Sarah Baldwin

Welcome to the Puck Venture Capital and Beyond, a show that examines the changing landscape of our world. We'll have candid conversations with VCs, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders grappling with our current challenges and providing solutions to key problems we face as a nation. I'm Jim Beer, president of CMBG Advisors. This podcast brings change makers to the table to discover the inner workings behind their decision making strategies and ultimately to how they got to where they are today. What our world really needs is we need a global scale understanding of this work.

It's the reason for our political polarity that we see in the world. It's the reason for our problems with prison systems. It's the reason for problems with foster care systems because dysregulation and trauma is really the foundation of suffering in our human lives. On today's episode of The Puck, we pivot away from the financial world. Our conversation with Sarah Baldwin is a fascinating deep dive into how our nervous system actually operates.

Sarah is a trauma trained life coach and somatic experiencing practitioner. We discuss the idea behind regulating our nervous system, how early childhood attachment affects our development and well-being, and some of the ways we can work with our somatic system to unlock and transform unhealed trauma. Sarah, welcome to the plaque. Tell us a little bit about your background, and we'll go from there. Well, it's so good to be here.

I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner. I support folks to address trauma. We none of us go through life unscathed by trauma. And in doing that, I support folks to really step into the life that they're desiring. I am trained in somatic parts work, somatic attachment work, and and, do psychodrama work, all again to facilitate healing, but also to help us live the life we really want to live.

So for our listeners who are familiar with therapy, there are certain terms you're using like somatics and polyvagal theory Yeah. And so forth. Can you help me and our listeners better understand how that fits into a therapeutic model? That's right. Sure.

So, you know, my field, I think in many ways is a bit archaic. What I mean by that is this. When we look at the medical system, we have evolved so much. It used to be a time when there was one doctor. Right?

The doctor did everything for you. They're doing every kind of surgery. But now we have specialists, and the average person knows that there are specialists. That's that's common knowledge. So if I have an eye issue, I see an ophthalmologist.

If I have a heart issue, I go to a cardiologist, and that's public knowledge. In my field in mental health, we have specialists, but unfortunately, it's not public knowledge. So what is public knowledge is that when people think of therapy, they think of talk therapy or psychodynamic therapy. That is a really beneficial part of healing and and very important, but that's not the whole picture of things. So in many ways, and if we go to psychology today, you're looking for a therapist or you look on your insurance provider, you're probably gonna find a lot of talk therapists because the the field is still quite inundated with that.

But what neuroscience really shows us is that in terms of addressing things like dysregulation of your nervous system, if that word is new, here's some things that fall under dysregulation. Anxiety, worry, frustration, fear, panic, terror, rage, apathy, hopelessness, depression, dissociation, all those things, that's dysregulation. So if you wanna address that, if you wanna address attachment, that means how you relate to other human beings, but not just human beings, how you relate to money, how you relate to your business, how you relate to community, and many other things. If you wanna address that. If you want to address your younger parts, I can get into that.

We all have young parts that show up in our lives. And many other things, you cannot address them verbally, meaning through talk therapy. The reason being is because the system that's responsible for all those things I just mentioned is something called subcortical, and that means it lives in our bodies. It is not connected to our prefrontal cortex or our thinking brain. So they're very separate.

So the system I'm talking about and and for everyone listening, you know this experience or something like it. Let's say you're feeling anxious about something, and you try to talk yourself out of that anxiety by saying, let me give the public speak. Common thing that makes people anxious. You try to tell yourself it's fine. It's gonna be fine.

Calm down. There's nothing to worry about. You're doing this we've done these presentations before. But all of that rationalization doesn't actually calm you down. Or you feel shame about something and you tell yourself there's nothing to be ashamed about, but you still feel the shame.

The reason why it doesn't work is because I'm trying to cognitively speak to a system that cannot hear a verbal language. So the work that I do, somatics, is addressing below the prefrontal cortex or thinking brain. It's addressing what's happening in the body in the language it understands, which is called somatics. And that really just means embodiment. So a very simple example of this, let's say to give you a a definition really of cognitive work versus somatic work.

Let's say I was teaching someone a course on something very random and silly like avocados. Okay. I could teach a whole program. You there probably is one that exists, the history of an avocado, where they started, what they taste like, texture. But you never ate an avocado.

You just learned about them. You could become an expert in an avocado and an avocado plant. Now somatics would be me giving you a course where there isn't all of that cognitive teaching. I cut an avocado open, and for the first time, you taste it. And you would have the embodied experience of I would say, now do you notice what the texture is like?

What does that taste like? And you would say, ah, now I know what an avocado was because I'm eating it and I'm digesting it. So it's the embodied language of our bodies. And when we can learn to speak the language of our bodies and address what's happening in our body, it brings regulation to our nervous system and heals all of those different areas that I previously mentioned. And just one last thing about this that I just to name something probably a lot of people listening have experienced is in my field.

Let's say I go to find a therapist, but I have some of these issues that I just mentioned, like all of the attachment issues and dysregulation and so on and so forth. So I go to a really great talk therapist, and we're doing really great talk therapy. But that's only a part of the puzzle. So that's kind of like going to a great ophthalmologist when I really need heart surgery. So I keep going to this ophthalmologist, and they're doing great eye surgery on me, but my heart's still not working.

And what can happen is people can spend ten years in talk therapy, and they're they're like, but my anxiety hasn't gone away. And then they're told they have treatment resistant anxiety or depression, or they just can't seem to solve the problems in their relational dynamics no matter how hard they talk about it. So we really need this additional piece in well-being in our lives and certainly in healing too. Is that one reason you sometimes see a very husky guy in a yoga class all of a sudden burst out in tears? Yes.

Because for many of us, so we have this I can in a bit, I can tell everybody about this autonomic nervous system lives in our body. I call it a protective nervous system. Its whole job is to keep us safe and alive. It has five hundred million years of evolution, and every animal has it. So one thing that this nervous system can do is if we've had experiences, particularly in our childhood, but anytime, where let's say and I'm I'm gonna guess on this person, this made up person that we just described experience.

So when that happens, that tells me his nervous system helped him at some point to leave his body, meaning disconnect from his needs, disconnect from his feelings, disconnect from what was actually happening inside of him because it was too much to be with the perpetual pain of that. For example, let's just say someone was I was neglected, but let's say someone experienced neglect. Well, the option is to be with the perpetual pain of not getting my needs met, not being loved, not being seen. That is way too painful to perpetually be with and develop and continue on. So our nervous system says, I can help you out.

I can actually disconnect you from needs. I can disconnect you from feelings. I can disconnect you from sensations at all, so you don't actually have to be present at anything you're experiencing in your body. And then what happens is when we begin doing somatic work, and yoga certainly is a somatic practice, it's coming back into our body. And now I'm becoming present to everything that has been there all along.

And we and we wanna do that in a very slow, gentle way, But, yes, that is why that's happening. So for our listeners that are separated, so to speak, from their feelings in this way, and they come and go, but they're not aware of the process you're describing, How do you get somebody to understand what they're missing without having experienced it? Do you mean how what they're missing, meaning in terms of understanding this internal system so they know what's going on? Yeah. For instance, there's a quote that Stephen Covey uses.

He was quoting Viktor Frankl, but he didn't know at the time he was quoting Viktor Frankl. And I went back and looked it up, and it says between stimulus and response is a gap. And in that gap is our capacity to change, and that he defines as free will. And then a lot of people will say that have anger management issues. You need to use the three second rule.

Before you react, wait three seconds. So there are these theories that have been out there for a long time or these practices of what to do. But because it's autonomic, people are snapping when these things happen, and they think they're defective and they shame themselves instead of understanding this is normal. And so how do you address that so people better understand this is actually normal? Yeah.

It is so incredibly normal. So let me just briefly go through the autonomic system so people can understand it and then what we wanna do about it. So first of all, I have a complex trauma history. I think maybe it's important to name. I don't just come to this work as a professional, but I know exactly what that's like.

I spent most of my life feeling like I was broken. I was messed up. I was beyond repair, and then so much shame about that. Why am I doing these things? Why am I didn't understand anything that was happening?

And that's such a normal human experience to have. What neuroscience and particularly something called polyvagal theory, the scientist behind that's name is Steven Porches, shows us is that the opposite is actually true. We are exquisitely and perfectly working beings. Your system is never confused, and it's always doing whatever it can to keep you safe. So this autonomic nervous system, as I mentioned, it's a protective nervous system.

There are many parts of this protective nervous system. I liken it in some ways to a special ops team. Like, think of a literal special ops team. It's the best of the best, very hard to get on a special ops team. There are many members.

They all have a different job. That's very important because we need different jobs to fulfill the one purpose. And so our nervous system is the same. Many different members, one purpose. And the only purpose really is to keep us alive and safe at all costs.

That is that's its job. Every mammal, not just humans, every mammal has the same nervous system. So the first line of defense in all of our nervous systems is called neuroception. Liken it to a threat detector. It's in our brain stem, what we were talking about earlier, and every millisecond so this is important to take in.

Every millisecond of our entire lives, this threat detector has been doing this. It's It's been looking out into the world and saying, is that safe, dangerous, or life threatening? Is that safe, dangerous, or life threatening? Is that safe, dangerous, or life threatening? Every millisecond of our entire resistance, it's been doing that.

Milliseconds very fast. It also looks internally, this is called interoception, into our bodies and says, is that safe, dangerous, or life threatening? So a simple example is, it's looking out into the world and saying like, I'm looking out my window right now. I have a a beautiful tree in my front yard. And the threat detector, this is all subconscious, so you don't have control over this part.

We're gonna get to in a moment what you do have control over. But it looks to that tree, and immediately, my threat detector says that's safe. I didn't ask it to. I knew what it did because I felt good in my body. And the reason or the way that it decides what is safe, dangerous, or life threatening is that inside of each of us, we have this think of it like a database or a computer system.

And that computer system is filled with every lived experience experience we've ever had. You don't have to remember it. It's in there. So the traumatizing things, the challenging things, the beautiful things, and not only that, but via epigenetics, it also has our ancestors' experiences in there, your caregiver's unresolved trauma, and so on and so forth. So that's the database that your threat detector is looking out into the world, and it is referencing the database to decide on your current experience in your life.

Spend doing that every single millisecond. For example, give me an I'm gonna give another example. Let's say I get an email from let's say I have a boss. I get an email from a boss that doesn't have much punctuation in it, and it just says, hey. We need to talk.

Can you talk tomorrow at four? So what my threat detector does is it looks to the database. Now I wanna make something up. Let's say I had caregivers who authority because what is the threat detector doing? It's saying, what does this remind me of?

This is an authority figure. This is confrontational, and I don't know what to expect. And it looks to my database and it sees a father who was an authority figure, who he was hard on me. It was never enough, and he withheld love when I didn't get things right. So in a millisecond, that threat detector that you don't have control over decides this is dangerous and it says in that millisecond it says, Okay, looks to the database and it says, what did we need to do back then to be safe?

Let's do the same thing now because it worked, meaning it got you out of that situation. So in a millisecond, it has a choice of what part of your autonomic nervous system is gonna call in for support. So one of those choices that it can call in is something called your sympathetic nervous system. A lot of people know this part. This is our state of mobilization.

So think about it like every part of you, all the energy in your body is getting revved up. When we are here, it's like there's a ticking time bomb in the corner of the room. I have to do something now. If I don't do something now, things aren't gonna be okay. This is where anxiety, worry, frustration, fear, terror, rage, frustration, all of that lives here.

Our heart rate increases. We feel hot in our body. We're we have tunnel vision. I can't focus on anything else but this task at hand. I have tension in my body.

I feel fidgety. My thoughts are racing all about how I have to figure out what to do, and if I don't have control over this, something's gonna go bad. And for some of us, we might go to that state when we have this confrontational experience, if that's what we needed to do in the past. Some of us fawn, which is a a thing we do in our sympathetic nervous system where I please the other person in order to maintain safety. All of that happening as the result of being in this sympathetic nervous system because our nervous system is responsible for our thoughts, our behaviors.

So your behaviors at any given moment are a result of your nervous system, what's happening in your nervous system, the sensations in your body, and the feelings that you have, and how you're perceiving the situation. So that's all informed by our past, and everything that I just described happens in a millisecond, and it is completely subconscious, which is first of all, I think it's brilliant that our nervous system has the ability to do that for us. Just briefly, the other choice that your threat detector has is if in it also has another two other choices in its in your nervous system to choose from. So let's say in your database, same example, the right choice back then as a child was to shut down. Meaning, I left my body because maybe I was hit by my father.

Maybe that it was so excruciatingly painful love being withheld that I couldn't be with that, so I just had to shut off. So we have another choice in our nervous system for protection. It's the oldest form of protection. It's called our dorsal vagal complex, 500,000,000 years old. And this is the exact opposite of the doing.

I mean, we all know that doing. Right? Like, I gotta do something. I got I can't slow down. It's the weekend, but I can't really relax.

Even when I'm, like, on this beautiful beach, I can't really relax. I'm just going, going, going, doing, doing, doing, and I have to do that in order to feel safe, control, and do. That's all your sympathetic system. So lots and lots of energy. Now the dorsal system is the polar opposite.

So think about, like, a bear going into hibernation. It's like the internal light switch shuts off. And all of these states in our nervous system have a variety of experience. This starts with apathy. So I start to feel we all know that experience of, like, I don't care.

And someone says to you, your partner's like, where do you wanna go to dinner? I don't care. What do you wanna do? It doesn't matter. I don't even care if this whole investment falls apart.

Nothing matters. It doesn't matter. I don't care. So I go from caring so much and sympathetic to not caring at all. And then I begin to leave my body.

So the purpose of dorsal, to bring it back to evolution for a moment, is we only go to this system when our threat detector has decided this is life threatening. Meaning it's so bad that I can't fight it can't fight it and we can't get away from it. Sympathetic can help us fight or get away from something. So for example, if, you know, I was when we were hunting and gathering, let's say I was gathering some things, I hear a lion in the distance. My threat detector looks to the receptacle and it says that sound.

What does that sound remind me of? Oh, my relatives were eaten by lions or I was previously attacked by a lion, whatever. It decides lions are not safe. And in a millisecond, it might say, but there's enough distance that I think we can do something about this. So its job is to call in our sympathetic nervous system.

So let's say that I'm being chased by a lion. The first thing my system is gonna do is say, go to your sympathetic the The threat detector is gonna say, go to sympathetic because we can do something about this. By the way, just to to share the complexity of this, the brilliance of this system, when you go here, every organ in your body is communicated to. And because we need energy when we're in our sympathetic nervous system, every organ, including your immune system, your GI tract, your liver, your gallbladder, they all can give up a certain amount of energy in order for that energy to go towards the greater purpose, which is to get away to survive. So long periods of time in our sympathetic nervous system means that I might go if we're dysregulated for a decade or five years, that means my immune system is compromised for a long period of time.

My GI tract is compromised, and so we begin to develop chronic illness. So the reason for lots of chronic illness is a correlation to dysregulation in our nervous system. So, anyway, let's say the lion's chasing me. I can't seem to get away, so the lion's getting closer. And what will begin to happen is the threat detector decides it didn't work to get run away from the lion.

And now I think you might be actually eaten by the lion. But our nervous system is so loving it says, essentially, like, my dear, I can't fight this thing. I can't get away from this thing. But what I can do is cloak you in your what's called your dorsal vagal complex so you can begin to leave your body so you don't have to feel the perpetual pain of what we can't stop. I think that's maybe one of the most beautiful things that neuroscience taught me.

Like, wow. We have a system inside of us that is that brilliant. Every impala in nature is doing this anytime it's gonna be eaten alive, so it doesn't have to feel the pain of it. So if we've been in chronic work stress environments, if we were bullied as a kid in school, if love was withheld in our home, if we didn't get our primary needs met, and long periods of time, these things happen, not just long periods of time, also if it's if it's life threatening, our system says that's too much. And we go into the state of shutting down.

So, again, apathy. We start to feel like we don't have any energy. Even though we slept, we don't have any energy. Can almost feel like I took a sleeping pill, but I didn't. I just feel out of it, kind of fuzzy and out of it.

I can't really think. I don't wanna be around people. I don't wanna talk. I feel shame. There's something wrong with me.

I just wanna curl under the covers and disappear. Simple tasks feel impossible. Like, it's just too hard. It's too overwhelming. This is where hopelessness lives.

Depression, feeling like we are incapable. Dissociation lives here. Like, I'm not in my body at all. And more simply put, also when, you know, people say things like they might describe their childhood experience. This is very common, when we have separated from our embodied experience.

And maybe you've heard people do this. They describe something terrible like, oh, yeah. You know? Like, nobody basically ever asked me for help ever or that they ever said they would help me. Or, yeah.

My mom had this affair and just kinda disappeared. And they laugh, like, they make a joke of it. What's happening is they disconnected from how they actually feel about that, and we use our nervous system to help us do it. So that's two of the states of dysregulation we've experienced. And then the last one is incredibly common.

It's called freeze. And freeze is our threat detector decides this when it's not quite certain, should I mobilize or immobilize? So this is two equal and opposite forces. Think of it like tonic immobility or or a deer in headlights. And it's so it's equal parts sympathetic and dorsal that come together.

Simple example of this, a mild form is you get a text from someone. Maybe it's a family member that you have a complicated relationship with and you look at it and you say, oh, I really need to write them. I'll do it later. I'll do it later. And then you think about it all day.

I really need to write them, but and now I'll do it later. And then you, you know, write it down on a note, and you keep thinking about doing it, but you don't do it. That's freeze. More intense version is, I'm starting this new company. I there's so many things to do.

I mean, where do I even start? And do I need to hire this person, this person, this person? You think about all the things, and all of a sudden you feel overwhelmed and shut down and, like, you can't even think about it because it's too overwhelming. But I need to do this thing, but I can't do it. But I need to, but I can't.

But I need to, but I can't. And you might spend the whole day thinking about doing this thing, but not doing the thing that you need to do. And then you're exhausted in that experience. That's freeze. So there's three different states of dysregulation and three states of regulation.

And at any moment, we are experiencing one of them. The the regulation, I just wanna briefly explain because that is really the key to having a full happy life. It is not possible to have the life we desire, and that's just scientifically speaking not possible to have the full life we desire if we are not experiencing regulation in our nervous system. Because our nervous system creates our entire experience. So when we are in regulation, that only happens because this threat detector has decided that what in what is in front of us is actually safe.

And when it decides that, then our nervous system no longer protects us. It says, we'll take a break. We don't have to protect you. And it's kind of as if our nervous systems imagine it's like standing at our side instead of standing in front of us. It's not like blocking us from the life we want.

Standing at our side, allowing us to step into the life that we desire. And so this is called our ventral vagal complex. And when we are here, we experience all the things we would classify as good. Things like presence, safety, joy, creativity, abundance, just the right amount of energy in our bodies that we need, joyful sexuality, intimacy, and all the wonderful, yummy things that we want. They happen in regulation.

And so part of our work is we have to understand this system so that we can get in the driver's seat instead of it being in the driver's seat. Because otherwise, when this threat detector that we don't have control over decides something like it decides, it might be deciding that something is dangerous when it's not actually dangerous in the present moment. It's just that a flavoring of it was dangerous in the past. And then so many of us are then, as a result, living a life in dysregulation or self protected with no way or ability to bring ourselves back into regulation. And that's the work we really wanna be able to do so that I'm empowered and I'm in control of my experience instead of my nervous system being in control of the experience.

Sarah, this is a challenge for me because as I listen to what you're saying and I process it based on the work I've done studying therapy and having a mother who was into attachment therapy, which I wanna get into in a minute, as well as my own meditative practice. I am flooded with all these different images of what you're trying to say, but unless we can paint a picture for people, I'm not sure that they can, from an experiential perspective, put it all together. So I'm gonna give you some analogies and tell me if I'm getting what you're saying properly. As you're talking, I'm thinking about, for instance, as a society, we deal with PTSD. That's when a bomb goes off.

And so we focus on that as something where your instincts have been kind of messed up, you know, and we're labeling it. But what I hear you saying is that to one degree or another, all of us have PTSD. So do I get that right first of all? So I wouldn't say that we all have PTSD, but what I would say is we all have things from the past that are not resolved. And if they're not resolved and healed, they are informing your present life.

And the way your nervous system is responding, it's as responding as if the past is happening now. And we do that in our relationships all the time. Maybe to bring it to life in a in a way that will make sense for folks. Let's say I'm partnered. Okay?

And I'm, you know, with a lovely partner who's nothing like my childhood caregivers. They're really lovely. But of course, there's ruptures that happen or disconnections that happen in all relationships. So let's say, and this was this is actually a story from my life. So I was severely abused and neglected as a kid inside my home.

And so as a result of that, I got a lot of inform I had a lot of information in my database about, people not being safe, it not being safe to open up, to share, like, all lots of things in there. So I did lots of work around that, and then it took a lot of courage to, with my partner, say, I'm gonna actually be vulnerable and share something that's exciting to me with you and want you to get excited with me because, in my database, there was nobody who was safe to share with. I mean, they I raised myself, essentially. So I got to a point where I had done enough work for that to happen, and there would be many times where I would get up the courage to say, hey. Today when we get home, I wanna share this thing with you.

I'm really excited to tell you about it. And he would be present for me telling him about it. And then let's say there was a couple times maybe his phone vibrated. And he looked down at his phone as I was saying something really vulnerable and important to me. Guess what happened in that millisecond of him looking down at his phone?

My threat detector looked at the database and said, what does this remind me of? And it said, your mother who never saw you, loved you, you weren't important to her, all of that. And in a millisecond, it said, what did we need to do then? And what I needed to do then was I literally like, my nervous system created an island just for me where no one else was there. It was just me.

And so what did I do? I totally shut down. Yep. No. I feel nothing, and my thoughts were all about how I'll never tell you anything again.

I don't need you. I don't need anybody. I can do this fine by myself. And he was trying to repair that. Like, well, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. And I'm like, nope. I'm gone. Why? Because little me showed up.

And little me thought that my childhood back in New Hampshire, even though I was living in Los Angeles, was happening right now. Now here's the other thing, it's important thing to understand about this. When that occurs and our threat detector looks to the database and says, what does this remind me of? And maybe it says, Sarah, when you were six. All of the sudden, it's literally like we have traveled time, and no longer is the woman that I am present in my body, now the six year old is present.

And I have the tools that I had when I was six, and the resources I had when I was six, and I feel like I'm six, and all of a sudden I'm feeling all of that again. And then guess what happens to my partner? Remember, he has a threat detector too. So he sees me shut down. And guess what his threat detector does?

It looks to his database, and he sees his father, let's say, who abandoned him when their parents got divorced, which is what happened. And all of a sudden, his threat detector says, woah. This reminds me of that. And now he is 12 years old and he is reliving that abandonment in this experience. And either he's gonna shut down too or sometimes people go towards the sympathetic thing.

Like, wait, don't leave. I need you to not leave. Please don't leave. Look, we need to talk about this now. And I'm saying, I don't want to talk about this ever again.

And he's saying, but we need to talk about this now. I'm gonna die if we don't talk about this now because I'm 12 years old and I can't lose you because I'll die if I lose you. And now we are no longer adults. We are literally children reenacting our childhood, and our nervous system is the one running the whole show in that experience. And this is something we all experience all the time.

I'm sure a lot of you listening can think about you know, I live in Los Angeles, lots of traffic here. Somebody in traffic, and all of a sudden, they're screaming, like, in rage over somebody not using their blinker. Well, it's not really about the person not using their blinker. It's about them not being considered. And they weren't able to be angry at the people who didn't consider them when they were kids, but now that anger is coming out.

And they don't even realize that it's not really about the person who didn't use their blinker. I mean, that's annoying, but it's about their childhood experience. Again, all of this is happening in the system that I just described. How does that system that you just described relate to attachment theory? So well, I just described a little bit of attachment theory right now, but it's so important.

I love when this work is becoming more mainstream. I mean, Bulby did this so long ago, but now it's pretty common. A lot of people know about attachment. You read a book, like a book called Attached. That's a very popular book.

Great book. But that's a cognitive book. So you can learn about attachment. Like some people read about it and like, oh, yeah. That's me.

I have an anxious attachment. That makes so much sense. Holy shit. I now understand myself. But that learning, we all know, you learn about it, listen to a podcast about it, but then you get into your relational dynamic and all the learning flies out the window and all of a sudden you're in this exhaustive battling and you feel out of control and it's overwhelming and none of that learning helped.

And here's why. Because the way that we attach is happening in our nervous system. So it's in our bodies actually. So just briefly on attachment theory. Attachment theory is completely somatic in nature.

Certainly, we can learn about it, but in order to change our attachment, we have to address what's happening in our bodies. And so the driving force on how we relate to other human beings, like the force that's responsible for that, is our nervous system. Childhood experiences lay the blueprint for how we attach, meaning whatever your home environment was like, doesn't have to be parents, any caretakers, that lays the blueprint for how you connect, we all connect, to people in our adult lives. So let's say and and very important to understand, babies that are born do not have the ability to self regulate. And that simply means that when a child is in distress, babies in distress, they cannot calm themselves down.

It's not physiologically possible. So that means we are in a predicament. I am totally and solely at the mercy of the adults around me. And I need the adults around me to have regulation in their nervous system in order to calm my nervous system down. So here's the thing, a dysregulated nervous system, an anxious nervous system can't calm a nervous system down.

It's not actually possible. So I am really at the mercy of whom's around me. So let's say, for example, some of us had what are called good enough parents. I know that's kind of a terrible term, but that means that they loved us, they were there for us, they did their best, but nobody taught them how to parent, and no one helped them resolve their trauma. So let's say I had a mother and a father who were or two mothers or two fathers, whatever, But they were present in my life, they loved me a lot.

But let's say I'm gonna go with the example of a mother. Let's say I did a mo I had a mother who was really anxious all the time because she had trauma that wasn't resolved, maybe generational trauma that went on for a really long time, lots of anxiety in in the family lineage. So let's say she was anxious all the time. She cannot actually soothe my nervous system in the way that I'm eating because she's anxious. And so even her picking me up, it's all from anxiety.

Oh, no. Are you okay? Are you gonna be okay? Oh my gosh. Are you is this okay?

Don't fall down. And so on and so forth. It's all coming from dysregulation. So what our system at such a young age, I think this is so brilliant with attachment. Before we can even tie our shoes and write our name, Our nervous system comes in and it says in that experience, we're in trouble.

Because we can't self regulate, and this person with us can't consistently help us to regulate and create the safety we need. So we need to adapt to the environment that's around us and do whatever we need to in this environment to maintain safety. And the adaption is we use our nervous system to do this. So in this example, I might learn, okay, when I am really good, when I make my mom happy, when I please her, when she's okay, when she's regulated, then I get to be okay. So I'm gonna do all the things that I need to do to make sure she's okay, because if she's okay, I'm okay.

And so my nervous system learns to use my sympathetic nervous. That's all doing. Right? So I use my sympathetic nervous system to be sure that she's okay because if she's okay, I'm okay. And if she's too far away from me, I'm not gonna be okay because she sent me the message that I'm not okay on my own.

Like, if a parent says, like, you're not okay without me, and I have to be with you all the time, she's teaching me that I can't actually self regulate. Like, I can't be on my own. So my system learns I gotta mobilize. I gotta do. I gotta make sure you're here all the time.

When you're here, I'm okay. And when you're not here, I'm not okay. So I'm going to be ultra focused on you and your experience and make sure you're happy and you're okay because if you're okay, I'm okay. I'm using my sympathetic nervous system to do that. Overfocus on the other person.

And a lot of us, you know, we've heard that, so it's such a common term, I lose myself in relationships. What does that tell me? Well, I have an anxious attachment where my sympathetic nervous system takes over and focuses on how I can make sure the other person is okay and orchestrate this so I can make sure they don't leave or nothing bad happens. And if that occurs, then I'm gonna be safe and okay because the younger parts of me don't feel safe on my own. So I'm using my sympathetic nervous system when I have an anxious attachment style.

Now if I had caregivers who were neglectful or dangerous, so I'm in a home with people who don't meet my needs or they hurt me. My nervous system learns I can't self regulate, but my system says, woah. It's not like sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. This is really bad. So what we're gonna do is we're actually gonna shut down so we don't have to feel the this perpetual pain of dysregulation and not getting our needs met as I talked about prior.

So that in shutting down the dysregulation, I'm actually disconnecting myself from it. And I do that with my dorsal vagal complex. And I essentially go to an island. I call this becoming an island when we're avoidantly attached. Like, I learned to fortify and go it alone, like the lone wolf.

I don't really have needs. Why would I don't even know how you could have needs. Very common experience if someone has avoided. So what my system does in a relational dynamic when a fight occurs, let's say, is my system go wants to go to my island. I wanna pull away because you might hurt me or harm me or abandon me, and I know there's safety of being alone.

So I pull away to this island and I use my nervous system to do that. And I feel, disconnected from my my feelings. I feel disconnected from the conversation. I feel disconnected from you. I feel nothing at all, actually, when I'm here.

So that's using our nervous system. And then I talked about the last state of freeze. Some of us have something called a disorganized attachment, and this is the result of having caregivers who are sometimes safe, sometimes dangerous. A lot of us had that. They might have sometimes you know, when people were doing corporal punishment, they sometimes hit me but then loved me.

Very confusing. So wait. Are you safe or not safe? Some of us were abused. Are you safe or not safe?

My system doesn't know what to expect. So I use that state of freeze because I don't know what's gonna happen. So what does that look like in our relationships? I want people close. You get close.

I push you away. You're far away. Come back. Come back. I use my sympathetic nervous system.

Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back. Come back.

You're close. I push you away with my dorsal system. And we're in that exhaustive push and pull. All of that, everything about attachment, your nervous system is running the show in it. And that's why we have to harness the power of our nervous system, understand it.

And when we understand it, then we can gain control over it. Otherwise, in the most common combination a lot of people might know is someone who's anxiously attached, meaning I need you to be close to be safe, and someone who's avoidant. Very common combination. And so I think of this like the, someone there's an islander. Someone goes to their island.

That's the avoidant person that uses their dorsal system. And then I think of the sympathetic person, like, they're in a speedboat coming to the island. So, like, you go to your island. I'm gonna get my speedboat and come to your island. But the closer I get to your island, closer to you, you're just gonna dig a hole and, like, get away.

I need to get away from you, which makes me wanna get closer to you. And we're in this exhaustive battle of I pull away, you come closer, I pull away. And the beautiful thing is when we can address our attachment, our younger parts, and in our nervous system, we get to heal what wasn't healed in our childhood, which is really beautiful. I'm wondering as I hear you say this for those people that are meditators or that chant or that do yoga. I wonder if those practices and one reason they're so popular and beneficial is that that is a way to regulate yourself.

It is a million percent a way to regulate yourself. And what I invite folks to actually do whenever I'm I'm working with people, I actually create maps of our nervous system, like a literal map. So you can pick it up at any given moment saying, where am I? There's different things we wanna do to regulate based on where we are in our nervous system. But certainly, the things you just mentioned are really supportive.

I invite folks to create a list of anything that registers as good for you. So in my work I have therapeutic regulating tools that are therapy based, but there are many things that we all have in our lives. For example, anything that registers as good for me, that doesn't mean I numb out to it. You know, some people like scroll the internet, they're numbing out, two hours go by. It means it helps you be present.

So that might be listening to music, going for a walk, being in nature, humming, singing, swaying, tapping, yoga, meditation, Qigong, petting my animals, hugging a loved one, cooking, gardening, all of the things I named. Like, literally go look at the sun on a leaf outside blowing in the wind. All of these things can bring regulation to our nervous system. So when you talk to your nervous system and let it know, hey, we're safe. And so I want you to think about this like how so how do we actually change this?

If you're living a life that's dysregulated, you've got dysregulation in your relationships, you're feeling stuck. Well, the way to it is the beautiful thing about it is it's not mystical. There's an actual process to it. So we can actually change something called what's called our vagal tone. All that means is how you currently experience your nervous system.

I liken it to working out, like exercise. And think of it like reps at the gym. If I wanted my bicep to get stronger, if I wanted to grow my muscle and my bicep to get stronger, I would have to do consistent pull ups, push ups, and curls. And I would do them consistently, and my muscle would grow. It's the way it works.

So the same with our nervous system. If you consistently do things to regulate your nervous system, it actually reshapes what's called your vagal tone. What is the result of that? You go from being anxious all the time to not anxious. You go from having challenges in your relationships all the time to being filled with more ease.

You have anxiety around finances, and then that begins to go away. So all of this changes as the result of consistent neural exercises, And that could literally be I invite people to think of, like, alright. How many times a day can I set some reminders in my phone maybe five times, 10 times? And when it goes off, my whole job is to spend a minute or two maybe listening to calming music, maybe doing some breath work, maybe going outside for a second, and just doing something to regulate just a little bit. Just that practice alone.

If you do that, that will begin to reshape your nervous system and reshape your life. And certainly, like you mentioned, yoga, absolutely. Meditation, absolutely. I I just wanna name this one thing about meditation, though. Incredibly helpful.

But if you are in a heightened sympathetic place so remember that's like sympathetic is that lots of energy, lots of anxiety, lots of go go go. That's the equivalent to the lion being 20 feet away from you, let's say. So if I said to you, you know, Jim, if we were running from a lion and I said the lion's 20 feet away and I say, hey, Jim, I heard meditation is really good. Do you wanna sit down and meditate right now? Let's meditate.

You would think I lost my mind and you would say, I'm running away. Good luck getting eaten by this lion. No way. So it's really important to know that there are certain times where these things are helpful and there are certain times where they're actually not helpful at all. So if you're in a heightened state of sympathetic, this is important for listeners because, I mean, I sure experienced this because a lot of people will get confused.

They're in this heightened place of anxiety or frustration and they're like, people told me to meditate. You sit down to meditate and you actually feel more anxious. Why? Because of this evolutionary response. Your nervous system is like, you're confused, Sarah.

I don't know why you're sitting down to meditate. You're about to die. I'm just gonna have to rev up the anxiety to hopefully get you up moving. So if you're in a state where you have more of that energy, you wanna move your body. I would never tell you to meditate.

I would say, let's go on a brisk walk together. Let's lift some weights. Let's jump up and down. Jump on a trampoline. Let's go for a run.

All of those things are gonna help move the energy through your body, which is what we need to happen instead of let me force myself to sit down and my nervous system's gonna say no. Now there's many other times where it's helpful, but that's just an important thing to to let people know. It's fascinating. I I've been studying this stuff and and interested in this as a hobby for years and years. I've never heard anyone put it the way you just did it.

And I think what you just said was brilliant. And the reason is that some people like to meditate and they say, you know, and they love it and they don't like to chant. And some people like yoga and some people love to dance. And I've never understood. I mean, it's like, well, people are different, but some people will say I can't meditate and I'll fight them on it.

I'll I'll, oh, yes, anyone can meditate. And what you're pointing out is it's like, again, go back to the gym metaphor. You go to the gym. You're going to have pain to grow. You have to tolerate discomfort to do what you're saying.

To grow, you have to tolerate pain. So in the gym, if you go in and you start lifting a 150 pound weight when you should be lifting 20 pound weight, you're gonna tear muscles, you're gonna quit the gym, you're never gonna go back. But if you have the right coach and the right spotter, they will see what level you're at, and they will give you the exercises that are right for where you are. What I hear you saying is when you're psychologically, spiritually growing, and you want to be able to be more present, more awake, more authentic, you wanna be able to not react instinctively, but you wanna be able to witness yourself and act in a thoughtful manner, you have to have a practice that a coach guides you to that mirrors where you're holding, and it's not one size fits all. Am I getting that right?

You're getting it so right, and I it's so important for people to know this. And it frustrates me as a professional because as this work is becoming more mainstream, I'm happy about that. But there's lots of things. I mean, we see this all the time. Like, things like cold plunge.

People are talking about cold plunge all the time. And they're talking about breath work classes all the time. Now, can those things be helpful? For sure. Are they helpful for everyone?

Absolutely not. In fact, it can be detrimental to some people. For example, if you're in a heightened sympathetic state in your nervous system, remember your system thinks there's a lion chasing you. So if you go to a breath work class because people told you this is good for your nervous, it's good to make you feel better, guess what you're doing? You are literally telling your nervous system that lion is closer because you're doing this.

You're literally creating more dysregulation. If your system is already in that place, it wouldn't be helpful. Now there's other times where that's extremely helpful, but it's not a one size fits all. It's really important to know that and, and I guess to listen to your body. So if you find that you do this, something like that and you're like, this doesn't feel good.

I want you to listen to that. Now we wanna have some discomfort. Right? Like you are naming. Yes.

In healing, we wanna have a tolerable amount of discomfort, but not an overwhelming amount. And if it's causing more dysregulation, that is a clue to you. This isn't the right thing that I need, actually. It's not what's gonna support me. And so it's very complicated.

There's I mean, complex rather. Where we are in our nervous system, there's gonna be different supportive things that we do to regulate our nervous system, like different types of breathing. There's different breathing cycles we wanna do. So if we're in our sympathetic system, the hyperventilating is gonna be the wrong choice. Instead, shorter inhalations, longer exhalations.

That's how we come out of our sympathetic seat. So it's really, really important to understand that. Yeah. So in your profession, in your career, looking at this as a pyramid, you're talking today, I would say in a general way, you're giving a framework of how this works. So if you were talking to therapists, right, this would be a way of helping them understand the different modalities so that they could bring it down.

But then I would also think once the therapist knows these different techniques and these understandings, then they would have to meet one on one with a person and do an analysis and figure out kinda what fits for that person so that you go from the chapter headings down to the actual details and the work. So in your own life, what is your business model for this? In other words, do you have the top to down model? How have you integrated this in your own profession? Yeah.

So what was most important to me, I came from poverty, so very low socioeconomic background. I grew up in a very rural part of New Hampshire, and I'm sharing that because I didn't have access. And that means that there was just no there wasn't even therapy in general, but I had no access. And then when I had to put myself through college, I had no one helping me. I had really zero access to anything.

So for me, accessibility is incredibly important and making this work understandable and and easy to understand. So many years ago, I decided to to I still see a few people individually, but felt like what our world really needs is we need a global scale understanding of this work. It's the reason for our political polarity that we see in the world. It's the reason for our problems with prison systems. Is there reason for problems with foster care systems?

Is there reason I mean, because dysregulation and trauma is really the foundation of suffering in in our human lives. And you don't have to have severe suffering. You might just it might be something like, I have a tough time slowing down. Can't really be present in my kids. I try, but I can't.

Or, you know, those sorts of things, and that's a result of our of our childhood. So anyway, my whole mission was to really make this as global as possible and to reach every continent around the world. So the way that I decided to do this was through different programs, virtual programs. And the way that we can do this in a way that is reaching large masses of people is, first and foremost, the foundation of it all is if I can teach people about their nervous system, so not the theory of it. We're talking about that a bit today.

But I can get people in their nervous system, meaning experiencing it. I have to have people know what it feels like, not just cognitively. So I actually guide folks through a process of understanding the six states of your nervous system. You have to feel it. You have to understand.

Oh, that's what that feels like. Not only that what it feels like, here's what it's like when I'm there. Here's what happens. Here's what I think. Here's what I feel.

So we actually do, as I mentioned, we create an actual map. I mean, I we remember the time before there was Waze on our phones. There was paper maps. How did you get across the country? You used a map.

And so we need a map for ourselves to navigate our lives. So I help folks create this map, and then from that place, I give tangible tools based on where you are in your nervous system. And I go through, here's what you wanna do when you're at this state in your nervous system. Here's Here's what you wanna do when you're in this state. So that that folks have an idea, not only of the therapeutic tools, but also here are the guidelines for what you wanna do.

So when you think of your own tools, you're like, okay. I'm at a milder sympathetic place. This is a great time to meditate. Perfect tool to use so that folks know what to do. And then I guide through the process of, just like you would kind of, I suppose, with a personal trainer.

Here's your program. Here's what I want you to do to start regulating. So that's the foundation of getting in the driver's seat. And then what I go to is, now that we understand the vehicle, let's look at different areas of your life. Let's look at your relationships and your attachment because you gotta understand the vehicle first.

Then we look at how they attach, and I'm gonna know that based on where they spend the most time in their nervous system and can guide folks to that. And then what are tangible things I actually wanna do? Meaning, what do you do if you have an anxious attachment? And guide people through the process of how do I actually feel safe alone, not just with other people. How do I actually create self what's called self regulation?

And so guiding through that. And then we look at purpose. Because if we're stuck in our purpose, we're not living our full life's desires. That's a clue your nervous system doesn't think what you wanna say. So anybody that's feeling stuck, that's a clue that that's what's going on.

So the more that we can actually tell your nervous system so I walk people through a step by step process around purpose. How do we talk to your nervous system and let it know that this is safe now? And through bound and we look at boundary setting and lots of other areas of life too, but it's all embodied. So it's not just like, here's the idea. It it's really so what do I do?

So I suppose my work is really that, so what do I do? What's the tangible thing that I actually do? And that creates holistic change. And so, yeah, I have thousands of people and programs that I do from every continent or well, not Antarctica, hopefully someday. And, the beautiful thing about this, so many light, you know, backgrounds from the smallest villages in India to metropolitan cities like New York or Hong Kong.

And it's because it's a human experience. This isn't particular to one person. This is for everybody. You mentioned briefly polarization where people are getting triggered with these algorithms, and they're not even aware of it. And you're giving people one, an awareness that they're being triggered, and then you're giving them the tools so that they're no longer triggered, and they can regain control of their life.

They can be securely attached, but they're still they're still gonna get triggered on the Internet. So if somebody's interested in learning more about this, sir, do they find your programs online where they they like Tony Robbins, they can go and they participate in a group activity. And then if they wanna hire a professional or work individually with you or otherwise, you'll refer them to somebody. How does one get in touch with you and and go from there? Yeah.

You can find me at sarahbalsamcoaching.com, or you can also find me Actually, it's so funny with the day and age room, but I do lots of daily free resources and teaching on Instagram in case anyone's on there. It's sarah b coaching. So they can find lots and lots of resources on there. I also have, and you'll find them in both places, a free quiz, totally free, and it's about nine questions. And when you take the quiz, it's gonna let you know what your predominant state in your nervous system is.

Meaning, what you're using to get you through life. And then you're gonna get emails with free videos and free resources that actually give you tools to change what's happening. So that's totally free. And then I have many different programs. Some of our six weeks, some are eight week long, some are four months long.

And they vary in size from 500 people to 20 people if you're wanting a more supportive experience with me that also allows for some individual support too. And you can find all of that information on those sites. That's wonderful. So finally, in terms of where the puck is going, where the world is going, what's your vision for where the mental health industry is gonna go based on what you're teaching? What are you seeing out there for the future?

Well, my goal or what what I feel deeply called to is to really make mental health that has been very insular. It's It's very insular in institutions. All the books on my bookshelf are written for me and my colleagues. They're not really written for laypeople. My goal is that I can be a part of taking mental health and bring it to the world in a way that the world actually wants to hear it.

Because the average person, my neighbor, they don't really wanna pick up that book. It's boring to them. It's overwhelming to them. But if we can actually make it a part of pop culture, where this kind of work is second nature and everybody understands it, that can really change our world and all of the systems in our world in a really powerful way. So through television, through media, we can really create experiences for people that meets them where they are instead of us speaking to people maybe perhaps they don't really wanna be spoken to.

So that's a part of the work that I'm doing. I'm writing a book right now and and working on creating a TV show for that to happen. And getting most importantly, getting this in school systems. Children can't learn if they're not having regulation in their nervous system, which sets up for perpetual feeling like there's something wrong with them. So if we can learn this as kids, it would change your whole lives.

So earlier, I mentioned how that threat detector works. Like, let's say I have a fight that happens, and it's saying, what does this remind me of? And so much of the time, we, our younger parts, are showing up in our adult relationships, and we don't even realize it. And so when we feel small, scared, out of control, like we're not having the behaviors aren't actually something we're choosing. And so a simple thing that I want to leave people with is when you're experiencing that dysregulation, what we're not looking for is that you catch it right in the moment.

So I don't want you to feel like, oh, I have to catch it right away. No. You're not looking for that. What I want you to do is just catch it, which could be an hour later, five hours later, ten hours later. And when you catch it, I want you to ask yourself a simple question.

Did my reaction match the circumstance? Now I don't want you to ask that when you're disregulated because if you ask yourself as a six year old, does my reaction match the circumstance? Your six year old self is gonna say, yes, it does match what happened when I was six. We wanna wait till they were regulated and ask yourself, did my reaction match the circumstance? And oftentimes, the answer might be no.

It feels a little bigger. So I just want you to curiously ask yourself, what did that remind me of? What did that remind me of? What's the first thing that comes to me? Don't overthink it.

And how old did I feel when that happened? Because that clues you into very important information of who's in your body when you're experiencing that. Then what I want you to do, and I actually, I invite folks to start doing this often is getting a hold of what I call your competent protector self. This is your adult self, the part of you that feels capable, able, grounded, present, like you know everything's gonna be okay. And we want that part to be able to comfort this younger part of us.

So a simple practice that I invite folks to start doing just three minutes a day, two minutes a day. I want you to think of one example where you have been a competent protector for someone else. And it could be even a made up situation that you imagine. Like if someone fell on the road, what would I wanna do? What I do?

What would be my impulse? Or some of you might care deeply about helping the planet. So when you think about global warming, you might feel as part of you that wants to take action and do something, or maybe you've comforted a loved one. So I want you to bring it alive in your body. Could also be a spiritual moment when you've been meditating or in nature that you felt present, big, alive, capable, able.

And what I want you to do is bring it alive. That means use all your senses. You can close your eyes to do this to feel it. Feel it as much as you can. And I want you to revisit that again and again and again and then again because this creates what's called a neural pathway.

Think of it like a quick highway in your body and brain to bring it alive, meaning you can bring it back fast. So if you practice that, you'll be able to bring it back fast. And that means when you have these moments of dysregulation, like the fight happens, what I want you to ask yourself is, how old do I feel right now? If it's 12, the job is stop the conversation. No more talking.

I've gotta go get adult me. And then I want you to think of or bring alive that experience of being your competent, capable self. That's really, really, really important because otherwise what might happen is sometimes we go to regulate. Like, okay, I heard breath work is really helpful. Controlled breathing.

But I'm theoretically 12 years old right now, so I don't really need breath work. I need an adult to make me feel safe. So getting our adult self present is what's so important. So the more you practice that, then when the young part is present, you say time out. I gotta we gotta stop the conversation.

I gotta go get adult me. And then bring that alive in your body till you feel your adult self again. And that's when I want you to ask, hey. Did my reaction match the circumstance? Who is present in my body?

And what does this remind me of? And if it reminds me of that experience in school, that's the eight year old, for example, talking to you. And I just want you to ask yourself from adult u, what did he not get then that I can give him now? That's reparenting emotion in a somatic way. And that might be words.

That might be literal feeling like you're hugging this part of you. It might be, reassurance, empathy, compassion, and that is healing emotion. And why we wanna do that? The more you do that, the less triggered you become in your relationships because you're actually changing the past. So just a helpful tool to have resolution.

And then when you feel regulated, then go back and have the conversation with your partner. So what I hear you saying, Sarah, is these are exercises that people can do to essentially start to regulate themselves and to start witnessing that other self of them that is the child in them. Is it appropriate to remind people that in these different exercises, different exercises will work for each person differently? So again, when you're really, you know, wanting to run away from your partner or run away from your boss and you, you know, you wanted to throw something and, you know, you go in the room and you say, okay. Now Sarah said I'm supposed to close by.

I said, for some people, it may take a week. Some people may need to go on a run. Some people may need to go chant, but you shouldn't shame yourself if to do these exercises, it takes a while for you to figure out how to actually regulate yourself. Because, again, it's a one on one very individualized experience if I'm hearing you correctly. Yes.

And the more that you do it, the faster you can catch it. So, you know, when I I didn't even know by the way, most people go their whole life not knowing that their young parts are running the whole show of their relationships. People could have five children in the whole business and not know the young parts are running the show. So just know, like, that's what most people live their whole lives because no one teaches us this. So if you can start off by one week, if it's like, woah, I realized what happened last week, celebrate that.

That's so huge. That's something most people never get to. And then the more you do this and say, okay, I noticed that. Who was that part of me? Next time, what could I try?

When I noticed that rage come up, I need to What does that rage remind me of? Oh, it's the rage that I wasn't able to feel towards my dad. Wasn't safe. Now it's coming up. So what I want you to ask yourself is, what can help that little part?

Like, really imagine for a minute. Like, let's say that happened to a a 10 year old with his father. If I could go back in time and that child was feeling that rage, I would say your rage is right. And it makes sense you have that rage. And what would I wanna do with them?

I might say, let's go let's go get a kickboxing bag and put it in the garage, and we're gonna hit it as much as we want and get all that rage out and do it with that kid. So I want you to think about when you catch it a week later, what did that 10 year old not get to do and what can I do with him now? And there's nothing to be ashamed about about that rage. It makes sense based on that experience in the past. So, yeah, we wanna think about how could I try that differently?

And you know what? In the moment, you might not catch it again, but maybe you catch it two days sooner this time. And having compassion with ourselves and gentleness with ourselves is the most important thing. The more you do it, the faster you catch it. Wow.

Sarah, this has been wonderful. The POC venture capital beyond is produced by CMPG Advisors. If you enjoyed the conversation today and haven't yet subscribed to our show, you can find us on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Feel free to leave a review while you are there and maybe even a five star rating. Thanks for listening.

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