“You Matter”
This episode is all about codependency, perfectionism, and anxiety. Plus, we talk about moving ourselves out of fight or flight and the differences between venting and complaining.
Victoria Albina (she/her) is a Certified Life Coach, UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner, and Breathwork Meditation Guide with a passion for helping women realize that they are their own best healers to break free from codependency, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and reclaim their joy.
She is the host of the Feminist Wellness Podcast, holds a master’s degree in public health from Boston University School of Public Health and a BA in Latin American Studies from Oberlin College. Victoria has been working in health & wellness for over 20 years and lives on occupied Lenape territory in New York’s Hudson Valley.
In this podcast, Training Your Nervous System To Release Anxiety, we cover:
- The power of collective thinking
- Why social connection is the best path to happiness
- Intelligence is in the flesh: how we can tune into the body
- Simple ways to relieve stress and anxiety
- How to determine the difference between venting and complaining
Human Connection Is Critical For Joy
The number one parameter of human joy and happiness is connection. We lack connection with one another in that deep quality way. Also, we are missing a connection with the natural world. When we are isolated, it messes with our heads. Victoria’s focus has been to support women with codependent perfectionism and people-pleasing thinking. When she works with her clients, she finds that there is a lack of anchored embodied self-worth.
We Can Be In A Collective Way of Thinking
The patriarchy in late-stage capitalism wants to pin humans against each other. When someone gets married, people will think that they are a failure for not being married. If someone gets an outstanding job, people think they are a failure because they didn’t get an outstanding job. However, this collective matters. When someone grows, it’s your growth. When someone thrives, you thrive because we can move together and be in a collective framework.
Your Intelligence Comes From Your Body
Twenty percent of our lived experience as humans is top-down. The brain teams up with our monkey mind, feeds information into our body, and creates our lived experience. In contrast, eighty percent of our lived experience is body up from our gut to our intuition. That’s why getting your feet on the ground is critical for energy production. The intelligence comes up from our body, and then we interpret it through our minds. Most of us don’t really feel our feelings. Instead, we think about our feelings. Overall, we need to tune into our bodies.
Take A Breath: Relieve Anxiety Now
If you’re having an anxiety attack, recognize that you’re in sympathetic activation; you’re having a fight or flight moment. There’s activation energy within your physiology that needs to be released. Shaking your hands or taking a brisk walk will help when you’re facing anxiety. Also, you can find something that you can push or grasp, then breathe. You don’t necessarily want to take a deep breath; instead, you want to have a long exhale out. Your body will realize that if you’re exhaling slowly, then the nervous system will calm down. During anxiety, instead of going inward, orient to the environment.
What Happens When We Have Exhausted Fight or Flight
When we first go into stress, our natural state is to connect and try to please. We move more into rapport and try and make a connection with a person. When we have exhausted the fight or flight system, then we have nothing left to give. We have no more adrenaline, norepinephrine, and eventually cortisol. So, the body will get small and get far away from the fire. This state is depression, isolation, self-criticism, and the backside of anxiety.
Venting is Amazing, and Complaining Is Terrible
Venting is when you let something go, whereas complaining takes your venting and puts it on someone else’s plate. Complaining is when you want someone to validate you. If you’re under stress, you will not be venting; instead, you’ll be complaining. If you are complaining, then it’s time to check in with your body. Do some shaking, running, or tightening and relaxing the muscles. For folks carrying a lot of trauma, you won’t really be going inside your body. Instead, you need to stay outside of the body and work with it.
Victoria Albina 0:00
This collective matter, right your growth is micro. When you thrive, I thrive because we, we can, we can move together, we can be in a collectivist way of thinking, a collective framework.
Dr. Mindy 0:15
I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the power back and help you believe in yourself again, my name is Dr. Mindy Pels, and I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. On this episode of the resetter podcast, I am bringing you guys Victoria l bean. Now let me give you a little background on what you’re about to hear and who Victoria is. So what I love about her is she has a really strong foundation in functional medicine specifically as a nurse practitioner, and she has now moved into more of a certified breath worker. She’s a life coach. She’s an herbalist, and she has an amazing podcast called the feminist wellness podcast. Now, let me tell you what I wanted to chat with her about. I want to talk about codependency. I want to talk about perfectionism anxiety. You know, one of the deep questions that I have asked myself over and over again, is, are we doing life wrong? Do we set ourselves up for failure and for stress, and this conversation was a total whack on the side of the head because she had some incredible research and tools and ways for us to look at our nervous system and how our nervous system responds to stress. But then she brought in as what you’ll hear, she talks about the more Whoo, have some real strategies we can do like breath and breath work. And she talked about different squeezing techniques we can do. She talked about how do we move ourselves out of fight or flight? And what’s the difference between venting and complaining? This was a deep conversation. So if you’re dealing with anxiety, you’re dealing with depression, you’re looking for a completely different way to approach this. This is absolutely the episode for you. So Victoria albina. Enjoy. I hope you laugh as much as we did as we were going through this conversation together. Enjoy. Okay, ready setters let’s talk about breaking your fast. So as you guys know, I love organic products. And I really love them for two reasons, the quality of the ingredients and how incredible these products taste. And each time I try a new product, I literally feel like they have knocked it out of the park in both of those categories. So I have a new one for you to try breaking your fast with and it’s called pure and it’s for mental clarity and digestion. And check this out. If you haven’t heard of the concept of a nootropic. A nootropic is any nutrient that’s going to enhance your cognitive abilities. And in pure one of the main ingredients is Lion’s Mane which not only gives you great mental focus, but a very calm and alert mental focus. But they didn’t really stop there. They put a bunch of digestive enzymes in there so it will calm the your belly down. This is great for those of you with either constipation issues or bloated ness. So they’ve got these great digestive enzymes in it. And I really think they should be calling this the fasters dream product because they put apple cider vinegar in it, which will help with balancing blood sugar. So and it tastes great. So go ahead and check it out. It’s called pure and you can we’ll put the link in the notes you can go to Organa phi.com forward slash pells that is Organa fi o r g a n I fi.com forward slash Pels, p l z and they will give you 20% off. So check it out and let me know how smart you get and how low your blood sugar goes. I’m so excited to share this product with you. So
we have to start with this idea because this is something that that baffles me and I think if we can actually help reframe for people why the heck is everybody so tightly wound right now Why are people so anxious? Are you know Where my brain goes is are we doing life wrong? Are we approaching this thing that we do day to day with the wrong focus? Why do we have to be such overachievers? Why do things have to be so perfect? Like, these are questions I would love to answer for people.
Victoria Albina 5:19
So we’re starting off casual. We’re starting lights is that is that? We’re just like no big deal. I’m going life wrong, says doctor. Yes, yeah. thinker. You know, like if you came to my house your dinner this Yeah, we would start.
I love that. Yeah, so listen, are we doing life wrong? I mean, kinda, right. Yeah.
Like when we look at all the studies and all the parameters, the indicators of human joy and happiness, the number one thing time and time again is human connection. Hmm, yeah. Right. And so when we think about our human connection, I mean, we had a spritz of pandemic, you know, made it a little Azure challenging. What was the Yeah, leaving our fifth floor Brooklyn walk up for you know, yeah, that was cute. But yeah, it a good example. But um, yeah, you know, I think we are we’re lacking not only in connection with one another, and that deep quality way, I too, am an asker of like, tell me your deepest everything we just met. So I’m with you there, right. So that we that connection is missing for so many of us but also connection with Pachamama with Mother Earth. Right with nature. Before we started, you shared that you were gardening before our conversation, right? That connection with hands in the dirt, dirt under the nails? Yeah, right. It makes you think of my my friend, Dr. Maya, she treats book the dirt cure, right? How can we all Dr. Maya is amazing. But like, she’s, she’s tops, but like, our interaction, right? So there’s, there’s that cellular layer that microbiome layer right? How are our bodies as an organism interconnecting interacting How is your immune system impacting mine right there’s that spiritual level of EMI connecting with the sky above the earth below all of my relations on either side of me, there’s that that energetic layer as well. And you know, then there’s there’s just that layer of like, being isolated F’s with our head, being isolated, right and not in not feeling seen. So my work since I transitioned out of primary care and as being a functional medicine provider into life coaching, my focus has been to support human socialized as women with codependent perfectionist and people pleasing thinking, and when we really drill down in that, and yes, I’m so answering your question, when we drill down in that what we get to is this lack of anchored embodied self worth. From self worth, we say, I cannot connect with others unless I show up perfectly. Hmm. Right. And
Dr. Mindy 8:24
unless I had is that so is a call I have so much Sorry to interrupt interrupt up is that our own like bar we’ve set for ourselves is because, you know, like you and I connecting right now we’re just being our authentic selves, we’re enjoying this conversation. But some people go into conversations and they feel like, I need to be a certain way. I need to say a certain thing here. So do are we setting the bar too high for ourselves when we go into connections with others?
Victoria Albina 8:53
I mean, I think you’re asking nature and nurture. And I think the answer is yes. Right? I think the answer is right. So we are all so our nervous system patterning gets set in those earliest years of life, zero to 307. We can also overlay that with with the development of the chakras, but maybe that’s a different show. So free focus again, on that we won’t go too well. But you know, I will
Unknown Speaker 9:19
be available for Well, hey, we can go well, what’s the path? Yeah, especially
Dr. Mindy 9:25
when we can tag science to the Whoo, oh,
Victoria Albina 9:27
my god that Ron is saying. My favorite is when TCM Ayurveda, Western herbal right, wise woman tradition. Yeah, shocker. When it’s all literally saying the exact same thing. I’m like, actually,
Dr. Mindy 9:41
can we actually give it a name now we call it neuroscience. And we like, like, like, put it on a pedestal? And it’s like, no, this is how science is explaining. woowoo right? Yeah.
Victoria Albina 9:55
Oh, I love it. I love the witchcraft. Yeah, so hold please, I lost my train of thought, but I can find it so easily. So neuroscience, so right in the development of, of our neurology of our neural grooves of that nervous system based story of what it means to be safe and secure as a small animal in the world, right, that kind of sets so early, our attachment system, right, our framing of whether it’s safe to be independent, interdependent, or if codependency The only way to be safe, if the only way to get love and care, and attention and praise, and anything from our, like a tournament from our adults is to, like, Always Be the good girl. Always be perfect. Look, I got straight A’s Will you love me?
Dr. Mindy 10:49
Right? Right,
Victoria Albina 10:50
right. And then we bring that into the rest of our lives until until we learn to become our own watcher. Right and through mindfulness. And I always point folks towards mindfulness versus meditation, meditation, for folks with a trauma history can actually not be super cute. More anxiety, we start with mindfulness, then we try out meditation, with an open heart, open mind. But mindfulness is available for all of us. Right?
Dr. Mindy 11:20
So let me ask you this. Yeah. So as we’re growing up, especially from zero to seven are our subconscious patterning is kicking in our neurology is kicking in, we’re at, we’re adapting to the people around us who tell us this is right, or wrong. Yeah. And when we grow into our middle school years, and our high school years, the way these the the it is, now this wasn’t the case for me, but the way it is now, now I get to go to social media, and I compare my life to the lives of everybody else. And now I can make even my own self diagnosis of how I’m showing up in the world. Right? Do you think again, I’m gonna go back to why we have so many anxious people, right? especially the younger generation, are we in this comparison model? That is mixed with our own desire to be perfect, that is leading us to suffering?
Victoria Albina 12:23
Yes, and I’m going to go ahead. And for anyone who knows my work, they will not be shocked. They’ll be shocked it took this long. I’m gonna go ahead and throw the patriarchy in late stage capitalism, right. under the bus whites led up settler colonialist thinking right under the bus. Okay. Right. Give it to me like Ray de joy, right? Because these are frameworks that say we are not want. Yeah, they are not collectivist frameworks. They’re frameworks, who are predicated on pitting us against one another, that your success is my loss. She got married, which means I’m a failure if I’m not, he got that job. I’m a failure. I’m not versus right. And I am not indigenous. I am South American, but I am of white settler colonialist lineage. And with appreciation, not appropriation, I will flag an overarching indigenous way of thinking about the world that says, this collective matters, right, your growth is micro. When you thrive, I thrive because we we can we can move together, we can be in a collectivist way of thinking, a collective framework.
Dr. Mindy 13:42
That is beautiful. So if I go to social media, and I see somebody doing something amazing, instead of feeling separate, and saying, hey, what they’re doing makes me a bad person. I could say how cool that they that they’re the same person as me. We when they do something amazing, I that that means that I have the potential to do something amazing, or I am doing something amazing, right? we reframe it as a collaborator. abberation moment.
Victoria Albina 14:14
Oh, a collaborative moment. That’s so juicy, right? Thank you for that language.
Dr. Mindy 14:22
I think about like the four minute mile. So when they broke the four minute mile now everybody was able to do it. It was just a mindset, right? That shifted. So if social media is not going away, then how do we go to social media and redefine it your when is my when? Yeah, how what what would we need to do to be able to make that happen? Yeah, so
Victoria Albina 14:43
in my work, I use two frameworks that work as a collective to support us in changing our lives. The first is, comes from the understanding that about 20% of our lived experience as humans is top down the brain and our thoughts, our cognition. In our prefrontal cortex, teamed with the old monkey mind and that reptile brain, feeding information down our nervous systems through the vagus nerve into our body and creating our lived experience as our emotions. The other 80% of our lived experience is bottom up body up, right is the Vegas nerve, the gut, that deep intuition. And again, this is where feet on the earth, right, we get that divine wisdom, that energetic flow of, of connection with Pachamama with Mother Earth. And so that’s 80% of our lived experience as human animals is that that wisdom that men intelligence coming up that we then interpret through our minds. And so what I teach is a combination of somatic practices that look at the body, and help us to connect inward to the body to see what we’re feeling. And try here what we’re feeling because my clients, and most of us these days don’t really feel our feelings. We sort of think our feelings. Yeah, right. Like, Oh, I feel so sad. And it’s like, really? Your energy field, your face? Your body language? Like, are you feeling sad? Are you thinking so?
Dr. Mindy 16:15
Yeah, when how it’s okay. If you ask yourself that question. Yeah. How I think that’s a great reframe. Yeah. How? So? How would I know the difference between thinking sad and feeling? Yeah,
Victoria Albina 16:27
yeah. So that’s when we slowly and we titrate this work very carefully, tuned into the body, right, as much as feel safe, as much as feels available for given person a given moment, we tune into the body and see if we can locate that felt sensation somewhere. Right. So we can begin to open up a portal of communication between ourselves and lived felt somatic experience of being us.
Dr. Mindy 16:57
So if I’m having an anxiety attack, and I’m like, I’m My heart is racing, I feel tense, I turn into my body. And I’m like, Oh, I don’t like the way my Yeah, I wouldn’t do that. I would, I would vote. I’m not gonna veto.
Victoria Albina 17:11
Right, because you do you obey. But like, but honestly, please don’t do that as far as go. So what I would do if you’re having an anxiety attack, is to recognize that you’re in sympathetic activation, right, you’re in a fight flight moment, where your vagus nerve your nervous system is, is activated. And there’s there’s pent up there’s a activation energy within your physiology, right within your muscle musculature within your tendons, that needs to be released. Okay. And so some of the things we can do is shaking our hands, taking a brisk walk, something we can push, right, so you can put both hands at a wall and push, you can grab the desk in front of you, and grasp it and grieve, and grasp it harder. And breathe. When we talk about deep breathing for anxiety, it’s not the deep breath, that actually taking a deep breath, and it can engage the bearer receptors in the chest and can actually make you more anxious. Okay, so we want to focus on this good. Is that long breath? Is that breath out is that exhale out that lets your body know, wait a second. If I’m being chased by a lion. Do I have the time to exhale slowly? Oh, I guess not. Maybe I’m okay. Hmm. Right system,
Dr. Mindy 18:38
yeah, comes down.
Victoria Albina 18:41
So we’re always asking that question what signals internally, there is no lion here. So I highly recommend not again, going inward, but orienting to the environment. So that is a beautiful Nervous System trick. And I actually have a recording of myself walking folks through an orienting exercise that you can get on my website. Maybe we can live up to
Dr. Mindy 19:02
that. Yeah, I mean to that, because I eautiful we have so many people with anxiety right now. I feel like when whenever something’s happening to everybody, right? I feel like we need to look at the common denominator shirts, which is why I started off with doing life wrong. Right. What we’ve been taught is how we do life is not producing happiness for the majority of the humans over here in America.
Victoria Albina 19:27
Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, so orienting is a quick and I’ll just quickly share, it’s a practice of, again, not going in interiorly not going into your body if that doesn’t feel safe, but really letting your nervous system know. I am awake and aware to where I am physically in the in the world on this earth. And I can look around and see that there is absolutely not a lion here. So you may look around and count the number of squares 123 Form great, count the number of blue things 12345 count the number of different smells, I smell. My Palo Santo deodorant. Smells really great, right? So that’s a smell I can connect to. So we start to use our different senses. You can take your hand and really get curious about the texture of your shirt or your necklace. The texture, you know, those little rivets at the top of your jeans go like, like, give them some love. feel them, like really allow each of your senses to ground in and to settle. Remembering reptile brains don’t like to be left alone. They like a job. They’re like, they’re like Labrador Retrievers that way, right. So I try not to leave my reptile brain without like actual homework. Okay. Oh, yeah, that? Yeah. So just give it some work. And then I allow you to call them
Dr. Mindy 21:01
yeah, it reminds me of like a toddler, like having a meltdown. And you just pick them up and put it right, redirect them. And now all of a sudden, they switch into happiness. Right?
Victoria Albina 21:10
Yeah. I mean, what a lot of the work that I do with my clients is around re parenting, which for me, doesn’t mean going back into the trauma and digging around in the trauma. That’s not what we’re doing here. What we’re doing is finding these small moments throughout our day or week, our life, when we can show up for ourselves with the compassion, care and gentleness that we would want to give a toddler. I love that. I love beer. Okay. hodler. Yeah, be your own. Your own toddler.
Dr. Mindy 21:43
There’s a whole course right there. Right. That’s so good. Okay, so dive in to polyvagal theory and part of why I talked about like that. I once I understood polyvagal theory, I was like, here is the problem with the teenagers right now and why they’re struggling. Here is the issue on why mental health needs to be addressed. This is why when you look at and I want to kind of dissect, you know, what just happened at the Olympics with Simone Biles and how you we get to these points of anxiety where we can no longer move forward, we go into freeze mode. And I think the polyvagal theory really explains that.
Victoria Albina 22:27
Yeah. So to put it as simply as I can. Polly Vega was the work of Dr. Steven porges, PhD, he was a researcher who mostly worked in the neonatal ICU and worked with very small, like three pound size humans measuring heart rate variability, and stress hormones. His work was made, quite frankly, and I have a degree in epidemiology, and yet, I find that his work sometimes a little any way I read. researcher, right, no, I know, it’s meant to be that way. So Deb Dana, is the social worker who took his work and made it into palatable English. It’s still written for clinicians, but I find that it’s a lay audience can just eat it on up so Deb, Dana. Okay, so polyvagal is about there being poly vehicles. So the Vegas here we’re referring to Vegas is the 10th cranial nerve, it’s the longest nerve in the human body. And it innervates or gives nerve function to effectively the whole middle of the animal going through the middle of the animal. It’s divided into two parts, the dorsal and the ventral ad. And it gives it sort of stops, the division stops at the diaphragm, and ventral gives energy to the bottom. And dorsal gives energy to that top of the animal. Okay, so what we learned from polyvagal. So I don’t know about when you were in school, but when I was at UCSF, we learned there sympathetic, and there’s parasympathetic. Good night. Right. And that was about how long that lecture was about how in depth and I was like, cool. UCSF thinks,
Dr. Mindy 24:13
yeah, yeah, real helpful. Yeah.
Victoria Albina 24:15
So what we now understand is there’s the sympathetic nervous system fight or flight, adrenaline, norepinephrine, eventually cortisol there. And then parasympathetic has two branches. And this is for me, where it gets super interesting. There’s ventral vagal, which is this forward facing safe and social making eye contact, smiling, a sincere smile, really connected with another human mammal, with a non human mammal with a treat like connected to the world outside and feeling safe inside. And then there’s dorsal, which is the part of parasympathetic that I hadn’t previously loved. I didn’t learn about in my medical training, which is the freeze part. Yeah. And dorsal is the nervous system moment of last, last, last resort. So as humans and this goes back to your question about anxiety because we started by talking about connection, yeah, and how vital true connection not social media connection, true connection is. So ventral vagal just wants us to be in connection. As human pack animals, what we want is the collective. What we want is community what we want is, I need you to see me I want you to see me I want to see you. And that is our that is our most natural state, right? That is our most joyful state. That is when our thyroid works best. That is when our digestion when the migrating motor complex and the small intestine is chugging along, right, and we’re less likely to get small intestine bacterial overgrowth. That’s when our large intestine is doing what we want it to do, and is moving the poop along and out and excreting all those toxins. I mean, don’t get me started on the cytochromes system and what the livers up to when we are in ventral vagal, heart, lungs, everything works better when we feel safe. When we are in a socially connected state. In a life threat moment, we humans will lean on on social connection first and foremost. So let’s say right, let’s say you’re like you’re mugging me. Dr. Mindy. Mindy, why are you mugging me?
Dr. Mindy 26:34
Again, but oh my god. This wait. Time. In California we don’t mug. You just kill them with taxes. All right. Okay, but for the sake of the conversation, I’m bugging you, let’s just pretend.
Victoria Albina 26:56
And other Brooklyn immediate things to go to. Right. And so if you came out to me, and you were like, Hey, lady, give me your wallet. The first thing that 99% of us would do is be like, oh, cool, cool. Cool. Take my wallet. All good. Hey, do you want my phone to like, we’re good here. Do you want this ring? Like, take my stuff, but leave me alone. And the way we communicate? That is we’re cool. Right? We’re good. Good. Good, right? We’re cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. I’m trying to make eye contact. I’ve got my hands up. Right? I am not a threat. We are good. Stay in ventral with me, buddy. Stay right here. Interesting
Dr. Mindy 27:32
and tight. Okay. Right.
Victoria Albina 27:36
Should that fail under our life threat circumstance? Yeah. Which is what trauma is in our body? Is that the thought that it’s game over right now? When that fails, we go into fight or flight right? So put up your Dukes. I’m five, three and a touchdown. Nothing. I’m gonna bust it out here. I’m not punching nobody, right. So I might head for Right. Right. And I noticed that when I get anxious, I get antsy. Interesting, okay. Right. I my body starts to pick up that fight or flight kind of energy. And because I know that at my size, flight is my option. My body is like, okay, okay, like, you know, you can’t see because it’s a podcast, but my hand automatically start sorta wagging around in the air. Right? My body’s ready to bolt. Okay. When we have exhausted the fighter flight system, when we’ve got no give left to give meaning, adrenaline, norepinephrine, eventually cortisol, the body’s like, you know, what, enough with enough I’m like, done with this, right? It makes me think of diabetes, right? And that the pancreas is like, Oh, I’m sorry, I’m a beta cell. You want to you weren’t insulin. You wanted insulin for insulin yesterday, you want more? I’m done with you diabetes feel? Do you know what it’s like? Yep. Right. Right. And so the body then is like, well, what’s the other option? You know, what I need to do, I need to go to the way back of the cave. And I need to just get really small and get far from the fires. And no one can see me just get in the dark. And then the lions won’t find me. I’ll be safe back there. This is the pressure Ah, yeah, this is depression. This is isolation. This is self criticism. This is this is the back side of anxiety. Right? And, and high activation freeze is when we’re at the back of the cave, but we’re anxious about it. Right, right. That’s when we’re still got a little adrenaline going. But we’re in the process of shutting down.
Dr. Mindy 29:45
So okay, can I just rephrase, so I make sure I understand that. Oh, my
Unknown Speaker 29:49
gosh, I mean,
Dr. Mindy 29:50
I get I get excited. I love the polyvagal theory, I’ve never heard it explained like this. So what I’m hearing from you is that when we First go into stress our natural state is to actually connect and try to please we move in even more into rapport. And we try to create a connection with that person.
Victoria Albina 30:12
It can I interject with an example. Yeah, so something stressful happens at work. You turn to the kid next to you and you’re like, boss is such a jerk. Am I right? Oh,
Dr. Mindy 30:23
is this why we like to bitch to each other about my Yeah,
Victoria Albina 30:26
yeah, I got out of your old show all an episode about why venting is amazing. Complaining is terrible. What’s the difference? Oh my gosh. So venting is I need to just let this go. And then you actually release it. And I use that ventral connection to release it. And complaining is when from that codependent place. We’re taking our venting, we’re putting it on someone else’s plate. And we’re looking for them to validate our lived experience of being angry, being annoyed not liking this being to validate me validate me that’s complaining, and that keeps us stuck. Positive metallurgy shows us this. Yes.
Dr. Mindy 31:06
Yeah. So that’s our first. So one way we would know that we are under stress is when we’re not venting, we’re now complaining. But we’re trying to do it in a way to create a connection with another human being. That’s a part of a stress reaction. Is that Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Dr. Mindy here, and let’s talk about my September fat burner reset. So I’m really excited about this reset, because I’m bringing in some new principles of fasting that I have not taught on any other platform. If you are trying to lose weight, let me give you a couple of key ideas that will help you to start with, you are meant to be a really good sugar burner, I’m going to teach you what that means in the fat burner reset, and you’re meant to be a really good fat burner. Plus, you’re meant to switch in and out of these two energy systems, you are not meant to stay as a sugar burner, you’re not meant to stay as a fat burner. So there are key foods you can eat to be a good sugar burner, and there’s some great styles of fasting you can use to be a really good fat burner. Now, here’s what gets everybody stuck is that in between these two energy systems are what we call metabolic blockers. And in this reset, I’m going to show you what those blockers are and how to remove them from your life. So you can effortlessly eat food and lose weight. And you can effortlessly fast and lose weight. It’s such a cool concept. And you take this major concept of metabolic switching is what it’s called. And you combine it with some really key ideas that we now know that there are certain nutrients, certain minerals, certain amino acids, that if you take them in your fasting window, they will kill hunger. So if I can show you how to metabolically switch in a really effortless way, and I can show you how to use key nutrients to minimize hunger when you’re fasting. You will find that weight loss is effortless. I am not joking. We are seeing this happen over and over again. And I can’t wait to show you this in the September fat burner reset. So see you there. Okay, so now from there No, this is fascinating. I don’t know if our listeners care but I’m geeking out I’m loving it. I’m so yeah, so then when that is doesn’t work for us, now we switch over to fight or flight and we decide we’re either going to fight or we’re going to run. Okay, so that’s that would be could we say that there are different phases of stress that we may be able to label. So the first phase was you go to your girlfriend, you bitch about, you know, the boss, the spouse, somebody like that. The second thing is now I want to fight with the boss or the spouse or I want to just I want to quit my job, I’ll leave my marriage I want to run. And then the third is now I’m just gonna go into the my room. I’m gonna grab a bottle of wine and I’m just gonna, I’m gonna get on social media and I’m not checkout Yep. That how many humans? I mean, that’s so many people. I’m gonna, again, as an epidemiologist, epidemiologist, I’m gonna just go ahead and say, all right,
Victoria Albina 34:35
so then maybe the Dalai Lama. Maybe let him do that. I mean, dude gets to be a human too, though, huh?
Dr. Mindy 34:43
Do you think but maybe he goes I’m gonna go meditate. I just you know, I’m gonna go grab
Victoria Albina 34:49
his or reincarnate, reincarnated Lama, he probably like, he’s like, chill on that whole process. Right. I’m gonna put them on my list of people I want to interview on my podcast. I’ll wrap them up. Catch a postcard, see what you hear back? Let me know how that goes. You can be on my show too. We can
Unknown Speaker 35:07
team up on them and see what he says, For me on for money on.
Unknown Speaker 35:13
So okay,
Dr. Mindy 35:15
let’s use this idea again most brilliant explanation of polyvagal that I’ve ever heard. So well done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now, if I’m in complaining mode, what are my options? Okay, I don’t want to go to fight or flight. So I’m in complaining, I’m between between between I’m no longer venting, I’m complaining, right? How can I pull myself back? Do I need to go into fight or flight and run to see the cycle through?
Victoria Albina 35:42
Whoa, okay, so so right. So completing the stress activation cycle is a really important part of this process is, you don’t need to go into fight or flight per se, meaning you neither need to punch a lion, nor run across the Serengeti. But you do get to check in with your body to see to see what completion of your stress cycle looks like. So that could be again, shaking, shaking the whole animal. For me, I’m a sprinter. So running, not for long, but pretty fast. And that one bragging.
Unknown Speaker 36:22
Like, like 60 seconds, but real fast.
Victoria Albina 36:24
That helps me. You know, sometimes we’re in a meeting, sometimes we’re at a boardroom, sometimes we’re in court before the judge giving our Fine, whatever, you know what I mean, or we’re with a patient, and we can’t exactly run. So that is when we can do sequential tightening and relaxation of the muscles. Right. And so we can start I am squeezing my toes and currently in them and currently them and tensing them so hard and relaxing, love it, right, tighten my right calf, tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten and release, left and go all the way up and down your body. And what’s beautiful about this is for folks who are carrying a lot of trauma, energy, or who are in a more active phase of their of trauma treatment, for example, you’re not really going inside, right? It’s not like a body scan, that can be more activating, you’re kind of staying outside the body and working with it. Right, right. And for those for whom meditation is a beautiful practice, mindfulness is part of your everyday, this will be likely wildly accessible. And it really just helps your physiology to release to tighten and release. It’s also one of my favorites. So a lot of my folks with insomnia, it’s secondary to write that anxious spinning right before bed, then sure, we can do magnesium and glycine, and we can go that route. And we can think about our nervous system. So doing a full body tighten and release before bed can really signal to your nervous system, Baby, you’re safe. It’s okay. Yeah, go to sleep.
Dr. Mindy 38:04
So in that moment, what I’m hearing is sometimes you can’t talk to your, your thoughts like and I’ve tried this, let’s use sleep as an example. I actually, when my kids were little are teenagers, I thought it was really great to try to solve all their problems at two in the morning. And then
Unknown Speaker 38:21
that I learned that doesn’t work.
Dr. Mindy 38:24
So I started to try to repattern what my brain was thinking what I’m hearing you say, and I tried to talk myself out of like you’re making a problem out of something that’s not in there. So we have these little conversations in our brain. What I hear you saying is what’s more effective for our neurology is to go to the body. And to actually make these use these tools you’re talking about in the body.
Victoria Albina 38:48
That’s my finding, right? You know, I teach a CBT cognitive behavioral framework called the thought work protocol, where we do get neutral about the circumstances of our lives, meaning we step out of adjectives out of adverbs out of judgment right so for example, if you’re thinking about the kid having a problem right like a kid got grade right we get neutral about the circumstances and we what is my habitual thought we look at that thought and then we go to the body what is the feeling that in genders in my body? What action do I take ruminate and not sleep and what’s the result? I’m tired and the kids still has the same grade
Dr. Mindy 39:29
mm hmm right so I’m not gonna solve it at two in the morning unlikely that’s my finally told myself my worry scan I was like, you know what you’re you don’t ever solve anything good to in the morning. It’s almost like the brain just chat chat you it’s just like that so that’s why I love this idea of having something instead of trying to talk it out of out of like,
Victoria Albina 39:55
you’re wrong. Oh, oh, yeah. Let me pause on brain you’re wrong. That doesn’t work. I mean, that’s like yelling at the dog for barking at the Postal Service carrier, right? The dog just looks at you and it’s like, you’re screaming,
Dr. Mindy 40:12
then everything must be wrong. Bark, bark, bark bark. Interesting, right? So
Victoria Albina 40:18
you’re pouring fuel on a sympathetic fire. Right? If your brain is barking, it’s because they believe that there’s danger. So we work with my my, I was a hospice nurse. My, my work in this world is compassion, gentleness, and open hearted love. This is always how I walk in the world. Most of the time. Sometimes I’m a human. And if you cut me off at Trader Joe’s, you might see another product. Alright, New Yorker, I’m a New Yorker, I’m also from Buenos itis. So it’s like a combo of, of a lot of city based aggression. But you know, I do what I can. So I try most of the time to lead with that open heart. And from there, there is so much healing that is available, when we start to see the things that annoy us about ourselves, the things that are challenging about ourselves, the things that keep us rolling around in rumination and suffering and anxiety as protectors. This comes from internal family systems. And I’m going to give some big ups to the somatic internal family systems. Susan McConnell’s book, oh, she’s goddess, where she teaches that, you know, these parts of us that that come up to create what feels like and maybe interpreted like drama, and stress and strife and struggling are just parts of us that believe that safety is the back of the cave. Believe that safety is running from your problems. Right believe that safety isn’t another glass of wine, or ruminating or kvetching, or whatever it is that causes you pain. So all of our internal actors just want us to survive till tomorrow.
Dr. Mindy 42:01
So how can we if we can’t talk our brain out of what it’s thinking? Yeah. And we’re moving towards freeze which I want to get to in a moment. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. What? What’s like, give me a two in the morning technique. Is that right? squeeze my muscles. Yeah, what I love this like trying to argue with the dog because I have dogs at home. I totally get that. Yeah, so if you and I do this I feel like a schizophrenic sometimes I’m like, no, that’s not that thoughts. not accurate.
Victoria Albina 42:32
I need to think about something different. And it’s can get a little mentally exhausting. Yeah, yeah. So we, we leave the mental alone. We let our brain know hey, brain. So you’re actually on vacation. I’m going to be with the body for a little while. And we also give reptile brain like I said some some jobs, right. Okay. Well, we also remember so if we’re either panic anxiety or freeze dorsal shut down, we remember that the skin and the nervous system if we go way back into our embryology days, they’re coming from that same threat that same dermatome How cool is that to remember, so we can use warmth. To calm a panic. We can use cold to calm a freeze to running cool water on our wrists, particularly where you would check a baby bottle right like the antecubital fossa right at your wrist. Right? Because that’s just that cold is just going to go
Dr. Mindy 43:35
I love that. So my pad is this why my chili pad works so well. Oh, yeah. I like it. Because I when I wake up in the middle of night, I put that thing down. Yeah, and I have a weighted blanket on top of me. And between those two things. Oh, I’m out oven. Yeah, so that’s all about taking me preventing me from going into a freeze mode.
Victoria Albina 43:57
So beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, cold water on the wrist chewing on ice drinking something called you know even just a little bit and I can hear all the TCM folks I know ice is bad for your cheek but if you’re actually going into a freeze, maybe we can allow it this once right just a little ice chip just just bring that cold energy in. You know I live now in the Hudson Valley unoccupied monopoly territory, nature half the year gives me the natural you know, ice cooler, just opening the window in the winter and or actually in the summer at 3am too, and getting that cold air on my face. Love that.
Dr. Mindy 44:41
Love that. Okay, so now I love this. And now I go into let’s say I didn’t I don’t even know any of this. I just am now in freeze mode, which you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about this Simone Biles thing because what’s beautiful about what happening and yeah, yeah, is that she’s really bringing mental health to the surface. Yeah, so but what I am hoping is that from here, we will have a better discussion about how to help people with mental health. So my guess is you get to a point where you just get so exhausted, you’ve got to withdraw, you’ve got a freeze, and there’s nothing you can do. But check out what happens when you’re in that moment, whether you’re at the Olympics, or you’re at work, or you’re some in a relationship, and you’re like, I’m feeling so much anxiety, I can’t get the cold, I can’t open the window, I can’t get to nature. I’m going to get to a glass of wine. I’m going to smoke a joint, I’m going to do something that just helps me check out.
Victoria Albina 45:50
Is that bad? Oh, God. Now I’m not out here to demonize any choices we make to save our own lives. Hmm, absolutely not. Okay, out here saying that. Alcohol is a healthy life choice on the daily for the long term. Now we’re right what you’re doing day after day? Yeah, whenever we are buffering attempting to push our emotions away. In number one, it doesn’t work, as we’ve talked about, right. B number two, we are losing out on half of what it is to be a human. Right. Because without the suffering, the anguish, the sadness, there is no joy. Right? The yin and the yang of contrast. Thank you. Yes. Right.
Dr. Mindy 46:39
Just listen to you. Or do you listen to Abraham Hicks? Oh, I have in the past. Yeah, I was just listening to her this morning about it just popped up on my YouTube, I’ll contrast how a part of the human experience is just really, when you buffer up against those tough moments, it really gets you gives you clarity on what you want.
Victoria Albina 46:57
Yeah, yeah. And here I’m using buffering in a slightly different sense, meaning putting a buffer between you and your human emotion. Right, which is often when we reach for a substance or over exercise, right, or food or orthorexia, right, some sort of something that keeps us from fully being. Yep. Present, which is the essential human task to be present authentic and aware. Right, right. So as a general way of living, I don’t think buffering is very good for us. And as a nervous system resource, if we are truly, really in that place of nervous system overwhelm, we can shift the story from picking something to help us check out to helping something to help us pause. And even just changing the story while taking the same action for me energetically is just such a wild shift. Right? So I think cannabis is beautiful medicine. And I think cannabis can be used to help us check in or check out.
Dr. Mindy 48:08
Mm hmm. So it’s how you use it.
Victoria Albina 48:11
I think it’s the energetics of how you use it what your goal is. Yeah. And it’s not the right energy. You know, medicine. It’s not the right. medicine for me as a mammal. Right. Right. So if it is a good medicine for you, it can be good medicine.
Dr. Mindy 48:26
Do you think this is why I’ve been lately, I’ve just been blown away at how many people are in to plant medicine just of all kinds. microdosing like, I feel like it’s coming to the surface. So many people are talking about it. biohackers Health influencers, doctors, I had Dr. Austin Perlmutter. And I asked him about because he’s been really into psychedelics. Yeah. And I asked him a question about it. And he said to me, Well, let me ask you have a question. What is it that you’re feeling is on psychedelics? And I said, Well, I’m looking at the trends, and I’m thinking maybe it’s just a big excuse for us all to experiment and get high. And he he turned to me and he said, Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to push back on you. And he’s like, I’m gonna tell you, a neuro nerd, a neurologist. He’s geologists Oh, yeah, I just want to point that out. And neurosurgeon he may he may be a Board Certified right, dude, any nerd? Yeah. And he’s like, I want to ask you to redefine that. I think how we’ve been looking at plant medicine, how we’re looking at psychedelics has been all wrong, which goes back to how we started this conversation, that there is this sort of patriarchal way that we approach the world that says, This is right, and this is wrong, and what I think may be happening with all this anxiety with all this, the mental stress we’ve been under is that new ways, or they’re actually old ways, but new beliefs are emerging.
Victoria Albina 49:58
Would you agree? I would agree and I think you’re right to recognize that they aren’t ancient, ancient indigenous beliefs
Dr. Mindy 50:06
right like we’re going back into what worked for us
Victoria Albina 50:11
what still works in Peru and what still works in in alto Peru in the Andes in the Amazon right what still works here on Turtle Island right like what works in canoes it still sit with grandfather that sit with pod that sit with, right with that sit with Iosco communities for whom these plants are not. It’s not the weekend, I’m gonna show my age, a weekend at the rave. No one’s been to a rave since like, 1999. That’s exactly right. Like, oh, wow, Granny, but I’m gonna put the rave right there. But right, like, these medicines are medicine when used in context. Right. And so again, it becomes about context. Can social media lift you up? My feed does? Its puppy kittens, curl techniques and inspiration?
Dr. Mindy 51:02
Yeah, that’s it. I actually on my social media, if you complain, I unfollow you because I want to I want positivity. I have a lot of a lot of dogs a lot of
Unknown Speaker 51:16
Yeah, that I follow?
Victoria Albina 51:18
Yeah. and curl care. Because why not? I can always use I can learn something new today. Yeah, right, really? So it really is that energetic of allowing anything and everything to be our medicine,
Dr. Mindy 51:32
or not? Hmm. So is it? Is it enough to walk around your day and say, Okay, I’m going to observe these three things when I’m scared. And I want to create complain with somebody when I’m going into fight or flight and when I’m going into freeze, and then let me look at what I have access to that makes me feel good. Because what I’m hearing you say is for some person, it may be smoking a joint or they get a tremendous insight. And for somebody else, it may be a hike in nature, right? But we need a toolbox to understand where we are in these three phases, and what tool we need to pull out. Would that be the most simple way to say this?
Victoria Albina 52:16
I love that. Yes. That was That is such a beautifully succinct way to say it. Yeah. And in there is that a central task of living into an honoring our own individual authenticity, and then coming into the relational field into the collective field together from that embodied home. I love that. Yeah, but awareness, acceptance, action, right, we got to start with knowing what we’re doing before we change it.
Dr. Mindy 52:45
Being aware. I mean, last year, in the pandemic, I walked around, and I’m like, oh, and all this, the way that people went to social media, and just took the sound bites of everything after 2020 was done. I’m like, I don’t think we have any critical thinkers, people are just numbed out and they are not thinking for themselves. So I love that you brought up that awareness part. Now, let me go back to how we started this, you what I heard from you was 20%, of how our nervous system is reacting is coming from the actual brain, but the 80% is coming from the body, and that the body is very synergistic with the earth. So if I’m sitting in my cubicle all day, with blue light on me on a computer, I’m not getting access to the earth. Would it be fair to say that one of the greatest Prevention’s for depression and anxiety is just get the EFF out into nature a little more, sometimes we have to make prudent decisions, right to pay the student loans and we got to go to work. And what’s available to us is that that fluorescently lit cubicle
Victoria Albina 53:59
and so I would say bring a plant hmm bring a picture of nature. Yes, this is like the let’s make do portion of our conversation versus the completely optimal portion of our conversation. Right? But in that conversation, we can also remember let’s take it back to the Olympics and athletes. So when athletes are injured one of the things they do with their coaches is literally go through their whole routine. Play the whole basketball game do the whole you know sports words, I out of sports words, but they do sports word things. And that what a sport word is, but go for it. Right like with basketballs. I
don’t even like a motivational like an affirmation. Oh, no, I literally meant I don’t what are the names of sports? Oh, yeah. Keep going.
Dr. Mindy 54:50
Never mind.
Unknown Speaker 54:51
Keep going. You’re on a roll.
Victoria Albina 54:54
Oh my goodness. So right. So what they do is like, literally visualize every Step of their sport sportings. And it actually improves performance. So we cannot forget that the power energetically of the mind. Hmm. And the impact and the fact that body and mind are one, like, right here Descartes, right? Like go jump off a bridge, buddy. Like, these are not separate things. We were sold a false bill of goods there. Right, right. And so if you’re at that cubicle, put an alarm on your phone or your computer to pause, picture a field, picture your favorite tree from growing up. Right? And even if you grew up in Buenos itis, or in New York City, or there’s trees, baby, right, right. You don’t have to have grown up. Yeah, in Vermont, oh,
Dr. Mindy 55:49
if I wake up like I have a morning routine where I’m I do meditation, I read something positive, like a night usually set my intention before the day goes. So if I visualize Hey, this is what I want my day to look like today. Right? Is there evidence that that is actually calming to my nervous system? Or is that is that perfectionism is that I’m setting up some type of standard for the way the day should unfold. And if I don’t match that now I’m if I have a reaction to it, I’ve only set myself up for failure. I love your brain. If I told you I’m actually coming over for dinner right now.
Victoria Albina 56:32
I’m actually at JFK getting on a plane. This is a fake backdrop. I’m
Unknown Speaker 56:38
at JFK.
Victoria Albina 56:39
I’ll be there in six hours. So what’s for dinner? No. So I think that it’s the energy of the thing, right? So it’s our thoughts that create our feelings, right? our emotional state when they’re cognitively mediated. And so it’s the thought that you bring into that practice, that creates the way you feel and the action you take. So the example I love to use is, you know, you can, if you are underweight and want to gain weight, if you’re overweight, you know, over an underweight like, let’s problematize this and how racist it is, like in just a minute, but stay with me, because it’s an easy metaphor. So let’s say you want to lose five pounds. And you do that with self love. You’re like, I’m really stoked about this actually, like, I want to feel this specific way I want to look this specific way I’m doing this because I love me, you lose it and you’re cool. But you do it from self hate. No one will love me until I am not right, a good enough girl until I’ll never find that perfect partner until I lose the five, then you’re gonna want the 10 in the 20. And I you know, enough, enough energy.
Dr. Mindy 57:48
It’s so much. Okay, so the energy and the intention. So if I get up in the morning, I did this this morning. I was like, What do I want my day. And this is your part of my manifestation now because part of what I would said today was I just want joy. I just want experiences of joy today. Now, as long as the intention behind that is I want the experience. If I said I want to feel joyful today, so I could stop feeling so crappy about myself and all the horrible things in my life. Right? That sounds like it’s conditional. Yes. Which is what you’re saying with the weight loss if I lose the weight to get the partner that’s conditional, if I lose the weight, because I just want that experience on what? Yeah, that’s me. Now you’re in alignment with a more pure sense of what your nervous system wants. Yeah.
Victoria Albina 58:39
Yeah. And it really makes it about the the, the energy source for that choice. And that set of actions is self love. Hmm.
Dr. Mindy 58:49
I love that. Some of it too. So can you do this, then I’m going back now you got your brain going?
Unknown Speaker 58:55
Yeah, you go.
Dr. Mindy 58:56
Now you go back to the chat box. Okay, so I have these three different types of of stress response, right. I’ve got a toolbox that I can use. That’s everything from walking to looking at nature on on the wall, to using psychedelics to understand my brain more. And now I look at other people in my life. These are this is my toolbox. Other people may use other tools. So judging their tools is not necessarily going to be helpful to my nervous system. Yeah,
Victoria Albina 59:29
I mean, in that so much of my work is around codependent thinking. I would say that the more we can keep our eyes on our own work, the better our lives are right and, and then asking that question, why is it that I think that I believe that then living in a different way, would impact how I feel in my life. Right? Like, why are you giving that power away? My darling. Why does it matter if he’s angry if they’re annoyed, if she’s sad Um, why? Why are you allowing that? to impact your your mood?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:05
Oh, right. We’re
Dr. Mindy 1:00:06
gonna we’re gonna put this episode out right before the holidays.
Victoria Albina 1:00:11
I know. Right, I’ll come back on and we’ll talk we’ll talk. God holiday boundaries, right that ROM das, quote, thank you so enlightened, go spend a week with your family.
Dr. Mindy 1:00:20
Oh, yeah. So we can’t control anybody’s happiness. No, in fact, we’re, we if we’re, if we’re looking at somebody in our life, and we’re feeling unhappy, right, we’re actually doing ourselves the disservice. And we have no control over the other person. Correct.
Victoria Albina 1:00:39
We have a we have a responsibility for the impact of our choices, right? You hit someone without consent, if you say something racist, if you right, we have responsibility for the impact. Yeah. And we don’t have to give our power away. Right. They’re sort of they’re like, concurrent, but parallel processes, if that makes sense. I just always want to be careful that people don’t hear me saying you don’t control other people’s feelings. And then they’re like, Oh, well, then I can say any garbage I want. And like, you can’t be upset with me. It’s like, they actually can.
Dr. Mindy 1:01:14
Yeah, good point. Yeah. Yeah. Can like a professional? Why thank you, john. It sounds like you’ve got some work with people. So I mean, I’ve also stepped put my foot in it plenty of times. Yeah, man. So you know, if I, if I go to social media, and I look at somebody and I, they anger me, I don’t like their political slant. I don’t like how they’re approaching, you know, the pandemic. And I’m now angry, is that their problem? Or my problem?
Victoria Albina 1:01:48
This is where we were, you know, life is complicated. And here’s where it gets complicated. It’s not their problem. They’re a stranger on a little screen in your pocket.
Dr. Mindy 1:01:58
Right? Yes. What are their relative? What if they’re my friend?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:05
You get
Victoria Albina 1:02:06
I continue to hold that you do get to choose how you want to feel in response, right? That your thoughts create your feelings. But if we’re talking about like, someone said, they don’t you know, here’s one that I hear all the time the holidays, spark this. Every time I go home, the first thing my mom does is makes a comment about my body, or what I’m wearing, or how she hates my tattoo, or how she doesn’t like my you know, like that sort of interpersonal what can feel like an attack. That is when we get to pull back and say, that is squarely hers.
Dr. Mindy 1:02:41
Hmm, that’s her judgment, not mine. I don’t need to take that on as my belief about myself. not available. Not interested. Hmm. Love it. Thank you love it.
Victoria Albina 1:02:53
I’m like super busy not hating myself. Thank you. I love that. See? My gosh, that’s actually a great
Dr. Mindy 1:03:02
response. You could say to somebody, I can’t really answer you right now. Because I’m too busy not hating myself. So
Victoria Albina 1:03:11
I was gonna hate myself later. But then actually, I’m gonna not. So I’m not available for your commentary on my body.
Dr. Mindy 1:03:20
Oh, my gosh, I think that is actually you need to like, like, combat? Yeah, put it on a T shirt that people can wear in the holidays to like the people that have judgments and expectations of them. I think that’s Sorry, I can’t take any of your criticism today cuz I’m too busy not hating myself. I love it. I love it. I’ll send you the first one perfect thing. hot off the presses. Well, this was great. I I’m always looking for new ways for us to think about life. And, you know, when I go to social media, when I look at people around me, I realize this is why I started this off. I just have days where I’m like, we are doing life all wrong. What we’ve been taught is happiness isn’t happiness, and we need new tools. So you gave me some good new tools, and I hope other people got the same. So this this was awesome. Let me do let me do this. I’m going to end with five questions for you. hopefully there’ll be as fun as everything else. I’ve
Victoria Albina 1:04:22
asked Wait, can I answer them before you ask? And then you’ll ask and then I’ll answer it. So I’m going to answer so for us to start with them the Titanic, then caste wars, bamboo breezier, and I’m gonna go with pegleg
Dr. Mindy 1:04:41
on the last one. Okay, great. I nailed it. Now let’s go to the Are you ready? Let’s say I loved it. Okay. What’s the one I remember the first answer was syphilis. It was. The question was what was the most Most important book or what was a book that changed your life that you go for it? It was not. Not. It was not syphilis, though I have treated so much syphilis in my life as a primary care provider, Chelsea, um, yeah,
Victoria Albina 1:05:26
that was a good time. What is you know, I got it. Oh, now my brain is flooding. I mean I’ll go here Adrian Rach into the wreck. I was all right. I was all about poetry in high school. It was my It was my you know, my nervous system safe place. Yeah. When I felt myself getting dysregulated was I would take space for myself and read poetry. Adrian rich student Jordans Haruka love poems, Audrey Lord, you know, amazing. Yeah,
Dr. Mindy 1:05:59
I love it. Okay. Second question. If you could go back and talk to your 20 year old self.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:04
Maybe she was at a rave. She probably was. She had taken a lot of Molly, let’s be real. Okay. Hi, I’m Molly at
Dr. Mindy 1:06:14
and you could give her some advice. What would you tell her out?
Victoria Albina 1:06:17
So if she’s rolling on Molly at a rave hydrate, I’m just going to tell her to hydrate but the other 20 year old version of myself. Oh, self worth, self worth. And and to really take a look at at the codependent patterns. I was so deep in that codependent thought pattern, that that just kept me feeling chronically stuck. And, and chronically dating people that I wasn’t choosing. I was allowing myself to be chosen and was calling that enough and was chronically miserable. Because of course I was I wasn’t living with intention. And I was doing the best I could with the skills I had. But Cheez Whiz, Doc, if I could go give that kid all that advice, right?
Dr. Mindy 1:07:05
How’d you find a way? Yeah, How’d you find your way out? community.
Victoria Albina 1:07:12
Community had my back and loved me so hard. It’s I eventually the only option was to love myself as much as I was being loved of that. And right.
Dr. Mindy 1:07:24
Okay, I remember that was good. So your third question, I can’t even remember what the first Titanic I think the answer to this Titanic. What is what is the one health habit you do every day that you are like I can, I would never give this up. This one changes my life and sets my day on an amazing course. Oh my gosh, who
Victoria Albina 1:07:50
really actively checking with my nervous system really actively, like doing somatic practices? Every single day? like breathing?
Dr. Mindy 1:08:01
Is it a breathing kind of thing? Or is it more
Victoria Albina 1:08:02
of a breath work, but it’s more the practices that really serve me right now are doing figure eights with my arm, figure eights with your hips to bring in joy and passion. That’s powerful. And I’ve been doing a lot of balance work. So when there’s trauma in the nervous system, it makes sense that balances is challenging. Because the body’s just not interested in focusing there. So love it bringing my attention there is and then you know, my primary partner my whole life and will forever be is is exercise. We’re going steady. Yeah. We’re actually married.
Dr. Mindy 1:08:45
So, yeah, that’s awesome. If you’re gonna be married to anything like that’s exercise is something to be married to. Yeah. Primary partner, everyone else secondary partner, for sure.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:57
Yeah.
Dr. Mindy 1:08:57
Okay, my fourth question. I can’t even remember what the answer was before. But we’ll go with this. Okay, so you’re sitting I’m I don’t know if you’re following the Olympics right now. But you’re sitting with Simone Biles, so much conversations showing up about anxiety. And she is like, I can’t get out there. I can’t go out and perform. And maybe this isn’t just Simone, this is somebody else. What do you say? Where How do you advise when somebody’s in the freeze mode? What do you how do you advise them to move?
Unknown Speaker 1:09:30
They may not need to,
Victoria Albina 1:09:32
oh, stay there. It may be a moment right where where rest is what’s called for. Right and and, and the vanguard the folks talking the most about rest right now not miss ministry Adrian Marie Brown, or black woman who are leading the way as always, to tell us to put down this productivity demand new reconnect with rest. Absolute mammalian Drive to allow our minds and bodies to just
Dr. Mindy 1:10:06
fascinating. I love that. Have you read Russian woman syndrome? No, I want it now. Yes, you need to read Russian woman syndrome, Dr. Libby Weaver. She’s my hero. And I, I brought her on my podcast and interviewed her. And it was like the most amazing moment of my of this year for sure. So it was incredible, but you’ll love it. And it’s all about the physiology behind why women are not meant to rush. Why what you just said was so powerful. And we’re just physiologically not designed to keep pushing now. Yeah, move with the moon. Right, right. We
Victoria Albina 1:10:44
are slow now, daddy. Oh, my goodness, I can’t wait to buy that book. Uh huh.
Dr. Mindy 1:10:49
Okay, last question. If you and I don’t know if ever the answer, but if you had one message for the word world that you could get into everybody’s brain, what would that message be? You matter? Hey, resetera, I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews. And those of you that have left me comments on iTunes. I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying these episodes. And it seems like you’re enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I’ve learned in just interacting with so many people is that we’ve really lost the art of deep conversations. And for me, the resetter podcast stands for having meaningful conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life, about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream and media. And so I just want to say give you guys a shout out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me. Because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it’s impacting your life. So please let us know if there’s anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you to make it better. We are now officially in season two. And we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have that mindset changers can give and to really deliver you something that you’re not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube from the bottom of my heart. I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you and let’s get healthy together.
// RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
- Feel the impact of Organifi – use code PELZ for a discount on all products!
- 15-Day Fat-Burning Experience
- Victoria’s 6-MONTH SELF-LOVE PROGRAM
- Victoria Albina Free Mediations
- Book: Into the wreck
- Book: Rushing Women’s Syndrome
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