Caring for Your Nervous System and Creativity

Lisa [00:00]: Well, hello, Kirby. Welcome to the Writing Your Resilience podcast. I am delighted to have you on today.

Kirby [00:05]:

Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. I’m really looking forward to our discussion today.

Lisa [00:10]:

Well, I am too. And I’m really excited, not just for myself, because I know that I’m going to learn some new things from you, but also because so many people have questions about the best ways to work through trauma, and especially how to work with your nervous system. You have many different answers for us. So, I’m going to begin by giving you a chance to tell us a little about you and what you do.

Kirby [01:00]:

Sure. So, about my work—I offer process-oriented bodywork. I support my clients’ nervous systems after trauma by nurturing their resilience. In the past several years, I’ve also started mentoring people who are interested in what I offer. I primarily work with adults, and mothers and babies. I’m a licensed massage therapist, so I approach trauma resolution and somatic experiencing through touch. I’m licensed to touch, but I can also do distance sessions as well.

I’ve taken advanced training in helping clients embody difficult emotions through Integral Somatic Psychology. I work with moms and babies because I’ve trained in pre- and perinatal psychology and birth process work. The modality I’ve been working with the longest is biodynamic craniosacral therapy, which I’ve been practicing for close to 20 years.

Lisa [01:45]:

Okay, so I’m going to ask you just very briefly to explain: what is biodynamic craniosacral therapy? Because people might be like, “What the what?” Then we’ll get into somatic experiencing and how you help us understand that in relation to creativity.

Kirby [00:02:00]: Oh, sure, sure. Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is a gentle, non-invasive, hands-on bodywork technique for the whole body. It’s performed on a massage table, and the client is fully clothed. The practitioner’s touch is very light, gentle, and, for the most part, still. It’s not massage or manipulative.

The session focuses on supporting the inherent health of the whole being, especially the nervous system. I love that biodynamic cranial work centers on health that is never lost, also known as the breath of life. So, I see the client—the person on my table—as whole and healthy, with an innate healing plan within them. I’m just helping them reconnect to that, rediscover it, and strengthen their resilience and awareness that they have the healing tools within themselves.

Lisa [03:00]:

I love that framework. It aligns with how I was trained as a counselor. In counseling, we can work from a framework focused on illness—looking for problems, which is what happens in clinical psychology—or we can focus on helping people connect with their wholeness. What you’re describing certainly aligns with the latter.

And I’ve experienced that myself. What I can say is that it allows you to really be in your body, especially if you’re someone who has trouble being present in your body.

Kirby [03:30]:

Right. There’s a lot of research showing that early developmental trauma can lead to checking out, whether it’s lighter daydreaming or a deeper freeze, like dissociation. It’s very common. Thankfully, there are many tools and methods for working through it, and it can be repaired. It’s not a life sentence. Personally, I’ve come so far in the past 20 years in terms of embodying what it feels like to be human and really being here.

Lisa [04:15]:

Being here is the most important thing we can do, both as human beings and as artists, yet it can be so challenging for so many people. You do craniosacral work, and you also practice somatic experiencing. Can you help us understand what somatic experiencing is? It seems like a buzzword, but people often don’t know what it entails.

Kirby [00:05:00]: Right, somatic experiencing is very popular these days. They’re constantly creating new trainings all over the world now, and thousands of people are getting certified. Somatic experiencing, or SE for short, is a powerful modality, a set of tools for health and wellness practitioners. Its primary aim is to release, recover, and resolve trauma, shock, or other stress disorders.

In SE, practitioners learn about the physiology of trauma and how it can get stuck in the autonomic nervous system. They’re trained in tools to help reorganize the nervous system and nurture resilience. Since various practitioners can be trained in SE, they offer nervous system repair within their scope of practice. Most SE practitioners are psychotherapists, so they may not use touch if they don’t have that training.

My practice focuses more on hands-on work and less on psychotherapy, given my background. SE is a three-year training program that includes 36 days of training modules, along with personal sessions and supervision.

Lisa [06:10]:

That’s helpful because I know some listeners want to work with someone trained in somatic experiencing. What I’m hearing is that SE is an additional training that builds on what you’re already doing in your healing profession. If you’re a therapist, SE might complement your talk therapy with new tools. With you, because massage is your original modality, you approach somatic experiencing from a hands-on perspective, so there’s more physical work involved.

Kirby [00:07:00]:

Right. With my background in working with the polyvagal system, birth process work, and integral somatic psychology, I’ve done training to heal developmental trauma. So, there can be some talking with me as well, but clients can tell me what works best for them.

About ten years ago, I realized I could feel when people were “checking out” under my hands, meaning when they were no longer present.

Lisa [07:35]:

Wow.

Kirby [07:36]:

Yes, and that’s perfectly normal. We all check out sometimes. Stress happens, life happens. But, about five years ago, I realized I could sense this even without touching someone, which allows me to do distance sessions. I have clients in Europe and Asia who I’ve never met in person, and we still do great work together.

Lisa [00:08:00]:

Let’s talk about checking out. You mentioned exercises we can try later, which I’m excited about. But first, checking out—there are many ways people can do this. Sometimes it’s as simple as daydreaming, which artists and writers often do when trying to tap into creativity. But there are also types of checking out, or dissociation, that aren’t helpful. Can you explain the difference?

Kirby [08:25]:

Sure. I have several analogies and thoughts about this. First, if we go through a loss or a major stressor, there may not be trauma involved at all. Processing grief, for example, might involve daydreaming or just lying in a hammock for two hours, staring at the sky. That’s one level of checking out.

But there’s a deeper level we talk about in SE, called a parasympathetic freeze, which is tied to the vagus nerve. It’s a deeper, early mammalian response to stress—a shutdown, like playing dead. This deeper dissociation often stems from early trauma. It can be exhausting because, underneath the dissociation, there’s usually a big activation in the nervous system that was too much to handle.

That’s why you want a competent practitioner—to help tease out that activation a little at a time, without overwhelming the system. Understanding the triggers that pushed someone into this deep freeze state is crucial.

And there’s dissociation with this high activation level as well. And, if that becomes a chronic pattern, that’s a lot of energy. That’s a lot of stuff to keep contained in the nervous system. So that’s exhausting, right? And that’s the deeper dissociation we’re talking about. There’s this big recruitment of psychic energy to keep that stuff contained, to keep the trauma response contained. It makes sense that this will tax us. And so, not just our creativity could suffer, but our natural curiosity, our sense of wonder, spontaneity, our sense of ease, and our ability to play. We probably don’t feel so safe when there’s this big activation underneath, numbing us out.

It can even affect our sense of humor, and obviously, it can affect our social relationships as well.

Lisa [11:52]: Yeah, absolutely. I had two pretty big aha moments in this area that go along with everything you’re saying. I have a high capacity for dissociation. In fact, I’ll be honest with you—there’s a part of me that loves it. It’s like, “What are the colors of the clouds in my world? Let me tell you all about it—it’s great!” And for a long time, I thought, “Oh, this is what makes me creative.” But recently, I listened to two different podcasts that made me think, “Oh, maybe not so much.”

One was the work of Ashok Gupta, who does a lot around chronic illness. He was talking about how, when we are dissociating in that sympathetic way, even if it feels like nothing on the surface, our bodies are still in that fight-flight-freeze-fawn activated state. So, we’re expending a lot of energy during that time.

The other thing I recently heard was from Dr. Huberman’s podcast. He had a specialist on who was talking about the amygdala. We often connect the amygdala with fight or flight, danger, and that is an aspect of the limbic system. But what this person said was that the amygdala’s role is actually about motivation. The thing is, fear just happens to be really, really motivating. So, if you’re in a lot of fear states, if you have a lot of nervous system activation, then that’s the motivation your amygdala and insula are focusing on. That will not necessarily help you be more creative.

Kirby [13:39]:

Right. The amygdala is really geared toward helping us survive, which is a big motivation.

Lisa [13:45]: It’s like the most important one.

Kirby [13:48]: Right. If there’s a big threat, I want to survive, and that’s very motivating. But yeah, it can be fear, or it can be anger or rage. But for some of us, maybe it’s not safe to get in touch with those emotions. The amygdala has so much to do with emotional processing, emotions around memories, and implicit memory—so, unconscious memory. Stuff we aren’t even consciously aware of, and our unconscious reactions to things. Yeah, it’s all right there.

Lisa [14:19]:

Yeah. I’ve practiced Buddhism for a long time, so I know the idea of “be here now,” the importance of the present moment. But all of that brought it to the forefront for me in a very different way. I finally understood, “Oh, this is why we have to do this.” Somatic experiencing can be a great way to re-ground yourself and get back in touch with the world—who you are, where you are, when you are—so your energy can be free to do other things.

You have a couple of exercises for us. Do you feel like now is a good time to try them out so we cannot just understand intellectually what this is, but actually feel it?

Kirby [15:06]:

Right, right. Part of the work I do is literally a somatic transmission, right? And you can’t talk about that—not in a way that’s going to be experienced.

One course I offer is called “Liberating the Space Element.” It’s a great course—about three and a half hours of material, including close to an hour of somatic tools and different holds with the body to help balance the fascia, to come back to ourselves if we feel stretched thin. It’s good for the connective tissue and the joints. But it’s about making more space inside. Can I slow down? Can I breathe? Can I feel my body?

So, these two exercises are the two autonomic nervous system gateways from a series of holds on the body called the reciprocals. The reciprocals are about 30 to 40 different holds. In my course, we go through all the reciprocals and more. But for this example, even for the people out there listening who can’t see me, I’ll explain it.

First, let’s start with one hand on the occipital bone, which is the base of the skull in the back. Basically, if your thumb is at the point where your neck and head come together, the rest of your hand is on the occiput bone. So, one hand is on the back and base of your skull, and the other hand will be on your sacrum, the base of your spine. The sacrum is where the spine and pelvis come together. It doesn’t matter if your hand is face-up or face-down—as long as you can make contact with the sacrum, that’s best.

Lisa [16:42]:

I’m going to ask, just in case people don’t know what the sacrum is—is it down really low on my belly? Am I on my belly, or am I on my back? Where’s my hand?

Kirby [17:03]:

You’re on your back. Thanks for asking. Yeah, so the sacrum is the triangular-shaped bone at the base of the spine.

Lisa [17:06]: Okay, so I’m going to go ahead and put my hand behind myself.

Kirby [17:15]:

Yeah. So, you’re near your butt, near your glutes. When you touch both occiput and sacrum, I want you to take three deep breaths and notice what happens inside as you do so.

For your listeners, they can do four or five deep breaths. I wouldn’t do more than that to start. After you do three to five deep breaths, go ahead and relax your hands.

I’ll just explain briefly: for most people, holding sacrum to occiput—basically, you’re on the top of your spine and the bottom of your spine—helps stimulate the parasympathetic system. For most people, that’s downregulating. You might feel calmer, more grounded, or more settled. However, about 20% of people out there have a paradoxical effect when they hold that. If you felt stimulated, or more alert when holding occiput to sacrum, it means you’re stimulating your sympathetic system instead. In that case, try the next one and see if it calms you down.

For most people, this next hold will stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, so we often feel more alert afterward. Let me slow myself down here in the moment. Take a moment—10 or 20 seconds—to notice what’s happening inside. What is your somatic experience after doing this simple hold?

Lisa [19:25]:

Yes. As people are doing that and thinking about their own experience, I’m going to share mine, and I invite you to share yours as well. Not everybody understands what calm is, or they don’t know how to look for it in their body.

For me, which is interesting because I’m hosting a podcast, so there is a lot of alertness here, what I felt was a fuzziness in my head at the beginning, and it felt like I could even see this fuzziness as almost like a cloud of cotton in my brain.

That’s probably the best way to talk about it. And as I did that, and I took one breath, then another, then another, it was like the cotton melted away. There was clear space. So, that was my experience. I would agree that for me, that was calming. What was it like for you? What did that feel like?

Kirby [20:27]:
Yeah. So, despite having done this for close to 20 years, it’s great to be reminded. Also, you know, here I am kind of doing public speaking, so there’s a little bit of nerves. Doing that for me was calming too. I feel more in my belly, more in the base of my body, deeper in my pelvis.

I’ve done a lot of work to come down into my heart, core, gut, and even my lower body. I also realize for many people, that’s hard to do, but you can get there over time.

Lisa [21:05]:
So, would you say that’s the goal? To bring the awareness from what’s happening in your head, regardless of where your body is, down deeper into the body, more toward the core?

Kirby [21:16]:
Long-term goal, yes. But, in the moment, if someone has a lot of thoughts and it’s hard to turn off the busy monkey mind, even having more awareness of what’s happening in your head—whether there’s more sensation around your scalp or face, or if you feel your throat more—just starting there is great.

Lisa [21:41]:
Yeah, I love that. We just did a calming exercise, and now you’re going to amp us up a little. Let’s get started, right?

Kirby [21:49]:

If you tend toward anxiety, really listen to your body. Lisa, this is for you and your listeners as well. If someone has high anxiety, they might want to do this for only two deep breaths instead of three or more. If you’re sluggish and rarely alert, maybe five deep breaths. Notice how fast you feel alertness—if that’s what happens—or if you have a paradoxical reaction and calm down. Just notice.

Lisa [22:27]:
Yeah, and before we jump into the exercise, I want to mention that if you’re really anxious, some symptoms might include fluttering thoughts, an amped-up feeling like you’ve had too much coffee, difficulty sitting still, or even finding the idea of sitting and breathing sound like the seventh level of hell. All of these suggest going slow.

Kirby [23:00]

Less is better. If you feel more alert after two breaths, feel free to move your hands sooner than I tell you to.

So, for this hold, if you’re listening and can’t see it, we’ll explain. Your lower hand goes on your tailbone. Before, we were on the sacrum, which is the upper pelvis bone in the back. The tailbone, or coccyx, is lower down. The other hand will be on your sphenoid bone, which is mostly behind the eyes. I’m going to wrap my fingers in front of my eyes, touching my temples on both sides.

Lisa [24:00]

I’m taking off my glasses so I can touch both sides of my eyes.

Kirby [24:10]
Oh, good. Yeah, if you have glasses on, take those off; it’s much easier. You’re touching where your head curves toward the sides of your face. Take two or three deep breaths and notice what happens inside.

I’m already moving my hands because I feel some alertness. I got to three breaths, but that’s my limit today. What did that alertness feel like for you?

Lisa [25:01]:
I had a mixed experience—maybe because we’re doing this podcast—but I felt like where I was touching my head, it felt calmer and more focused. But I did feel energy amping up in my core.

If you’re listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and can’t imagine what we’re doing, go to YouTube; there’s a video you can watch.

Kirby [25:15]:
Absolutely. If you got really amped up, you can go back to the first exercise, holding the occiput and sacrum for three to five deep breaths to calm down. Feel free to press pause and do that.

Lisa [25:30]:
I’m wondering if these exercises might be good for people to do before they start writing. I often tell people to meditate because it calms the nervous system and primes the brain. But what do you think about adding something like this as a replacement or supplement to meditation?

Kirby [26:16]:
I think it’s a great idea. If someone has anxiety, meditating can be hard—especially if there’s big fear or paranoia. Movement, like a meditative walk, yoga, tai chi, or swimming, might be better. These somatic tools could be a substitute or supplement to meditation before writing.

Lisa [27:00]:
I’m glad you mentioned how trauma survivors struggle with meditation. I often caution people about that. There are two meditations I recommend: the “Soles of the Feet” meditation from Kristen Neff and a heart coherence meditation. I have a guided version on Insight Timer; I’ll put the link in the show notes. It includes somatic experiencing elements.

Kirby [28:28]:
That sounds great. Also, I offer short courses with somatic tools. If you do them a few times, it becomes a meditation. Having someone guide you through it helps distract from difficult thoughts.

Yeah, I did a meditation where we enjoyed a single raisin for five minutes.

Lisa [29:23]

It’s surprising how much you can enjoy a raisin for that long!

Kirby [29:40]:
Oh yeah, you can stretch those taste buds out!

Lisa [29:44]:

If you’re trying to feel more alert, do some reciprocals, then eat something spicy or crunchy as slowly as possible. That can also wake up or calm down the brain, depending on what you need.

We’ve talked about somatic experiencing, but I work with writers who deal with tough stories. Writing about difficult experiences isn’t just writing; you’re reliving it because the brain doesn’t tell time. Remembering activates parts of the nervous system as if you were experiencing it again. If someone gets triggered during a writing session or can’t shake it off afterward, what advice do you have?

Kirby [30:58]:
First, get support. Who can help? Lean into someone—whether it’s a yoga teacher, therapist, bodyworker, or spiritual guide. It’s crucial to reestablish trust and safety.

We all regress from time to time—stress happens. The key to healing early trauma is relational; we can’t do this work alone.

Lisa [31:20]:
Yes! You need support. Denying yourself that can re-traumatize you. I also suggest the “sandwich technique”—tell someone you’re doing a tough writing session and check in with them afterward. They don’t need to know details, but just knowing someone is there helps.

Kirby [31:50]:

It’s also normal to regress. Part of the problem is the stories we tell ourselves when this happens. Regression is normal, and it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. The key is, over time, you do enough of this work, the discomfort does not mean distress. Discomfort only becomes distress when we have a story to hang it on.

Lisa [34:14]

I love that.

Kirby [34:20]: Yeah. And so, can I, over time, as we do enough somatic process work, there’s a little gap, you know? I can take one breath before I have this instinctual reaction, like, “Oh my God, there’s that pain again.” I must be— you know, fill in the blank with some catastrophic thinking. But over time, we can increase that gap. We can have more space between the habitual patterns and, yeah, we can start to open up and realize, “Oh, it’s just discomfort.” Right?

That fear happens, right? Life happens. Joy, happiness, contentment happen. But, yeah, talking about if someone gets triggered while they’re writing, working on some really difficult stuff—my course on Liberating the Space Element is over three hours of material. And in it, we go through all the reciprocal holds, like 35 different holds, in addition to two other techniques. I unpack them, and there’s more of a meditative time for doing it at the end. These tools help create more space in the nervous system, in the fascia, in the body.

These techniques have been especially beneficial for my clients with complex trauma—people who have really high levels of sensitivity. People who are very sensitive to energy benefit a lot from doing the full set of reciprocals. And, once you learn them, you don’t have to go through all 35 because that can take close to half an hour.

So, if you find three or four of these tools that you love and that really help you feel more aligned, you can do those in just four or five minutes and come back to yourself, come back to feeling centered, feeling grounded. And so, this course is $75 to purchase, or you can also get access to it if you sign up for the coaching-level membership on my site. I hope many people benefit from taking it.

Lisa [36:14]:

 Yeah, and so all that information will be in the show notes. What I can say is, when it comes to healing and writing, I think many people feel like they’re going to reach some mountaintop—some time when none of the problems exist. Like, “I am a writer, and I never experience writer’s block. I know how to publish anything I want.” Same thing with healing. We have these experiences that there’s an arrival point, but there is no arrival point.

What I found from my own experience—and I’ll be curious to know if this is your experience as well—is that we just expand the container we have inside ourselves for discomfort and ambiguity. We learn how to hold space for it so that it’s not as difficult, right? And we don’t have to build as many stories around it. We can just say, “Ah, there it is,” and be okay with it.

Kirby [37:14]: Over time, there can be more acceptance. But a big piece is compassion for ourselves, toward ourselves. And that will help us to be more compassionate to others as a result. Can I understand and acknowledge that, given my history, of course, I have ups and downs? Of course, I have challenging days, challenging weeks. Can I lean into support? So, over time, there’ll be greater compassion for ourselves, understanding that I’m human, I make mistakes, I am not perfect. There are going to be easier days for writing and harder days. Understanding that if I have complex trauma, there will be this cyclical nature. So, there will be ups and downs, and having compassion for yourself, accepting and understanding, will make our relationship with ourselves easier—and, therefore, our outer relationships easier as well.

Lisa [38:09]:

Absolutely. And the more tools you have—and that’s the thing, we all have to learn tools; we don’t come equipped with them—the easier this becomes.

You know what? You and I could be here for days talking about this because it’s a deep topic. And, there’s just so much to talk about and we’re having so much fun, but life must go on. I have three final speed round questions I’m going to ask you as we wrap up.

First question: what’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received? Because you do all this work with somatic experiencing and craniosacral, and you also write blog posts.

Kirby [38:49]:

Right. I’ve been writing for a while, but I think the best advice has come from my somatic experiencing teachers. Right? So, again, to reiterate—can I be kinder to myself? Can I slow down a little bit, take a deep breath, accept who, what, and where I am? Can I honor these natural cycles? Can I accept these facets of myself? Can I permit myself to be with a difficult emotion without assuming there’s something wrong?

Can I lean into support and share with someone, saying, “This is really hard?” For many people, that’s a huge step, a really big step. And, understanding that when there’s complex trauma, there’s often shame because I don’t have the same capacities or abilities as someone who seems “normal”—though I don’t like using that word. But maybe my expectations aren’t realistic. Trauma is difficult, but the nervous system can change; it can transform. So, baby steps, right? Can I start being a little kinder to myself this afternoon, tonight? When there’s greater compassion and acceptance of what is, without as much guilt or shame, then things get easier, including the writing process.

Lisa [40:10]:

Absolutely. So, you work with people all the time, helping them care for themselves better. What’s one thing you do to nurture your resilience?

Kirby [40:21]:

Yeah. Okay, I have a couple of thoughts here. So, briefly, first: I love connecting with people, especially in a therapeutic, caring, or spiritually-oriented way. Doing qigong together, meditating together, going for a walk or hike in nature, being curious together—these really help me nurture my resilience.

Second—and I think this is really big for people with a history of trauma—is to practice moderation. If we do a lot of healing work all at once, or if I push really hard one week, the inner pendulum starts to swing. It takes a big swing toward the healing vortex. But typically, that big swing is followed by a counter swing toward the trauma vortex. There can be 10 minutes or an hour or more of difficulty. So, we want to go slow, titrate the work, and give it time to integrate. When we’re stretched thin, anyone can regress. So, practicing everything in moderation helps us stay in alignment.

Lisa [41:46]:

Absolutely. And, you know, if you practice yoga, there’s always a Shavasana or corpse pose at the end—there’s rest. If you’re working really hard to heal, experiencing a lot of exhaustion or emotional volatility, give yourself a break. You don’t have to heal all at once. In fact, no one does. So, just go slow.

Kirby [42:00]:

Yeah. And if you push through too hard, it won’t stick. Baby steps, integration time, titration—so important.

Lisa [42:23]:

If people want to connect with you and learn more about reciprocals and your work, what’s the best way?

Kirby [42:31]: Yeah, thank you, Lisa. The best way to get in touch is through my websites. I use www.traumainformedastrology.com/—that’s more for coaching, distance sessions, and practitioners who want to learn from me. Then I use mkirbymore.com—that’s for somatic process clients and in-person bodywork. Either site will have information on how to reach me. Also, please feel free to share my email in the show notes.

This fall, I’ll offer occasional free public discussion groups, and I do monthly Instagram Live sessions on various topics. I’d be happy for people to reach out.

Lisa [43:19]:

Yeah, all of that will be in the show notes. Do you have a newsletter that people can sign up for?

Kirby [43:41]:

I do! You can sign up at www.traumainformedastrology.com.

Lisa [43:50]:

Great! Well, thank you so much, Kirby, for being on the podcast today. I am deeply honored that you’re here and thank you for these wonderful exercises that will carry me through the day and beyond.

Kirby [44:00]:

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it, and I’m deeply appreciative of all that you do and for who you are. Thank you for bringing these resources and tools to so many people.