Emotional Processing | S3E1 (E021)
Toréa and Evie discuss the importance of regulating emotions and the intersectionality of emotions on health. Each of them share their introduction into the importance of learning about emotions and how their health has been impacted along the way.
In This Episode
Wilderness Reset Retreat (03:52)
Torea’s introductions to emotions & health (05:34)
Evie’s big emotions (08:08)
Psychoneuroimmunology (10:36)
Emotions and gallbladder pain (14:12)
Emotions and woo (17:05)
Crying as an emotional release (18:56)
Conducting an Emotional Home inventory (21:51)
Moving e-motion through motion (26:21)
Physiology and emotion (29:25)
Talking through emotion (31:30)
Emotional Release technique (32:43)
The new Deep Transformation Program (35:47)
Toréa Rodriguez 0:08
Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. I am your host, Toréa Rodriguez. And I'm joined by the lovely co host, Evie Takacs. Both of us our Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioners and we love working with women from all over the world, through our virtual programs, helping women not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves, they've been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Now, please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you like what you hear today, we would love for you to hit that follow button, leave a review in Apple podcast, share with your friends, and keep coming back for more. Let's start today's adventure shall we?
Hey, everybody, season three, episode one. We're so excited for another season. We all say this. Can't believe that we're here.
Evie Takacs 1:18
I know.
Toréa Rodriguez 1:18
everybody's gonna think that we just can't handle time or something. I don't know.
Evie Takacs 1:22
Well, time. I mean, yeah. Sometimes I actually don't think that I can handle time. So that's not completely inaccurate. I can't believe that we're doing season three. Yeah, that's fine. To me.
Toréa Rodriguez 1:33
It's totally wild. And then I think about how when I was a little kid, and you know, the adults would always be like, Time moves so fast. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. It takes forever to get through school like, I don't know. And then of course, as you become an adult, you start to see like, Oh, yes. When you do all the adulting things. Yes, Time moves very fast. So, yeah, it's quite interesting. But we've been receiving some really great feedback about the podcast, I have clients and friends who will reach out to me about what they're loving about the podcast, I think we're onto something like mixing these two things together, I get a lot of positive feedback on how can we mix the power of the outdoors with you know, how we think about things and so it's good. So we're gonna keep doing what we're doing. I hope you approve of that. But Evie, I'd love to hear I know, you've received some feedback. What are some of the things you're hearing?
Evie Takacs 2:27
Yeah, I've received a, especially in the last couple of weeks, which is really cool to have, it kind of happened back to back with multiple people and people that are in like, different capacities of my life, right? Whether it's a client, or it's a friend, or, you know, just an acquaintance that found me on Instagram, it was like, Hey, thank you so much for the podcasts, you know, I'm really thankful. And I've heard a lot of like, this is helping my mindset, or this is challenging me to get outside more. Or this is making me think about things in a way I wasn't thinking about before. So that's really cool, because that's what Toréa I tried to do is really just stretch your mind in that way of Toréa is the queen of the curiosity, right? Getting curious of like, How can I implement this or what happens if I implement this? So we're really happy to hear that this is stretching you in that way, and making you curious to explore other options and challenging the mindset that maybe you've had, and for years that might be holding you back. So again, keep the keep the feedback coming! This is really helpful for us, because we never really know like, who's listening to this? Or what are they gonna think so when we do get feedback, it's really, really helpful.
Toréa Rodriguez 3:31
Yeah, super helpful. And if, if you like it, and you feel like leaving a review, I can't emphasize enough how important reviews are to podcasters to help other people find it, right. Other people judge whether or not it's something that they want to listen to. Or if you have a friend who might benefit from one of the episodes, just send him a single episode, that would really mean the world to us.
Evie Takacs 3:52
Definitely.
Toréa Rodriguez 3:52
And then the other thing that I wanted to interject before we get started on today's show, is this show is being published on August 4, but what's happening in less than a month as our very first Wilderness, Reset Retreat. So all I'm going to say is there are only a few slots remaining for this. And if, if this is a big if because we don't know will they all be full by the time this is August first. It's worth your while if you have any interest in coming on this once in a lifetime event to Montana, to really experience a safe environment for growth, get some firsthand experience with the outdoors, implement all these things that we've been talking about on the podcast for the last two seasons already. Now is your chance. So I will include the link to those tickets in the show notes. And if for whatever reason, it is already sold out, then you'll have a redirect to a waitlist for the next one. So if you have any interest whatsoever, make sure that you snag a spot because it's my It'll be the only time we're doing this one.
Evie Takacs 5:02
Yeah, I'm so excited because it'll, it'll really be a combination of the things that we talked about on this podcast of getting outside, resetting your nervous system, spending time in community with other people, learning some new skills, like, I'm really, really excited personally to be a part of this, because there are some skills that I lack. And I'm excited to learn from other people. And I'm excited to facilitate some of the workshops in this retreat. And it's going to be in a beautiful location, and just a nice, a nice recentering of the nervous system in the body and health. So I'm really excited for this.
Toréa Rodriguez 5:34
Really cool. Okay. All right. So we're gonna dive in now to today's bulk topic, which is really focusing on emotions and emotional processing, and why that's so important when it comes to our health. And before we get into like the how to's of that, I think I didn't really realize how important emotional processing was until I dealt with grief for the first significant time in my life. And so I'll just tell a little bit of my own personal story. So in 2009, my mom passed, and our relationship was complex. I'll put it that way. It was very complex before she passed. And it got even more complex after because I wasn't really clear on how I felt and I had never done therapy. Before that I really had a at the time, I would tell you that. Oh, yeah, I know what emotions are. But I will say now, knowing what I know, now that my emotional vocabulary was actually very few words, I had very few emotions that I could identify. And it is not a surprise to me now that that is coincidentally the same time period that I was diagnosed with Hashimotos. Right. And I started dealing with my very first onset of autoimmune diseases and symptoms and things like that. And I never really had made the connection between the emotions, the intense emotions that I was feeling or the emotions that I couldn't identify from when I was younger. If you cant identify it, you just ignore it, right? Yeah.
Evie Takacs 7:11
Well, yes, that's what a lot of people do.
Toréa Rodriguez 7:14
Yeah. And so I think that was really my first introduction and foray of when the grief wouldn't stop. So I tried to white knuckle it for a good six months, my dear friend, I love her dearly, she was bold enough to say, It's time you get a therapist. I was like, Okay, I'll go get some help with this. And it was probably the best thing I could have done, because that was an introduction into really starting to learn how to expand my emotional vocabulary and really identify what those are. And that was my first introduction into how health and emotions can be so linked. And I know that Evie you don't have a similar story, but you have a story around emotions and health and that kind of thing. I'd love to hear your side of it. And then we can kind of talk about some practical ways of a identifying and b how to process some of these.
Evie Takacs 8:08
Yeah, for me, it was it wasn't I, I almost think that I had my vocabulary was a little too wide with emotions. A young age, yeah, I always felt like I had, you know, what we consider big emotions, you know, I was always very happy, or I'd be very sad or very scared. And so I spent a lot of my childhood in big emotions, due to my environment and my family. And just, you know, growing up in a very traditional Greek family and culture, like there are a lot of big emotions regardless, but then just throwing in on top of that, like growing up, and, you know, transitioning and like, trying to figure out how to be like a teenager, and then learning how to go to college. And then like, becoming a young adult and working like, my big emotions never stopped. And so I actually did start therapy as well, because what had transpired was, I was having a lot of panic attacks. And I wasn't able to really identify when the emotions had started and why I felt like I was spiraling. And I couldn't have I didn't have a chance to really learn how to control that. And so through therapy, I learned a lot about that. And I've been in cognitive behavioral therapy for nine years at this point. And now though...
Toréa Rodriguez 9:20
well done
Evie Takacs 9:21
That's helped a lot. Thank you. It's helped a lot with my emotions and regulating them. And I've also learned that yeah, like, I really think that I can trace back the autoimmune stuff and when it really was what at its worse, when my emotions were extremely big and kind of running rampant. Yeah, right. Like, and I don't think anything's wrong with having big emotions, but I didn't know how to regulate them for my body. And so now looking back, I can use the language of my nervous system was completely overworked. And this I didn't know any of that at the time. I just knew I felt awful and I was anxious and I was depressed and I was scared and everything felt like a threat to me. And now that I have a handle on how to identify emotions, what to do. do with them how to release them. I feel like it's completely translated into better health for me. Whereas before, I felt like if my emotions were running rampant, and I didn't have a control over them, my health would suffer too. And now I see that connection of like emotional health is overall health. And, you know, I know we're going to talk about releasing them, but I definitely have noticed that the more I can move emotions through my body, and move them day to day and week to week, I, I come out of stressful, and dare I say crises a lot better than I would have years ago.
Toréa Rodriguez 10:36
Yeah, yeah. 1,000% I think it's so important in relationship to health. I also think, while we can say that sometimes it's hard for people to wrap their minds around, well, I don't understand like, why is emotions and sadness and happiness? And what does that really have to do with health and that gets me into the thoughts in areas around psychoneuroimmunology. And psychoneuroimmunology is very long word that's been put together, which is a whole area of science that is starting to study, the way that our psychology acts on our nervous system and how that acts on our immune system. And our immune system is really what regulates a lot of our health, right. So if our immune system is out of sorts, we're either gonna develop a chronic disease or an acute disease. And so psychoneuroimmunology has really revealed this. Cool, I think it's cool, because of course, I'm gonna geek out on some science here, so give me a second. But I think it's super cool, because what they've recognized is that the thoughts that we have are almost always laced with an emotion, they're always associated with an emotion, that's how the brain categorizes things is like thought, emotion, thought, emotion. But the emotion really, like sometimes we can really feel the emotion in our body, sometimes it's harder to identify where in the body it is. But that feeling that we feel in the body really is a chemical messenger going across ourselves, or flooding through our neurons, and getting into our endocrine system and releasing other hormones. Like we're feeling that activity in the emotion itself, which is amazing, because if you think about it, all of those different areas in the body, the endocrine system, and the adrenals, and the pituitary gland and the other hormone producing organs in the body. So we've got like, we've got our sex hormone producing organs, and you know, we've got our gallbladder and all of these different things are working based off of neurotransmitter signals, and hormone signals, and other chemical messenger signals. And so the emotions really are that and so that's the tie to the biology. So if we aren't allowing ourselves to process those pathways, basically, its biochemical pathways is what it kind of all boils down to. There's a little bit more than that. But you know what I mean, then that is where some of these organs are going to get either overtaxed, or they're going to have to be forced to deal with those chemical messengers. And that's when people say that we store emotions in the body, we literally store emotions in the body. And so this is why it's so exciting for me that it ties to biology in this way, because then I can really see the difference of being able to discern between the emotional body, if you will, and the physical body.
Evie Takacs 13:31
Yes, yes. And that's such a good explanation of it. Because, again, hearing emotions get trapped in the body, or, you know, emotions move through the body, it doesn't really make sense unless you put it in that way. So it's a good visual of like, okay, if the mind is thinking this, and we have these thoughts laced with emotions, then that makes sense if these emotions get stuck, and you know, like, because I'm more aware of this, now I can feel different parts of my body, right? Where it's like, where do I feel that emotion? Do I feel it in my chest? Do I feel it in my belly? Do I feel it in my, in my legs, like, and that's really interesting to me too, to see, well, what organ might be associated with that or what, you know, maybe pathway might be blocked or something like that.
Toréa Rodriguez 14:12
Yeah, it's really interesting. I had made this correlation earlier this year. So something that had been happening for me it was intermittent gallbladder pain. And this has been happening for years, and I've had ultrasound upon ultrasound to make sure like, is it gallstones? No, it's not gall stones. You know, we we've never found any physical evidence for the gallbladder pain. And of course, we're like, okay, so it must be sluggish bile. So then we'll work on bile and we'll work on digestion and all those things yet it still happens. And then actually, it was a client of ours and a program who had brought her expertise into this program as well. And one of the things that she just haphazardly mentioned in one of her posts was that the gallbladder clarifies emotion. I, for some reason that just like, it's almost like it popped out in bold neon flashing pink for me or something because I was just like, ah, what Wait, she just said gallbladder, wait a second, clarifies emotion. So then I started to really pay attention to when I would get these gallbladder attacks, what was happening in my life from an emotional perspective leading up to that. So I would kind of look at like maybe a day or two before that. And lo and behold, what was really fascinating for me is that the last three times that I have had any gall and this was since I she said that, so it's only been three times this year, which knock on wood, I'm really happy about that. Lo and behold, those days, I was either confused about something that I felt like I couldn't really quite fingerprint, like, what is this emotion that I'm really feeling? So it would take me a long time to kind of sort through what is that? Or I would have conflicting emotions, like part of me would think this, and part of me would feel this, you know, so I'd have like a conflict in that day. And that is exactly what would lead up to these gallbladder events.
Evie Takacs 16:03
Wow!
Toréa Rodriguez 16:04
And I was just like biology!! And this stuff is so amazing. Like, how cool is that? So once I had that realization, and of course, I my friend, Erin, Erin Holt of Funk'tional Nutrition, she and I were talking about it, and I sent her a message. I was like, Erin, you're not gonna believe this, guess what happened today? And guess what happened before that. And so it's been fun to be able to see, you know, have these kinds of realizations? Because now I understand that if I do have like, how do I feel instead of like, be laboring myself all day long. I'll immediately call a friend and talk it through. I mean, that's one of the ways that we can process the emotions, right is talking that through with a friend or a therapist. And since that realization, like, it's been a lot easier for me to manage my emotions, and knock on wood, like, it's been several months now. And I haven't had any kind of gallbladder pain. So I'm sticking with it. I'm doing some processing my emotions immediately.
Evie Takacs 17:04
Yes. Can you imagine what little Toréa would think having all these, you know, this big vocabulary and this tools for processing emotion compared to before? And now? Like how improved your health is?
Toréa Rodriguez 17:16
That would be so cool.
Evie Takacs 17:18
Yeah. And I remember when you made that realization, I remember you told me like, I think it has to do with my emotions. Really your gallbladder? Yeah. And but it makes complete sense. But it's also like, from our perspective, as practitioners, we might see this way before a client recognizes it in themselves. And so it's kind of hard because some clients are like, give me all the supplements, What food should I eat? What should I do for exercise? And it's like, well, hold on a second. Like, there's a lot of trapped emotions there. We need to talk about first, but it sounds so woowoo for people, but we know it's real.
Toréa Rodriguez 17:51
Yeah. Yeah, I was so on that camp before of like, Oh, you guys, this is all Whoo. Like, yeah, emotions, schmotion, like, whatever, you're just happy or sad or angry. And like, that was my that was my vocabulary before happy, sad, angry. Yeah. frustration that was also in there. Yeah, you know, and if anybody would have told me the emotions were stored in the body, or they got stuck in the body, I was just like, um, yeah, no. You guys are nutters.
Evie Takacs 18:19
Well, And I think for people who still might be like, questioning or still like, well, I don't know, this still sounds woo to me. Think about it. If you feel a lot of things, maybe you have big emotions, maybe you're feeling frustrated, or you're feeling scared, or you feeling sad, or lonely or something. And then there's something that you do physically, do you really not feel any different after? Like, whether it's crying, whether it is talking to a friend, whether it's going on a walk, whether it is being intimate? Like, if you can change your physical body? Try and tell me that your psychology doesn't change after that? .
Toréa Rodriguez 18:54
Yeah, good point
Evie Takacs 18:56
Just think about that and example of your own life. I mean, I have plenty. Crying is usually the first thing I go to, because it's very, it's a very big release for me. But you know, I'm like, I might not feel completely healed, or like, the problem doesn't go away, necessarily. But I feel so much better. And I feel lighter. Yeah. Yeah. Just from that physical change.
Toréa Rodriguez 19:16
Yeah, I think crying. In my opinion, I'm not an expert in this. And I, in no ways study, you know, child psychology or anything, but I'm just making the assumption that since we were a baby, right, we cry when we're a baby, because we don't have words yet. And it's an easy way for us to innately know how to process emotion is through crying, and then later on, you grew up and you're told that crying is a sign of weakness and all of this stuff. And so then we stop doing that. And then all of a sudden, we're not actually releasing our emotions and crying is it really what? Gosh, I think it was maybe even a couple years ago, like I knew that crying was a good release for me, but it took me Listening to a book by Kyle Cease, and I'll have to look up the actual name of the book. I know it was it was about money. But honestly, that book is all about mindset. And he, he made the statement that tears are the way emotion leaves the body. And that just really resonated with me. It was like, Oh, I get it. This is a way that we move this stuff out. And what we know now from science is that if you evaluate tears under a microscope of somebody who's crying tears of joy, versus somebody who's crying tears of grief, or tears of sadness, or tears of fright, the actual structure of what that solution because it's like a salt solution looks like under the microscope is different. They're all different.
Evie Takacs 20:45
And that blew my mind when you told me that I was like, Oh, my gosh, that is amazing. Yeah, yeah, I'm, my mind is blown at that. And I don't know, I believe it. I believe it because it feels different to like, crying tears of joy totally feels different of crying tears of sadness, or loneliness or grief. Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's still tears. But physically, it feels different to release those types of tears, at least for me . Very interesting.
Toréa Rodriguez 21:09
Absolutely So yeah, from a lifetime crier.
Evie Takacs 21:13
Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. Ya know, sometimes, like, I'll be crying and whoever I'm with, like, are you okay? And I'm like, I'm actually great. Thank you. Like, I need this. Like, just let me cry. Like, this is actually part of the process. Do not try and stop me. So it's like, and there was this audio trending on Instagram a while he was probably on Tik Tok to I don't know, I'm not on tick tock, but it was like, you know, oh, I'm gonna go, you know, I'm gonna go cry. It's gonna be like a 3040 minute or like, you know, and I'm just thinking like, yeah, sometimes you do need to schedule a cry. And sometimes you do need to tell the person like, Hey, I'm gonna cry. Everything's fine. Don't worry about it. But like, just let me release. And I'll be good after that. So yeah,
Toréa Rodriguez 21:51
yeah, yeah. So yeah, so emotional processing right, now that we're starting we science, the collective whatever, are starting to understand how the emotion is related to the biology and that way, this is why it's become more and more imperative that a lot of the work that you do with your clients, and I do with my clients, and the work we do together with clients and programs that we do together, is to really take a look at what emotions are running the show. And so one of the exercises that I almost always start with is something called the Emotional Home exercise, which is kind of taking an inventory of what kinds of emotions are we experiencing on a regular basis throughout a full day. So I'll give an assignment of, you know, just inventory your day, and I did this, and I felt this, then I did this, and then I felt this and and see what the overall picture is. And you know, sometimes it's helpful to just identify Is there a very small emotional vocabulary. So that's a good learning out of the exercise. Sometimes it's a wide emotional vocabulary, but the categories are dominant. So positive emotion versus negative emotion, somebody might discover that, Oh, heck, 60% of my day is spent in some form of negative emotion of one or the other. That's a really good learning, so that we can start to work with the emotions, learn how to release them, and also learn how to kind of think of it as being ambidextrous right, shifting from right hand to left hand to be able to write with or eat with, it's the same kind of thing with emotions, we want to learn how to be able to shift from one to the other, not as an escape mechanism, but as a way to work with our body. And that biochemistry, right? So oftentimes, we'll work with that exercise too.
Evie Takacs 23:38
Yeah, that's been helpful. I've actually shared that with some clients of like, hey, like, this might be something good, because again, we don't actually always sit there and think about, well, why do I feel tired all the time? Or why do I feel pissed off all the time? And it's like, well, you're spending most of your time in a negative emotions spiral. So why would you expect yourself to be happy or to feel joy? So it's really been insightful? And I actually do that periodically for myself. Like, I'll go back and do that just to kind of spot check. Yeah. Because, you know, you have to do the auditing of yourself of like, where am I spending most of my day? And could that explain why I feel the way that I do or why I don't feel the way that I think that I should, or how I like to feel?
Toréa Rodriguez 24:17
Yeah, what we are also learning about the different kinds of emotions. So now we also know that emotions have a certain resonant frequency in the body. So they can actually measure this in terms of megahertz or millihertz or I don't know what the actual unit is, but it's in some kind of frequency unit. What we are learning is that the negative type emotions are the ones that typically will start to disrupt normal chemical pathways in the body and contribute towards disease. This is why a lot of Chinese medicine for example, talks about stuck chi and you know how holding on to anger can cause heart issues and Those kinds of things. And we know now that the positive style emotions, the gratitude, the love, the happiness, the joy, all of those different kinds are ones that actually contribute to the healing processes in the body. Which is really interesting. Yeah, because if I think back to when I got sick with Hashimotos, and everything else, I was stuck in a very long grief cycle, and had to really process through some really confusing emotions at that time. And so it's no surprise to me now, it was a total shocker, then why is all this happening to me all at the same time? Was my initial thought? But now I really understand that there was a lot of years-long pent up emotion that I just hadn't processed that was really starting to break down the pathways in my body.
Evie Takacs 25:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Toréa Rodriguez 25:49
So let's shift into like some of the ways that we've learned how to process emotion and share this with the audience and who's listening, because it's great to talk a lot about emotion, but I don't want to leave people with Okay, so go get a therapist, and I have nothing against therapists, I think they're great. Please go get one. If you think you need one, they're awesome. But there are a lot of other ways that we can use to shift emotion, if that's what we're really looking for is being able to process these emotions, you had mentioned movement. So let's talk about movement first, and then we can get into some of the other stuff.
Evie Takacs 26:21
Yeah, this is something that's always been a part of me, like I played soccer growing up. And, you know, I would play kind of recreationally in college. And you know, I love working out, I've always done that to some capacity. But it wasn't until this past year that I realized, like, just how important it is to move emotion through my body through motion. And I've kind of like, you know, had fun with this. You know, when I share it on social media, I'll put E dash motion, right, you move emotion through motion. And again, it wasn't until recently this past year that I realized in honestly, the moment that that clicked for me it was I was working out in my garage gym. And I was filming myself because I like to film either to post and you know, just to check form and things like that. So I was filming myself doing an exercise. And in the middle of it, right? I'm doing maybe like 12 reps or something. I just start sobbing and like uncontrollably. Yeah. And nothing happened. I was by myself. Nothing had happened that day, like nothing triggered me that I knew about the time, I just started crying. And I couldn't stop. And it felt like it was just flowing out of me. And it was like it had been trapped for so long. And just this movement was like opening up the floodgates in the most beautiful and releasing way. And at that moment, I was like, holy shit. Like, this is like, I need more of this. Because I felt so light after that. Yeah, I didn't realize how heavy I had been feeling until I cried. And so I was like, Wait, there's something to this. And I remember I texted you because then like, the week later, I was at the actual gym. And I told you, I was listening to the song. I started crying. Like, I just started crying at the gym all the time. And I think people probably thought I was like, like, is this chick okay?
Toréa Rodriguez 28:09
Oh, what's going on with her?
Evie Takacs 28:10
Yeah. And it was just so interesting to me of like, Gosh, why am I crying every time I'm moving, but it wasn't like, Oh, poor me, it was like, This feels really relieving. And this feels like after I leave therapy, and you know, talk therapy. And so that's when I was like, Wait a second, there's something to this motion. There's something to moving emotion through motion. And so I try and share about that as much as I can on social media. Because, again, maybe people haven't made that connection for themselves. But it's definitely there. Yeah, so yeah, anytime I feel like I'm stuck or ruminating, or I feel confused or sad, my go to is going to be movement. So changing my physical body. And like I said, that might look different for everybody that might mean going for a walk, that might mean working out. That might mean you know, doing some stretches on the floor, that might mean opening up your hips, right? There's something about women in the hips, and we store emotions in the hips. And that might mean that you get a massage, that might mean that you are intimate with your partner like that might be what you need to do to release emotions too. Maybe you watch funny videos to laugh, like there's something that physically has to change for you in order for those emotions to get out. Yeah. And so whatever that might be, I encourage you to dig deep and try and find that and stick with it. And also explore some other ones that you think might be helpful.
Toréa Rodriguez 29:25
Yeah, it's so important that to remember that our physiology has a huge impact on our emotional body. And a really succinct way of demonstrating this that comes to mind is there's this woman Her name is Amy Cuddy. And she gave a TED talk, and it's fairly popular. And I refer to it all the time. But she and I've seen her speak and she was kind of giving the same TED talk to us. But what was really cool about it was she was talking about confidence and building confidence and that was kind of the theme of her talk, but what she used was physiology to build confidence when we might not necessarily be feeling necessarily confident, like going into an interview, or whatever it happens to be. And so she talks about getting into your superhero pose, like literally standing up, having your feet hip width apart, putting your hands on your hips, your shoulders are back, and you're pretending that you've got that cape that is waving through the wind, like that is your superhero pose. And in her talk, she got everybody in the audience standing up doing their superhero pose, and I could do not you can feel the difference when you get into that physical state. So there is very much something to this whole, like move your physiology to be able to move these emotions and help you shift an emotion. So you can take yourself, you know, if you find yourself sitting kind of hunched over and you're kind of melancholy or whatever, you can get into that superhero pose, and suddenly your mood is going to shift, it may not shift 100%, but it's going to shift at least a little bit to help you start playing with that ambidextrous-ness, right, that being able to shift things back and forth. And so using our physiology in that way, but I've oftentimes used high intensity exercise as a way to process anger and frustration, like, I will go and go full out on the bike super fast to try and get my heart rate up as high as I possibly can. And then sure enough, as soon as I'm done, it's like, oh, not angry anymore. It's all good.
Evie Takacs 31:35
Yep. Right. Yep. Yeah, ugly.
Toréa Rodriguez 31:37
Yeah. There's something about it. I love it. I love movement. Movement is a huge thing. And even just taking a walk and getting a whole, like just getting yourself out of whatever environment you're intimately in in that moment, and getting outside and just doing a walk. Like oftentimes, that'll change the emotions too.
Evie Takacs 31:51
Yep, definitely.
Toréa Rodriguez 31:53
We've talked about therapy a bit. Therapy is awesome. And so is talking to your friends. Yeah, right. Yeah, we're talking it out or even talking into a Voxer to a friend. Yeah, an audio message, you know, to a friend, even if you like, recall it or delete it. Like I've done that a couple of times. Yeah, just talking things out, I think sometimes helps us process emotions, especially with a trained therapist who can help us identify them. So if you're like me, and you don't have a huge emotional and vocabulary, and you're like, What are you talking about all these different emotions, I thought there were five. That's a good way to learn. That's how I started learning my emotional vocabulary. In fact, he gave me a chart. Like, can you identify this? And then we would talk through that. And so we would practice sometimes trying to identify those emotions. Journaling is another way of talking it out.
Evie Takacs 32:41
Yes, yes. I'm a big journaler.
Toréa Rodriguez 32:43
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I find that when I let the words flow like that, sometimes, sometimes I can do it with a keyboard. And sometimes I can't like sometimes it really does require pen to paper, there's something about that process that I think helps me get in touch with the emotions better. I'm not quite sure. Yeah, yeah, that's super helpful. I learned a really cool technique. I just finished doing the Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner training this year. And we learned a really interesting technique called an emotional release technique where we can help somebody release emotions and what I learned. And this is a part of psychology and I can't remember which area of psychology it is, but there's something called a Gestalt. And a gestalt is how our brain categorizes and how our subconscious categorizes certain emotions together, and certain events and thoughts and things get, like put into these groups in the brain, and what can happen for people and this is why I think sometimes we get into these very intense states of emotion is the we'll have an event we'll associate emotion with that event, and then another event happens and it has a similar emotion. So throws it in the same bucket, right? So you can think about them all kind of being linked into the same bucket, but they all get linked together on a chain. So I think of it as this long chain and everything's linked together. And that's what a gestalt is, is that we get these very intense emotions, because when a situation happens, that may not really warrant a huge emotional reaction, but we have a huge emotional reaction. So a lot of people these days are using the terminology of I got triggered, right? That that like, oh, huge emotion, like what the hell, why am I so triggered shouldn't be triggering. It's that Gestalt. It's the way that the brain has categorizes this and so through NLP, there's a really cool technique that helps us release that chain so that we feel a appropriate amount of emotional response to a situation instead of being triggered all the time. So I thought that was really cool. And that's that's usually done with an NLP practitioner. It's too hard to explain here on the podcast, but yeah,
Evie Takacs 34:59
Well I will say from personal experience of doing this with Toréa she led me through this, I will say, I'm still I'm still like just taken aback by how powerful that was. Because we worked through some really big emotions in a really emotional time for me to right like, it's not like things were kind of just good like I was, you were doing a lot of things. Yeah, yeah. And to now have similar situations come up that I would typically be triggered or have bigger emotions about. And now I'm just like, yeah, that doesn't really feel really great that that's happening. But I guess that's okay. I can work through it. And I would never thought that I would get to the point where I could respond in that way. So I am definitely a believer in that. And I think it's very, very powerful.
Toréa Rodriguez 35:47
Yeah, yeah, I am so grateful that I did that training, because that is one of the coolest tech, I've got a lot of cool techniques that I've learned over the years. But that is one of the coolest techniques is to really help somebody be in a situation and not have to feel triggered by it. Yep. Not saying that we won't feel the emotion. We're not taking them away completely, but not being triggered by it and not being therefore run by our emotions. That is a whole cool, new way of existing. And I love it. Yep. I love it. Yeah, cuz I did the work, too, when I was doing the training. So I've been doing the work still doing the work with my own coach, you know, that kind of thing. It's, it's really amazing work. So I'd love it. Yes. Which brings me to the point of we're incorporating that NLP type work into a new program that I'm offering called Deep transformation... Evie is a part of that program. And if you think that that's something that you want to do, it is not too late to join, there is a link in the show notes. Click that link to sign up, contact us whatever it is, we'll figure it out a way for you to contact us but that is something that we are integrating into this Deep Transformation program is is this kind of stuff. Yeah. Really helping to deal with all these emotions. Yeah. Very powerful. Cool. All right. I think we I think we covered what we wanted to cover. Is there anything else that you wanted to chat about?
Evie Takacs 37:13
I think it's just important to remember that like, this probably is happening more than you realize. So hopefully, we're bringing awareness to it that these emotions can be trapped. These emotions really do manifest in a disease state. And, you know, if you felt closed off to the idea of this, hopefully, we've opened up that curiosity of like, how is it showing up in my life? Or how is it showing up in my loved ones lives? Because we all have it. We're all going through it. It's just some of us don't have that awareness yet or don't have the tools to work through it. So hopefully, this is at least opening up that conversation for you.
Toréa Rodriguez 37:44
Yeah, awesome. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us. You can always submit a question for the podcast. All that stuff, of course is in the show notes as usual. And we'll see you guys in season three, episode two, woo hoo! Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you're ready to dig deeper into your health, stop playing the Whack-a-Symptom game, start testing to get better guidance, you can find more about Toréa at torearodriguez.com and you can find Evie at holisticallyrestored.com. Want a peek into what it's like to work with us? Come join us at our Optimized Wellness Community. You can find the invitation link in the show notes below. And if you have a question for the show, you can submit your question under the podcast section of torearodriguez.com. Finally, if you found something helpful in this episode, don't forget to leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. They're gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, see you outside!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
