0:00Hello and welcome to the Total Sematic Show. I'm Heidi Hadley and I'm over the moon that you can join me for today's episode. So first of all, I hope you've enjoyed the last week. I obviously went through last week how we could use techniques to come back to ourselves and with reflections and gratitude, notice how resilient we truly are. And so that's what we did last week. Remember we stood beneath those beautiful ancient trees, the trees in the Daintree Forest. If only they could speak and tell us the stories that they've witnessed over the years. And what we considered with the footage that I shared with you with the Daintree is what resilience really means. And hopefully you spent that week reflecting on your own experience, your own journey in life. And how the things that

1:03you've been through, some of the darkest times have built some of the strongest root systems for you, just like a tree. And we might not be completely straight. We might be a little bit twisted and bent because of the different things we've had to adapt and evolve through with life. But we are a living, rich part of life's tapestry within our communities either locally or internationally. So what I want us to consider this week is we're going to look at a different place. So when we were in far North Queensland, we spent some wonderful time. I mean, you can't miss the Daintree Forest, the forests are everywhere where we were. But another area we visited that I want to share with you today is we went beneath the surface and we went to the Great Barrier Reef. So I want you to picture this yourself. I want you to picture yourself slipping under the water. And suddenly you are surrounded by colour, movement, life everywhere, this vibrancy. And as you're swimming in this little pockets of

2:11warmer water, then it's always a little bit cooler. And then again, it's a bit warmer. And as you continue with your fins, you've got these lovely fins, which means it's effortless as you paddle. It's just one little kick and you just glide a little bit further. You've got this clear visibility of water. You notice that the reef is dazzling and it's vibrant. And it's not just one thing on its own. The more that you're swimming with your snorkels on and you're looking in awe at the Great Barrier Reef and everything around it. It's thousands and thousands of living relationships that all support one another. That's what makes it so incredible. So we had a marine biologist that took us on a reef safari. It was so beautiful watching us swim. She would just be there, dive down, and then she would like wave her hands in front of these massive clams. They were humongous. And then you would see them react by closing up. And then she came to the surface and then I said, what's

3:15that bright blue thing that was amongst some coral? And she went back down, waved her hands. And again, this this clam just closed up. So we were just watching this happen. And then she picked up a sea mushroom. So it was this coral. She picked it up, brought it to the surface. And when you touched it, it had like this gooey nest to it. And she said, if you rub that on your head, it acts like a sunscreen. It's really protective because the magnification, you know, the light coming in through the into the water, they have to protect themselves in that way. And then she brought a beautiful sea cucumber up. So she lifted it, you know, she brought this all very ethically. She brought it up to the surface. We would stroke it. And when you how'd it in the air out of its bottom, it would just kick out all this water. So what you how'd it was this strong muscular beautiful creature. So then she would gently swim back down to the the sea bed and place him

4:15back down there. And the sea cucumber, she said, at like vacuum cleaners on the the ocean floor. We saw parrot fish. We just saw so many things. But that was what was amazing is there was one reef that looked as we saw lots of these actually. And they looked like a brain. And then at one point there was huge, um, Coral and I said to her, that looks like a giant human liver. It was huge. So the shapes and the colors and the contrast were incredible. And that's what's amazing is they all work together. This an incredible ecosystem. And really, what I noticed as I was swimming through the barrier reef, noticing the correlation or the the identical features of one coral looking like a brain. And then another one looking like a human liver, it made me think of the human body. And a bit like looking at the coral reef is when I think of the human body, the more that I learn over the years and continue to learn about the human body, the more it reminds me of places

5:20like the great barrier reef. And again, how nature has this great way of bringing us back to of gratitude and reflections and meditation. Because a bit like the barrier reef, sometimes you might just think of a particular fish. You might just think of a particular reef, you know, if you know your reef, some things like this. And it can be the same often with the human body. We can just break down parts of the body and talk about our neck or our hips or our back. But the truth is your body works much more like in harmony together like the reef does. It's not just a bit on its own. They are interconnected. Everything is interconnected. So a bit like the reef, let's think of our beautiful body. We've got our fascia, we've got our nervous system, we've got our muscular system, we've got our skeletal system, all the bones, we've got our breathing apparatus and how all of that, you think of your breathing, your breathing dictates a

6:20lot to do with your nervous system state, your nervous system state. If it goes in a certain way, that impacts the level of tension in your muscles and that impacts the fascia as well. That impacts your movement patterns, how freely you can move, how much resilience and shock absorbency you have through your body. And if there is a lack of shock absorbency, that impacts your skeletal system, your bones and your joints and your discs and your back. Everything, even down to think about your thoughts, if all of this is out of kilter, if everything starts to go off a little bit dysregulated, a bit limited in movement, lack of shock absorbency, it influences our thoughts in our belief systems, that starts to take us down a negative narrative. And there are constant conversations going on between all of these systems. So it's exactly the same as when I saw the Great Barrier Reef, as you swim, you can focus on one area like the reef, the funky reef that looks like a brain, but then span out and you just look and we saw reef

7:27sharks on the way out, we saw mantarades and we saw huntbat whales as well. So we saw lots of things and that whole ecosystem works together. And that's really when we start to consider it globally or somatically, we look at this as a bigger picture. We start to notice how our thoughts and our conversations shift. So when we look at this in a bigger picture, we have a greater appreciation and there's a level of humility that comes into play as well, noticing how much all of this works together, many times subconsciously or without our conscious awareness or control, so many automatic patterns and and respects that happen. But one thing that struck me a lot on the reef was the sheer diversity. So you haven't got two parts that are the same. They might be similar in their features and characteristics, but there will be subtle changes and together they create this

8:29incredible resilience. And that's the same for us too, that we've got parts of our body that might look similar, but they actually are slightly different, but when they all come together, they build that resilience. And so we hear things about the reef of how things are bleaching and how renewing, but the same can happen with our body. And this is exactly what the marine biologist actually shared. She actually said, when you see a bit of bleaching happening with the reef, it's often because the reef is quite stressed. So what it will do is reduce its amount of activity. So it's just trying to just tick over. And then when everything starts to just come back into play, so no longer have a cyclone or the ecosystem starts to improve around them, the reef notices this. They're less stressed and they start to grow and become more colourful and vibrant again. And she said, it's a stress response and she said, it's exactly the same as we as humans. If we're in a stress response, all the different parts of our system will still keep ticking over,

9:35but just reduces down a little bit more. So there are times that we know when we've been stressed we might actually look a bit like the reef, a little bit gray, less colour, maybe less energy because we are going through a survival situation where we're just ticking over. Like I mentioned last time, just put in one foot in front of the other. It might be a big thing just to get out of bed and take a shower if we're really, really struggling, but we keep going. It's the same with the reef. The reef keeps going. It pulls back. It's got a bit of energy, but it pulls back just to get through that difficult season where it might be cyclone season or whatever is impacting the ecosystem at that point. It's the same for us too. So we don't need every part of our body to be perfect, bit like the reef. You could see some of the reef, some of the colour was gone. Other parts it was this beautiful part with a light of the colour blue. So we could see this blue, vibrant part of the reef showing. So what you see here is bit like life, a bit like our body, a bit like

10:38the reef, doesn't have to be perfect before we can experience well-being. Things will tick over. They'll keep going. And sometimes it's more about connection, not about perfection. So again, we can take that, our lessons, maybe it's from the barrier reef. Maybe it's something else. You might want to share it with me at questions at totalsimatics.com. Anything else that gets your creative juices flowing, that you can put that to a different scenario whereby we're still sometimes just going through the motions. If that's what we have to do just to get through that season of our life. But then we can pick up again because we're building that resilience, we're building that strength. So I've got a simple invitation for this week. And I'd love you to do is take about five minutes just to observe something in nature. Maybe the waves of the sea, it could be the clouds in the sky, it could be some birds. And I've got some very noisy birds outside at the moment. So

11:41hopefully it's not disturbing this episode here. But I just want you to notice how they all work together and just sit and watch the connection, the relationship between them. And while you're watching how they work together, bit like the reef, it's an ecosystem, bit like our body, that's all working together. Notice, for instance, I'm going to give you an example here, notice for instance, with the weather and the birds. Because this is what happens here. Here in South Australia we get beautiful long summers. But for those long summers, we can go months without rain. So we need the rain in the winter and in that springtime to build our reserves for summer. But when we've had a really long hot summer and we get the first rains coming in, we watch the ecosystem there because when the rain start, I always say to my husband, the birds are having a party outside because they are shrieking so loud. I mean, we've got water,

12:45we have water in the garden to feed them. But what you can't beat the rain and they're sitting in the trees and the rain is pouring down on them and they are over the moon. And you can see the ecosystem, you can see the trees, they're going to love having that water. The clouds are full of water just drenching the earth. The birds there, enjoying that drenching and they're singing away. And for us, when you hear the rain and when you hear the happiness of the birds having a party in the trees, that has an impact on our body too because then you think, oh, that's so lovely. And you have a little chuckle because you can see the humour in nature. You can see the personalities in nature with the different animals that we have around us. So that's why five minutes, can you at least five minutes observe something around you in nature, the waves of the sea, birds in the trees or wherever they are, the clouds. And notice how they're working together. But added to that, while you watch them, notice how that makes you feel in your body.

13:52Because that's what is really powerful. That is what is totally somatic. Is noticing everything around us and how that is like our medicine for us, for our summer. When we sit in nature, we start to regulate. It's a natural thing for humans to be in nature. So notice, for instance, when you're enjoying the, the larking about of the birds, you know, we sometimes sit in the garden, we remember watching a magpie with her three babies on the branch. And she was teaching them to fly from the branch in the tree to the roof of our house. And you had three of them. The one was nudging the other one, you know, there's always a hyperactive one, nudging the other one. The one was really hesitant to fly. And the other one just gave it a go. And you could see the three personalities of these little, these little chicks, these magpie chicks. And that is really lovely. You sit there with your cup of tea and you just enjoy watching nature. And notice how that impacts your body. Notice your breathing as you take that moment in time.

14:57Notice your shoulders. Are they relaxing rather than braced? Notice your eyes. And remember, last week I gave you that resource totalSematics.com forward slash regulate. And in that you were, I was guiding you through breathing and eye movement. We'll look what you're doing in this situation for this week. You're noticing your breathing. Notice how that slows down. When your eyes are looking around at the trees and the clouds in nature, you're allowing your eyes to move freely, rather than being in a stress, frozen, fixed response of just looking forward all the time, which is a stress response. So can you see how we are bringing movement in to a daily gratitude and reflections practice. And you see all of this is simply allowing you to remind yourself that your own nervous system, your entire summer, your whole body can soften. It's safe to release and let go when we're in those sort of surroundings. You notice

16:00there being a shift of your nervous system state and how that reflects on the rest of your body. But what I'd like to do is to accompany this episode. I'd like to share with you one of my favorite guided practices. It's a 33 minute movement practice and you'll see that I'm on the floor going through this video with you. And it's a gentle movement practice to release tension through your hips, through your shoulders, across your chest. Improve the depths of breathing by releasing rigidity in your rib cage. It's really important. So a bit like we talked about the reef, we don't want to just focus on the shoulders or the hips. You can see that when we bring this movement practice in, we are growing it. So it's an entire interconnected system. Everything works together rather than having this, which can be a bit, it's a very dated clinical approach, but you might go and see somebody and say, I've got a tight hip and all they do is just work on that tight hip. They never look at a total somatic approach to this and think your hip is actually a

17:02symptom of a bigger pattern of tension. Well, this is where it changes because like the reef system, a bit like I've talked about today, this 33 minute movement session will take a wider global approach to the pain and discomfort that you have. So if you've got a hip or a shoulder issue, instead of the old-fashioned focus of just work on that side of pain, we want to widen our vision and our scope to see the bigger picture and to see how everything is interconnected, everything communicates together. And this 33 minute movement session will teach you how that happens by softening different patterns across on a diagonal through one side of the back, again, rotational movements, all of that gets improved. So if you've got a pen and paper ready, I will share this with you. So what it is is a free gift today and it's totalsomatics.com forward slash gift as in GIFT.

18:03Totalsomatics.com forward slash gift GIFT. Again, I'd love to know how you get on with that. It's an incredibly popular resource. Many people over the years have found it just releases and brings that spring back into their body. And I'd love to hear how it benefits you. So please keep in touch at questionsatotalsomatics.com. But I want you to have this as a think of this as another opportunity today to offer your nervous system some new input, some new conversation. Sometimes we've got the old program, the old conversations, the same old same old. And I want you to start thinking of we're inputting, we're updating the software. Remember, that's what somatic in September is about. We can pick this up any time of the year, but especially now we just want to do a little reset with our program. If it's the same old same old, we're not going to make any changes. We need to sometimes change the conversation, create a new input. And when we create a new input, we get a

19:04different result. So that's what's really important. So again, totalsomatics.com forward slash gift as in GIFT. So next week, we're going to look at a different area that we discovered when we were on our trip in far north Queensland. An animal that can sometimes be misunderstood and I'm going to share a little story with you, which warmed my heart, bless him. And it's about a crocodile in the danger. So we're going to look at the crocodile. And we're going to explore how our basically how our own protective patterns are sometimes we can sometimes mistaken them for survival strategies. And sometimes what we want to do is have a look at how we actually adapt and shift and change to create that resilience. And they are survival strategies, but also there's a deeper meaning to it. So I'm not going to share much more with you now. I'm going to go into that in greater detail next time, but I do want to share a little story which we learned about

20:07a crocodile very close to my heart that we learned about in the danger. So as always, if you've enjoyed this, and I'm going to finish off with a little thought as we leave shortly, but if you have enjoyed this episode and you know this is going to resonate with somebody in particular, please share it with whoever you know you're going to connect with. But also don't forget to like, share, subscribe and press the notification bell on the Total Semantics YouTube channel if you're watching it that way. And also if you're watching it on any of the podcast channels, don't forget just to press that subscribe and the notification bell as well. And finally, before I share some thoughts with you, if you haven't checked out my TEDx talk, I have a TEDx talk on the subject to Pandiculation. And Pandiculation is what you will be doing in that 33-minute movement session that I've just shared with you at TotalSumatics.com forward slash gift. And so the TEDx talk is on Pandiculation. And if you wanted to see that about 15, 16-minute talk, if you go to YouTube and you

21:09put in the search bar at the top, TEDx Heidi Hadley, up will pop my TEDx talk. And I'd love it if you give me a thumbs up and share it with anyone else you know it resonates with. Leave me a comment below because I love checking out your comments too. And I'd really appreciate it. So before we leave today, I just want to share with you that the reef doesn't just thrive because of one single coral. Remember that's not one single coral. It thrives by building multiple relationships. These interconnected communications, these relationships, same as with our fascia and our nervous system, everything is heavily connected. It's not isolation. They all thrive together. And so healing is very similar to that. It's not one part that needs to heal. It's the relationship between all the different parts and within yourself. So again, this is why Somatic in September is so important. We are connecting back to all of those parts within us, allowing them to merge and connect and communicate

22:14more effectively, rather than living in that survival strategy where we live in our head and we no longer notice the sensations and feelings from within. So don't forget what you're going to be doing today is connecting your brain and your body. When you go away and you look at everything around you in nature, then notice how that impacts on your body, how that impacts those subtle cues of your breathing, just letting things go instead of bracing. That is when we're starting to connect all these parts together and we're becoming totally somatic, rather than in a stress response, just living in our head. So I love to hear your comments. There's always questions at TotalSomatics.com, but I'm going to send you all my love or my very best wishes and I will see you very, very soon. Have a wonderful week. Take care. Bye. Thank you for joining me today. If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and also

23:16forward this onto somebody you know will benefit. To learn more about pain relief plus how to improve your health and well-being, go to TotalSomatics.com. Until next time, take care.