My Journey. My Perspectives. My Intention. | 001

Welcome to the first episode of The Experiential Podcast. I'm your host, Nicole Lohse. And in this episode, I want to share a little bit about who I am, the path that I've taken that's led me to sitting in this chair, what my perspectives are in the way that I work, as well as my intention with this podcast. Now, I want to start off this episode in a way that I will likely start off many of my episodes. And that's by inviting us to pause and notice, what is it in this moment that you're experiencing? Now, if you have no idea what I mean by that? No, you're not alone. And that's one of the reasons why I am starting this podcast, we aren't taught to pause and notice what it is we're experiencing, we're not taught to learn to listen to our body and the language of our physiology, right, there's so much for us to pay attention to. And that's not something that we learn. So one of my intentions with this podcast is for us to tune more into the way we experience ourselves, the way we move through the world, the patterns we find ourselves caught in. And then we get to get curious about that. So in this moment, what I'm noticing is I'm really focused on my computer on the camera, I'm really noticing I'm speaking quite quickly, and I'm leaning forward, there's a little bit of clenching in my jaw, my eyes are kind of starting to squint a little. And I can feel, yeah, there's a tightening in my neck and my shoulders as well. And what just happened as I was paying attention to that is I just took a breath. Now I didn't tell myself to breathe, this is important to recognize, I didn't say Oh, I better take a deep breath, because I'm noticing how fast I'm speaking. And then I'm leaning forward, and there's a bit of tension, and maybe even a little bit of nervousness in my chest. Instead, by paying attention to what I'm experiencing. Here, it happens again, another breath arises in my system starts to settle. And this is an organic process that can happen when we slow down and take a moment to notice what it is we're experiencing. I'm shifting a little out of being so on. And in a little brace, the little leaning forward, speaking a little faster, to actually feeling myself settled into the chair a little bit more and filling my shoulder soften a little bit more, my voice is changed slightly, and I'm speaking a little bit slower, right. And it's the subtle nuances that our body is constantly making throughout our day that I'd like to invite you to pay attention to.

Now, what I just did is I just noticed my experience, and then my system shifted slightly. What I didn't invite you to do is notice as well, what are you aware of? In your own experience in this moment? Is there a sense of tension? Is there a sense of vibration? Is there a sense of like zoning out and kind of floating away? Is there a sensation that you feel inside of you, and let that just be information and notice what you do with that information? Now something I find we do in this world is we're so busy trying to be something other than what we are. So as soon as we notice something about ourselves, we try to change it, we get caught trying to fix things, thinking there's something wrong with us thinking we should be something other than we are. Now one of the main ways I work and explore is really encouraging you to recognize that there actually isn't anything to fix, you're already whole. And you have many parts of you caught in time, stuck in survival stuck in these patterns, things that you have inherited or adapted or found yourself in due to your history due to your trauma due to the cultural influences. There's so much that influences who we are. Now, when we try to fix what we think we are and try to be something else. We're really just creating a dilemma within ourselves. Because the way we move through the world, the patterns we find ourselves caught in, they're there for a reason. Now, a lot of the focus in my podcast will be us exploring these patterns, learning more about how we find ourselves caught stuck in survival. Now recognizing also that these patterns we're stuck in are there for a reason. And we get to do some digging around that. And then we also really put some emphasis on what does it mean to feel and be this whole sovereign being that we are. Now I want to share a little bit about my journey around that I grew up in a way where I come from a pretty strong, independent woman background, my lineage is filled with a lot of strong, independent women. And there's this quality of always being so line.

Now, it's interesting because I've talked to my aunts about this quality that a lot of us carry, and and live in this pattern we find ourselves in. And a number of them are like, well, it feels good to be fine, right? Like, why would I want to be anything else? And my mom has said the same thing like, well, this is good, I like being fine. And for me, there's been a different curiosity present, there's been a longing for more understanding of the depth of what's available, when I'm actually not fine. When I'm feeling the depth of emotions and experiences, what might that be like? And this curiosity has been there for a really long time. Yet, it's always come from this, I'm fine quality. And I want to emphasize that a lot of our patterns can be a reflection of who we are, what I like to inquire into is recognizing when these patterns are based off of survival, or when they're a genuine expression of who we are. So an example of that for me with my I'm fine, strong, independent women qualities over here, right, which thank goodness, they're there, because they're a part of the reason why I'm sitting in this chair. But how I experienced myself in that pattern is I keep everyone at a distance, right? When I'm in this strong independence, there's the sense of being alone in the journey, there's a real sense of keeping people at bay, not really letting them be see me, not really showing any vulnerability, not even really knowing how to move towards the edges of that vulnerability, and that riskiness of what's involved with potentially being seen. Right? So this pattern of mine, that is this strength, also comes with a sense of protection. So it's rooted in survival. If I act like I'm okay, and I've got it all together, that there's a sense of worth there, I'll survive. I come from a German lineage, the importance of carrying that sense of strength and that sense of independence and got it all together, how can I help? How can I be of service has served some great purpose, probably with my ancestors carrying similar patterns? Without them doing that I wouldn't be sitting here. So there's this recognition of, okay, how can this pattern be rooted in survival? And how is it stuck in keeping me protected? And how can I kind of soften the edges of that to discover what it's like to still be in my strength and my independence, but be opening up into interdependent relationships to find the riskiness that comes with the vulnerability and the edges of being seen and being supported and being held? So I wanted to share one of my patterns with you.

And that's one of many, let me tell you, and something I find so fascinating is, yes, we have so many patterns that support us in how we move through the world. And those patterns can change. What's really fascinating is the way our brain and our body communicate through our nervous system is adaptable, right? Our brain is adaptable. And what we need to do is we need to be able to pause and notice and pay attention to our experiences, to then get curious about a what our patterns are rooted in, which is our trauma, and be how do we explore moving through our trauma so that we can rewrite the patterns that lie deep within ourselves, and allow us to discover that we can be in this world in such a different way, the more we do our explorations from a place of wholeness, with the ability to pan out and see the multiple layers that are at play. This is what's so key and what I want to bring forward. This is how I work I really like to see the bigger picture all the many realities that are at play at once. And how can we get to know them? How can we get curious about what's at play? How can we hold it from a place of space, instead of being entangled and lost in the chaos of it all? And how can we really explore in ways where we have some ease in the process, and there's some grace for just simply being human? Now, I work with clients when one on one and I also offer programs and the feedback that I get from people is that they really are learning how to support themselves in these many dynamics that are at play, that they're caught in that they're stuck in, that they find themselves constantly navigating their life. And so I want to share some of what people have to say about working with me.

I don't know how to make this Voice Note Mini like, every time I imagine expressing how much you and this work mean to me. I just kind of want to burst into tears. Like, it's so much this work is so fucking much sorry for swearing. And I mean, it's changed my life for sure. But more than that, it's just brought me like more into life. Which is really annoying because there is definitely like a comfort in kind of walking through life a little more removed and asleep. But there's also like a profound sadness or longing, at least for me that came with moving through life that way and this like, sense that I was just missing something. And I think through this work, I just feel so much more alive and so much less of this, like, underlying sense of longing, or questioning. And I mean, the level of like self trust that I have access to, as a result of doing this work with you is pretty astounding to me. And just being able to, like, hold and know my decisions as my own. And trust that even when they don't make sense to me logically, or don't make sense to the people around me that like they are leading me to the right place for me, I have seen absolutely time and time again, since since since the initial decision to work with you that there's just like, there's no parallel in life for having a sense of leadership and agency and connection to self and how you drive your own life. And I think like at its core, that's what this work brings me. You know, it's like a sense of a deeper sense of myself a deeper sense of direction, and a really, really profound sense of trust in me and my path and my relationship to self and my ability to start again and again and again and again as many times as I need to. And it feels overwhelming to like even acknowledge because the level of my gratitude for this work is Yeah, it's so so, so deep. I'm remembering like two years ago, when I sent you that video, of me just like discovering a new layer of happiness, and a new layer of like gratitude for myself and my own decisions, and how at that time, that feeling was so novel for me, and then continuing to do the work with you and continuing to follow my yeses and my nose. Like that feeling of gratitude and self and pride in my decisions and trust in my decisions and in my path has just become such a commonplace experience for me. And it's really moving for me to like, think back to that first video I sent you where I was discovering that emotion and that sense of connection to myself. Maybe not for the first time, but for the first time incredibly, consciously for sure. And just yeah, just realize how much of that emotion and how much of that experience is just part of my day to day way of being in the world now. I can't I can't I honestly can't imagine living differently. Like I think back to my life before you or I think about, you know, parallel universe where I hadn't found you. And like I said, there are days where I'm like, Oh, that was so comfortable to not have so much awareness. But there's also just this, like profound sense of being stagnant and stuck and lost. That I don't have to have as my everyday experience, because I found you and because I found this work, so I don't know that feels insufficient, but it's almost six minutes. I'm gonna stop talking. Then a big hug. And thank you.

Nicole, it's Luke here. So I thought I'd send you this note and use voice message so that it could be a little bit more in my own words, and a little bit easier to talk about my experience that I've had I was originally drawn to this work with you because I had tried a lot of other things things like meditation and mindfulness practices, journaling practice. says, and then also more conventional therapy type practices as well counseling and that kind of thing. And although all of them had been helpful in various ways, I still wasn't feeling like I was really connecting in with what I was feeling and experiencing each day. And I began to become aware of that, I think at first through mindfulness, and quickly realized that I really needed a lot of guidance and support on really starting to feel things, feel things in my body, be able to put language around that. And really to be able to use that as information, just like I use thinking as information about what I'm doing in my life, I feel really grateful to have been able to work with you to have found you and what you do. Because I hadn't come across anyone previously, who was bringing together the kind of approach that you do. And also, I hadn't had success in previously engaging with even Somatic Experiencing type practices in various other formats. And what I found was that your approach, being very conversational, but also very effective at being able to help me get into almost what I'd call a very focused state, so that I'm in this mindfulness place in my body, it's really impactful. And it can make a huge difference, very, very quickly. And that's really been the experience that I've had is working on some very challenging things with you, I've been able to really feel what they were feeling like, and to then really work through those to sort of experience them and then move through them and move on from them. And in a number of cases, that resolution has been incredibly rapid much more quickly than I think what I would have experienced through any other sort of efforts, or any other sort of supports that I have around me, these days, my relationship with myself with others. And with sort of the things happening around me, it's really different to what it used to be like, and I'm very grateful for that, I feel more connected to all of those things on a daily basis. And I feel more able to navigate through things as well, much more able than, than I used to be. And really what that means is it helps me to align the world around me with the world that's inside of me. Because I think the more in alignment those two things are, the more satisfying life is going to be, and the better it's going to feel. So that awareness, and support really helps me to make decisions, make adjustments, and do things that helps support that alignment. So it's interesting, thinking back on all of that. I think, if, if I hadn't been able to work with you, I know there's quite a few areas of life that would be really different for me today. And I think they'd be different in negative way, they wouldn't just be different in a neutral way. So I'm really, really glad that we get to work together, and that I get that support that you provide.

Now, I want to share a little bit more about the path that has led me to supporting people through the work that I do, and also guiding me into doing this podcast. First off, one of the main reasons I'm doing this podcast is I want to show up more organically, I want to show up in my vulnerability, I want to have conversations with people like you, and other practitioners and for us to all show up in our humaneness and for us to explore together and recognize that we're not alone in this process. And that we can support each other through the recognition that we're not alone and hold a container for each other in this process. Now for me again, I have been in that strong independence and doing it all myself as I've already mentioned for such a long time. And when I finished high school that independence was there and I feel so grateful for having parents that always supported me in whatever decision I made. There wasn't that sense of pressure from them to go into PostGraduate School to know what I wanted to do with my life I always felt supported to follow my impulses and in a way follow those. I'm fine. Everything's gonna work out qualities that can be somewhat bypassing. But you know, it got me to where I am so I'm definitely grateful. Even though I can laugh at those qualities, especially because they still sometimes come up. Now, I left my hometown in Ontario and I was 18 and I moved to Whistler British Columbia, which is a ski resort town just said to Vancouver. And from there, I really was following these impulses of how do I, you know, be in my independence and be adventurous and explore and just live a good fun life. And I really enjoyed Whistler for that, because it allowed the expression of that. And it allowed me to play, I did a lot of mountain biking, and snowboarding and was really involved in the outdoors. And because of my active lifestyle, I got into yoga, and I really enjoyed the yoga practice for the physical reasons I found. It really helped me with my snowboarding at the time. But the more I learned about yoga, the more I realized there was more to it. And it was really the beginning of me exploring, like, Oh, who am I? And what are these ways that I may be navigating life? Now, shortly after getting into yoga and moved to Australia and started surfing, and that sparked something deep within me, there's something about being in the water and just connecting with the ocean in that way, if you surf, you know, there's something about it that just drew me in. And I was doing a firm no yoga at the time, I was getting into surfing, and it was like, You know what, I need to serve more, how can I serve more, because I'm a bum and I have no money. I am going to do my yoga teacher training so that I could work at surf counts.

So one of the main intentions of me doing my yoga teacher training was so I could serve more. Now, I did my yoga teacher training in 2005, did many trainings built on top of that around yoga, and I really enjoyed the practice. And something never fully ever landed for me. I really struggled with the yoga community. I never really felt welcome, probably part of my protection, keeping myself separate, not wanting to be vulnerable, that probably had a major influence on it. But there also felt like there was this scene Enos to it and where I really struggled was that I felt like I was telling people what to do in the practice, when I was teaching was as if people were disconnected from their experience from their bodies, and they were just waiting to be told what to do. And what kind of shifted for me is when I got into the Feldenkrais Method, which I'll explain in a moment, there was a shift in me recognizing like, I don't want to tell people what to do. I don't want to be so focused on the physical structure and you know, getting the heartbeat up and getting the sweat on. I want to be in this Invitational place where people can learn more about themselves through movement. Now, the Feldenkrais Method for those that don't know it's not a religion, although the name sounds like it is. It's named after Moshe Feldenkrais, who, in my opinion, was a total genius, who was doing neuroplasticity before neuroplasticity was a thing. He used movement as a way for people to connect into their experience for them to recognize where there was overcompensation and under compensation. And what he did is he found the subtlety and the nuances of movement, were an incredible way for the brain and the body to learn to communicate differently. Through Movement. He was supporting people in rewiring the nervous system, rewiring the way they moved, because our brain is always looking for whatever's easiest or familiar. And in the Feldenkrais Method, the movements are so subtle, that it's allowing the reprogramming to happen and the brain recognizes, wait, this is easier, I'm going to start doing this instead of this other thing that I was doing that really impacted the overcompensating or under compensating. Now the Feldenkrais Method is world known, I highly recommend checking out classes, if you're curious about exploring your movements. They're really subtle practices that are so powerful, and you can do them in a group setting. Nowadays, of course, there's so many offerings online, and then you can also work with people one on one. Now, this is a four year training that I embarked in, I started in 2008, while I was teaching yoga full time, and really just wanted more. And I had a good friend who was in the training previous to the one I signed up to who was offering workshops, and I would attend her workshops and it was just like, I didn't know what was happening. But my whole body knew that I needed to weave this modality into what I was doing with yoga and just in how I was living my life. Now, that for your training, really enrich and my ability to tune into my experience, and really notice the nuances of how it was I moved through the world. And it also allowed me to really see how other people move through the world. And I feel really lucky in the ways that I work it's really easy for me to notice and sense and feel and pick up on what is happening in people's systems, I can notice when something is on an alert or bracing, I can notice when something is void and vacant and not really present. I can notice when there's an overcompensation happening, I can notice the changes in the physiology and in the energetic bodies really easily. And of course, this has been refined and it continues to be refined. And I hear this from clients all the time as well that as they tune into their own experiences more and as they start to shift through their trauma and builds capacity, they become more connected with their own instincts and their impulses and their intuition. And their ability to sense themselves and the people around them really enhances. And I do want to warn you, I always joke and say awareness isn't reversible. And the more you get into the work, there's no going backwards. And it's kind of annoying at times. And it can be really messy. And it isn't always easy, even though there's can be an ease to it, especially the more we find a sense of spaciousness and wholeness in the process. But know that, you know, this isn't always fun. So don't say I didn't warn you. But the outcome can be quite powerful. So here's a little bit more from a few other people on their experience with working with me and working in my program.

Hey, Nicole, I wanted to take a minute and just reflect on my journey since meeting you. You know, when I first met you two years ago, I was in such a hard place. I had always been in really good health. And after living in survival for such a long time, it totally caught up with me. You know, I was experiencing that really intense tinnitus. And it was honestly just devastating and so difficult for me to live through that. But here I am two years later. And I've completed discover once online with you, the gathering in Tofino. And now I'm in my second round of discover, and I know because of this work, and the expertise and the space, you've provided my life is forever changed. What I love about these experiences, is that you have provided this perfect combination of content, self exploration, demos, q&a, and processing, what I'm experiencing, and community with these other incredible people who are on the same journey. Since working with you, Nicole, I am just so much more aware of my survival patterns, and what is happening physiologically in my body. You know, I used to just live in my head, and I had cut all ties with my body. But I feel like I have this channel that connects my head to my heart and my body. And it's fully thriving again. And by listening to my body, what you've helped me do is find clarity about what is okay and what is not okay for me. And that alone has been so incredibly healing. In my day to day life. Before this work, I would find myself in a vortex and not have a ton of control or much awareness about what was happening. But now I find myself being able to pause and notice what I'm in the vortex and address my needs and more supportive ways. It's pretty cool. More than anything, I'm just so grateful to be experiencing life from this place of wholeness, reconnecting to my voice that speaks for himself, rather than all my survival patterns all the time. They still pop up, of course, but when they show up, I have a lot more curiosity about why, why they're showing up what they need. It's still a journey. But as I dive deeper and deeper into the layers, I love, love, love knowing that I have all the time I need and that I'm already whole. So thank you. Thank you so much for providing a safe space and a community to discover and explore with you. I'm forever grateful.

Hey, Nicole, it's Katie just wanted to reach out and let you know how much I appreciate everything that you do and let you know how much it's changed my life. At 44 years old. I finally feel like I know what it means to be whole. I had a lot of survival to dig through to find that wholeness but through your work and your programs through discover, and our time at the retreat, I've been able to do that. It's led to a place of trusting myself and having a deeper knowing that was never there before. I feel like I have a compassion for myself, protection and healthy boundaries for myself and my family that were never there before doing this work. And just so many subtle shifts in the way that I show up in the world, how I'm a different person, I'm a different Mom, I'm a different wife, I'm a different friend. And I truly, for the first time believe that I was never broken, I was already whole, it just took doing this work to find it. All my gratitude for you and what you do and how this work has just absolutely changed my life.

Now something I want to point out is the way I work is really bottom up, approach it, it really speaks to learning to listen to what's happening in your physiology, learning to listen to these patterns, you find yourself caught in and letting your system letting your physiology letting the parts of you that are stuck in time stuck trying to survive, guide you in your process that's very different than top down, which is where my mind wants to direct what is happening for me. Now, you don't need to make sense of that. In this moment. This will be talked about more and more as we dive into future episodes. But I just want to name that. An example of that would be when I was talking about my breath. When I was pausing and noticing my experience. I didn't tell myself to breathe, that would be more top down. I was just pausing and noticing my experience. And the breath came. That's more my physiology. Adjusting and making a change the breath naturally arises because it changes happening. Another thing I want to point out is the way I like to explore is in a way where I am guiding you to become your own guide. This is really important to me, because I find we get so caught up in trying to find the answers outside of ourselves seeking for the thing that's gonna fix us. And I am not that I am here to guide you back to yourself. So you can find your own way into discovering what feels supportive, what feels aligned, what really supports you in all the human experiences that exist for you versus your mind driving the show. So if you're looking for something that's more top down more about directing more about step one, two, and three, this probably isn't the podcast for you. If you're someone who wants to get more curious about your own experience and what guides you into discovering what's possible. Great. You're you've come to the right place. Now I want to continue on about a little bit more about my journey. So we talked about yoga, I talked about the Feldenkrais Method. The next thing that happened was I took a break from any of it. I was still teaching yoga and I was weaving Feldenkrais into it, but I just wanted to serve. If you're a surfer, you know, you know what it feels like to just want to be in the water. And I ended up getting a job Finally, after full time teaching yoga for about five years in Morocco. So that dream of wanting to teach yoga so that I could travel the world started to come true. I was working in a surf camp in Morocco, where I then also started to teach surfing. And from there I had all kinds of incredible opportunities where I got to teach yoga and teach surfing, not only in Morocco, but in France and Costa Rica and Mexico and El Salvador. And I also then moved to a small surf town in Canada, where I was teaching surfing for a surf sister in Tofino BC, West Coast, Canada.

Now that lifestyle was great, it allowed me to be in the sense of freedom and that sense of lack of responsibility, just getting to be my independent self doing whatever I wanted. Yet there still was this curiosity and this inquiry into like, well, there's a depth here that I'm lacking. There's more to being human that I want to learn about. And I have a number of fellow Feldenkrais practitioners who raved about somatic experiencing and took me a while thanks to surfing, but eventually I signed up for the program and in 2000, and oh, what was it 1515 or 14? I think it was 15. I then signed up for the somatic experiencing training and for those that don't know what somatic experiencing is, it's based off of the work of Peter Levine and It's all about connecting us more with our nervous systems response to trauma. So what happens when we experience traumatic events is we can get stuck, believing and feeling like those traumatic events are still happening. Trauma is stuck in the threat response cycle, it's us feeling like that thing is still happening. And parts of us get stuck in this, even if it's from eons ago, there's these experiences that are stuck within our body that are perceiving is it perceiving things as if the event is still happening? Now, when I started the SE training, I kind of didn't know that much about it, other than friends raving about it. And I was like, You know what, I'm just going to start the training, I can always bail, don't tell me what to do. That's another one of my great patterns, right. And I remember still sitting there on the first day of the training and hearing the facilitators teach and what they were speaking to, was like a language that I already knew inside of me, but I didn't have words for and instantly from there, I was like, Oh, my gosh, yes, this is the next piece. And it allowed me to take what I had already known through Feldenkrais and allowed me to see the deeper pieces at play by really recognizing how there's more caught within our physiology. We're not just exploring movement, here, we're exploring how our physiology stuck, still trying to survive. And that changed everything for me that it really allowed me to see more of the depth of the human experience. And it allowed me to really support my clients in such a different way. Now, the somatic experiencing training is a three year training. And to me, it's the beginning of what is possible when it comes to exploring healing trauma. And other trainings that I've taken have involved more of the physiological approach where we're really working with a body. I've studied a number of times with Kathy Cain, who is really rooted and working with the viscera, the organs, the body, and really paying attention to how emotions and how trauma is caught so deeply in ourselves. And I love the work so much, it gets me so excited, because the more we can recognize that each cell has a story. And the more we can get curious about all the cells that make us up, make up who we are, the more we can really uncover what we're stuck in, we can move through it. And we can really find ourselves more in this harmony more in the sense of coherence, and flow. And it's such a beautiful process.

Now, something else I weave into my practice is ifs internal family systems, I've only taken a basic training in ifs, but I really enjoy parts work as another way to support us in differentiating the parts of us that are stuck in time still trying to survive, versus us connected to our sense of self, our sense of wholeness. And it's such a powerful way to also explore our experiences. So I think that's it. I mean, there's so much more I can share about myself and about my journey. But I just want to say that I'm so grateful to be starting this podcast, and to be sharing my knowledge, my perspectives, my wisdom of kind, and inviting you to then find your own wisdom, your own perspectives, your own sense of self and the knowledge that lies within that. Now, many of my episodes will involve other practitioners where they'll get to share their perspectives, as well as people like you who are just curious about your own patterning. So if you're someone who does want to join the podcast, make sure you check out my website, there's a link, you can sign up and join me in some explorations around your patterning. And really, I just want to invite more of us to really discover what it means to reconnect and remember who we are, the human experience is so profound, and I'm really looking forward to guiding you into deepening your awareness of what that means for you on this planet in this lifetime. Now, one last thing that I forgot to mention, something else I will be weaving into this is my exploration of bio around the sense of soul and the way our blueprints of who we are also impact how we move through the world. So, you know, there's so much to talk about here, and I am noticing that, you know, oh, then there's this, there's this and this, but I'm gonna leave it there and really invite you to join me for future episodes to see where the conversations will go. And if you have questions, please reach out. If anything doesn't land, reach out. If something lands reach out, like I'm here to share the journey with you. So please feel free to be in touch and I look forward to sharing this journey with you.