's an overarching level of intentionality, but it's for each reset before actually going into that reset experience to go through a little process of attention setting about what that reset period is about for you and what would you like to intend as going through that process?

Ani
I think one of the things that helps us to do is realize what we're letting go of with awareness. Because what we don't have awareness about, we can't change. Having that awareness ahead of time allows us to sincerely let go.

Brian
I have three resets planned for this year already.

Ani
I always love a good reveal in front of everybody else, Brian. I think I know the first- Well, the first one is at Kripalu, May 18th to 22nd.

Brian
That's a five-day core centering certification we're doing.

Ani
We extended it on purpose .It did, yes. Last year because what we noticed was it was a fantastic training and retreat experience. People could have used just one more day to be able to really sleep in on the changes that they were experiencing. We extended it this year.

Brian
A little prophetic on our point. A little prophetic on us. We extended from 4 to 5 days. Yeah. Of course, we're going to be teaching the core centering program and practices. But we're also bringing in this extra element of this deep nervous system reset. I'm already adjusting and modifying the way that we've done this in the past in order to bring that deep reset experience in.

Ani
Yeah, we're actually on purpose bringing in time to experience elements like going for a hike on the property, going to sit by the lake, having hammock time, taking a little bit of extra time after lunch. We're intentionally baking those things into the program. It really is, I would say, just as much about the reset as it is about the. Yes. This year, and I couldn't be more thrilled that we I have come at it with such a high level of intentionality and an opportunity for people to really join us year over year there and have that predictable place to come because the community is so enriching, like you said, the people. All your basic needs are taken care of, nourishing food, and you're being well-held, and the community is just so nurturing. We've given even more space to really let that seep in. Yeah.

Brian
The surroundings, the environment, it's all there. It's great.

Ani
There's something about going to a place where people meditate regularly. Yes. It's different. That's one of the reasons I love Kripalu so much is people do their practices there, and you arrive and it feels different. A big part of that, because we've been at other places where it's like that, is the fact that people are doing their practices there. They're meditating there. It creates a really wonderful healing environment.

Brian
Sure does. That's our first reset. Of course, you are welcome to join us there. We'd love to have you be there with us if you want to put that as one of your resets this year.

Ani
Yeah, right. You can't come to our second one.

Brian
Can't come to our second one, though. What are we doing for our second one?

Ani
Brian and I go paddle camping, and so we literally pack some waterproof bags, put them in our canoe, and off we go into the woods, which for some people, that sounds like amazing. For some people, it sounds scary, and for some people, sounds awful. I love it. I've loved it ever since we started doing it. I've loved it even before I started doing it when I got the hint that that thing was possible. When I started kayaking with my aunt, when I was about 14, and I saw other people camping, and they were not at the campsite. They were off somewhere else, and I wondered how they got there. My aunt said they paddled out, and I just knew that was something I wanted for my life.

Brian
Yeah, and we do that now. Talk about a nervous system reset. We're going on 10 days, like a 10-day to two-week trip we're going to do. In the woods. In the woods. It's a deep immersion. It was last year or the year before when we were doing a 80-mile paddle trip that carried from a couple of ponds into a really beautiful river system. And one or two of nights where we camping on this pond at Lowe's Lake. Remember how quiet it was? I didn't realize how jacked up my nervous system was when we went in there until it was so... I can't even tell you it was so quiet.

Ani
It was quiet beyond quiet?

Brian
It was quiet beyond quiet. I've never experienced that quiet before. It was really actually agitating for my nervous system. Absolutely. At first, wow. Because you could hear a frog jump into the lake two miles away.

Ani
Remember the beavers were jumping? It sounded like dead bodies were being tossed into the river.

Brian
It was just so quiet. It was amazing. I'm really looking forward to that again. Not the experience of my nervousness, but being immersed in that type of death quiet. It was just amazing.

Ani
I'm looking forward to day three or four because I know that.

Brian
That was day two that we were there. It was like, Yeah, really. But after that, it was fine. Yeah, exactly. Okay.

Ani
After that, we wonder why we're going to go back? Why don't we keep paddling?

Brian
Just keep paddling. Okay. My third retreat is I'm actually leading a retreat for a really wonderful nonprofit organization in September at a wonderful retreat center in Connecticut, and that's seven days. It's a deep retreat. At that, and there's all kinds of other teachers and presenters that are going to be there. We're going to be doing somatic practices all day long together, and there's nature, and labyrinths, and woods, and that stuff you walk in.

Ani
There's all kinds of things that you can do there.

Brian
You don't have to go to everything. You can opt out to some things. If you just need some quiet time for yourself, then there's an option there. Anyway, so that's my third reset. I'm looking to get one more in somewhere. I just need to- This year? Yeah, I need to just figure out where it's going to be.

Ani
I'm looking at doing a silent retreat for myself and making that an annual silent retreat. Love it.

Brian
There's our reset. What are your resets? We want to know. Send us an email, pop in the comments below the video. Let us know, what are your reset periods that you're going to dial in based on what we've talked about with the parameters that we've laid out.

Ani
Absolutely. We want to hear them, and of course, we'd love to see you at Kripalu if that's one that you choose. All right. We'll see you next time. Thanks so much for joining us. Bye-bye.