Unlocking Your Authentic Voice: The Intersection of Yin Yoga, Nervous System Regulation, and Leadership

How can Yin Yoga and nervous system communication unearth your unique and authentic voice? Join us on a fascinating journey with Elise Besler, a Yin Yoga teacher, musician, and leadership coach, as she sheds light on the intricate interplay between our nervous system, yoga practice, and the environment we create in our classes. We delve deep into intriguing topics such as polyvagal theory, trauma, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome, with practical strategies that you can implement right away.

Elise pulls back the curtain on the power of Neurosomatic Intelligence and co-regulation, emphasizing their crucial roles in leadership, teaching, and learning. She shares her personal journey of finding her distinct teaching voice, offering invaluable perspective on the challenges new teachers might face. We also unravel the complex relationship between the vocal cords, the vagus nerve, and the heart, showcasing their impact on our ability to communicate our truths.

No discussion would be complete without addressing imposter syndrome. Discover how regulating our nervous system can help heal it and why boundaries and chronic pain may be protective outputs of your nervous system. Finally, we touch on self-compassion and personal growth resources, including Elise's website, Instagram, and podcast, The Embodied Leader. This episode promises a refreshing perspective and practical tools to navigate your yoga journey and beyond. Prepare to be enlightened, inspired, and empowered. Tune in now!

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Transcript

Mandy Ryle: 0:01

Welcome to the Yin Yoga podcast. I'm your host, mandy Ryle. This week's episode is a conversation with Elise Bestler. Elise is a Yin Yoga teacher. She's also a musician and a leadership coach who uses mind-body approaches to help her clients find their unique and authentic voice. I was really excited about talking to Elise when I first encountered her, because she's using the same awareness and regulation practices that I teach in Yin, but applying them to self-expression and to communication and to relationships. Though we all love Yin, in practice I think that we're all looking for ways to transfer the skills we learn on the mat into our lives. So in this episode we will delve into some topics that I know will be extremely valuable to Yoga teachers, but really to anyone who wants to show up in their communication with more confidence and authenticity. So we'll discuss stuff like polyvagal theory, trauma, perfectionism, and then a really juicy part of the conversation for me was about imposter syndrome, and Elise is just so skilled in offering not only the information but also simple strategies that you can integrate right away. Welcome everyone to the podcast.

Mandy Ryle: 1:43

Today I am chatting with Elise Bestler. Elise is an embodied voice and life coach, as well as a leadership coach. She's also an award-winning singer-songwriter and active performer, elise coaches her clients to understand themselves at their deepest level so they can use their voices to be the change that they want to see in the world. Elise has devoted the last 22 years to studying the nervous system and developing a coaching methodology that helps fellow coaches, people in leadership, artists, entrepreneurs and today, yoga teachers to embody their most confident selves and show up with bold presence. Elise is also the host of the embodied leader podcast. So I was first exposed to Elise's work in a webinar that I attended for another group that I'm in, and I was amazed and impressed at how she uses the same tools that we use in Yen and somatic practices to help her clients find their voice and lead with confidence. So welcome Elise.

Elise Besler: 2:53

Thank you, I'm so happy to be here.

Mandy Ryle: 2:56

So I recently did a survey of Yen Yoga podcast listeners and I asked everyone what kinds of topics they were interested in hearing more about.

Mandy Ryle: 3:10

As you know, probably as a podcaster, sometimes you feel like you're shouting into the dark and it's like what is this? Is this working for you guys? So that was incredibly instructive, and the reason why is that the top two options that I gave that people wanted to hear more about were actually Yen and a nervous system and teaching Yen, and so when I ran across you, I was like, oh yes, this is perfect. So I'm really excited for you to share your strategies with yoga teachers, because I know it will be incredibly valuable, but also, I think really anyone can benefit from learning how to take the tools that they learn in the practice into their lives and into their communication and into their relationships, because that's why we do this after all. Right, yeah, so before we dive into all of that super exciting stuff, would you mind telling us about how you became interested in the nervous system and embodiment as a musician and leadership coach?

Elise Besler: 4:20

Yeah, I love this question. It really started for me. I always start the answer to this question with going way back when, to when I was born. I'm joking, I don't remember, obviously, when I was born, but I grew up as a painfully shy child. I used to hide behind my mother's legs, and even just to get me to say hello to even a family member that was visiting was really painful for me and I remember and luckily my parents never forced me. They encouraged me but they never forced me to use my voice.

Elise Besler: 4:56

But I had a bit of a conundrum because I was living life as a painfully shy child and I also loved to sing and so, combining those two things together, it was really tricky for me and I had to really force myself into situations to be able to get up on stage and sing, and I used to get physically ill before I would perform and I also have lived in a large body my entire life and so that came along with being bullied and I oftentimes would become somebody else, whether on stage or in conversation, in order to avoid conflict or to avoid being harmed.

Elise Besler: 5:43

And I can't remember if I mentioned on the webinar but my sort of home away from home in the nervous system is to sort of collapse and then fawn.

Elise Besler: 5:51

So I recognized at one point in my mid-20s I think it was that I needed support in some way to sort of like deal with all of this love of being on stage and singing but also this trauma that I had around using my voice, because when I showed up I wasn't always widely accepted. And so I started practicing with a generative somatic practitioner. And this was years and years ago, and that was my first sort of soiree into understanding that there was another way, right, that there was a way to repattern and rewire those signals that are coming from the body to the brain, and it was a real gift for me. And then, of course, I got to explore bringing that work to my clients as well. So it was a game changer for me to be able to get on stage and get in front of people, even for my public speaking, and then also to share it with my clients. And then that was, that was it I had to dive in and do my study as well.

Mandy Ryle: 6:55

Yeah, and I saw on your website that one of your teachers is Deb Dana. Yeah, and I'm a Deb Dana fan girl, yeah, yeah, so I'm like, oh my gosh, she's like Deb Dana, how exciting. So when did you work with her?

Elise Besler: 7:13

So I actually a Polyvagal Foundation. So I'm not sure if you're familiar with Pessie, which is like I can't remember what the acronym stands for, but it's a really great further education website for folks who are diving into nervous system stuff, also mental health. They have all kinds of programs that they offer and they work with all of the biggest. You know Bessel Vanderkalk and Peter Levine, and you know all of these people that were. You know we're learning about their work and we want to be involved in their work and I think they do a couple of Steven Porges courses as well.

Elise Besler: 7:50

So Polyvagal Foundations is the course that I took and I actually just finished that. So it was a six month long course and it was really cool to see. Obviously, deb delivered the information via video and then we also got to go on to live Q and a calls with her, which I mean was an absolute joy, you know, to be able to witness her in the work, you know, as she was fielding all of these questions and answering all of our deepest, darkest questions that we had about Polyvagal Theory.

Mandy Ryle: 8:29

Wow that's pretty cool. Yeah, so we're using this term Polyvagal Theory. So Polyvagal Theory is also a very big part of my work, so listeners of the podcast are probably familiar with some of the concepts experientially. We've never really dove into the technical side of it and I'm wondering, since we brought it up, if you wouldn't mind giving us a little sort of quick and dirty explanation of Polyvagal Theory, just to give context to some of the other concepts that we're going to be chatting about.

Elise Besler: 9:11

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. You know, I think and I am certainly. No, you know, I'm certainly in the process. I always like to say I'm in the trenches of this work. So I, when I share all of this, I say that this is, you know, part of my learning as well. You know the way I describe it to my clients and to anyone who's interested.

Elise Besler: 9:30

Actually, I was just on a little road trip with my mom a couple of weeks ago and she said tell me about this Polyvagal Theory thing. And so the way I describe it is, you know that it's essentially a way to understand ourselves better, to understand our nervous systems and our nervous system responses better, and that essentially, stephen Porges, who you know developed and currently still studies the theory you know, tells us that there's a hierarchy of the autonomic nervous system and that, at any given time, our nervous system is really just wanting to get us to safety and wants us to feel safe. And of course, our brain works in cahoots with that, and I also use something called Neurosomatic Intelligence I'm not sure if you're familiar with that process as well, but combining the two has been really, really powerful.

Elise Besler: 10:20

But essentially, yeah, there's these three states and then, of course, there's blended states that our nervous system can be in, and understanding those states is a game changer when we are leading, when we're about to step up and do something scary, and also when we're learning to co-regulate with the people around us, whether it be in our work or in our personal lives.

Mandy Ryle: 10:44

Yeah, so, as I'm just recently learned, so many of the people who listen to this podcast are yoga teachers. I think that this co-regulation piece is such an important part of what we do, and probably what we've always done, not necessarily understanding it yeah, I don't have. Would you mind giving like a little more background into that idea of co-regulation?

Elise Besler: 11:22

Yeah, yeah, it is such an important part of our nervous system and the way our nervous systems work, because if we can self-regulate and that means we can regulate ourselves into a felt sense of safety then we can also use that to co-regulate with people. And co-regulation the way we learn to co-regulate happens at a very young age, right, it happens when we are children, and essentially co-regulation is when we can use our breath and our body language and just our being to help calm another nervous system. So if somebody is in a dysregulated state and we are in a regulated state, we can use that regulation to help bring them into that space as well, and certainly it can go the other way as well. I don't know that we would call that co-regulation, but we certainly can mirror people with a dysregulated state as well. But co-regulation in and of itself is a way for us to offer a felt sense of safety or the capacity or the possibility for a felt sense of safety to somebody who is not regulated themselves.

Mandy Ryle: 12:36

Yeah, this autonomic synchrony, I think, is the term that I've heard, one of the things that as a former vocalist. I was a professional musician for many years and previous life, but one of the things that really got my attention when I was learning about poly bagel theory was the importance of the voice especially. And I remember reading in the pocket guide to poly bagel theory, the porches book, and he really talks a lot about the prosodic voice right, that humans are hardwired to respond to, really synchronize to a slightly higher pitch, that little thing, pitch regulation, you know up and downs, and that's just ironically so similar to the type of voice that we kind of naturally, you know everybody always talks about the yoga voice- you know, and we kind of make fun of it.

Mandy Ryle: 13:47

But it happens naturally. And I do believe that it happens because we are such caretakers as yoga teachers, right, and so we naturally sort of find that timbre that calms people that we respond to.

Elise Besler: 14:00

Yeah, yeah, and I remember when I was doing my yoga, my 200 hour training, and that was the one thing that and I had already been a voice worker, you know, for over a decade at that time and you know teaching, teaching other people, and I remember the first time I got up to teach and it was lay back on your mat. You know the sing-songy kind of let all of your troubles melt away, right, I mean, you know there's that moment where and at the time, you know I didn't necessarily know the technical aspects of it, but, yeah, my nervous system was going into needing some regulation in that moment, right, and so I, because that's not how I speak, right, I don't think it's how, you know, any of us yoga teachers don't walk around. Hello, how are you today? That sing-songy kind of sound, but in that moment that was, you know, me sort of becoming, you know, dealing with the stress or the threat response, you know, potential for teaching your first yoga class and becoming this, you know this voice, this sound, was coming out of my mouth that like I had never, you know, I had never spoken with before.

Elise Besler: 15:19

But something that's really interesting to me or yeah, to me, about Polyvego Theory is that you know, they always. You know, stephen Porges tells us that every time we experience trauma of any sort, our voice and our breath are always affected. And so, bringing in to this piece, you know, I think about standing up in front of people. You know, for the first time especially, you know, doing something new, teaching something new, all of those things can sort of come rushing back to us, and so I think of how wise and adaptive that is that our bodies make that new sound right, even if we are using it to co-regulate, which is probably not conscious that we will go into that sing-songy kind of sound as a way to kind of protect. You know, based on our own personal experiences, yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool, though.

Mandy Ryle: 16:21

So you know, speaking of this first time that you got up to teach a class and the voice you used, so I've been training teachers since 2012. And what I have found and never really discovered the solution for, unfortunately is that by far one of the biggest obstacles for new teachers is finding their voice, and I'm not just talking about the pitch or the prosody that they use and their voice. What I see a lot is that they get stuck right, that they're trying to express themselves and they're stumbling, or the words just won't come out, or they're just like using the wrong word and where did that come from, you know? And it is embarrassing for them. I mean, talk about trauma, right? Nobody wants to feel that way, especially when you're supposed to be the authority right.

Mandy Ryle: 17:22

And you can't even come up with your words. So you know, from this nervous system perspective, this platform hierarchy that you mentioned, what do you think is happening here and is there anything that we can do about it?

Elise Besler: 17:42

Like, honestly, I want to know, yeah absolutely yes, and this is something you can share with your students. But this kind of actually goes to the point that I made around that, like when we experience trauma or voice and our breath are always affected. So everyone who comes into the yoga teaching training has had their own experience in the world, with their own voice, and you know, culturally whether it be you know family systems or culturally I mean, we learn a lot about the power of our voice and how it should or shouldn't be used. And then all of a sudden we're under pressure, right, teaching our first vinyasa flow, or we're teaching our first yin sequence, and everything goes away.

Elise Besler: 18:27

Right, the nervous system, you know, essentially from a neurosomatic, you know perspective is the body is sending those signals to the brain and the brain sees that as a potential threat and it creates a protective output and oftentimes, for us with the voice, it will show up as a closed off throat, it'll show up as a really dry mouth. I don't know if that's ever happened to you or any of the students that you're working with, but a dry mouth, there can be a racing heart. Of course, adrenaline shows up and the voice starts to shake. You know, I mean, there's so many different outputs. You know feeling scatterbrained or like I can't find my words. That to me, would be like mobilized energy, right, a more anxious energy. Those are all protective outputs, and so what can we do about it?

Elise Besler: 19:16

Well, we can rewire the nervous system response to the brain, and this is where the neurosomatic intelligence comes in that I've studied as well. Where we can have that awareness right? Okay, well, I might be in a mobilized sympathetic state, or I might be in a dorsal collapse state we're using polyvagal terms here. But what can I do to rewire, to send new I say quality leads, right, like quality signals from my body to my brain, so that my brain has something different to interpret and it's not quite as much of a threat. That's been the answer for my clients and when I'm working with singers and I work with public speakers and people in leadership. That's how we create a bigger bucket, right. We create a bigger bucket so that it doesn't need to overflow every time we step up in front of a, in front of a group.

Mandy Ryle: 20:11

Okay, so tell us, how do we create that bigger bucket?

Elise Besler: 20:18

Yes, nervous system regulation we purposely choosing, consciously, on the outside of the stress response. So I think in these moments at least this is what's shown up for you know, for me in the past, and also what I witness in my clients is that we'll sometimes wait until the moment that we're having the challenge, or wait till the moment that we're having the stress response and say, okay, what was that tool that Elise told me I needed to use? And so in that moment our brain is like literally mitigating you know threat. It's just like nope, send that there, send that there, close up the throat, keep them silent, let their voice shake. And so the last thing that we need to do is add another thing to remember, right, because it's just, it's too much. And my teachers in Neurosomatic Intelligence said that we have something in our brain called a threat bucket, which, if you know brain, you know brain anatomy, it's actually the amygdala, which is the threat detection center, and when this threat bucket is full, it overflows. And so, essentially, using nervous system regulation tools, sort of on a daily basis, allows us to expand the bucket. So it makes the bucket bigger, right, and then that way there's more room for for all of the signals that show up so that we don't have to or that we have a little bit more access to our voices in that moment.

Elise Besler: 21:50

And, as you mentioned, the nervous system plays a huge role in creating sound. I mean, the vagus nerve vibrates, the vocal cords, and then of course, we know that it goes down into the heart. And I don't know if you're familiar, mandy, but I'd love to share with your, with your listeners, that the loop from the vocal cords in the vagus nerve is called the recurrent laryngeal nerve. It goes down underneath the aortic arch of the heart and comes back up to the throat. So it's literally a heart-throat connection, right? So, like, no wonder it's so hard to speak our truth when we're having a hard day or, you know, when we have to say something really important, because they're literally connected. So I kind of went off on a little tangent there, but I think that creating capacity is the way that we do it, so that we can access our access, our voice, when we need it most.

Mandy Ryle: 22:45

Yeah, I, you know. I think what I'm so passionate about with Yin and with somatic work is because it is a very conscious way to, Like you said, make that bucket bigger or develop resources or learn to regulate Although not all yogas are particularly regulating right. They're not, you know, like even I. So I mostly teach you and I mostly teach private clients. But I have a vinyasa that I teach a couple times a month at my studio and I it was a harder practice. I had this last weekend and I could. It was a lot of upper body, shoulder, and it was all women in there and we hate that. Like, don't make me use my upper body. You know, and I could sense the energy it was going to that this is not a regulating place or let's say it's a regulating right.

Mandy Ryle: 24:00

It's getting there's breath holding. There's all of these sort of feelings of am I, can I do this? Is this going to be too hard for me? Am I inadequate? What's wrong with you? Know, all of these things coming up right. And so I mean, yes, I was aware that we had dipped into a zone that was maybe past resilience and more kind of going into a, you know, the dark side where we get competitive and we get hard on ourselves. You know, rarely does Yin get to that. I hope Maybe not, I don't know, because you're a Yin teacher, I don't know if you're familiar with you know a lot of the Yin practices that I have encountered. Have this the methodology is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, right. Yeah, to sit with the discomfort, and it makes me really uncomfortable because I can't see how that's from regulating our students. Yeah, you know like there's a path to resiliency, right, which does require a little bit of stress, but then there's holding in the most possible deepest position and having this competition, yeah.

Elise Besler: 25:34

And from a trauma awareness perspective and that's a big framing of the work that I do in my group programs. I work with coaches and folks in leadership to help them become trauma aware. Right, and one might see there's a great movement in the yoga world to facilitate trauma aware yoga teaching, but from a trauma awareness state that actually is. I mean, it's not safe for some people to sit in discomfort. In fact it can be, as you said, quite dysregulating and we can further traumatize as yoga teachers.

Elise Besler: 26:08

You know, even saying, even when I did some yoga, some trauma informed yoga training, it was like a weekend course. I shouldn't say it was just a weekend course, it was a great weekend course and it was sort of my first dipping my toe into trauma awareness and really even I learned that weekend that even saying the phrase feel it in your body or let your body tell you what it needs, you know what you need to know, or anything like that can actually be quite dysregulating for people and can re traumatize. So I think that there's, there's it's kind of multifaceted here, right, because it's the words that we use as a teacher, and then also our regulation, but then also like, yeah, exactly what you said you know, I don't, I don't know that sitting in discomfort is always. I mean for some people that they might have the capacity to do that, but even the queuing of it, you know, can we look at different ways to queue that?

Mandy Ryle: 27:06

Yeah, it's, it's a choice to prioritize nervous system regulation in your teaching. Yeah, right, it's a choice. It's like, am I going to teach this crazy cool flow or am I going to make the supreme thing, helping my students to develop the tools that they need to regulate? And with my people, who mostly are not these vinyas, although some of them, you know, usually they're people who live with chronic pain, right, and so I mean that's always at the front right, because, like, getting that nervous system regulated is key to reducing pain or even eliminating it in some cases, right. So, yeah, like you said, and I like how you gave like a few sort of actionable tips Like, if you're choosing to prioritize nervous system regulation in your teaching, that's going to come down to not one thing, but many, many choices that you're making Absolutely For your students.

Elise Besler: 28:25

And for the rest of your life. You know, I always say, like you know, the work I do focuses primarily, like I mentioned, you know, with other coaches and leaders and entrepreneurs, but it allows us to do the same in our families, in our family structures and with our friends and even with strangers. You know, I think prioritizing nervous system regulation just as a general rule, is such a gift because it allows us to have that greater capacity for everything that we do in our lives.

Mandy Ryle: 28:55

I totally agree, I agree, you know. So I wonder what you have to say about another kind of big issue that a lot of us teachers I mean really pretty much almost every woman I know, definitely every go getter I know that we manage is imposter syndrome. And you know, as I was kind of planning out this conversation, even though I'm someone who definitely struggles with this, I realized that I had never really considered it from a nervous system perspective. Yeah, yeah, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.

Elise Besler: 29:43

I have so many thoughts on this. This might be one of those moments where you're like okay, ann, I'm going to cut you off, elise, because this part of the I mean, this is such a rich conversation I think that there's, you know, it's twofold. For me there's a real big cultural piece, you know, as far as how we are brought up, especially for those of us who were socialized as girls and then identify as women, and then of course there are also, like you know, for folks who are further marginalized, I mean, I just imposter syndrome runs rampant, and so I think that there's a big culture piece there. And I actually did a workshop. I had a workshop that I used to run in my business, called I can't remember what I called it, but it was essentially was like a non-imposter, imposter-like syndrome workshop. And the reason I say that is because imposters don't, you know, they don't impost, they just do their thing right.

Elise Besler: 30:41

And so, for us, imposter syndrome is, I believe, is a nervous, is one of those protective outputs, it's one of those from the pressure. So, if we think about the inputs that are coming into our bodies, all of the messages that we receive, all of the things that we hear, the experiences we have as women and I know that there are, you know, folks who are other gender identities that experience imposter syndrome. You know as well. But women, and particularly black women, experience imposter syndrome to the greatest degree, and that's because of the messages that we receive right to varying, you know, levels of privilege in our lives, and so we have all of these messages coming into our bodies and our brains and then our brains are like who do you think you are Right? Who do you think you are that you can get up and teach that class? Or who do you think you are that you can start this next step in your business?

Elise Besler: 31:43

Or you know I work with artists, right, you know this as a singer to get up on stage and sing your original music to a crowd of people, why do you think they might want to listen to you, right? When we can look at it from a nervous system perspective, it makes sense. At least I think it makes sense, because if we look at it as a protective output, then we know that we can also change the inputs right, and that regulation can help with healing imposter syndrome. So I say, healing the experiences that we have that look like imposter syndrome. So yeah, I don't know if that answered your question or if that was sort of the direction you wanted to go in, but you know I could branch off into many conversations about this one because it's big, I mean it sounds like it If you have a whole some content and workshop on it.

Mandy Ryle: 32:38

Yeah so, imposter syndrome, another protection mechanism. Yeah so it's our brain saying run away from this because it's a threat. And you know, as I know, working with chronic pain, I mean we have all sorts of things that our bodies do that are protection mechanisms that we wouldn't necessarily identify as a protection mechanism. Obviously pain is the most obvious protection mechanism that we have. But even like a queasy stomach, right, but then also thinking I'm not good enough. Yeah, why would they listen to me?

Elise Besler: 33:16

To me that's like and I, you know, I'll offer like a little bit of a reframe for the listeners Like could we look at that as our brain doing its job? Really? I mean, its job as part of the, you know, nervous system is to keep us alive and to keep us safe, right, nervous system says not safe. Brain says I'll fix that.

Elise Besler: 33:43

I saw a really funny meme a couple of weeks ago. It was like a picture of a brain and on the top it said manages the nervous system. And then on the bottom it said has no idea how to manage the nervous system. And so nobody laughed, except for the folks who, you know, who do this work. They were like, haha, that's funny, but it's true, right, like if I offer that reframe, like if we were to look at imposter syndrome rather than an affliction, as, oh wow, thank you, wise brain. Like, thank you so much, smart brain, for creating that thought, so that I don't show up and get harmed.

Elise Besler: 34:25

Right, another one. We're talking about boundaries and I don't know if we'll get into that conversation today, but talking about boundaries, right, why don't want to set a boundary? Wise, wise, because what if you were to get into conflict here, right? So I think if we were to start looking at all of these challenges that we have with our truth speaking and with showing up authentically as the wisdom of our body, and then started looking at ways to send different signals to our brain, things might shift a little.

Mandy Ryle: 35:01

Yeah, I like that to heal imposter-like syndrome. Yeah, yeah, to heal it. Yeah, so you did mention boundaries, so I would like to hear a little bit more. Yoga teachers are horrible with boundaries because we're in this caretaking occupation and sometimes it's hard to know when caretaking ends and being taken advantage of begins. But on the same note, with my clients who are suffering from chronic pain, we know from the data that people who have a pain issue also tend to have certain personality traits, and one of those happens to be people pleasing. So it seems like obviously these are clearly protection mechanisms. But from a day to day perspective, what would you recommend for people who are kind of really struggling with boundaries and with people pleasing?

Elise Besler: 36:30

Well, I'm one of those people, mandy. I always say, yeah, it's my home. Away from home is fawning right. I always say that I'm in recovery and I truly I mean it's amazing how, for me and I'll just share my own experience with this because I think it's probably the best way I can describe it, because it is so real for me and such a lived experience that when I chose nervous system regulation as a non negotiable, that was when I was able to start expressing and voicing my boundaries in a way that felt really good and really aligned, because the people pleaser.

Elise Besler: 37:12

One of our biggest fears is that people will hurt people's feelings or that they won't understand us, or that will make someone mad, right, or they'll get upset with us. And yeah, I mean, being in a regulated state allows those boundaries and we don't even need scripts. I used to have an opt in on my website that was like boundary scripts, so I will tell you what to say in any given situation and I took it down. And that's because when we're in a regulated state, we'll actually be able to find the words right, similar to your teachers that we were talking about at the beginning of the call. The words will come when we're in that regulated state and so when I think about people pleasing, in my experience with it, it's been through this non negotiable nervous system reg that I was able to access my truth and also to have a different perception of being taken advantage of right you mentioned that right.

Elise Besler: 38:20

So for me to be able to recognize when someone is taking advantage of the container or the package or the conversation, that happened after nervous system regulation. So I think that you know fawning comes out of. You know, essentially it's a way for us to regulate. So if we're already regulated, then the activity or the action of fawning, the behavioral adaptation, really is what it is. That doesn't need to be there as much because it happens as a regulation tool. And so for already regulated, we don't need to, we don't need to fawn as much.

Mandy Ryle: 39:05

That's really, that's gold, at least.

Mandy Ryle: 39:08

That's really to choose regulation.

Mandy Ryle: 39:15

That's pretty powerful and I think you know, obviously you know, if we've chosen to dedicate ourselves to a practice like yen or somatic practice, which is, I like, kind of a combination of both, or a mindfulness practice, right, so when those things are really operating at their best for us, they're teaching us to be aware of our body, right, of those signals that, oh, this is me not feeling regulated, right, whether it's your heart racing or your mouth getting dry, or just feeling like I gotta go, like I gotta take a nap, I'm just out, right.

Mandy Ryle: 40:01

So like, yeah, that's to me that's the real value, like I don't really care about getting more flexible right or doing cool poses, it's, and I don't care if my students get there either. To me it's about like, how can I become more aware? Yeah, yeah, and then yeah, and then apply that to something that is really causing a lot of suffering, which is, you know that, people pleasing and problems with boundaries, yeah, so I am thinking about, you know, on a day to day basis, we're learning and we're becoming more aware and we're observing, so that when we find ourselves in a position where we're going to have to assert a boundary. What does that look like from this perspective?

Elise Besler: 41:07

Yeah, I think I, you know, I keep sort of reminding myself of this every day. You know that when it's a non-negotiable practice, right, so the same as we would brush our teeth in the morning, I have clients that actually do their nervous system regulation in the bathroom first thing in the morning because it's part of their self care routine. So I think of that again. You know, we mentioned the bigger bucket, we mentioned the capacity. You know we talked about that, and so I think that you know there are tips and tools and tricks, and there's lots of boundary coaches out there on Instagram. I'm sure you can, you know, get a couple of tips and tricks. But from this perspective, I really do believe that our boundaries can be voiced and asserted, if you will, from like they'll just naturally show up when we are in that state. And I think particularly of the. I have a Vegas nerve reset that I do every morning. That actually includes some nervous system regulation drills around the throat, and so when we give new signals, right, when we tell these nerves like, oh, you don't have to constrict those muscles, or you know, you know we do these opening, opening exercises, I'm actually just like tucking my thumb up under my jaw because there's one nerve that controls throat constriction. And so I do this exercise every morning where I tuck my thumb up underneath about an inch in. From the corner of the mandible corner of your jaw there's a little notch and you can just tuck your thumb up under there and turn your head from side to side. That in and of itself is giving the throat and the larynx and the voice box and all of that a new signal that it's safe to speak up, or that, even if it doesn't feel safe, that you can still move through that right, like you can still move through that and speak your truth if you need to speak your truth. And so I really, truly believe that the answer to you know people who have, you know, challenges setting boundaries is to is to go into that. You know non negotiable practice daily, only on the days you eat. I say that to my clients practice this only on the days that you eat. And so then and again, I mean there are things you know you can come up with your own personal boundary. You know scripts or I think of. You know there's certain certain things that people like to say that feel most aligned to them. But I do believe. Yeah, I do believe that it's about capacity and that the boundaries will fall into place, similar to the finding that we just talked about, like once we're regulated we don't need to find, and so once we're regulated, we will be able to access the boundary.

Elise Besler: 44:05

There's also an exercise and I know I'm kind of rambling on about this, there's so much to say, but rambling in a good way, we'll say but there's a beautiful practice called a somatic yes. No, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with this through your somatic practices, but I'm just going to offer it to you know, if that's okay. I'd like to offer it because it's it's a really simple, quick exercise, but it also teaches us how to learn to explore yes and no in our bodies, and essentially it's yeah. So ask yourself a question that you know the answer is absolutely 100% no to. So I think of it like I like eating liver, like, or you know, drinking cleaning fluid is good for me. You know something that, like you know, is a no, and then you check in and notice what shows up. Right, what shows up in my body. Is it like a kind of a curling inwards or is it like I? Like I want to regurgitate kind of feeling and then ask yourself a question that you know the answer is yes to like.

Elise Besler: 45:12

My name is Elise. Well, I know that's true. You could ask my name is Mandy? Is my name Mandy? Yes, it is right. What shows up in your body and how can we, how can we explore that and use those cues, those somatic wisdom cues, to then be a jumping off point for our boundaries. Because, I'll tell you, if that liver feeling shows up in a conversation, I know that it's time to it's time to set a boundary and it's time to get curious about that. Or if I have that feeling, that sort of lighter feeling that I have when I ask myself is your name Elise? Well then I know that it feels safe to kind of move forward with how the conversation is going.

Mandy Ryle: 45:57

That's really helpful. Thanks, yeah, I mean. Yes, just more context is very useful. I appreciate that for offering that practice Very cool. So we're kind of nearing the end of our conversation. I don't want to, I don't want to use up all of your time today, but I wonder if there's anything else that you'd like to bring up about the nervous system expression leadership.

Elise Besler: 46:30

Yeah, yeah, I'm just checking in with my body right now and I think the piece that I think is really important for everyone to know is that it is a practice, and I was working with a client this morning where we came back to an experience that they were working with, a practice, a drill that they were working with, and they were feeling frustrated oh, why did we have to come back to this drill?

Elise Besler: 47:01

Right, because it's a practice, you know, and we have spent decades and decades in these other patterns, right, these patterns of lack of safety or these overriding patterns, and so I think that to remember that it's a practice and that we commit to being in the practice can be a real helpful tool. It also helps, and I think, specifically for folks who are in leadership and folks who are teaching classes, and you know I mean things are going to happen. We're human beings, right, we may show up to work one day dysregulated. We may show up with our you know clients dysregulated, right, that doesn't mean we're a bad person and it doesn't mean that we're bad quote, unquote at nervous system regulation. It's a practice and I think that, like, self compassion, can go a really long way with this practice, because we're essentially re, you know, we're rewiring our body to brain signals.

Mandy Ryle: 48:06

Yeah, yeah, thanks for adding that. Yeah, all those people pleasers need to do that.

Elise Besler: 48:14

Yeah, the little extra self compassion. Oh, and when you don't have self compassion, more self compassion.

Mandy Ryle: 48:24

Well, this has been a really valuable conversation. I learned a lot and I know that the listeners are really going to be able to take a lot of these things into their life or their teaching if they're yoga teachers. I'm wondering if you might share how people can find out more about what you do or potentially find your resources that you offer.

Elise Besler: 48:48

Sure yeah, my website is Elise Besslercom, and if you throw a slash links on the end of it, that's where you can find all of the latest free resources and any programs I'm offering, and then, of course, you can navigate the website if there's anything in there that you'd like to check out. Instagram is at Elise Bessler, and my podcast, the Embodied Leader, is on Apple, and Spotify at the Embodied Leader.

Mandy Ryle: 49:18

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Elise Besler: 49:20

Thank you very much.