Hey everybody, it's Savannah and Elena here from creative works. And you're listening to the creative works talk podcast, a podcast brought by creative workspace in the heart of EA 17. London.
Get inspired by the honest conversations and creative perspectives shared by our podcast guests, as they discuss their experiences and struggles as creative professionals,
from embodiment coaches to BAFTA nominees, get inside knowledge of their creative journey, learn from the success stories and discover new ways to express your creativity. Oh, yeah, yeah. And Elena was a little bit loud, excited. So today, we are speaking to ashy. So actually, if you can introduce yourself? Sure.
So I'm Ashley handle. I am an embodiment coach, and somatic practitioner, which essentially means I work with people through their body on challenges, how to find more ease, more flow, etc. I kind of found my way to embodiment coaching through being a former dancer. So as a professional dancer, I worked in New York for about six and a half years, and then moved to England and became a yoga teacher. And now I'm kind of combining what I've learned through dance through yoga and other movement modalities, including an embodiment technique called USASA. Embodied intelligence, that's the main way that I work now. But I'm combining all of these things to coach people through challenges, blocks, how to be more emotionally resilient. Anxiety, which is what we're going to talk about a little bit more today, how to find creative flow as well. So it's a myriad of ways in which embodiment work and working with the body can and kind of, essentially in working with the body where we're marrying mind and body, which often gets very separated in modern culture. So that's kind of what I, what I do and, and how I help people.
So my first point is more for you to let elaborate in, because you some words that I've never heard. I don't even know if I can pronounce or even gonna try. But you did just mention, believe it. Is Yeah, if you could, like, explain what that is exactly. But didn't treat me
Sure. Yeah, so that's, that's a that's a made up word. But it is a combination of vowel sounds that have to do with the internal external and an internal environment. It's not so important, like where that comes from, but a man called Dylan Newcomb. He's a former former dancer and movement and music and sound researcher. He spent 20 years doing movement and and sound research with people to come up with nine core postures or core modes of being that he found in people that that mirrored certain physiological states and emotional states to create Zazu embodied intelligence, which is a system and a framework for Yeah, helping people to come into to balance their, their nervous systems to understand the ways that they're being in their in their life, and how those those ways of being in their body are helpful, not helpful. And how to find other other ways of being that are more supportive, for different different reasons, different contexts. Yeah. So I should probably give you an example just so it's not as confusing to people. But if you can imagine you're about to give a presentation in front of people. And you find yourself getting really nervous, you might have some idea or belief about your capability of doing it, some anxiety around you know, what's going to will i remember what to say what's going to happen on the other side of it, are they going to enjoy it or they're not going to enjoy it? And all of these thoughts and when I say physiological, I mean things that are happening in your body like your heart rate. It gets up, you're restart sweating, you might feel a little dizzy. All of these things kind of affect your capacity to give the presentation, right. So with you Zazu. There's a posture called pillar, there's pillar and gateway and pillar is all about finding that sense of self agency. So that capacity that you can do it. And it's, it's, it's a posture that is very much like, like a pillar. And so when you place your body in that position, you give yourself the energetic sense that you're, you're capable, rather than, if you're in sort of fear based thinking or you're not sure not confident, it's likely that you're somewhere down here, right, or in this kind of worrying state. So that's just one example of the way you can use posture and use your body to help even just help your mind. So when I go like this, and I say to myself, I can do it, I feel like I can do it more than if I'm here. And I'm like, Yeah, I can do it. Yeah, I don't really feel like I can probably do it. So there's, there's pillar and then there's gateway, which is all about sort of self esteem. It's about allowing yourself to be seen, which is so important when you're giving a presentation to people or when you're trying to pitch your creative idea where you're trying to sell something to people, right. And so if we try to sell from this place, this sort of like collapsed, shy, maybe not confident place, is going to be a lot harder than if we use our body to put ourselves in that state of, yeah, I can, I can do this. I can be seen. Yeah.
Okay, so the next question, or our main topic of today, is, as you know, anxiety, but before we get into that question is how did you yourself, get into the position that you are in? So what Jen, did you take to get to the point where you can now educate others?
That's a great question and a long story. Yes, let me think about the short version. So I, when I was a dancer, I now in hindsight, realised I learned so much about how to use my body to, to be in the world and be in the world more easily. With more choice with more resilience. With more joy, like I like expressing through the body is, I think, one of the most important parts of living and so many people are disconnected from that, that practice, or it's not really available to them. So, in being a dancer, I learned how I could channel my emotions through movements, I learned, it's, you know, simple, but I learned how to shift weight between my feet, which means I'm more able to adapt to put myself in different places, etc. So all of that experience has fed into my, my role as an embodiment coach, because I've spent so many years being in my body in different ways, I have access to a lot of different tools, and a lot of different experiences with how my emotions move through my body or things I could do with my body to to make it feel calmer, to make it feel more energised to do especially as a performer, that performance anxiety, there's so much that goes on in your head before you before you get on stage, being able to channel that nervous energy that's happening in your head and let it go through the body or, or yeah, just ways I've had to work with my mindset. Absolutely feed into to the work I do now, and then becoming a yoga teacher. That's the part of my experience where I really learned a lot more about the nervous system. What it's like to be in sympathetic activation versus parasympathetic, which just means you know, more active or more at rest. I learned things about rest and restoration and breath and sitting with uncomfortable feelings. That just kind of adds to the previous experience I had with with being a performer. And so it's all just kind of mixing together and and this is a way that I've been Been wanting to work for a while. And this is a venture that, you know, has really evolved out of the last year that I've been combining this. So it's a new creation, if you will.
Yeah. That's my story. Like for the brief of it, I haven't cheated on the long version.
Yeah. Can I say one more thing? Yeah, I feel like this is also really important. When I say, there's, there's, there's micro adaptability, which is the simple like, being able to shift your weight from one foot to another, then there's like another level of like, being able to shift from one task to the next. And then there's, you know, moving from the first part of your day into the second part of the day, and it goes on, and on and on. And if I think about my macro journey, I've had so many major life changes were my identity, and who I was got, you know, questioned or, or I had to let go of certain things in order to adapt. And so I think that also that life experience of, you know, I became a dancer, and then I moved countries and I became a yoga teacher, and I had to, I felt like I had to make peace with sort of letting go of parts of my identity, and then becoming a coach. And so like, all these ways that my resilience and my adaptability have been tested i, and how that's moved through my body, I think are part of Yeah, part of the experience that I bring as a coach. I like that. Question.
I think it's like, it's interesting to, to listen to, you're talking about the anxiety and the chin, how as a dancer, you channelled the nervous system that you had like a before performance. And so I'd like to explore more about that type of connections that you had with your anxiety as a performer, performer, and then how that it's kind of translating now is the code and how do you teach that control?
Yeah, control? That's a great question. Well, I'll start with so if I imagined back to myself as a performer, I recall. Right before a performance feeling out of body so buzzing on the edge of my skin, really, in my head, I think that the some of the thoughts I had were, oh, my God, what if I mess this up? Like, so many people are counting on me, I really want to do well. And in hindsight, I realised I was equating like, my worth, and my goodness, as a person with how much I was able to perform. And I think that that is probably something that a lot of people have, I don't know, if I know anyone who creates for a living or, you know, work. Pretty much everyone I think, has dealt with, on some level tying their self worth to their performance, I think it's part of the part of the culture. And so I remember being really in those thoughts. And, and when I was really in my head, and sort of like going into that, that narrative, I felt very, very out of body. And what helped me to, to get out of that space was to notice what was happening in my body to take a couple of breaths, breath, essentially create space between thought, and action, right? You think a thought and then you react to it, create space between thought and action, but it also reconnects what's going on mentally and intellectually with what's happening in your body. So I would take a breath, I would let myself get really quiet, I would try to feel my feet again. And I can't exactly remember now. But I would say to myself something around like, I've practised this so many times, I really just, I'm just gonna go out there and enjoy myself. And I trust that it's all going to work out. Yeah, how it's supposed to. And so in those in those sort of earlier memories, there's something around noticing what's happening. Recognising that I'm tying the anxiety to the feeling that I have to perform well in order to be good and if I don't perform well, I don't I don't deserve to be here or you know, anything. and then finding within me that sense of self trust, and not only self trust, but when I focused on enjoying myself, that also helped us and quell the anxiety. And I think that's a big way that creativity, creativity and anxiety are almost there almost mutually exclusive. Like, when we're in that creative flow, there isn't that anxiety because we're forward, we're fully paying attention, and we're fully enjoying something, right? And something. And when we're fully enjoying something, we're in the present moment. Whereas anxiety puts us into a future moment that hasn't happened yet. Yeah. And that's where and then that disconnect, has the effect on our body of of putting us into what's called sympathetic activation, which is we're, we're now preparing ourselves for a danger that's about to occur. Yeah. Or what if moment? Exactly. It's exactly that is what if, and so. And so, when you're in that heightened state, it's really difficult to be creative. Because to be creative, you have to be in a more relaxed, spacious place. In general, I think there's some level of pressure and some level of time constraint that allows people to be resourceful. And there is a certain creativity in that. When we think about creativity, in the sense of like, your most inspired ideas or your biggest visions. It's not usually in the state of Yeah. And I'm like doing my body like anxiety. Is this. Yes. Breath in.
Yeah. When you say that I can, I can see it. Because I think for myself, I'm quite a visual person. So when someone says something, or describe something, I'm seeing what they're saying. So if you explain everything I can, I can see it all. And it's true. I mean, as creatives, all of us in this room, everyone in this building, is a creative, and everyone I thought goes through that sense of anxiety. Even earlier, both myself and Elena was speaking about how being a creative or being in the industry, and having anxiety does go hand in hand. Because if you are going to perform it, it happens with everyone. And it happens from a young age. You know, as soon as you have the talk is like oh my gosh, or if you meet someone new, you're a bit shy to say hello. Because it's like, Oh, what, what? What if this person thinks I'm strange or something? I don't know. There's just so many, like we said earlier, what if moments that do come? So my next question is, what would your advice be towards more? Not just young people, but just a lot of people in general? In like, the creative industry on how to not get over anxiety? But for fighting?
Yes. Yeah, that's a great question. I keep using this word, self trust, which can mean so many different things. But on a on a, on a body level self trust is being able to recognise when what happens within you when anxiety comes up. And almost like a Yeah, like, like a little observer on your shoulder, be able to see that name it be like, Oh, you're feeling these feelings. It's okay to feel these feelings. It's very human to feel these feelings. But what we're going to do is we're going to take a breath, we're going to remember why we love what we're doing. We're going to remember that we are worthy, even, we are worthy, no matter our performance are no matter, you know, if we do well or not, and especially for, I mean, all people, but I think especially for young people, anything that they can do that helps them channel that energy is is so important. So the fact that I had dance when I was younger, or some sort of physical outlet that helped me get those emotions through. I just think that that's so important. A lot of young people are learning yoga now, or meditation, and that's exactly that being able to sit with those. They're uncomfortable feelings, but they're there. In a way. They're good. They're messengers, they're saying like, Oh, you you really are inspired by this. So you really want to do well, like that energy doesn't come out of nowhere, right? But when it gets overwhelming anxiety, it's because all of that energy and attention is on what are they going to think, how do they see me what you know? And there's none of that energy going into Okay? I'm gonna put my feet on the ground, I'm going to breathe, I'm going to remember why I love this. I'm going to if I'm in a, you know, if I can to prepare, I'm going to go have a swim, or I'm going to go dance it out, and we're going to go hang out, my friends are going to do something pleasurable, and nice and good. So that I remember that feeling. And, yeah, I think a big mindset one is not tying yourself worth to you to your performance, and trusting that no matter what happens, you'll be able to handle it. I think I do think that it does take practice. Like, it's easy for me to say that. But
yeah, this makes sense. Because it's just like anything in general. So
I wanted to ask you, because it's, so during the creative work talks, we have a group of people like men in the creative industry that were quite active in when you were explaining like different postures and how to tackle like, different steps and, and I wonder if you can just like mention that as well. Like, what what that felt for you like, what what did you discover after this kind of mini group? Session? That, you know, maybe maybe you think about it even more on the embodiment side and and tackle anxiety in the creative? Mind?
Yes.
feel like there's a lot of questions in there. And I'm trying to, to organise my thoughts. So what I what I discovered from presenting or what I discovered in
it, I think, like, I think there was like a level of like, surprise as well, like, when people were describing how they face their own anxiety when you were sharing, like few suggestions on how to put yourself like, you know, with your body and stuff. And how many people don't do that? Because they don't they're not connected to their own body. Yeah. So yeah, yeah. Cuz I think that the deal will be nice to have to explain that there's like three level like, three, four level? Yeah, through. Yeah. Because I think that that's very interesting to kind of put to frame that. Yeah. So a type of like, embodiment example.
Yeah, like, so. Yeah. No, just saying that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think it's great.
Yeah.
I think it's a good opportunity to bring this up. Because there's not many people talking about. I mean, there's, we were, I was reading a report on mind, the website, and they were like saying, so every week, there are like six people out of 100 that are diagnosed with anxiety in England, every week. So it's like, you know, just but what this offers is like, mainly, psychotherapy or like married mental. Yeah. Whereas we forget about the body. Yeah.
And then two together is really what is what creates lasting change? Yeah, really? I think it's very interesting. The,
the entire kind of, yes, we are there like talking about mental health. But we don't connect the mental health with the body.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a again, it's a wider culture thing. Yeah. Like, we value. I mean, this is, this is an even bigger conversation about like, the kind of culture where we are, which is such an important topic. And I think most people think that rest is something that is not accessible to them during a work day, is something that they have to go on a retreat, in order to make happen, when actually there are ways of working, there are ways of working with your body. And there are ways of creating an environment for rest, even if it's one minute, five minutes. That is almost like I think I use the phrase like powering down, just taking a moment to power down so that you can come back to your work just that bit more refreshed. space. So I think I mentioned that creativity is all about creating the space in which something from your imagination or your inspiration can then fill that space. But when we're in deadline mode, or we're in anxiety mode, or we're trying to create when we're not feeling very safe in being able to To move it around pace and whatnot, everything sort of contracts. And so this I think a lot of people in the in the workshop related to was just like when when it's all becoming too overwhelming, you just gonna take a walk, take a walk, or I sort of gave the example of literally stretching your body is about taking space. And I think people understand this conceptually, but they don't quite get that. Yeah, quite literally, if you just practice doing that something, something is happening.
I think a lot of us do it like subconsciously without realising. Because if you realise that if you do feel a bit overwhelmed, you might end up like, taking a break from what you're doing. Like, for example, if we are here, we've had like, an intense moment, we might be like, Okay, we're going to do a complete different task. And so we subconsciously tell ourselves that we need to do without realising. And I find that quite interesting. And even to go back to your point about thoughts, it gave me a thought. I was thinking like, how would you like handle like, my intrusive thoughts? Because I know everyone does have like, set of thoughts that they do think, which isn't something that they would actually put into action. But they do. I mean, everyone hasn't choose it for how their technique? Yeah.
Because there is a counsellor in Colorado who I follow. And I'm sure Paul, and she's a young psychologist, so she does a lot of things with parts of yourself, like inner child and a parent, etc. But she talks a lot about intrusive thoughts. And I, what she says that I really love is sort of two main things. One, it's similar to what I said, which is like, when intrusive thoughts come up, recognise them as that they're not reality. They're not true, just because you have maybe disturbing intrusive thought about something doesn't make it true. And so being able to discern reality from intrusive thoughts, that's sort of step one, and the other one is addressing the underlying causes of those intrusive thoughts. And she offers four main ways which are to look at what's going on with you, physiologically, body wise, are you in any kind of chronic pain? Are you in any kind of do you have an injury? Or has something traumatic happened to you recently that your literal physiology has changed? Are you in burnout? All of those things to look at your emotional state? Like what's going on with you emotionally? Are there some big emotions that you haven't been able to take time to process? Cognitively. So so? So rationally? Like what's what's going on? Are you trying to are you in fear based thinking? So you're trying to Google your way out of something? Are you? Yeah, what are the what are the facts of the situation that you're in that you're that you could actually look at? So I love that part of it? Because it's like, don't underestimate or let go of rationality in these moments when you're having intrusive thoughts, but to just actually look at what what what facts can I land on? What can I sort of put aside? And then the fourth one is, it's all about spiritual, and like the greater cycles. So what time of year? Is it? What time in your menstrual cycle are you these sort of like larger cycles that hold us that absolutely have an effect on our psychological and emotional states. So she sort of has those four parts that you can sort of look through and when any of those things as parts of us are not attended to regularly or something biggest happened? They can manifest themselves as interesting thoughts. I knew I had a massive period of intrusive thoughts when I first moved to England and that had so much to do with with losing my social network, having to rebuild one feeling isolated. feeling like I had these these big emotions around that transition that I wasn't, I wasn't letting myself process and especially with emotions, especially with emotions, I think people think rationally Okay, I have to do something about this emotion or I have to make this emotion makes sense. But actually, it's just about letting the emotion being able to sit with the emotion and let it move through your body. And I think there's a lot of fear around. If the emotion comes up. It's gonna I'm just, it's going to flood and I'm never going to come back from it. But actually, it can't go on forever. It will. It will make its way through. Yeah. And until people experience that, I think they're afraid of it. Those emotions don't get processed. Yeah, they manifest themselves. Yeah. I think I can close it here. Yeah.
