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Are you an entrepreneur looking to build confidence and achieve your goals? Join host Alessandra Pollina as she interviews Maria-Victoria Albina, a coach and somatic experiencing practitioner, who shares the relationship the nervous system has to building confidence. But what happens when your nervous system is dysregulated? Tune in to find out how Albina’s insights will help you re-evaluate your approach to building your business, ultimately boosting your overall confidence.

María-Victoria Albina (she/her) is a Master Certified Somatic Life Coach, UCSF-trained Family Nurse Practitioner and Breathwork Meditation Guide with a passion for helping humans socialized as women realize that they are their own best healers by reconnecting with their bodies and minds, so they can break free from codependency, perfectionism and people-pleasing and reclaim their joy. Her global clientele, podcast, and unique coaching programs attest to her innovative, effective approach, making Maria-Victoria a beacon of light in the journey to enhance confidence.

Finding Confidence through the Power of the Nervous System

It’s no secret that entrepreneurship comes with unique stressors, but how does that affect our confidence? Maria-Victoria shares, “When our nervous systems aren’t coming into true rest, it’s hard to ever feel really confident in a true way.” In the midst of a society that pressures female business leaders to push emotions aside, Maria- Victoria encourages us to let our nervous systems work the way they’re meant to, instead of fighting against them. Only then will we feel that true confidence that comes from within. Listen in to the episode to hear ways you can start to support your nervous system and find more confidence in the process.

“To support the nervous system is to allow the nervous system to be a nervous system, which means to allow ourselves to have our feelings, to allow ourselves to witness our emotions, to feel our feelings in our bodies.”

Prioritizing our Well-being Over Work Output- Redefining Success

Prioritizing our well-being means we are also redefining success beyond mere work output. Maria-Victoria shares, “We need to stop wanting to hack our nervous system. It’s the very way of thinking that got us into this mess. That capitalistic drive to increase productivity instead of supporting humanity, that got us into this whole morass of disconnection with self of depression, anxiety, over medication, underrest, underslept, on and on.”

So in a society that’s all about the hustle, making the choice to slow down and find what really makes you thrive can be the best choice for your overall well being. Maybe it’s time to ask yourself what success looks like to you. Instead of revenue goals, try thinking of lifestyle goals you can achieve. Maria-Victoria shares, “When my nervous system was dysregulated, I was so codependent with my business. I believed that getting more clients, making more money, and hitting those fourth quarter goals would somehow make me feel better in the world.”

Maybe success looks like more days off, and less stress, not necessarily because you make more money, but because you prioritize your well-being and find what makes you thrive. “And of course, you will feel more confident in your business when you’re living a life that’s deeply nourishing,” she shares. Building your business from a truly confident and nourishing place also makes sales easier as an added bonus. Listen in to hear how Maria-Victoria has applied this to her business and the changes she’s made since leaving traditional medicine that have had the biggest impact on her personal well-being, leading to a happy and thriving career as a somatic life coach.

“Don’t be afraid to make the shift towards what truly lights you up. Trust your intuition and follow your passion, even if it means stepping away from the familiar. You have the power to create a business and life that aligns with your values and purpose.”

Connect with Maria-Victoria Albina:

Download the free meditations
Visit her website at victoriaalbina.com
Listen in to the Feminist Wellness Podcast
Connect on Facebook and LinkedIn or Instagram

Transcription

I am thrilled to have Maria-Victoria Albina here today with me. She is a master certified somatic, life coach, family nurse practitioner, and host of your own podcast and a lot of other things. So thank you, first of all, so much for coming on here, and I want to let you really tell us who you are and what you’re about, and we’ll start there. I liked and a really lot of other things as the descriptor of what I do. Yeah, there was a lot of things, and I always feel like things so many words.
00:01:49

We’ll do a really long intro on a podcast. I sort of gloss over it. I’m like, all right, let me just hear what they’re about. Let me hear it from them. I don’t want to do a long intro when I’m welcoming someone on this show, so yeah, not to I hope that I didn’t mean to diminish no, it’s totally fine, all of your things, but I would rather just, hey, tell us, what do you do?
00:02:13

What are you about? What is your business like? And we go from there. Yeah, what am I excited about? The nervous system.
00:02:23

That’s the main thing. I geek out about, somatics and the nervous system, and I know we’re going to dive into all of that together. What is my business like? Was that what you asked? Yeah.
00:02:34

Tell us, what’s your business? Let’s start there. Yeah. Is there something specific I like to hear? How did you get to where you are now?
00:02:42

Basically where’d you start, depending on how far some people go, all the way back to high school or elementary school when they joined the workforce, but yeah, how did you get to where you are today, and what does that look like? I think what’s relevant and what’s maybe the most interesting is that I come from medicine. I’m a UCSF trained family nurse practitioner. I had a private practice doing functional medicine in Manhattan before the Pandemic and did primary care for many, many years before that. And I made the big it wasn’t big a shift really into coaching once I started to notice that the main thing I was treating and what I think the true crux of so many of the chronic health conditions that we’re dealing with population wide these days is really stress to stress and trauma.
00:03:38

And the way that the body is holding on to the lived experiences of stress to stress and trauma. And is bracing. And Tensing, which has downstream health effects. Right? This is very strong evidence base in the literature to support the claim that stress really negatively impacts our health in profound and far reaching ways.
00:04:07

Things beyond what the average animal would sort of think of. I think when we think of stress, people are like, oh yeah, I get like a tension headache or like, I’m tired, but like irritable bowel syndrome, thyroid imbalances, hormone imbalances and fertility issues, sure, of course. Fatigue, chronic fatigue, chronic pain. We can go on and on and on and on. Diabetes, right?
00:04:34

These things are multifactorial. Of course. I’m not just saying that the mind body connection is the thing that controls it all, but it plays a huge and powerful impact or it has a huge and powerful impact. And I realized after many years of practicing medicine that I wasn’t treating the right thing. I was doing all the right things.
00:04:55

I was following the standard of care and in primary care medicine, I was doing exactly what one was supposed to do in functional medicine. I was going above and beyond doing DNA PCR testing and dried hormone testing and supplements and nutrition and all of that was great and has its place and is really important. But the true root cause of so much was the combination of mindset and the trauma that lives on in our bodies, in our nervous systems. And so my business now is I’ve left behind clinical medicine per se. I don’t order labs, I don’t prescribe.
00:05:39

I really focus on the mindset and somatics and so I work as a coach now, which is great. Gives me so much liberty and freedom. I can work across state lines, I can work internationally. I have clients from around the globe, which is a freedom I didn’t have when I was working under a medical license. Folks work with me because you asked me about my business model.
00:06:02

I have a flagship program called Anchored, which is a six month program. It’s small group. I cap the group between 25 and 30. So it’s intimate and in that folks get coaching every week. Once with myself, once with a coach on my team.
00:06:19

Breath work. There’s an online community, not on social media because I’m not into that. We’re doing really intimate work. I wouldn’t share the level of stuff we share on the Meta platform. I would absolutely never share that intimate detail there.
00:06:36

Right. Because you completely lose control of it. So I wouldn’t ask my clients to do that. So we’ve been on Slack and we’re switching to an in house community server. But that’s an amazing program.
00:06:49

And then I created I realized there was a desire for more didactic program, a more education based program, and a shorter program that’s less hands on with me. So it could be at a much lower price point because it’s at a much lower touch point. Right. Whereas Anchored is boutique, it’s really hands on. People are getting hundreds of hours with me.
00:07:13

And so the Somatic studio is my twelve week program where people learn all the basics they really need around nervous system healing, around Somatic, or body based modalities for healing. It’s also very practical and practicum based, with a move towards nervous system regulation being not just something you practice, but a practice. Right. A way of living. And that’s an exciting program and also has a Slack component.
00:07:41

And we do breath work in there as well. It’s just you don’t get the intense coaching that you get in Anchored. So those are the two ways to work with me. And then I have a couple of one on one clients, but it’s really only my one on ones are reserved for people who’ve been through my programs, so we can really do that deep dive, high level care. Okay.
00:07:59

And then you have a podcast too, right? I do have a podcast, yeah. It’s called feminist wellness. It’s just so much fun. It’s really great.
00:08:10

It’s a lot of work, right? Having a podcast is a lot of work. I write a Ted Talk every week, but it’s well worth it. It’s a blast. Yeah, we’ll link to that too.
00:08:21

See, this is a lot. It was so much better hearing that from you than hearing me try to put all of that in the intro, but yeah, no, I’m super curious, though, how you even like I feel like that’s a pretty big shift to go from being kind of in the more traditional medicine world to then creating a business on your own. I feel like I haven’t talked to many people who have done that kind of shift. I know some people in the corporate world and then started a business. A lot of the people I talked to on this show, I feel like, have always been entrepreneurial.
00:08:56

Yeah, I’ve always been entrepreneurial since I was a little kid. No one was shocked when you were like, hey, I’m leaving the traditional practice to do something on my own. I think my immigrant parents were a little like, wait, what are you doing? But little surprised. Well, I mean, it’s a boring trope, but of course your immigrant parents want you to stay in medicine.
00:09:25

So what was that process like? Did you have a time where you were like, okay, I need to go start my own business? What did that look like?
00:10:46

Yeah. So I knew I was done with Western medicine, so I had been practicing functional medicine within an allopathic Western medicine outfit, and they sort of tolerated me, but they didn’t get it, and they weren’t thrilled. It’s also when you’re accepting insurance, it’s not the smartest thing to be practicing functional medicine. So sort of legally, it is much safer as a licensed healthcare provider not to take insurance.
00:11:26

You run a much lower risk of, frankly, them coming for you. So from a liability standpoint, if I was to practice holistic and functional medicine, taking insurance is a terrible idea. So I knew to be able to practice the way I wanted to practice, I had to get out of somebody else’s clinic and have my own clinic. And then from there, I went from doing the standard super short, useless intakes to doing 90 minutes intakes and to really starting to have a business model that made sense for that really honors my patients and the complexity of their health right. Which the Western medical system absolutely doesn’t.
00:12:11

And I just, from there, started really realizing that I really wanted to go deep, and it just is not really possible when you’re also reviewing labs and you’re also needing to do all this medical stuff, like make sure someone doesn’t have leukemia. You know what I mean? When you’re doing that, that needs to be your focus.
00:12:40

The shift was just kind of like a very obvious evolution, and so I did it slowly, which is what I recommend when I business coach, folks. I used to do a lot of how to start your own functional medicine business. Coaching your own practice was really to start slowly, both for cash flow reasons and so it’s not like a shock to your own system. And so I left western medicine pretty and just left but the shift from functional medicine to full time coaching was just taking fewer patients and taking more clients and then just really letting that ratio start to bias towards clients who wanted coaching. And then just shifting my offer and shifting the public side of my offer, shifting my website from functional medicine to I went from it saying, like functional medicine to something like real root cause functional medicine through life coaching.
00:13:45

And then just slowly started taking medicine words off the site where there really aren’t any now except in the about me parts and where I talk about. Somatics because I’m able to do the kind of deep coaching I do because of my training. That’s what I was going to say. Imagine having those credentials in that background. Probably helps certain people feel drawn to working with you because it’s like she’s really going to understand whatever, and it.
00:14:16

Helps me feel ethical in what I’m doing. Right. This is not light work and it should not be taken lightly. I support people in really working through big, heavy things in their past that are deeply impacting their sense of self, their relationships across the board now. And I only feel safe to do that.
00:14:41

Yes, I’ve studied somatic experiencing and sensory motor psychotherapy as a coach, and I have a lot of advanced training from the coaching. And UCSF is no joke. Right. It’s the best MP school in the country for A, like, we were really trained. I know that my capacity to coach patients and counsel patients is significant, so that really makes me feel more at ease too, because above all, do no harm, right?
00:15:13

Like, that’s an oath I’ve taken and I take it very seriously, as one should. For sure. All of your clients and everybody who works with you appreciates that a lot. Yeah. And then one more kind of business question.
00:15:28

I really want to dive into all of everything you’re talking about, but one more just like, business question from that. Sure. In terms of when you’re creating this as your own thing and able to kind of run it how you want to, just what does that look like? You kind of alluded to having another coach that some people work with. Do you have a team?
00:15:49

What does your support system look like? I’m just curious. Okay, what does my support system look like? Yes. I got a lot of folks in house, so I started with just one part time VA, the way most of us do, to help me with the clinic, with setting up basics, and then grew to she’s not completely full time, but getting there.
00:16:14

VA a graphic designer who does a lot of my Instagram stuff and helps write emails. I, of course, write a lot of my own sales emails and that kind of stuff because it’s really important that that be in my voice.
00:16:31

I have. A fractional CMO who’s incredible and helps with all the launch planning and that sort of stuff. New folks, new followers on Instagram get manually sent a welcome note. And then I have a VA who there’s probably a way to automate that that I should probably look into. Yeah, but there’s something to be said for that.
00:17:00

Personal. Right? Yeah. That’s pretty sweet. And then when folks respond with their email, somebody else inputs that into entrepreneur.
00:17:11

There’s probably other people I’m forgetting moment. Yeah. I’ve got a really great team. Yeah. And then, yes, there’s another coach on my team who coaches in my programs, which is really lovely because I am very tender.
00:17:30

And so when you’re coaching with me, I’m an Argentine New Yorker, right. I don’t f around. I have no problem being direct and to the point, and there’s a different kind, but sometimes my energy is just not what you want. Right. And so my clients know that if they want a little something like a little more grittier coaching, molly on my team cuts the chase in a different way than I do.
00:18:00

And so it’s really nice. So sometimes in a given week, folks will bring an issue to me and then the same issue to her to get slightly different coaching on it, which is pretty rad. Yeah. It’s a cool dynamic to be able to have. Yeah, it’s really nice.
00:18:13

Yeah. And then we do a lot of things like dance parties and somatic movement parties and I have a lot of guest speakers come in for that. So that’s really fun. Cool. Yeah.
00:18:26

I just feel like it’s always cool to bring up a little of that behind the scenes. Like, what does it actually look like? Because people especially about the shift from working in a very different kind of environment to then building a business where all the say but also I think a lot of times people are like. I didn’t realize so much of my. Time was going to actually be like managing other people and doing all of these other things that come along with it.
00:18:47

So I think it’s always nice to kind of talk about those pieces of it, too. Yeah. And that’s one of the things I have been really careful about. I get that my job is to CEO, but a lot of my friends have given up coaching and they don’t even coach in their own programs. And that’s no judgies, of course that’s not what I want because I got into this because I love the people part.
00:19:14

I love coaching, I love doing somatic, experiencing with people, and I love the process of holding space and guiding folks and watching them completely change their lives.
00:19:29

I’m not game to give that up. And I know I could be making a crap ton more money if I stopped coaching and I hired coaches and I focused more on sales and I don’t care. Right. And never say never. Who knows?
00:19:47

But yeah, I think they’re saying but. I want to say never, right? I want to say never. I am doggedly saying never. To giving up coaching.
00:19:55

Totally your progress. I love it so much, which is so like that’s so cool, right? That’s so amazing. Power to say that and to do that and to make the choices. It’s so great.
00:20:09

Also, make as much money as you can and want and need to coach. You still can figure all of that out. Yeah, it’s great. I love it. I love the passion.
00:20:22

I feel it from you. Love it. Which is obviously so cool, and I’m. Sure it’s really awesome. Yeah.
00:20:30

Cool. Well, I want to shift gears a tiny bit. Just I mean, not even what we’ve been talking about, but like you’ve mentioned and you’ve talked about confidence, and I think that’s something that our listeners always all are interested in and want to build more of. And I’m sure there’s also more parts to it also that you can like, let’s talk about whatever you want. But you’ve talked about your nervous system and how the state of your nervous system can diminish or alter how confident you feel and how that can affect how well you’re achieving your goals or how well you can go after what you want and need.
00:21:12

And I want to dive into that a little bit more. Like, how do you work with people around these topics?
00:21:20

Sorry, this is now a several part question. Yeah, I want to give you the. Ability to talk about it, however makes sense to you. That is the topic I want to hear about. But, yeah, nervous system and confidence.
00:21:32

Tell me more. Okay, great. So let’s back it up and talk about some of the basic science. I don’t even know enough to know where to start, and that’s why I want you to back it up to whatever we need to know. All right, so let’s start with polyvagal theory, which is the work of Dr.
00:21:52

Stephen Porgis, PhD. And Deb Dana. LCSW. Porgis is, like, a nerds, nerd science guy. He studied things like heart rate variability in neonates in the NICU.
00:22:05

It’s, like, too deep science, even for me sometimes. But Deb Dana is a woman and a social worker, and so she made it into some beautiful English. So polyvagal theory for anyone listening who knows from this that it’s like, well, but there are flaws in the theory. Yep, there are. It’s a theory.
00:22:24

It’s not law. Right. It’s a theory. The Brady cardia thing, I agree with you if you think it’s flawed, so I’m just going to put that out there for the folks who know, are like, okay, good. I’m glad she said that.
00:22:37

Now I trust her. Cool. So the vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve, the longest nerve in the human, the body. It is the connector between our mind and our body, and it controls not just our organ function, but it controls our mood, our energy, our emotional capacity. It dictates whether we are present in life or in the moment or not.
00:23:02

If we are anxious or chill, if we are checked out or if we are fully checked in the vagus, it is incredibly important, and I’m really glad that it’s getting its due, that people are like, let’s think about the vagus nerve. It’s my favorite nerve, but, yeah, you got to have a favorite nerve. Already learned something new today because I know nothing about that. Oh, right on. Great.
00:23:32

So the vagus nerve has many different functions in our body which shift based on our individual internal capacity, our environment, social factors, external stimuli, what we learned in our family of origin around things like whether it’s safe to have feelings or not, and all of that paired with our specific history of stress, distress, and trauma. The vagus nerve. When we’re talking about polyvagal theory, the poly meaning many points to the fact that the vagus nerve has three main branches or states, and those states are influenced, like I was just saying, on our experience of the world around us and whether our particular filter deems the world in this moment to be safe or unsafe. Okay, so if we are taking in the world and your body says, oh, this sounds safe, like, this is chill, this is cool. I’m down with this, then our nervous system is in a state called ventral vagal.
00:24:39

And in ventral vagal, we are safe. We are social. We are able to connect with others. Our cognition works beautifully. And this is where we’re going to loop back around to the confidence piece in just a second.
00:24:52

In ventral vagal, our cognition is flying. Right? We’re at our top of our personal, individual capacity to think. Our thyroid works well. Our digestion works well.
00:25:02

Heart, lung, diaphragm works well. Blood pressure, blood glucose, heart rate, everything’s humming. Everything in our body is working as best it is physiologically able when we’re in ventral vagal, which is the state of safety. That sound good? So are you with me so far?
00:25:22

Yeah. All of a sudden, you’re in ventral vagal. You’re chill. We’re here. We’re talking, having a good time.
00:25:30

All of a sudden, I hear a roar, RA. And it sounds like a lion. Clearly, we’re going to jump, right? Clearly, we’re going to be like, oh, my God. What in the what is that?
00:25:44

How is there a lion in New York or in my office? Like, what the hell just happened? Our heart rate goes up. Breathing goes up. Breathing gets shallow in the chest.
00:25:55

Cognition sharpens but is limited. Our vision sharpens and is limited. All the blood starts racing to our heart and our lungs, to our hands and our feet, and we go into what’s called sympathetic activation. So it’s a state directed by and creates creative of adrenaline. Yeah, because you just heard all lion, right?
00:26:25

Get ready to run. As humans, we recognize that we are very small animals within the scheme of the world, right? Like, take your tallest football player, dude, and come on next to a hippo. The guy’s like an ant, right? We are very small animals.
00:26:43

Hippos weigh like tons, you know what I mean?
00:26:49

When threatened, humans seek connection with other humans or other animals. If that fails, then we get prepared to run like hell. If that fails, then we get prepared to fight. If that fails, if we’re not able to flight, we’re not able to fight, then our body that was just in ventral vagal, safe and social and got jacked up into sympathetic adrenaline will then collapse into dorsal, which is the shut down. Checked out.
00:27:22

Freeze. Emotionally not present. Dissociated. Not in the room. Part of our nervous system.
00:27:32

Okay. Where we are unmotivated, there’s no space for ideation or creativity. We’re not really having feelings, and we are not experiencing pain. This is very interesting. Our bodies are flooded with endogenous cannabinoids, which keep us from feeling physiologic pain, okay?
00:27:56

And we know that there’s a link between pain reduction like tylenol and a reduction in empathy. Isn’t that fascinating? So when we are shut down to our own pain and we are shut down to our own feelings, and also our empathy is reduced, okay? And so the body does that because it believes that that lion that we could not outrun, we could not fight off is now about to eat us. We’re about to get lunched, at least.
00:28:30

Just not even be aware of how about to be kind of exactly. Yeah. Our body from self love checks us out, right? That’s a lot. Right?
00:28:43

It’s wild. And so that evolutionary process that on the savannah of evolution was supposed to happen gosh once a year, maybe twice now gets activated constantly and chronically, I believe. Not like in. One of the main reasons is that we’ve lost community, right? We’ve lost connection.
00:29:07

Most of us don’t live in a community of people who constantly love and support. We’ve lost the village. We’ve lost, like Wendell Berry talks about. We’ve lost the comments. And so for a lack of social engagement and true social connection, we find our nervous systems much more friable and fragile than we’ve ever really understood them to be.
00:29:35

And so many things that are not life or death that would not historically trigger the nervous system into this sympathetic fight or flight and then into collapse are happening left, right, and center. Like your boss texting you at 09:00 p.m.. Or your ex liking your post or your ex not liking your post. Or we can go on and on with the sort of banal examples of modern day stressors. But I think we all know we’re overworked and underpaid, most of us, right, in neo feudalism, because do you know that we’re not in late stage capitalism anymore?
00:30:14

Many would say we’re now in neo feudalism, which that makes a lot of sense, right?
00:30:22

Yeah. A lot of us are really the predominance of us are overworked, underpaid, stressed out and just burning the candle. Forget both ends, right? We’re burning in the middle too. And so our nervous systems are feeling the impact.
00:30:40

Right. We are jacked up on caffeine, on sugar, on garbage, fake food. We’re not seeing the sun, we’re not feeling our feet in the grass. We’re far from nature. And all of these conditions of our modernity are keeping our nervous system out of regulation.
00:31:03

And so you asked about confidence in the nervous system. Yeah, we only feel true confidence, I would say, when we are really rooted in ventral vagal and have a healthy little whisper of sympathetic activation. Right? Like a little bit of that confident get up and go. But it’s really when we’re grounded in ourselves and when our nervous systems aren’t coming into true rest, it’s hard to ever feel really confident in a true way.
00:31:44

I think we can put it on like a veneer, like a false self, but it’s not in a real way. And do you feel like people are so used to kind of being in that state of stress that we almost don’t even realize it’s a problem or 100%? Yeah, I think we don’t realize that we’re dysregulated. And I think people, the stories of like, oh, whatever, I don’t know. I just prefer to constantly be doing it’s just like who I am, those kinds of pervasive.
00:32:21

Because I used to tell that story, my partner would sit down to watch a movie and I’d be like, oh, I’ll be right there. But then I’d go clean the bathtub or alphabetize the socks or do stuff to not sit, to not rest, to not relax. Because if your nervous system is telling the story that holding that tension, that bracing against the world is what’s keeping you emotionally safe. That’s what’s keeping you from collapsing emotionally, your body’s not going to want to let you rest. You’re not an idiot.
00:33:02

That’s a dumb thing to do. Right? Right. Like you must keep doing and keep obviously aware and keep being productive all the time. Yeah, I think 1000% right.
00:33:16

People will be able to relate to that. Yeah. And so people there’s much talk, unfortunately, about hacking your nervous system, and it’s all BS.
00:33:32

We need to stop wanting to hack our nervous system. It’s like the very way of thinking that got us into this mess. Like that capitalistic drive to increase productivity instead of supporting humanity, that got us into this whole morass of disconnection with self of depression, anxiety, over medication, underrest, underslept, on and on. And so the way to support the nervous system is to allow the nervous system to be a nervous system, which means to allow ourselves to have our feelings, to allow ourselves to witness our emotions, to feel our feelings in our bodies. And caveat.
00:34:23

If you have a history of stress, distress or trauma where your body was the site of trauma, feeling your feelings in your body is probably not a safe or smart thing for you to do. And I see you and I’m sending you love and get some professional care and support, right? And we need intentionality we don’t need hacks. Yeah, first of all, I love that. I think actually the term hack always turns me off.
00:34:55

I’m like because first of all, most of the things that people say are like these hacks that’s just actually how things should be done. That is yourself. Not make it seem like you just created some new way of making something better. That’s just being a person.
00:35:13

Also, what does that mean actually to you? What if I’m like but I don’t know how to do that? Like how if I’m so not used to doing it? To doing which part? To just feeling my feelings, to just.
00:35:28

Letting be a nervous system. Yes. We start really that’s why it’s not a hackable thing, right? Because the whole goal of hacks is like a silver bullet cut to the quick. There’s no doing it.
00:35:51

Right. And so it starts with awareness, gentle mindful awareness, which doesn’t that’s not an ice bath. That’s not sticking your face in a bucket of ice. That’s not going to help your nervous system. My angel might help your productivity because you’re filling yourself with adrenaline real quick.
00:36:19

Stuff going out and going around. Yeah.
00:36:25

It’S just so not my jam. Plus please just like side note and we can refocus if you are a human with a uterus of a childbearing age and getting knocked up as part of your life goals, please don’t go freezing your uterus. Please be mindful of your chi and your yin and your I mean what a silly idea to put your cooch right in ice. Please think about what you’re doing. You want that place frozen and numb or do you want good beautiful yin and life flow energy to your uterus?
00:37:04

Makes a lot more sense now that you right. Yeah, I mean I’ve never done a. Nice bath but I do it a lot and I’ve never really thought about it from that perspective. Yeah. I feel like maybe like a hot chocolate bath is better if you’re looking to use your uterus, you know what I mean?
00:37:21

That’s not a real thing. Don’t go getting a burn and coming for me. I’m just saying. Yeah, I mean that’s also like Yeast Infection City. It was a hypothetical theoretical hot chocolate it was like an energetic hot chocolate bath.
00:37:36

How’s that? Yeah, that’s the final declaration that I’ll prescribe to everyone on the planet, right? An energetic hot chocolate bath. Yeah, but that’s also the point, right? Like the energetic hot chocolate bath of slowing down.
00:37:55

Yeah.
00:37:59

And before anyone comes at me like oh, that’s just like your privilege is showing if you have two kids and you have a job. Things that are done slowly are done well. The first time when we race around in sympathetic activation, that’s when you spill the hot chocolate. That’s when you f up and have to do it again. That’s when you leave the house without your keys or your wallet or your kid or your dog or your groceries.
00:38:29

You see what I’m saying? If your goal is efficiency, slow down. And if your goal is to heal your nervous system, feel your feelings slow down. So how do we start? Well, we’re really intentional, and I recommend that people start by feeling a feeling that’s easy to feel.
00:38:54

So maybe don’t start with grief or anger at your parents for that thing they did in third grade or getting a divorce or do you know what saying? Like, let’s not start there. Let’s not freak ourselves out and flood our nervous system and create more stress, distress and trauma to heal from. If it’s really easy for you to, I don’t know, put on some Phil Collins. Because no one can object to Phil Collins.
00:39:24

He’s unobjectionable. Let’s be real, right, and have a dance party and laugh and smile. Do that and really feel into what it feels like to be in your body as you’re dancing with the door closed, lights out, like no one else around or your best friend in the room. Always the dog. But you see what I’m saying?
00:39:51

When you’re drinking your morning coffee, stop and get present to your feelings through sensation.
00:40:00

It adds an actual 4 seconds to your morning. I’m adding 4 seconds to your morning. Smell the coffee before you put the cream in. Smell the cream, right? Taste it while it’s bitter.
00:40:15

Feel the heat. Feel the weight of the mug. Like, just take 4 seconds to be present. Because particularly as busy entrepreneurs and business owners, how many of us are present during the day? I know, it’s like, shocking when you really think about it.
00:40:35

Yeah. How many times have you said, like, I got a long day ahead of me. And then you’re like, how the f am I getting back in? But how is it midnight again? Yeah.
00:40:46

And so we get to ask ourselves a number one, what’s the impact on our body of doing that long term? The evidence base is clear that it sucks, right? And be number two, is that how you actually want to live? Right? And so then we get to start asking ourselves what our real priorities are and what really matters.
00:41:13

And if making a ton of money at the expense of your health and time spent with family and with loved ones and relaxing, if that is truly your priority. God speed, darlin. Go get them, tiger. Go. Run.
00:41:30

But I doubt you’re listening to the show at the title. That’s something about nervous system care for entrepreneurs or whatever you’re going to call this, right? You’re probably listening to this because you’re starting to feel a little fried and a little crispy and you need some friggin help with your confidence or otherwise in life. Yeah. It’ll help with anything.
00:41:54

I mean, it’s not just confidence. This is important stuff. It is. Yeah. I was a hospice nurse back in the day, and this is trite, because it’s not trite, but it’s cliche, because it’s super real.
00:42:13

I never, ever had a dying patient say they were really glad they didn’t go on vacation, and instead they spent more time working. It’s a tired, cliche trope, but it’s also very real. And I have sat at the foot of the bed of many a dying person, and all they want to tell me about is time spent with friends, time spent fishing, time spent drawing, time spent hiking, like, time spent being a human in social connection with other humans, which studies show is free. Right. Yeah.
00:42:54

And is available. And of course, you will feel more confident in your business when you’re living a life that’s deeply nourishing. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
00:43:07

When my nervous system was dysregulated, I was so codependent with my business. I believed that getting more clients, making more money, hitting those fourth quarter goals would somehow make me feel better in the world. I didn’t realize I was doing it, obviously. Right. But I was staking my validation and my sense of safety and worth on how well my business was doing.
00:43:34

And that is, A, number one, so much pressure to put on oneself, and B, number two is really unfair to your clients because you are unwittingly. Right. Yeah. You’re putting your wellness on their shoulders. That’s F.
00:43:50

And so now I get on consult calls, and literally the first thing I say on a sales call is, I’m really glad you’re here. All the niceties. And I want you to know that I will not be selling to you in this hour. I’m here to tell you about my program. I’m here to coach you if you want it.
00:44:09

The folks I get on consult calls with have been listening to my show often for months or years. Right. So we have safety and trust between us. But I say when it comes down to it, I don’t give an F if you join my program or not. I just don’t care.
00:44:28

What I care about is that you break the chains of people pleasing during this call. And if you don’t want to sign up for Anchored, please don’t. I will not take your money. I don’t want it. Right.
00:44:43

And it’s not lip service. It’s the honest truth that comes from my doing my nervous system and emotional work for me and not asking my clients to do it for me. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense when you. And it feels so much better for everyone.
00:45:05

Yeah. And sales are easier, like, to be as a bonus, which I was not expecting. I was like, I’m probably sinking my own ship by talking to people this way. But people probably pick up on that and appreciate it. Yeah.
00:45:19

Because it’s earnest. I really don’t want anyone’s money who doesn’t wholeheartedly want to give it to me. Yeah. Or who doesn’t fully believe that it is the thing for them that this is the should be doing. Please don’t join.
00:45:37

Please turn around, go home. Everyone will be happier, right? Yeah. No, this is great stuff. I think it’s really just important to be so mindful about all of these things.
00:45:50

How your body feels, how you can make these small little changes throughout the day. And I’m sure bigger ones too. But noticing your coffee and being present in some small moments, it’s something that literally, I’m sure days and weeks and months and even years can go by without really thinking about and doing these things. So if somebody leaves here today and sips their coffee slowly tomorrow, we’ll be happy. Absolutely.
00:46:18

Yeah.
00:46:22

I was just going to make the joke that awareness and sensation are the gateway drug to living a life that you really love. Yeah, I love that. We should make that into a quote. I mean, I think it is a quote, but let’s make it into t shirts. Yes, exactly.
00:46:42

Merch coming soon. Is there anything else like that? Like any other tidbit or thing of where you’d be like I just want to also make sure people know here’s one other thing you can do today. Or here’s what to keep in mind. Just any other thing before we let them live their life.
00:47:00

Well, you get to decide what you actually want your life to look like. And I don’t mean that in the trite sort of BS way that gets so bantied about on social media these days of like just live the life of your dreams. But you actually get to decide what you want to prioritize you really do and where you want to put your energy and where intention what is the saying? Where attention goes, intention flows. I’m saying it wrong.
00:47:38

But the point is just really attuning to yourself and your body. Learning about your nervous system is really one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself as a human can give your family, you can give the people you love and it’s definitely an amazing gift to give your business. Yeah. It’s powerful stuff. Thank you so much for sharing all of this and for getting us to think about these things in this way.
00:48:07

Yeah, of course. It really to me is the most important work that we can do. Yeah. I can see how it affects every single thing else in your life and. Business 100%.
00:48:23

You can do these things easily. And as you said, 4 seconds in your day, you don’t have to go out and there’s just no excuse to not try to try to add a little so tell people how they can find you if they want, if they’re like, I need more of you in my life. I need your help to do these things. Or they your podcast. Yeah.
00:48:42

It is helpful to have a grown up to help hold space for you when you’re getting started in this work. For sure. So I have a treat just for your listeners. If you head over to Victoriaalbina.com quotable, you can download a suite of meditations, nervous system exercises, all sorts of treats for free, just for being a listener to this show. Oh, my gosh.
00:49:08

I love.
00:49:11

Yeah. My team will make sure you have that link for the show notes. You can follow me on the Gram. I give good gram at Maria-Victoria Albina wellness. My podcast is called Feminist Wellness, and it’s for humans of all genders who want to explore their nervous systems, somatics or body based practices and how they influence our lives, our world, and, of course, our business.
00:49:34

Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on today. This was great. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
00:49:41