Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Brendon Orr: Rubina, Inner design is built on a premise you say is simple but often overlooked.
Most people try to think their way out of stress, but stress is not primarily a cognitive issue.
It's a nervous system state.
Why do we default to trying to think our way through when our bodies are screaming at us?
[00:00:21] Rubina Chadha: I believe it's because thinking feels like control. So I often say that this is not mindset. What I'm talking about is not just, you know, listen to this, you know, message from me and feel inspired and just think about it. It's. It's actually going and bringing that into your own lifestyle in a way that is embodied. So it's not lifestyle changes. It's kind of looking at again, right? If you're sitting there in the boardroom, this is my life. This is where I, you know, my livelihood. I need to have this.
I want to have this, and I don't want to leave it. A lot of times, people don't want to leave their successes, which is valid, right? You worked your way up.
And we've been conditioned to believe that if we just think about something enough, we can solve it. And that's kind of what's out there. And the problem is, stress is not a cognitive issue. It's a nervous system state. And so until we realize that. So understanding that, hearing that, and then knowing, okay, I understand this as a concept, but now what can I actually do to implement something to move myself to understand my nervous system and to move myself from different, you know, different points of regulation?
The body processes safety before our mind even processes it logically.
So if your system doesn't feel safe, your thinking is already compromised, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna think my way through positively. But your body's in conflict. So this is like part of that inner conflict, which I noticed, right. We can't override that when there's that internal war. We really have to bring a sense of calm and understanding to it. Yes, I'm disregulated. Like, stop and say, okay, I understand. I'm really stressed, and this is bringing me something that's not my natural comfortable state.
And, you know, take a pause from it. And a pause doesn't have to be like, I'm. I'm running away to the mountains.
Although, you know, you may want to go in a cave at that point, but just like, you know, sit back in the chair and be like, oh, now my back is actually supported in the chair. I was sitting on the edge of the seat and not realizing that. So some things that are simple like that and little cues that we can bring, right? This is what I call like yoga off the mat. Like bringing your yoga from the mat that you might have practiced in the morning. And then you're just like, why did I leave the mat? And everything went with it. So how does that practice come with me?
How am I postured? Because that is giving signals to my. On my internal organs, my nervous system, my brain is picking up on those senses. My posture because I'm in stress. So how can I actually hack my own system? In a way, right? We talk about the biohacking, and people think it's a big, extraordinary thing. No, it's happening all the time in a very, very simplistic way. So I won't call it peak performance. I'll just say this is actually you being in your own peak performance is you being the ultimate you of saying, oh, I'm safe right now. I feel threatened because my boss is yelling at me.
But it's not like, you know, I can't make it through this, and I need to access higher thinking, and I can't do that while I'm in this state where I. I'm feeling that shock or whatever it might be, right?
The dysregulation. And so if I sit back and I tell myself, oh, let's take a few deep breaths. Let me just soften my body, my belly, my chest, where I'm feeling the tightness and breathe into it, and then just giving myself that pause to be able to say, okay. When I feel okay, I'll know the answer. But because we're rushing our thinking and we're thinking that our thinking is solving our problem, we're on the wrong level. And so when you get to that regulated system, the clarity comes and you can think right, appropriately. It's not the other way around.
[00:04:13] Brendon Orr: And you teach people to become literate in their own own internal signals. Shortened breath tends to reflect a state of urgency. Held breath signals suppression, irregular breath accompanies, like a sense of overwhelm or being overwhelmed. Can you walk us through how someone begins to observe their natural breath without trying to fix it immediately?
[00:04:37] Rubina Chadha: I love to give the examples of watching a child because it's hard to watch ourselves often, right?
So we've all seen children, whether we have them or not, or we raised them or taught them or whatever it is. We've seen children. We may have been in the grocery store and we see some child throw their theirselves on the floor. A tantrum, right? So something memorable like that. Actually, this is a child regulating themselves. We are conditioned that this is so unacceptable and the parent doesn't have control. No, of course the parent doesn't have control because this is the child's nervous system walking them through their own whatever it is. Dysregulation because of disappointment, usually small disappointment appointments. We have these all day long and we've learned to stuff them down. And so what does a throwing a tantrum child, what does the tantrum throwing child, I should say, look like? The first thing you might see is like they stomp their foot and you, they raise their fist and they're like. And you just see that first breath of frustration come out of them. And so often that is a really obvious one to notice is that we need to kind of forcefully exhale, spewing out those frustration vibes through our breath. So can we all just with our mouths closed, like huff and puff it out right.
