Crying in My Jacuzzi with Dana Balicki
Join seasoned Transformational Coach & longtime activist, Dana Balicki, for a wildride into the jacuzzi-verse to explore the ebbs & flows of living an examined life. Each and every episode invites you to explore the strange magic of humaning together in these wild times.™ With 13 years of coaching expertise, Dana blends irreverent reverence, spiritual insight, decolonial teachings, collective movement-building, high-woo, personal narrative, and grounded growth-oriented practicality for deep, thought-provoking conversations.
Sound editing and design by Rose Blakelock, theme song by Kat Otteson, artwork by Natalee Miller! Extra support by robot cohost Alex & robot producer (and part-time cohost) Janet.
Crying in My Jacuzzi with Dana Balicki
Who's Your Mommy: Support System, Self-warmth, and the Pluriverse!
who really belongs in your support system? maybe not everyone who's there right now!! in this episode, we'll peel back layers and layers of your relationship to your relationships, explore what might be holding you in old patterns and feeeeel into support in our own miraculous bodies with some gentle somatic resonance practices! big work, tenderly.
we get bewildered, dance with the necessity of self-warmth and true understanding, expand into the pluriverse, and look at how the whole wide world can be your mommy (it'll make more sense-ation when you get to that part).
tune in to soak up the warmth and resonance that this episode offers + get hydrated with the world's first SUPPORT SYSTEM DRINKING GAME™ hosted by our beloved robot cohost alex and robot producer janet.
~ show notes ~
use the interwebs to find:
- sarah peyton's "your resonant self workbook"
- want to dive deeper into pluriversality and decolonial ontologies? > arturo escobar's "designs for the pluriverse" + the effervescent leah garza and her living systems course & akashic mentorship (10/10 recommend)
- rha goddess and move the crowd entrepreneurial training (+ we got issues book)
- enter to win a free coaching session ~ when you leave a 5-star rating (only) and a written review, you'll be entered into a monthly drawing for a free 90-min coaching session with dana (value of $388). DM (@danablix instagram) or email a screenshot of your submission—take it right before you hit submit—along with the review name/title. winner announcements will be made across platforms!
/// sound-editing/design ~ rose blakelock, theme song ~ kat ottosen, cover art ~ natalee miller ///
@danablix on ig 😭 feeling the pull for coaching support? go to danabalicki.com for inner/outer transformation 🖐️⭐️ leave a 5-star rating & review to be entered in a monthly raffle for a free coaching session (details in show notes) 🎁 share this with your favorite boo-hooer 😭
I'm going to say something radical to some. Obvious to others. Radically obvious, obviously radical. Okay, here it goes. Not everyone who is in your support system deserves to be there, what, what Ha.
Speaker 1:Let me say it again Not everyone who is in your support system, who you consider to be a part of your support system, deserves to be there or maybe ever deserve to be there in the first place. So if hearing me say that shakabat buzzed something inside of you in some way, on some level, then stick around crybaby, because we are going to dive into all sorts of things support system related and maybe you'll get just what you need for where you are in your life, where you're going, who you're becoming because who you surround yourself with matters. So so much Crying in my jacuzzi. Crying in my jacuzzi.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of Cry in my jacuzzi. It is my great honor to be here, to perhaps be a part of your support system in some way, shape or form. Obviously, today, our topic of exploration and inquiry and compassioning always, always, always and curiosity is about support system. And yes, if you wanted to play a drinking game with how many times I say support system, you'd be a little wrecked by the end of this episode. So just pull out your shot glass of water and just get extra hydrated.
Speaker 3:You are about to get real lured up by support system Drink.
Speaker 1:So I want to start off with a little experiment. I'm going to say the words support system three times. I'm going to say it slowly. Give you a little time in between each experience of the word so that you can feel into your body, notice how you respond when I say the words. Just a gentle noticing, that's it. So take a few deep breaths to slow down. Invite our dear friend, slow Down, medicine again, part of all of our support systems, should you choose to receive it. Good, okay, here we go. Support system, support system, support system.
Speaker 1:So you're just noticing. Did you feel some expansion in your body? Maybe some contraction, maybe some tingling, maybe some numbing, anything at all? There's no possibility of doing this wrong, because what we just did there was we took a tiny little somatic snapshot of your relationship to being supported. So still just take a moment, notice how you felt, how you're feeling, just letting whatever sensations, emotions, information moved through you, acknowledging it, allowing it to be there.
Speaker 1:Even that can be a profound act, because you just asked a question and answers were given. You might not always like the answers or like the corresponding sensations to the answers, which is why folks go back again and again, asking over and over, hoping for different answers, different information, different feelings. It's a thing that we do. You also might not know how to listen to or trust what you felt. These are all practices For now.
Speaker 1:On the simplest level, you can notice if you felt that expansion or a contraction. Those sensations can be subtle, some of them can be a little more overt than others, but a feeling of expansion that might have shown up in different ways for you Spaciousness, or maybe a little softness. Maybe you felt like you just took up a little more room around you. You felt the depth and width of you shift a bit, or you just felt more attentive to it, more present. That might let you know that your relationship to support system, like, has some balance, some grounding, in some way feels good for you, and a contraction might be letting you know that there's something to pay attention to. There might be a part of you asking for some attention when it comes to your support system. Drink.
Speaker 1:So we welcome all streams of information here. All emotions are information. They all have value. They move through our bodies, our sense, consciousness. We don't have to understand every tingle, every sensation, but we can start to turn towards them and honor that they're there, build relationship with ourselves so that we can be more in connection with our emotional body right through somatic experience. And maybe you come back to that little exercise again later. Maybe you've come back to it a bunch of times. You might want to let yourself simmer in it a bit. So let's peel back a few layers. That may help you in understanding and integrating that answer, that information you receive. The good news or I'm just going to say neutral news, it's just news is that your relationship to support system, drink, your support system, can change. It has over your life. It will continue to because you are changing, you're becoming more of yourself and your support system can keep evolving with you. But it takes some conscious attention to the relationships and maybe less obviously to your relationship to your support system. Drink.
Speaker 1:It's not just about the people, or maybe the animals or the plants or other sentient beings.
Speaker 3:Hello. Pluriversality, the many worlds within one world, relationships with rocks Communing with plants. Welcome to the pluriverse, a decolonial ontology that honors the oh so many different worlds within this one. I live here too. One of my dearest friends is a quantum worm. Humanity is a little overrated if I'm being honest.
Speaker 1:We might veer towards anthropocentrism at certain points, but I just want to name that. That is not the only framework we're working with here. I mean, when folks come to me for support with a business they want to grow or the vision they want to breathe life into, which is why people come to me and work with me, we have to look at the relationship to the aspects of whatever it is they're investigating, whatever it is they want to dig into, and examining the relationship to the thing is often more important than the thing itself, is often more important than the thing itself, because if you focus just on the end result, it can be easy to lose the plot, to lose that big picture, and this is why we go layers deeper and focus on the relationship. Otherwise we're kind of just rearranging the furniture. I'm a furniture. Look, people often have outdated support systems. Drink.
Speaker 1:This is common. It's not just you, it wasn't just me. They're consistently, and mostly unconsciously, trying to make those old systems fit their current versions of themselves. People that may have been around in their lives forever, family members, ah yes, these are all the people that have been in my life and a part of my system for so long, since forever, since I was a tiny person and now I'm a grown-up, and obviously all these people should still be right here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a little bit of an overstatement, but honestly it feels kind of accurate to what I've seen Trying to make that old system fit their lives as they continue to grow and change, without realizing that what they're doing is going to an orange tree for apples. We all do this and we wonder why we don't feel supported, seen, heard, understood, loved, accepted in the ways that we most desire. And sometimes, as we're growing and changing the people oh, this is key. Okay, listen up, kiddos. And changing the people oh, this is key. Okay, listen up, kiddos. I really needed this lesson a long time ago and I think about it a lot still.
Speaker 1:Sometimes as we're growing and changing the people in our lives, in our support system drink might really be invested in us staying the same, in not changing us for a whole mess of reasons could be conscious and unconscious, usually both. So as you reflect here, as you're reflecting on your own support system, drink it can be helpful to notice if maybe that's happening with some people.
Speaker 1:Maybe there are some folks that you've just kept close, you keep turning to, and they're not actually supportive of you, like of where you're trying to grow into. They have their own projections about how you should be designs, how you need to be, what you need to be doing. It doesn't mean that there's not useful information from our loved ones, but it's also worth noticing if those folks might be invested in you staying the same, that inner circle. Some of them might need to be bumped to the outfield for a while. Maybe they need to be benched. Be your own head coach. You are your own best guide. Be your own Ted Lasso Ooh, even better. Be your own Rebecca lasso, even better. Be your own rebecca fucking welton, I love her. Give yourself permission to move your players around, to trade them to the b team, to trade them to another team, even if just for a bit. While you consider your own desires, make some some space for you.
Speaker 4:You're fired because I'm the owner now and I don't like you.
Speaker 1:Okay. So that Rebecca Welton quote is a little intense and if you've ever watched Ted Lasso, you know that part of Rebecca's power is also great warmth. And I would say the whole show is model of warmth and resonance. And resonance maybe you've heard me say this before it's not the same as reassurance, it's not just like, oh, things are going to be okay, just keep trying and hey, it's fine, pat on the back, it's not coddling, it's I understand you, I see you, I hear you, I'm with you. It's accompaniment.
Speaker 1:Like Baba Ramda says, we're all just walking each other home and we need resonant relationships. We need warmth in our relationships to help us develop the relational part of our brains, so relational and then instrumental Left hemisphere, which is language, people, useful mechanisms, useful tools, and the right hemisphere, more of an experience of humans on a soul level. And so the warm relationships, the resonant relationships, allow for that co-regulation, all those little neurons in our brains, to grow the ways that they're supposed to. Otherwise, the relational part of our brains will starve. Emotional chaos, emotional chaos.
Speaker 1:I really love the teacher, sarah Payton, who weaves together a lot of healing experiences, resonance, warmth, the work around warmth and self-warmth and neuroscience all together and the reason I'm bringing it up here is because if our caregivers, if the people in our earliest versions of our support system, if their relational brains were never structured and we were, you know, just like any child is raised just by that instrumental brain just trying to survive, by functioning through that instrumental approach, through that instrumental approach, you're operating only with the ability to zoom in, almost like. You've heard me talk about problem solving and pathologizing and always trying to fix and how that requires us to be so, in some ways so small-minded and just like looking at all of the different problems and pieces. I talked about this in the Slow Down Medicine episode of season one. We can't zoom out just with the instrumental approach, the instrumental brain. We have to learn, whether we were taught it or not, because we can learn whether we were taught it or not to build relationships with resonance and with warmth.
Speaker 4:Oh hi, it's me, janet. This isn't an ad, but over here at Crybaby headquarters, we have to stay hydrated with all this crying, and Dana lives in an area with 5% humidity, which is sad. All to say, we love a fun hydration hack. Currently, we're doing a mix of coconut water, aloe water and some mystery powder that was in the back of Dana's pantry. Keep crying, because it means you're staying tender in this world. Good luck out there, crybabies.
Speaker 1:Back in god 2008,. Babies, back in God 2008,. When I first was exposed to a lot of this work that I teach now. I was in a group called we Got Issues, led by Ra Goddess, j Love Calderon. There was a group of about 15 of us. We worked together for over a year, met up in person a bunch of times, had a buddy system I mean, some of those humans are still my closest humans and we did this exercise on support system where we all had papers and drew circles about like, oh, who are the people that are closest to us and do we have support systems that are really meeting us in this growth period, because it was all empowerment work we were doing we were all a bunch of artists and activists. We had people, and I think we all maybe went into this exercise thinking we had a lot more integrity and depth in our support systems. Then I think we really did, and that exploration exposed for a lot of us that lack of resonance, that we had people in our lives who cared for us and we cared for them, but when we thought about who we were becoming growing into the dreams and visions that we had, did we have people that were really there to hold us with resonance, with warmth accompanying us without judgment.
Speaker 1:We were all sitting in that room crying. It sounded like a pack of wild dogs. We were just howling. It was really something. And look, we did a lot of crying together, but that stands out in my memory as the most intense crying that we all ever did together, and it's because we were turning towards this question right here of our relationship to our support systems. We were asking ourselves I'll speak for myself I was asking myself if I really felt met by the people in my support system.
Speaker 1:Had I communicated with them what I really wanted and needed to be supported? At that time in my life I don't think it had ever even occurred to me to do that. Like in a deeply honest way, I think I was going about my life, living and hoping that the people in my life family and friends would come along for the ride or whatever was going on on my ride. Those were just the people that I would turn to and be like okay, well, I'm having a hard time. Like, hold me. In a way, it's an aspect of victimhood, like that I was willing to just take whatever would be offered to me without asking for what I wanted and what I needed, what I desired, all the same thing. So that was really a beginning of a radical permission-giving practice that probably I mean definitely continues to this day, a couple years ago, when my partner and I were struggling and I went to him and I said I don't think our relationship is healthy, is working for us, and that was so hard, and my mom was coming to visit basically two days after I'd really had this huge breakthrough and realization around it.
Speaker 1:I talked about it last season and my husband actually had to rush out of town because of a death in the family and he was back in Indiana. My mom and my stepdad came out and I was in the kitchen of my mom's little vacay rental and I just I looked at her and I said, mom, I have to tell you something. I don't, I don't know if, I don't know if my marriage is working out, like I don't know if it's working anymore. I was so scared and she just got this really scared, look on her face and kind of did a whole gasping thing and I just looked at her and I said, mom, this is how I need you to support me right now. I can't, I can't hold your worry about this. And, to her credit, she took a minute, took a beat, took a, took a deep breath and did whatever she needed to do internally to just sort of hold her worry and then just showed up for me in such a powerful way.
Speaker 1:I will remember that deep resonance and warmth with my mother for the rest of my life. I know that part of it came from this now decade plus long practice of thinking about what I need and the kind of support I need and then risking because it always feels risky. It felt risky to say that to my mom in that moment because I knew she was worried and I knew that what I was saying was scary. But this practice of asking for the support that I need and then allowing people to show up Do they always? No, probably not, but in my experience at this point, more often than not they do, and I surround myself with people who do, because they all also do all their own internal work. And it's a really beautiful thing, my friends and community.
Speaker 3:My friends also do their own inner work Internal processing. Get it, they're robots with internal processors. Okay, never mind, carry on.
Speaker 4:Alex, I got the pun. I thought it was quite clever, ha ha.
Speaker 3:Are you offering me warmth and resonance, janet, or just reassurance me warmth and resonance?
Speaker 4:Janet, or just reassurance Hum. I do like the idea of resonance between robots, but maybe a little bit of both, if I'm honest.
Speaker 3:Cool, cool, cool.
Speaker 4:Or warm, warm, warm Yikes sorry.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's ask a few questions here and you can just let these kind of wash over. You see how they feel. You might come back to some of these later. So take a few breaths, Just tune in. I know we're doing a lot of this today, but just roll with it. You're welcome. So think about where you're at in your life. Just take a few breaths, what you're trying to call in and what do you really need in a support system? Drink, and I suggest that you don't just think about what you feel you can get from the people that are already around you. Don't let that dictate your needs, wants, desires your vision.
Speaker 1:This is not how we get to vision. It's not how we call new things in. What are your beliefs about being supported? What, yes, you might need to start with this one? What are your beliefs about being supported?
Speaker 3:I believe in belief.
Speaker 1:Do you believe and we might be touching on a little shadow here so if you're feeling a little resistance, that's okay. Just let the resistance be there. It's going to give you some information. Do you believe that other people get to be supported but you don't? Do you believe you have to perform a certain way in order to be supported? Do you believe that you don't actually need to be supported? When we're not supported by others, our resources deplete more quickly. This causes a disruption in our lives. It's harder to bond, to problem solve, to direct your attention, to think, to plan. So get that.
Speaker 1:Life without relationship is actually more metabolically expensive than sharing our emotions. I love that. Metabolically expensive. I'm going to say the whole thing again Life without relationship is more metabolically expensive than sharing our emotions. So you might notice that inside some of those questions there may be a feeling of judgment towards yourself or a lack of warmth. Throughout our lifetime, we have the capacity to grow the neurons that allow us to keep turning toward the self with that warmth, with that understanding, that resonance, with that affection, with that resonance, with that affection Whether it's Sarah Payton or Dana Balicki or their therapists or friends, books, courses, that sometimes we need to identify what Sarah calls warm others. I really love that Warm others who can hold things with us as we are doing our own work along the way.
Speaker 1:What I was sharing with you about the story with my mom, that took honestly a lot of work to be able to hold myself being so scared and having perhaps some shame and some, you know, a whole slew of emotions come up, to be able to hold myself in that and then also ask for the support that I needed. And that's a beautiful thing about support system is that as we experience that accompaniment, being understood, that resonance with others, even here right now, we're doing it right. You might be hearing my experiences and being like ah, yes, oh, I feel so seen and understood and oh, wow, and you know we're doing something together here. We're actually growing new neural connections Right now. That could be happening for you. New neural connections can be made at any time, reaching from the front of our brain, the front of our noodle, the prefrontal cortex, way, way, way deep inside to the amygdala cortex, way, way, way deep inside to the amygdala, and then that the oh, your brain is your own little built-in support system drink.
Speaker 1:Because that prefrontal cortex can hold our emotions. It can, it can. It can separate, differentiate itself from the emotional part of the brain and the amygdala and hold our emotions with understanding, which links into that resonance circuitry, that warmth circuitry that we already have. That's usually going outward and can go inward. That's usually going outward and can go inward. In a lot of Sarah's work. I've heard her quote this Every cell in your prefrontal cortex carries the signature of the presence or absence of your mother.
Speaker 1:86 billion cells in the human brain, the PFC, about one third, though we have about 29 billion cells that carry the presence or absence of our mother. Wow, what? Which also means that all the stuff I'm talking about here, it's like if our own caregivers, the people who took care of us, are our essential caregivers, if they didn't get deeply cared for, deeply nurtured and learning those nurturing skills to take care of us with warmth. If they didn't get that, you can just imagine what we may be inheriting and then living with and passing down. So all those billions of cells, tens of billions of cells, if they didn't get warmth, there's what Sarah calls a cellular bewilderment, fundamental cellular bewilderment, fundamental cellular bewilderment. And that disorientation can change over time, it is not fixed.
Speaker 1:That is why I'm making this podcast as part of your support system, as a place of warmth that you can turn to, that can also support you in your own self-warmth, that can lovingly hold all of those bewildered cells or I mean maybe not all of them, but at least some of them to create an experience of resonance, a moment of grace, a moment where you might just feel understood and accompanied, and to know what that feels like in your body and to keep orienting towards it, to keep practicing it, to ask for it from your people, to give it to yourself, to your people, and not just people. You can be accompanied by animals, by the earth, by the moon, by the stars, by trees, by all spirits, by seen and unseen guides. And just soak it up with that little PFC and just soak it up. Let that little PFC soak it up. Let the trees be your mommies, let the clouds be your mommies, be your own mommy.
Speaker 3:I am definitely my own mommy.
Speaker 4:But who's your daddy Crying in my jacuzzi?
Speaker 1:Crying in my jacuzzi. If you enjoyed what we did here today, go over to wherever it is that you are listening to this podcast and give us a rating as many stars as your heart desires Theme music and other musical bits by the very talented Kat Otteson.
Speaker 1:Sound design and editing by the effervescent Rose Blakelock. Thank you, designed and editing by the effervescent Rose Blakelock. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I look forward to playing with you more in my jacuzzi. That sounded dirtier than I meant it, but you know what I mean.