00:00:06 Shreya: What is the life we keep calling normal is actually just survival dressed up in productivity. What if the exhaustion, the overthinking, the staying small, the always being on is not who we are, but what our nervous system learn to do to keep us safe. And what is beneath all of that? There is still a wiser, calmer, more creative self waiting to lead.

00:00:31 Shreya: Welcome to Inner Light, the space where we come back to what is true, what is healing and what is already alive within us. I'm your host, Shreya and today we are exploring what it really means to move out from survival mode and into what our guest calls creatorship. A way of living with more agency, more presence, and more alignment. Joining me is Doctor Rochelle Vogt, PhD, also known as Doctor Ro, a mindfulness researcher and trauma resolution specialist whose work blends neuroscience, somatic integration and nervous system healing to help people shift long held patterns at the root. If you have ever felt stuck in reactions, you can't think your way out of this. Then this conversation will help you understand why and show you a gentler way forward. Welcome, Doctor Rao. I'm honored to have you on my show.

00:01:29 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Oh, thank you so much. Shreya, it's it's my pleasure to be here.

00:01:33 Shreya: Thank you so much. And doctor, before we get into the deeper work, I would love to begin somewhere simple and human like. When someone says I'm doing everything, uh, but uh, still I feel stuck. What do you sense is often happening beneath the surface?

00:01:52 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Yes. I think that when we have those feelings of, you know, patterns or feeling stuck or as you say, trying all the things, it's often when the nervous system and the subconscious haven't been brought fully into safety and coherence. And I think you, you really hit the nail on the head in the introduction when you mentioned that that part of us that just manages life and is, you know, always on the go and always kind of having a mask on or a persona, if you will. So when we're putting that part of ourselves forward and the nervous system is kind of on high alert and we're in that sort of vigilant state, we are really exhausting our system, and we're really focusing and orienting around problems and around this concept of fixing, controlling, maybe preventing pain, whether that's physical or emotional. And in creation mode, when we can shift and bring that coherence in and get out of that stuck pattern and that stuck feeling and the nervous system being more coherent, then we're regulated enough to access the curiosity, the intuition, And the sense of choice. And that's the difference between really reacting to life and then truly being present and just responding authentically.

00:03:25 Shreya: That's so beautifully said. And also, I'm curious when people hear phrases like mindfulness, nervous system regulation, or even healing, they sometimes assume it's about calming down, thinking positive, or just managing symptoms better. So what do you think people most often misunderstand about moving from survival mode into a more creative, self-led way of living?

00:03:52 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Yeah, I think that the the key is taking the the kernel from the mindfulness way of living. So one of the, the primary skills that you develop through mindfulness is awareness. And so when we can bring that observation without Out judgment and that sense of awareness to the issue of managing. Nervous system regulation. Then we can just start to learn a little. Bit more deeply what might dysregulate us. And I think that a lot of times people don't have a felt sense in their body of when they're dysregulated. So again, that awareness is going to help them understand, oh, I didn't realize I clenched my jaw when I did these, these things at my desk, or I didn't realize I was practically holding my breath when I was interacting with this person. So again, that awareness and that noticing. But the other piece of it is that we have to come into a real, you know, deep embrace of those parts of us that are in resistance to life because they are intelligent adaptations and they're there for a reason. We can't shut them out. We can't override them. We can't over overthink or outthink them. So when we can be loving in our own awareness toward the pieces of ourselves that tighten up or that are in resistance, or that get anxious and just know that they're coming from a place of really trying to keep us safe. Then we can soften into this true sense of what it means to be regulated in the nervous system.

00:05:42 Shreya: Yeah. And also when that misunderstanding stays in place, what tends to happen? Like, do people end up blaming themselves because they are trying harder mentally while the body is still carrying an old survival pattern?

00:05:58 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Yeah, I think that's very common. And I think, you know, as adults, um, you know, different stages of our lives, we feel like, well, we've, we've should have figured this out by now. Uh, But the reality is that those very deep patterns have been present. You know, a lot of this is kind of wired in in those first five to seven years of life. So there there may not be a conscious memory of why we are responding or reacting rather in certain situations, but it's a long held pattern. And so when we can kind of go into that level of awareness and just have the curiosity of, I wonder why it is that I always get stressed and have a headache when I have to deal with a certain thing, or I wonder why it is why, you know, social situations make me feel this way and just be willing to, you know, notice and then bring in some strategies to play with that and be like, well, I wonder what it would be like if I, you know, took a walk to get out some of this extra anxious energy before I, you know, engaged in this social situation, or I wonder what it would be like if I, you know, was in the car doing some breathing exercises before I went into that meeting. I wonder what that would be like. And it may work and it might not, but just again, working with and allowing yourself time to really embrace those parts that feel unsafe. And the thing about it is it's, it's not a mental process, but we can use mental processes to sort of navigate the pitfalls. And I think that's that challenge that you're talking about where people feel like, you know, they should just have it figured out or they, they maybe didn't do enough. And that, and that's often where we can feel that perfectionistic and demanding part of us wanting to override those parts that are telling us that there's a deeper meaning or a deeper, uh, resistance to something. So again, it's, embracing those beautiful. You know, the beautiful concepts of mindfulness to really be in non-judgment and non-attachment and just go into awareness. And there are so many different techniques to use to help work with the nervous system and just begin to try those and see which ones your system responds to. And as we move more and more into periods of regulation, uh, then it's easier to navigate the times when we're really challenged with resistance.

00:08:40 Shreya: I think that feels so important because a lot of people are not falling at healing. They, they may just be using the wrong doorway. They are trying to reason with something that was never stored only as a thought. And I think that's, uh, beautifully explained.

00:09:00 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Very true. It's, it's kind of, you know. I mean, this is all powered, of course, with the subconscious mind and running, you know, ninety five to ninety eight percent of our reality each day. And, you know, the nervous system really is the lens through which we experience life as we often operate from that subconscious mind. And when we can realize the subconscious mind works in metaphor and symbolism, and it's not, you know, going to respond to our commands in the same way. Um, you know, we can't just demand that, uh, that we calm ourselves, you know, demand to be calm now. You know, it doesn't quite work that way. But when we can be curious and say, you know, I'm noticing this is happening in my system, um, what is it that could make me feel better? And I think that you're right. There are so many tools. There are so many tools of, you know, toning the vagus system or the vagus nerve and, um, you know, calming the nervous system. And they are, they're all, you know, effective in different times and different ways for different people. And so we have to come into a sense of our own embodied awareness of those tools. And so that's why I say to just use that observation capacity as a mindful observer and notice, oh, this one makes me feel uncomfortable or this one, you know, I really can feel the arc of being nervous doing this technique and then peeking and being able to come down on the other side. And that's when you know, okay, this one actually works, but even then, it may only work in certain situations. Um, there may be other times where you have more energy that you need to maybe, um, you know, get out of the body before you can calm. So, you know, this is that part where we were never given a manual, we're never given a user guide on how to navigate our, our bodies and our nervous systems. And now we're in such a an overwhelming and overstimulating world that it's very common to, to have a dysregulated nervous system. So when we can become aware of what that feels like, which is, you know, that the anxiety, the irritation, um, the, you know, the body content's up, it can tighten, we can have headaches, you know, there could be any number of things that happen. But when we notice it, then we can say, oh, I see this is me needing to, you know, stop with the digital stimulation, put my phone away, take some time for me, reconnect to nature. You know, again, it's, it's really pins on being able to notice and coming back to that sense of presence and awareness of what is happening for ourselves in our bodies in the moment.

00:11:48 Shreya: That's beautiful. And I think, uh, let's stay with that for a moment. So when someone is stuck in overfunctioning, people pleasing, numbing Perfectionism or constantly scanning for what might go wrong, what deeper patterns are usually driving that? Like what is the nervous system trying to protect?

00:12:11 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Yeah, I think, I think the, the, that it can vary, but it, it really is about ultimately about safety and a sense of safety. So, you know, if and the thing that's present in your life right now that might be triggering the nervous system as unsafe, might not have anything to do with the original experience. It may be symbolic or connected somehow. You know, one example, um, is that idea of being maybe, um, as a young student, you know, you wanted to share a show and tell situation and you wanted to share something that was special to you, but the children in the class laugh at you. And so you somehow your system has now connected to other people. Looking at me as I'm trying to share something that's important to me is threatening because I wasn't received, it wasn't received in the way that I wanted. And then there was an intense emotions that followed. Um, so then, you know, you, you fast forward twenty, thirty, forty years, you know, down in your career where maybe you were trying to be more visible, you're trying to, um, you know, really assert yourself and grow your career. And that may involve public speaking or just simply being in a team and being, again, in a situation where there are several faces of people looking at you and your system remembers that very terrible experience that was really painful many decades ago. And so there's immediate resistance. It's going to send up the signal, it's going to, you know, and all of a sudden you're going to be sweaty and uncomfortable. And, you know, it's difficult to find your words and you know, it. The whole process is very uncomfortable, but it stems from the system learning in a very impressionable, sensitive time as a child that this is a dangerous thing to do. And so, you know, when we can have compassion for the fact that these deeper patterns stem from actual situations where these intelligent adaptations were developed, we can begin to negotiate that process and help our system feel more safe. And that's ultimately what it comes back to. How can we help weave in the sense of safety? And that's going to be a creative process for each person. It may involve, you know, real practicing some of the speeches in a situation. It may you have to teach the nervous system essentially, that there is a new way to respond in this situation where people are looking at me and move away from the pattern that we experienced many decades ago. But it can't be done just by assertion, right? Like we can't just force it. We have to actually feel that felt sense of safety in the nervous system.

00:15:04 Shreya: Yeah. And also, you speak about clearing old trauma from the body, brain and nervous system without relieving it. So, uh, that's such a relieving idea for people who are afraid. Healing means, uh, like reopening everything. So how do you help someone understand that deep healing doesn't always have to mean re-entering pain in the way they might fear?

00:15:34 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Yeah. Shreya, that's a really important one because there have been so many advancements, you know, in the last few decades. And we now can, uh, really reduce the emotional intensity around traumatic experiences. And, you know, the awareness we might have around like, for example, that situation that I described earlier, we can reduce that emotional intensity, which again, alleviates that pattern. And you still have the memory, but you don't have the emotional intensity that's driving the nervous system to provide that resistance whenever you're wishing to, you know, in that example, speak in front of a group. Um, so this in particular is, um, the method I use is called the map method M a p map method. And it's based on a body of work called process healing by a psychologist out of Canada who's since passed on, but he really, uh, created an amazing approach that developed this ally within or developed an awareness of this ally within the subconscious mind that in the map method we call the Superconscious. And the Superconscious is really, you know, that part of us that already knows how to heal. It's that intelligence within. You know, when you have when your body gets a cut up, you know, you don't have to do something. Your body will actually just heal. And that is this super conscious level that does operate both, you know, emotionally as well as physically within our body. And it guides our sense of intuition. And it really is above the superconscious aspect in the subconscious mind is above all of the woundings. So it has the eagle eye view across all of our life experience, and we can utilize the Superconscious to access those memories, um, without having to discuss them. So you could just say, you know, for example, in the situation we talked about, you could just say, well, when I was, you know, a young school child, you know, I had some experiences that made me really anxious to speak in front of groups. And you don't have to describe how it felt or go into the emotional hurt of it by just naming it, or even just talking about the period of life that's going to pull into active experience, those memories. And it's leveraging what we call in neuroscience the window of reconsolidation. And so when you recall those memories, you are accessing those neuronal connections. And as we work there and use the super conscious commands and your memory is recalling that time, we're actually separating those neurons and essentially creating real time shifts in the neural networks of your brain. And as we do that, we release that emotional intensity within a very short period of time. Often in the time of just that one hour session, people will go from having a strong emotional intensity, like a ten out of a one to ten scale, you know, down to, you know, nearly a zero or a one. Um, just from this experience of recalling it without having to relive it in detail, and then allowing this process of accessing the super conscious mind. And, you know, really bringing into a felt sense, like I can now think of that experience and I don't have to worry and it just shifts them completely and they're able to move forward without those that resistance or those patterns continuing to play out.

00:19:15 Shreya: I think there is real compassion in that. Like, the body isn't asking us to perform our pain for proof. It is asking for safety, for completion, for new experience. And I think once you understand that, we can start noticing how survival mode quietly shapes everyday life.

00:19:36 Speaker 3: Mhm.

00:19:38 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Very true, very true. We're often operating from that place because we have become used to operating from survival. Absolutely.

00:19:48 Shreya: Yeah. And also, what does survival mode actually look like in ordinary life? Like, especially in people who seem high functioning from the outside, because sometimes the person who looks the most together is the one who hasn't excelled for years.

00:20:09 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Yeah, I think it really is, you know, orienting around life as a problem and, and trying to get out in front of all those problems. Um, managing yourself in that way, managing your life in that way. Uh, instead of coming from a place that's if you know that the way I describe it is sort of pulling back into yourself and getting more in tune with the authentic version of you and then responding from that place. We tend to to be on that, you know, forward leaning, um, anticipatory. Controlling. And that's where those, you know, very high functioning individuals, you know. We, we tend to operate from that place, you know, and I've found myself in that situation many times in life and having to step back. And really it always came back to the nervous system coherence, you know, those skills, you know, we often gain so much of our identity from those skills. You know, we could be an effective manager. We can be incredibly resourceful. Um, you know, I had many jobs where, you know, I had to think ten, twenty steps ahead to be really effective, to always be, you know, ahead of any problems that might be coming. And that makes you really good at your job. And there again, there's a part of that identity, but that way of living is not good for the nervous system. You know, it's, it's, it's challenging on the nervous system. So if you are in that kind of a role, you then have to, you know, really effectively be managing your nervous system because we aren't meant to, um, you know, to live in that high vigilant state. You know, we, we evolved and that part of our brain evolved, um, to absolutely have that vigilance to stay alive and to survive. But we were never meant to stay in that vigilance constantly. You know, if there was a threat, you know, the, the proverbial, you know, people always talk about, oh, you know, the tiger. Um, well, when we have that in life, uh, from where we came from, it was it happened, we would get to safety and our system would regulate and that wasn't happening, you know, hundreds of times a day, you know, and now we could have hundreds, if not thousands of times a day where our system is being hijacked by, you know, notifications on our phone or news stories. Um, you know, just constant stimulation that puts us in that hyper vigilant space. So I think that when we can look at that and say, you know, we have to have, as you mentioned, that important word, compassion, we have to have compassion for our nervous systems because they were absolutely not built for the kind of stimulation that we are experiencing. And so how can we pull back into our authentic self and make choices that serve, you know, our body, our mind, our soul, and, you know, really help set ourselves up for a sense of longevity that doesn't come out of having to have been hyper vigilant for decades, but rather comes from, you know, operating and choosing a life that's really honoring our deepest values, allowing us to be of service in the way that we want to be of service in the world in a way that we can Truly make those coherent choices from a grounded place.

00:23:42 Shreya: I think that distinction is everything. And like you explain this very complex topic so easily that I think everyone can understand. And if there is one insight I'm taking from this conversation is that you don't have to stay identified with the version of you that was built only to survive. And like, this is truly a very amazing conversation. And if after this, my listeners want to connect with you and want to know more about your work, about you, then what's the best place to find you?

00:24:17 Dr. Rochelle Vogt: Sure. They can go to my website. It's Doctor Rochelle Vogt, and that's D r r o c h e l l e v o g t dot com. And if you add a forward slash gift g I f t. You can access, um, three different conscious breathing techniques that can help tell your nervous system that you're safe. And that could be a great first tool to use to figure out which ones feel like they really serve you and help you on that path to regulating your nervous system.

00:24:57 Shreya: Yes. And I will make sure to attach all these details and links below so that the listeners can find them easily and get in touch with you and my listeners. Thank you for being with us on today. In a light, if this conversation starts something in you maybe don't rush past it, maybe let it stay for a while. Notice what your body is saying. Notice what part of you is asking for safety, for softness, for a new beginning. And if this episode felt like a mirror you need, then share it with someone who may be carrying more than they show. Until next time, be gentle with your pace, honest with your heart and trusting of the light that still knows the way. And do not forget to hit the follow button. Subscribe and feel free to share your thoughts because your ears deserve premium content. Thank you.