[00:00:00.890] - Dori Durbin
The Power of Kids book podcast is one that seeks to empower parents with shareable information meant to inspire and empower kids and of course, their parents as well. As a part of this endeavor, I have been interviewing experts who want to have parents understand what they do and can help their kids with. Today we have Rachel Friedman. She is a somatic coach, also practitioner and a therapist. Welcome, Rachel.

[00:00:26.340] - Rachel Friedman
Thank you for having me.

[00:00:27.840] - Dori Durbin
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for taking time to do this with us. I know that time is precious for you.

[00:00:33.690] - Rachel Friedman
It is. And it's also, I think, important that the knowledge, the wisdom we acquire, that we share with other people.

[00:00:43.470] - Dori Durbin
Can you tell us a little bit because our listeners may not know what a somatic coach does.

[00:00:48.500] - Rachel Friedman
Yes, I get this question a lot. So somatic soma meaning body. So in terms of helping people, in terms of moving through challenges and I hate the word problems, but the word we all kind of use struggles both with our children but also as parents, it is a bottoms up approach instead of a top down approach. So most therapy I am actually a licensed psychotherapist do not practice in a traditional way. We have more of a go through the mind to access what's happening. A somatic coach or a Somatic practitioner? A Somatic therapist, we go through the body. We also use a lot of body based modalities to help people process emotions and move through things. I also like to say, I like to believe that in every person, every symptom we have, whether it's physical, mental or emotional, there's actually some wisdom there. There's some medicine there for us that needs to be discovered, needs to unfold. So the approach is instead of looking at as our problems, our struggles or challenges, things we need to get rid of, we look at them as that there's wisdom there. And we do that through the body.

[00:02:08.440] - Rachel Friedman
And then from that we integrate those parts. We actually, ironically, sometimes bring more of it into our life. What we think we need to get rid of is sometimes actually something we actually need to lean into. And then that's actually how we begin to heal and move forward.

[00:02:24.770] - Dori Durbin
Wow. No, I think it's really interesting because I think most people think of therapy as, like you said, from the head down and even medicine from the head down. What's wrong with you? Well, it's here, so to go the opposite direction had to be quite a change. How did you shift into that?

[00:02:47.590] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah, so I kind of stumbled into this work. So like I mentioned, I was a therapist and I got burnt out. And so I literally one day just basically ran away. Not really, but I ran away from my job and I had lost a bunch of weight myself. So I was like, what am I going to do while I just take a moment, and I started training people. I became a personal trainer, and I found that clients loved working with me because we ended up talking more than we probably ended up doing anything else, but along the way. So I ended up stumbling into yoga, and I fell in love. And it was the first time in my life I really felt personally like I'd gotten out of my head. I'm a very, by nature, I would say lives in her head person, like, I'm sure many of you. And it was the first time I felt like I actually had a moment where I was like, oh, my God. I don't think I was worrying for, like, five minutes. And I really dove into yoga. I ended up actually opening yoga studios. I had, over the course of a decade, three.

[00:03:55.370] - Rachel Friedman
And it was through that journey that I started to learn a lot about breath work, mindfulness. And eventually I was at a yoga training, and the trainer said, I think you should go see a somatic therapist. And I was like, what's that? And that was kind of really my first dive into it. And, yeah, it just has kind of become something that, for me, all the years of as a talk therapist and going through talk therapy as something they really encourage when you're going through it. It always got me to a certain level, but it always felt like there was something more. And it wasn't until I really started diving into this type of work where I felt like, okay, I feel like I'm actually it's not that we still don't have those days where we're frustrated or angry or sad. It's just that A, there's fewer of them, and when they happen, they don't take you down quite like, at least for me, how they used to.

[00:04:57.230] - Dori Durbin
So when you say that, it makes me wonder, what types of people would this work the best for? Or maybe even, what are some common things that you treat as a somatic therapist?

[00:05:08.700] - Rachel Friedman
I mean, the truth is everything and anything. And I know that's very broad, but I have had people that come to me with physical problems, and it has helped a lot. I don't personally really do a lot of work with the physical. I do a lot of work with anxiety. That was me. And I always believe we are our first client. So I do a lot of work with anxious humans, and what I say is that I would say, nonetheless, 75% of the American population, but it's really my a lot of the people that I work predominantly with are what we call high functioning people with high functioning anxiety. So there was a period of time where I worked with what they was. I was like, I hate dislike low functioning, high functioning. But when we categorize someone with high functioning anxiety, everything on the outside looks perfect, right? Like, you have maybe got the great job, the two and a half kids, the dog, the cat, the husband, the house. You're taking vacation. Life looks on the outside, good bit inside. There's like this feeling like at any moment the shoe is going to drop.

[00:06:20.480] - Rachel Friedman
Or you constantly feel like you're in your head just checking things off, and you're never really present. There's this underlying almost doom that you can't seem to get rid of, even though there seems like there's no reason, if you were to look at your life, why you feel that way.

[00:06:37.950] - Dori Durbin
Wow. And that's probably really not limited just to adults, I'm imagining.

[00:06:43.650] - Rachel Friedman
It's not. I personally work with only adults. I did work actually with twelve to 18 year olds when I was a therapist, I was in a lockdown treatment facility. My journey was both of my kids actually were on anxiety medicine, actually shared the story on social media recently, and I took them to therapist. I had them both on medication, and my son especially was really acting out at the time. It's about six, seven years ago. And I had a moment when my son said to me, mom, and at this time I had just gone through a divorce. My son said, I don't want to live with you anymore. As a mom. Sure, anyone can relate. Your heart literally breaks into a million pieces. And it was one of my biggest fears, and probably what kept me in my marriage for longer than maybe I wanted. And it was a moment there where I was like, oh, and he said he didn't want to live with me anymore because he said there's just too much screaming because I was very reactionary. And that's just I mean, I was calm or I was like yelling. And that's what the house I grew up in, to be honest.

[00:07:49.100] - Rachel Friedman
So we learn a lot by what we're raised in. And I was like, wow, I need to do something about this. So that's when I really got into the somatics, and really wasn't just at the time I owned a yoga studio. I was talking about yoga and talking about mindfulness. I wasn't honestly 100% integrity, practicing it all myself. I mean, yes, the physical, but the other pieces. And I hired some help, and I can tell you now, he's a senior about to graduate. My daughter is 16, and there's not very much yelling at all in our house. There hasn't been for the last couple of years. Both of my kids have been off anxiety medicine for a couple of years now. And so I don't necessarily work with the children because I believe in what we call co regulation. So when your nervous system is in what we call a ventral state, and there's three states, basically the ventral state is safe, connected, I like to say calm and grounded, then the people you surround yourself will feed off of it. But when you're in a constant sympathetic state, which most people know as Fight, Flight, Freeze, then your children will basically adapt to that.

[00:09:00.960] - Rachel Friedman
Even though on the outside, I was like, no, I'm fine. Everything's fine. Inside, they pick up on it. They pick up on everything. They're like these crazy, weird aliens, I swear. Children that just pick up on things, even that aren't being said right. Just because we're not saying it doesn't mean they don't sense it. And so when I learned to regulate my nervous system, it was amazing how it affected them. So I really focus more on parents, even parents who don't think they're anxious. I'm like, okay, maybe you're not, but maybe your nervous system also is in a sympathetic state, and that's what your kids are picking up on. And again, it's never from a place of blame because it's not always this. But I've seen so many parents that learn how to regulate their nervous system, and through that, they don't even have to do anything different with their kids and their kids behavior changes.

[00:09:55.070] - Dori Durbin
I can think of a time, and honestly, my kids never grew up knowing any of that. But I did get taught not to panic when your kids do something that you think hurt them physically. And I am amazed I didn't know that initially. And when my kids would fall, I would react and rush and freak out. And then as they got older and people started to tell me, don't do that, their reaction was so much different. So I can imagine, like, in an emotional sensing kind of way that that would be very electrical through the house, you know, that anxiety would permeate through whatever you were doing or that comb would permeate through whatever you're doing 100%.

[00:10:38.650] - Rachel Friedman
And it's sometimes just very slight changes. It doesn't even have to be drastic. I think we think of anxiety sometimes when we think of, like, panic attacks. And there are different levels of it where if you're just stressed at your job and feel like you're just marking off tasks and then you get home and you're just doing dinner and doing homework and doing bed, but you're not really ever enjoying each other's company, your kids can feel it. And again, this doesn't come from blame. I mean, hey, I was 100% guilty. I'm still guilty sometimes because we're still humans, right? But it's when we can learn to leave some of that stress at work, right? And it's this energy that we cultivate in our homes that I think also helps to change the relationship we have with our partners and with our children.

 [00:11:32.350] - Dori Durbin
So from the somatic perspective, I also noticed I really try to pick up on people's body language is that part of the therapy is, like, being aware of what your body language is telling.

 [00:11:45.260] - Rachel Friedman
People 100%, because our body language, the way our body speaks, is through the unconscious. So it's all the parts of us that we do not really have access to and a lot of people don't know this, but only 5% of your life, really, 5% of your brain capacity is conscious. 95% of what we do and don't do comes from our unconscious. So as a therapist, I can actually sometimes be having a conversation with someone. They can say one thing, but I can tell by their body that their body is saying something different. And they get mad at me sometimes because I'm confronting them with it. But it's the part of us that we call our shadow that we really just we don't even want to admit to ourselves.

 [00:12:29.310] - Dori Durbin
So are there physical gestures that people need to check? Like, if I was a parent, I'll give you a scenario because that's probably not a very fair question. It's very broad. If I'm a parent and I'm starting to feel myself grow anxious because of something not related to my children, and I'm noticing the electricity, the atmosphere change, where do I need to look in myself so that I'm not reflecting that onto my kids? That same exact feeling?

 [00:12:58.730] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah, it's so different for everyone. So I can't really say that there's a general one, but it's just learning to slow down and actually check in with your body. So because we all feel things in slightly different ways, I can tell you, for me, I carry a lot in my neck, my shoulders, right? Some people tell me they carry it. My husband carries it in his stomach. Right. So it's starting to notice, okay, I'm feeling anxious, or not even anxious. Forget about the words. I think we love using words, but instead get really familiar with the sensations. So for example, if something's going on and you're like, oh, I feel this tightness in my neck and my shoulders, or I feel my jaw like tight, right? It's like just start to notice. What does that feel like? And really sit with it for a moment and just notice sensorially. What does the sensori sensation feel like? Right? Is your chest tight? Okay. And then what happens when you make if you were to amplify it, because that's everything in life. What happens is we don't address things and they get amplified. Think about it. You start to feel a little rundown and you don't give yourself extra rest and extra liquids.

[00:14:21.260] - Rachel Friedman
What happens? It becomes a cold. You don't address the cold. It becomes a sinus effect. It just gets amplified. And the same thing happens with our emotions is we don't slow down and pay attention to them, so they get amplified. And that's when we explode or we shut down. But if we listen, like, actually anxiety gives us signals ten days in advance before we explode. We're just also busy. We're not paying any attention to them. But I would say step one is start to just listen to your tune into your body. Which I can tell you from working with clients, this is quite challenging for a lot of people because a lot of people are very disconnected to what something feels like in their body. I was on a call yesterday with my group, and I was asking them, okay, tell me what that feels like. And she just kept giving me words like, no. Let's go back to the body. What does it feel like in your chest? Will it feel sad? No. What does it feel like? Does it feel heavy? Right. Does it feel like you want to drop down? Or maybe someone's feeling open?

 [00:15:20.340] - Rachel Friedman
Right. But is it hot? Is it cold? But what is the sensation, actually, of the emotion in your body?

 [00:15:27.700] - Dori Durbin
That's interesting, because I think you're right. I think it's easier in our brains to assign a word to describe the feeling than it is to really navigate the feeling. That is what we really feel. That sounds so weird, but you were talking about the tightness. I'm thinking to myself, yeah, it'd be easy to say I feel anxious, or I feel uptight and not address, my muscles are tight, my breathing is shallow. It's hard to think straight. That kind of stuff that goes on when you're anxious.

 [00:15:57.650] - Rachel Friedman
Right. And that stuff, when you can slow it down and get to that stuff, believe it or not, that's feeling, the emotion, processing it emotions actually only last 90 seconds. But what we do is we keep thinking about them. We stay in the thought pattern, which keeps it alive. But if you slow down and let yourself actually feel it, it gives you some space a to ask yourself, is this even true? Right. So much of our brains love drama. So so much of what we do is we concoct up, like, why do we sit in front of the TV and watch Netflix? We love drama, and we're creating a lot of drama all day long in our head, hey, I'm guilty, too. But when we can slow down and we can feel it, that pause also enables us to what I say respond versus react, which is what most of us I know at least myself as a parent, what we want. Right? We want to respond. So we're responding in a way that's intentional instead of reacting, which is my reaction, is something that I later usually regret.

[00:17:05.910] - Dori Durbin
So really, okay, I have to go back to the 90 seconds thing, because my brain is still holding that.

 [00:17:11.610] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah. And most people like to argue with me about that. No.

 [00:17:15.530] - Dori Durbin
And it's funny, I had an emotion today that I was mad, I was genuinely hurt, and my reaction was not really until I mean, I don't think I sat for 90 seconds. I think it was more like ten or 15 seconds, and then I wanted to do something to fix it, or I wanted to do something to make the pain be focused somewhere else. Yes. But I should have just sat in it, felt it, and been like, yes, you can be sad about that. Okay, now what are you going to do? After given myself that chance, which I wanted to take care of it is that kind of common?

[00:18:00.810] - Rachel Friedman
I mean, all the time, every day? Because again, we're just not practiced at sitting with our emotions, and they're uncomfortable, and a lot of them feel downright awful. Let's be real. And I always tell people sometimes people come to me and be like, okay, I'm going to feel better working from you. And I'm like, you're going to feel better? Not necessarily feel better, feel better, be happy all the time. But I'm going to teach you how to feel your feelings better. So here's what I tell everyone, is that the true human experience, in my opinion, is to feel all the human emotions. Because when you grow your capacity to feel sadness and anger and frustration, you grow your capacity on the other side because that's how it works for the joy and the pleasure and the excitement. So the part is, though, most of us stay here in this numb zone because we don't want to feel these awful feelings. But it's really the awful feelings is what gives us access to the amazing ones. You just don't get one without the other. It's just the law of duality. And it's not always easy, right?

 [00:19:08.590] - Rachel Friedman
Because these are the things since we were children, we've been told we don't want to feel instead of. And that's one of my gifts to parents always, is encourage your kids to be angry, and when they feel angry, let them express it. If my kids are angry now, I'm like, yeah, let's go punch a pillow. Not a person, but let's get it out. Right? Like, however they want to express it. If you're sad, let's cry instead of there's so much shame in our emotions, and it's unfortunate because they're there for a reason.

[00:19:47.610] - Dori Durbin
You bring me back to my kids. My kids are a senior in high school and a college student, and I remember being in the grocery store with both of them, and I don't even remember which one it was, but one of them broke down, was tired, wanted a nap, and was crying and almost to the point of fit. And I couldn't get out of there or quiet them fast enough because I was ashamed that they were reacting out in public in a way that wasn't appropriate. And it wasn't until gosh, they were probably like ten that I realized they should have just let them have their day, have that opportunity. But that feeling of shame that I and I don't blame my parents. I'm not doing that. But it was generationally not acceptable to react like that in public, much less to have those kinds of reactions in front of people in general, right?

[00:20:41.090] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah. And even today, I would say it's still somewhat that way. And it's just what do we call it? Internalized social like, it's the social rules that we've all been given, and I'm not here to judge them. But a lot of the things like a lot of inner criticism, a lot of things that are stopping us from actually feeling our emotions are things that have been passed down through society or they've been just gifted to us. And it's not wrong. I remember the same thing. So no judgment. Doria I remember my kids having tantrums? Three year old, my son four year old having a full blown tantrum in the middle of Target. And, yeah, you pick them up and you get out of there as fast as possible. And my knowledge now I didn't have then I would say to parents is, if you don't want your kid to have a full blown tantrum in the middle of Target, I get it. Let's be honest. Let's be real. Can feel embarrassing. Pick up your kid, drop all your crap, get out of there, and then let your kid have their tantrum. What I know I used to do wrong was I would try to then I'd be like, this is ridiculous.

 [00:21:59.090] - Rachel Friedman
You don't need to act this way, blah, blah, blah. Instead, just let them get it out. And then we can talk about the idea that you have your emotions, feel them. And when you're in a place where there's lots of people around that we just sometimes need to remove ourselves to get our emotions out because the society is what it is and we have to live in it. Yeah.

[00:22:22.830] - Dori Durbin
And that's great advice. I think you're right. Just getting them out of the spot and letting them actually still experience it and not trying to fight through the store, check your stuff out, apologize too many times.

 [00:22:33.790] - Rachel Friedman
I tried that one.

[00:22:35.790] - Dori Durbin
Same live and learn, right? Yeah. Because at the time, it seems like it makes more sense. You spend all that time and effort, right? Yeah. That's really good. That's really good information, because I think A, takes some of the guilt off the parent and B lets the kids actually know that they're seen that's.

[00:22:55.650] - Rachel Friedman
Really? Honestly, I would say if there's one of the most important things we can do for our children, is let them feel seen and heard. Because when they're not, that's when shame enters. And I could talk about shame all day long, but shame is really, I believe, the root of so many of the problems, the struggles that people face through adulthood.

[00:23:16.670] - Dori Durbin
Wow. I believe that maybe that'll be another podcast day for us. Yes. Day two. So let me reel it back just a second and say, what if you have a parent who is considering somatic therapy for themselves or for their kids, or maybe it's for their whole family? I don't know. What does that process look like? So what's the day in the life of treatment kind of thing?

[00:23:43.590] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah, there's different ways, obviously, depending on the practitioner. For me, a lot of our sessions. Like I said, I don't work so much with children, but with children it would look a little bit different because it'd be a lot of movement. And actually with adults I do do some movement, but a lot of my sessions start with some breath work. Sometimes my clients are coming full on and they just want to word vomit everything that they're feeling and that's where we start. And then we might go into some nervous system regulation. We might go into some breath work. And a lot of it is really me. I like to say I'm like holding a pot and we put their problems, we put whatever's coming to the call in the pot and then it's me just keep bringing them back to the body. And what's happening here, it's kind of hard to describe, but it sometimes involves someone getting up and dancing. I was doing a call with a client the other day in our group and we had her dancing. I've had people scream. I mean, it's using movement and sound and sometimes role play, but it's definitely not as like we're just going to necessarily just be sitting here and talking, singing, happening.

[00:24:54.430] - Dori Durbin
That might scare people. You don't have to be a good singer though.

[00:24:57.070] - Rachel Friedman
It's just making I'm the most tone deaf person ever. Obviously it's always optional too, so we might bring in different forms of the body and if someone's like, oh no, I can't sing, then we don't sing, then let's try a different avenue, right? There are different channels that we navigate through and obviously in the first session I'm not making anyone sing or dance or any of that. For the most part it's usually once we feel safe together because there is a level of safety needed where the person feels free to really wrap parts of them out that probably have been stifled or maybe never have they felt safe to express from.

[00:25:36.890] - Dori Durbin
Is there a good way for someone to prepare themselves to come to a session? Maybe it's even for the first time they've gotten themselves to the point where they feel like they need help. They feel like this is the right avenue. What do they do? Because I'm sure they're super nervous about it.

[00:25:53.490] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah, I always just tell people, just come with an open mind. There's not really too much to do to prepare other than often when someone's working with me, I might have them answer some questions before so I have an idea of what they're coming with. But it's just like traditional therapy. You would just kind of show up and just know that you might do some weird things.

[00:26:24.650] - Dori Durbin
Well, now they know if they didn't.

[00:26:25.950] - Rachel Friedman
Know before, at least with me, I don't know all somatic therapists. I train people actually now in it too, so I run a school too, so anyone who goes to me or any of my people, you're going to do some weird things.

[00:26:39.070] - Dori Durbin
I think that's good. I think it takes getting out of your comfort zone to get there. It's going to take getting out of your comfort zone to get what you need.

[00:26:46.740] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah. And I would say, though, if it's intriguing or it sounds like something, oh, I've tried traditional talk therapy and I feel like I haven't gotten somewhere. I really do recommend it, whether it's with myself or someone else or you Google it. Because sometimes we just need to change the direction of we're doing something, and it will. I'm not saying this is it, but I've seen so many people who've done years and years and felt like they just couldn't get past where they want to go. And because we're doing taking it through a very different approach, it has pretty cool effects.

[00:27:23.450] - Dori Durbin
That's awesome.

[00:27:24.760] - Rachel Friedman
You can always give anything one time a try.

[00:27:28.510] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. How long of a try do you think it takes to get to the point where you feel like you've gotten some progress? I know that's a trick question, too.

[00:27:35.170] - Rachel Friedman
There are some people after one call that are like, oh, my God, that was depending on their level of safety. Right. And then there's some people I would say I'd say the average person in about three months feels a pretty drastic shift.

[00:27:51.120] - Dori Durbin
That's awesome. Oh, go ahead.

[00:27:54.780] - Rachel Friedman
I was going to say everyone's different, so I always hate being like, oh, you'll get magical results on the first time, because that's just not the reality for everyone.

[00:28:04.490] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. It's got to fit your personality and, like you said, feel safe for you to invest in it.

[00:28:09.880] - Rachel Friedman
Right. And we all come with a different place. Right. So depending on what we've tried before, what we've been successful with, a lot of people come to me and they feel like they have failed a lot of things. So it's like there's some resistance up already. So that's okay. We just sometimes have to it takes a little time to weave through that.

[00:28:29.110] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. Well, I know people are going to want to talk to you. And I also know we just have a couple of minutes left. So where is the best place to find you or get a hold of you?

[00:28:38.980] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah. So you can go to the somaticcoachschool.com that's two C's. Somaticcoachschool.com and there you can learn about a little bit more about me. The different programs I have. I have two currently running. A really good place is probably just follow me on social media at Rachel B. Friedman on Instagram. I don't even remember what my Facebook and Instagram, I just copy paste. But that's probably the two best places.

[00:29:08.280] - Dori Durbin
And are you open to them, emailing you with questions if they have?

[00:29:11.620] - Rachel Friedman
Of course, yes. Anyone has any question, it's me who answers them all. It's info@rachelbethcoaching.com. That's what everything used to be on Rachel Beth coaching. It's recently being moved. Yeah. You can message me on Instagram.

[00:29:28.770] - Dori Durbin
Okay, fantastic. Well. Rachel, I learned an awful lot, and I know that parents and kids will probably really be curious and hopefully open to learning more about you.

[00:29:39.130] - Rachel Friedman
Yeah, I'm happy to talk to anyone and explore if it's something that you might be interested in.[00:29:48.080] - Dori Durbin
Fantastic. Well, thank you for your time today.

[00:29:50.620] - Rachel Friedman
You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

[00:29:52.960] - Dori Durbin
Thank you.