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Hey there, I'm Justin Sunseri.

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I am a therapist and a coach who
wants to help you live with more

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calm, confidence, and connection
without psychobabble or woo woo.

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In this episode, I want to
help you practice validation.

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A lot of my clients and my community
members in the Stucknaut Collective,

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They have, they struggle with validation.

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Validation is basically recognizing
what is true, uh, acknowledging how

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you feel or what you're thinking
or what sensations you have inside.

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Validation is just acknowledging what
is, what is true and that's difficult.

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That's difficult for people to do,
to recognize what's happening within

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them and be honest with themselves.

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Instead we default to minimizing or
excusing or, uh, denial and other

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sort of cognitive skills that we have.

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So I want to help you practice validating.

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We're not going to make it personal.

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We're actually going to
make it more objective.

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And I'm going to share a story with you
that was written by ChatGPT, my helper.

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And we are going to try to validate
some of the experiences that

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Maria is having in the story.

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So what I want you to do is to get out
something to write on, and you're going

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to write down five different domains.

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The, those domains are polyvagal
state, uh, sensations, impulses,

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Emotions and cognitions.

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So those five domains, just write
those down on a piece of paper.

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When you listen to the story, I want
you to pause whenever you need to.

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Write down what you're
hearing in those domains.

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And then at the end of this, I'll
share what I see -a couple of them-

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I'm not, I won't do all of them that
way, uh, I'd love to hear from you,

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especially YouTube in the comments,
put a comment, um, with what you're

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seeing or hearing that I didn't mention.

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If you really struggle with this kind
of thing, I have something called SSIEC.

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It's a worksheet that has all these
domains with a whole bunch of words

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on them,  to help you get going.

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And if you sign up for my email list, I'll
send you a download for the SSIEC sheet.

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Just follow the link in the description.

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Or go to justinlmft.com/ssiec.

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That sheet has all these domains.

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It has the polyvagal state,
that's the first S, Sensations,

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Impulses, Emotions, and Cognitions.

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All those are laid out on a
table to help you, it's like,

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it acts as a cross reference.

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If you know your emotion, then you can
use this table as a way to identify

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what sensations might be connected to
that emotion, as well as what cognitions

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and Polyvagal state impulses as well.

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So impulses are basically what the body
wants to do or has a natural reflex

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to do like when we're in the flight
state, the impulse might be to run away.

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When we're in the fight state.

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There could be an impulse to
push or strangle or pull or lift.

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Sensations are the experience, the
bodily experience of an emotion.

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So if you have an emotion of
sadness, these sensations might be

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things like heaviness or emptiness.

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Those are sensations.

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Cognitions are the things in our
brain and not just words but also

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images and memories and calculations,
all the stuff that our brain does.

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The last one is emotions.

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Emotions are, well, sad and
happy and relaxed and scared.

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Just those emotional,
well, those emotions.

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Alright, so let's get to the story.

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Maria had just finished a long day of work
and was finally sitting down to relax.

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She scrolled through her phone,
noticing that a few of her friends

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had made plans without her.

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A wave of discomfort washed over her.

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Her chest tightened, her stomach
churned, and a thought flashed.

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"They must not like me as much anymore."

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Her heart started to race, and she
could feel a heaviness in her limbs.

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She stared at her phone,
tempted to message one of them.

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To ask why she hadn't been invited.

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But she hesitated, unsure if
it could make things worse.

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A part of her wanted to pull
away entirely, to shut off her

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phone, and retreat into her room.

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Another part of her felt the urge
to react, to demand an explanation.

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She let out a long breath, unsure of
what to do next, feeling the loneliness

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and rejection settling deeper.

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Okay, so that's the story.

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Now, let's fill in what, now hopefully
you already paused and hopefully you

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already filled in some of these, but
let's talk about what difference or what

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the the domains were that appeared in
the story or the examples of the domains.

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Let's start with emotions.

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What emotions did you identify?

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And again, if you're on YouTube,
put your list of emotions that

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you identified in the comments.

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What I heard was sadness,
rejection, and maybe anxiety.

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Her heart's starting to race.

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That could be some anxiety.

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It also could be fear.

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And what you'll notice is that none of
this is really super hard and concrete.

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Like, it's open for debate as
to what emotions there were.

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Some of them are pretty clear, I think.

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Rejection, I think it's pretty darn clear.

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Um, she wasn't invited
and so she felt rejected.

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Another one that doesn't flat out
say, but she could have felt anger.

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Uh, one thing that she felt the,
er, the impulse to do was to,

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to demand an explanation, which
kind of sounds like it could have

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some, she could have some anger.

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Let's shift next to thoughts.

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Thoughts and emotions kind of go together.

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For me, I tend to group those
together as top level, maybe tertiary,

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third level of our experiences.

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And behaviors might be like
a fourth level after that.

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But cognitions and emotions
I tend to group together.

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They seem to really reinforce
each other and we can get stuck

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in cognitions and or emotions.

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Our thoughts definitely
feed into our emotions.

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Our emotions definitely
feed into our thoughts.

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So I, I group those together we'll.

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We'll, so that's why we're
focusing on those first.

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And I think those are typically more
accessible, at least consciously.

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So her thoughts, what
thoughts can we validate?

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What thoughts can we acknowledge
are real for her, are true?

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One of them was really obvious, which was,
"They must not like me as much anymore."

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The other one that maybe isn't so obvious,
that she probably thought, at least in

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words, it says that she wanted to ask
why she hadn't been invited, so she

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had the cognition of asking a question.

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"Why wasn't I invited?"

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That's a cognition as well.

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There's also a third one here which
is the thought of making things

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worse, which probably came from
the emotion of fear, maybe anxiety.

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But making things worse,
that's a cognition as well.

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"I'm going to make things worse
if I say something, if I speak

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up, it's going to upset my little
group here and make things worse."

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So that was emotions and cognitions.

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I, I grouped those together.

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Underneath that grouping is another
group which is sensations and impulses.

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These two are consciously
accessible, but it's not nearly as

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easy as cognitions and emotions.

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So if you are mindfully aware of what's
happening within you, you can definitely

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notice the sensations and the impulses
that come along with those sensations.

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I think that these two reinforce each
other, the sensations and impulses.

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For example, if you have the sensation
of heaviness, that heaviness is

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telling you to immobilize, that the
Impulse would be immobilization.

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But if you don't do it, then
the impulse is never acted upon.

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If the impulse is never acted upon, well,
this sensation stays there, and then

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we would never get to the the bottom
layer, which is the Polyvagal state.

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If the impulse is to immobilize,
the state is likely shutdown.

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If you don't listen to the
impulse to immobilize, then

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the shutdown never alleviates.

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Anyhow, let's focus on the
sensations and impulses.

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So what sensations did you notice?

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I noticed the obvious ones are the
chest tightening and stomach churning.

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These actually might come from
different Polyvagal states.

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I think that they do.

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And it might indicate that there's
some polyvagal ladder climbing here

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happening for her, uh, in real time,
her chest tightened, and then her

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stomach churned, which would, I'll,
I'll touch upon that when I get to

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the polyvagal state, but those are
some sensations that we're noticing.

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Another sensation is the heaviness in
her limbs and her heart starting to race.

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So the next thing to focus on
is what impulses did she have?

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What impulse did she have that
came along with those sensations?

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A couple of them are to speak up.

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She had the impulse to speak
up and just ask questions.

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It didn't seem like a domineering,
dysregulated speaking up.

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It felt more like, to me, like a
powerful speaking up, like, um, just

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using her voice and listening to what
she needed in that moment, which was

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clarity, clarification from her friends.

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And within that actually was
an impulse to connect because

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she wanted to be a part of it.

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So that impulse to connect by using
her voice, but also listening to

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the flight fight activation along
with the, the impulse to connect.

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So those two things combined.

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And that results to what I
call power or empowerment.

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And again, it's not a, it's
not a domineering thing.

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It's actually a connective
flight fight kind of thing.

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There's one more obvious impulse,
which was to turn her phone off and

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then retreat into her room, so leave.

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A little bit of flight activation,
perhaps, but she wanted to

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escape to retreat into her room.

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A more subtle impulse that
actually is in here is that she

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wanted to, or the hesitation.

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The hesitation is an
impulse to immobilize.

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It's kind of like a little freeze impulse.

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It's to not be seen, not to make
things worse, and to just sort

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of like pause or freeze for a
moment until the danger passes.

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What other impulses did you see?

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Again, if you're on YouTube,
put it in the comments.

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I'd love to, you know,
to read what you saw.

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So the last thing to go into is
what Polyvagal state or states,

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are you seeing active in this?

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And I think there's actually a bunch.

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She kind of seems to be all over
the place on the Polyvagal ladder.

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Let's start at the beginning.

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She just got off work and I'm
assuming that she has a stressful job.

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Uh, it says that she was finally
sitting down and relaxed.

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The way I read that is
work is overwhelming.

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It's stressful.

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In my mind, I'm just
making up a story here.

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In my mind, she's a nurse
and works in the ER.

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And there are sounds going off, there's
crises, there's bureaucracy, there's

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doctors that think they know everything.

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All of these things is just like
overwhelming for her system.

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She comes home and finally
I can sit down and relax.

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What she should do is actually relax
and mindfully let herself decompress.

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Mindfully collapse on the
couch and just breathe.

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That's what she should do.

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Instead, what she does
is gets her phone out.

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So the polyvagal state probably
is some level of freeze.

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Stress.

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Overwhelm.

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To me, those come from freeze.

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So she probably has some level of freeze,
comes home, she needs to listen to that.

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She needs to immobilize and decompress.

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But instead she kind of solidifies
the freeze by getting her phone out.

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So can you decompress while
watching TV and being on your phone?

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Yeah, kind of, but really, if you take
it away and you just have the present

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moment, silence, especially if you work
in a place like an ER, if you just give

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yourself silence when you get home and
truly collapse, that's probably going

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to be a much better recovery versus
getting your phone out or watching TV.

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So she got her phone out.

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Uh, which is not bad,
but it's less than ideal.

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But what happened was that she was
triggered further into, uh, overwhelm

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or stress, or a little bit of freeze,
because she felt rejected by her friends.

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Now, did her friends intend that?

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We have no idea.

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Probably not.

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But, regardless, it tapped
into some feeling of rejection

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that she has within her.

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Her chest tightened and
her stomach churned.

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To me that could be evidence
of sympathetic activation,

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which is chest tightening.

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Stomach churning could be evidence
of shutdown, which follows the

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Polyvagal ladder and sequentially.

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It makes sense.

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These things could also be kind
of happening at the same time and

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maybe there's some freeze activation
going on, which would definitely,

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I think, feel in the stomach and in
the chest as well, that's possible.

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Plus, there was the thought of
rejection, which is very disconnected

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very away from the group.

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So lacking safety.

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So in this small moment she has
some level of dysregulation.

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Not intensely, but at least in this
little micro moment, it's there

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I would say it's more of a freeze
personally with little access to

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safety at least in this small moment.

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And then her heart starts to race and
she feels a heaviness in her limbs.

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All this kind of could be some
level of freeze at least to me.

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It's kind of pointing that direction.

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We're in shutdown,
heart's starting to race?

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No, not not so much.

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In freeze?

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Yeah.

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In flight fight?

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Yeah, but there's also the heaviness in
her limbs which to me suggests some level

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of shutdown these two together flight
fight plus shutdown- That's that's freeze.

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I think there's a little bit
freeze happening within her here.

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She's staring at her phone so that
she's immobilized and she's just

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kind of staring at it She's tempted,
she's, but she's also hesitating.

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Again, freeze, that, that
indicates freeze to me.

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Uh, thoughts of making things worse, that
indicates shutdown or freeze, but to me

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this keeps pointing back to some freeze.

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A part of her wants to pull away entirely,
that's flight activation, potentially.

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To shut off her phone and retreat into her
room, yeah, sounds like flight activation.

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But another part wants to react and demand
an explanation, which would probably come

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more from fight, but not dysregulated
fight, I don't think- although I

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actually, it could be at this point.

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It sounds like there's not much
safety active and retreating,

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retreating to a room and hiding.

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00:13:20,931 --> 00:13:22,101
Yeah, not much safety there.

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Uh, demanding explanation.

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00:13:24,341 --> 00:13:25,401
Yeah, not much safety.

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So she's probably in flight fight here
in less, uh, freeze, probably more

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flight fight, which is totally possible.

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Just because you access freeze in a
moment doesn't mean you stay there, it

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00:13:38,121 --> 00:13:41,301
might just be like a momentary access to
freeze and then shut down comes off and

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now you're left with just flight fight.

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What happens next is that she lets
out a long breath, not knowing

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00:13:45,541 --> 00:13:48,801
what to do next, so indecisive,
feeling loneliness and rejection.

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All that suggests to me shutdown.

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Not freeze, but shutdown.

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00:13:53,201 --> 00:13:57,921
So it might, it's, it's possible that
she came home already in freeze because

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of overwhelm and, uh, stress, did not
give herself the decompression that

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she needed, and then the overwhelm
and stress are reinforced, and now

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she's, has less, less access to safety.

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But the freeze is not so intense
that it's a full on panic attack

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and that she's staying in freeze.

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The shutdown may have come off, and
then she's left with flight fight,

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00:14:19,446 --> 00:14:22,616
she can't run away from the problem,
can't fight it off, and so she

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00:14:22,616 --> 00:14:25,216
goes into shutdown, uh, at the end.

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So I could see that that is the
sequence of events, and these

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00:14:28,726 --> 00:14:31,706
things are rapid, it doesn't, it's
not like obvious all the time what

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state someone is in for 30 minutes.

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It could be, but these also
could be really rapid shifts.

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00:14:36,666 --> 00:14:40,006
It's not always super obvious
what state someone is in.

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Someone's state doesn't always last for
like 30 minutes to an hour to all day.

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00:14:44,686 --> 00:14:48,166
Yeah, it could, there could be a
dominant state that flavors the

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00:14:48,166 --> 00:14:52,906
system, like someone could be in
shutdown more often than not, but

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00:14:53,186 --> 00:14:57,636
that doesn't mean that they're in a
chronic 10 out of 10 shutdown all day.

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00:14:57,636 --> 00:14:59,756
At one point it might be a 10, yeah.

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00:15:00,751 --> 00:15:03,841
Another point it might be a two
and they have more access to safety

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00:15:03,841 --> 00:15:05,061
or more access to flight fight.

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00:15:05,061 --> 00:15:09,901
So for her we're looking at what might
be really rapid shifts in polygonal state

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00:15:09,911 --> 00:15:14,481
that could follow the sequence Uh, it's
also possible this is written by AI and

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00:15:14,491 --> 00:15:19,841
AI is confused and doesn't understand
the sequence of autonomic ladder shifts.

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That's it.

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00:15:20,231 --> 00:15:24,321
I hope this was helpful for you
in validating and recognizing

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00:15:24,321 --> 00:15:28,501
what's happening within somebody in
their emotions, their cognitions,

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00:15:28,551 --> 00:15:31,061
their sensations, their impulses,
and even their Polyvagal state.

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00:15:31,511 --> 00:15:35,061
I know it's not always easy to do that for
yourself, so if you can practice this by,

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00:15:35,411 --> 00:15:40,961
by recognizing or by acknowledging these
domains in a story, well, maybe it makes

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00:15:40,961 --> 00:15:43,491
it easier for you to do that for yourself.

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00:15:44,051 --> 00:15:47,651
And the tool that I can
give you is the SSIEC sheet.

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00:15:48,031 --> 00:15:51,831
It's something I created exactly for
this purpose, which is to help you,

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00:15:52,191 --> 00:15:56,321
uh, have the words to identify what's
happening within you, truthfully.

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00:15:56,866 --> 00:16:03,646
So head on over to justinlmft.com/ssiec
and sign up for my email list

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00:16:03,646 --> 00:16:04,456
and you'll get the sheet.

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That's it for this episode.

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00:16:06,026 --> 00:16:07,966
I hope this has been a
helpful resource for you.

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00:16:08,016 --> 00:16:09,786
Good luck in your own validation.

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Bye.

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00:16:10,926 --> 00:16:14,366
This podcast is not therapy,
not intended to be therapy or

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00:16:14,366 --> 00:16:15,966
be a replacement for therapy.

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00:16:16,766 --> 00:16:20,146
Nothing in this creates or indicates
a therapeutic relationship.

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00:16:20,976 --> 00:16:24,436
Please consult with your therapist or
seek for one in your area if you are

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00:16:24,436 --> 00:16:26,336
experiencing mental health symptoms.

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00:16:27,176 --> 00:16:30,036
Nothing in this podcast should
be construed to be specific life

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00:16:30,036 --> 00:16:33,546
advice, it is for educational
and entertainment purposes only.