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Supriya Venkatesan is a transformational leader, master coach, and facilitator with over 18 years of experience in...
Zack Glaser is the Lawyerist Legal Tech Advisor. He’s an attorney, technologist, and blogger.
Jennifer Whigham is the Community Director at Lawyerist.
| Published: | December 19, 2024 |
| Podcast: | Lawyerist Podcast |
| Category: | Practice Management , Wellness |
Stressed out at work? In this episode, Lawyerist Lab mindset coach Supriya Venkatesan will help you understand how your body holds onto stress—and simple, science-backed ways to shake it off.
From quick anxiety-relief techniques you can use in the courtroom to posture tweaks and tapping methods, these tools are helping lawyers nationwide stay calm and confident. Learn how movement and somatic regulation can transform the way you handle pressure, whether it’s tough opposing counsel or pre-trial nerves.
Links from the episode:
Special thanks to our sponsor Lawyerist.
Jennifer Whigham (00:12):
Hi, I am Jennifer.
Zack Glaser (00:13):
And I’m Zack. And this is episode 537 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today I talk with Lab Coach Supriya about emotional regulation and how we can use sighs, laughs, shake it off in order to rewire our biological responses to things
Jennifer Whigham (00:34):
Sighs, like –
Zack Glaser (00:37):
Yes.
Jennifer Whigham (00:37):
Not size as in a measure of something.
Zack Glaser (00:40):
No, no, no. If you’re having bad reactions to things, you have emotional reactions to walking into a courthouse. Well, you can quite literally shake it off.
Jennifer Whigham (00:55):
Shake it off.
Zack Glaser (00:56):
Love It. Okay.
Jennifer Whigham (00:57):
Yeah. So when you say lab coach, let’s talk about that a little bit.
Zack Glaser (01:01):
Well, how about you talk about it?
Jennifer Whigham (01:03):
Why should I talk about it?
Zack Glaser (01:04):
Yeah. Supriya is a lab coach for Lawyerist lab. She’s one of our coaches. What’s our coaching program? Jennifer? What is that?
Jennifer Whigham (01:12):
So the reason that I’m going to talk about it is because I run our coaching program and I was trying to get Zack to be my hype man before I started the answer and he didn’t take the bait. And that’s fine. That’s just fine. You know what? Lab is what we call a lawyer coaching program A lawyer. It’s a business coaching program. And what that means is, and you’ve probably heard this before, lawyers go to school, they learn how to be a lawyer, they think I should open my own firm and they forget, or they don’t know that there’s a whole other side to a firm and that’s running a business. I mean, people go get their MBA to learn how to run businesses. So it is not surprising that a lawyer gets in there and is like, wait, finances, marketing, budgeting, hiring.
Zack Glaser (01:56):
What’s a profit and loss?
Jennifer Whigham (01:57):
What’s a profit and loss? I’m supposed to do all of this. So there’s no shame in not knowing because nobody taught you this.
(02:04):
And so in lab we teach you this and the coaching, oh, go ahead. You were going to say something and I
Zack Glaser (02:11):
Why do you call it lab?
Jennifer Whigham (02:12):
Well, Zack, lemme tell you, we experiments. I like to think of lab as you don’t come in here and we have one way we do things. It is structured. You follow this. We want you to be bold and experiment and try different things in your firm because you, this is what Stephanie Everett, who one of the greats of lawyers has always said, small firms are the agile speedboats against the big barges of law. And that means you get to try different fun things that you couldn’t do in a big firm. You can try different fee structures, you can try a really interesting team culture, but in lab you get to experiment with other people doing the same thing and get support and cheerleading and advice. And everybody’s saying yes to you, we’re going to help you figure this out. It’s cool.
Zack Glaser (03:04):
Well, so how does having a coach help me do that?
Jennifer Whigham (03:08):
Well, I mean, Zack, you’re a coach. I mean, you’re a lab coach. It’s true, but you’re also a running coach. And as you know, and anybody that’s had a gym coach, a sports coach, it’s hard to do it on your own because you don’t have a neutral party to reflect back on if you’re just doing it on yourself.
Zack Glaser (03:29):
I wouldn’t even say neutral party, I’d say cheerleader.
Jennifer Whigham (03:31):
Yeah, cheerleader. I mean a neutral party in that it’s not in it with you, but they are beside you helping you figure it out. And they’re also the experts. They’ve done this before. They’ve done this with dozens and dozens of other people. So to have someone that knows what they’re doing and can see maybe what you can’t see and guide you that way, I think is necessary.
Zack Glaser (03:55):
So how much effort does this take on my part? How much do I have to kind of jump into this? Do I have to be being coached constantly?
Jennifer Whigham (04:06):
That’s a great question. No, you’re not being coached constantly, but you do need to want to do it. You need to want to make a change. You need to want to have that drive to have a good life, whether it’s work, life, personal life, and put in the work. And what does the work mean? It means yes, you’re showing up to these calls and you’re being vulnerable and you’re talking through your business and you’re doing the work with your coach to do that. But a lot of it is also the community portion of it. It’s not like our coaches are just talking at you. You’re also with other people doing the same thing who are going to help you and give you ideas. You’re going to go to workshops, you’re going to go to our annual conference. There’s a lot of different elements that are part of this. Coaching is one of it. It’s a big part of it, but it’s a whole toolbox to help you live the best life that you can in your business and your personal life.
Zack Glaser (05:08):
And if they want to learn more, they can always go to Lawyerist.com/coaching and they can get to the right place. So now though, here is my conversation with one of our coaches, Supriya.
Supriya Venkatesan (05:21):
Hi, I’m Supriya Venkatesan, a mindset and business coach at Lawyerist.
Zack Glaser (05:24):
Hey Supriya, thanks for being with me today. I appreciate it.
Supriya Venkatesan (05:28):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m excited for today.
Zack Glaser (05:30):
Yeah, so and I talk about mean you’re a mindset and business coach, and a lot of times you and I talk about self-care and different ways that business owners can kind of take care of themselves, we’ll work through problems in their offices. And help me think about maybe a different way that business owners might not know of or might not be taking advantage of as we go into the end of the year here.
Supriya Venkatesan (06:05):
So one thing that’s been very interesting from many laps experience, including at Labon, I did some exercises on somatic regulation and what that means. People are probably like, what? Those are two words that I’ve never heard before.
Zack Glaser (06:18):
Those are English words, but I don’t know where they go
Supriya Venkatesan (06:24):
Or how they work together.
(06:26):
So most of us at this point are probably familiar with neuroplasticity. The idea the brain can change and we have neural pathways that can be changed. What few people realize that there’s bioplastic. So we have these neural pathways in the body that have also been established, and they can be changed as well, just like your brain can change in the way it stored information so it can your body. So we store information in both places because we are people. We store information in our fascia, in our muscles, in our organs, in literal, it’s called bioplastic city, like pathways in the body itself. And we can change that through a variety of techniques, which is really powerful in business because everything comes back to the self to human being. We like to think that we’re super analytical and super logical, and it’s about strategy this and tactics of that. But who’s making those choices and who has those thoughts and feelings? It’s you.
Zack Glaser (07:20):
Yeah, because running a business, and certainly as a law firm owner, it is very personal. It is a lot of times our baby and it is physically us making these decisions. And you make these decisions based on, yeah, you don’t want to say they’re based on how you feel. You don’t want to say that they’re based on, we want to be super analytical, especially as lawyers. So talk to me a little bit more about that. What do we mean or how can adjusting some of these pathways help us as attorneys?
Supriya Venkatesan (07:58):
It can help in literally any reaction that we have. So any reaction we have in the moment to any business problem or anything that we experience is not rooted in the moment. It’s rooted in the past. If I can just quickly talk about the science.
Zack Glaser (08:12):
Yeah, yeah, that’d be great.
Supriya Venkatesan (08:14):
So I’m sure many people here have heard of Pavlov and Pavlov’s dogs. We probably studied in high school or in college, just depending on our school history. It
Zack Glaser (08:23):
Rings a bell.
Supriya Venkatesan (08:24):
Yeah, exactly. But for those who are not familiar, Pavlov was a scientist who studied the stomachs of dogs. And what he did as part of his research was to feed the dog to study the digestive system. And he would first ring a bell and then put the food out, and then the dogs would eat. Initially when he put the food out, the dogs would salivate from the smell of the food. Like, oh, this is delicious. Over time, that salivation started to occur through the ringing of the bell. So the stimulus changed, the trigger changed, but the reaction was the same. So that’s what happened with the dogs. But this happens in our bodies. So over time we have all of these pathways that we’ve created from a trigger in our response. So maybe the trigger could be if I hear somebody in a specific tone of voice say something, I’m going to feel some type of way. That’s like one example.
Zack Glaser (09:19):
Yeah. Okay. If I get a particular email at a particular time going to, maybe as I walk into a particular courthouse,
Supriya Venkatesan (09:31):
I’m
Zack Glaser (09:32):
Going to feel a certain way. Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (09:33):
Okay.
Zack Glaser (09:34):
You
Supriya Venkatesan (09:34):
Got me. Yeah. That would be a visual trigger,
Zack Glaser (09:35):
Yeah.
Supriya Venkatesan (09:36):
That you’re describing. Yeah. It can be physical kinesthetic. So triggers can happen different ways in our body. It can be visual, auditory, or kinesthetic if you want to break it down even further. So it could be something sound, it could be something we see. It could be something that we feel like maybe a temperature or a sensation. Sometimes something tactile, the feel of my keyboard can make me feel tired, for example, or motivated,
Zack Glaser (09:59):
More likely tired for me. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So these could be, as you’re talking about this, these could be positive, these could be negative, these could be moderately neutral, but they’re affecting us.
Supriya Venkatesan (10:15):
Yes.
Zack Glaser (10:15):
They’re doing something
Supriya Venkatesan (10:17):
And they’re there all the time, unless we become aware of it. So what’s important for us to recognize is whatever response we’re having in the moment, I just got off a call with a client right before our podcast, and she’s about to go into a meeting and she doesn’t feel good about the client meeting she has just because of some history with the co-counsel. And I was like, well, as we dug into it, it’s not rooted in today, it’s rooted in something in the past. That pathway of her emotional pattern is not from this meeting, from these people, from this dynamic was from something before. So then we identified what is that pathway and let’s change that pathway, and we did, and now she feels neutral about that meeting.
Zack Glaser (10:56):
Okay. Okay. So I guess first step is we’ve got to recognize that there’s something there. There’s some sort of history there that there’s something that is affecting our reaction to this thing in the present. We’re reacting to a thing in the present based on something in the past.
Supriya Venkatesan (11:18):
Correct.
Zack Glaser (11:19):
And so we need to figure that out and then potentially we could adjust that.
Supriya Venkatesan (11:26):
Exactly.
Zack Glaser (11:26):
Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (11:30):
That’s a great question. Yeah. So there’s many ways of changing it. So to deeply change it I say, really involves having a coach to help you discover what that pattern is, but in the moment to change it, which you can. It’s not going to be a deep change, like a lasting change, but it’ll certainly change it for the moment. There’s a few different things you can use. One is shaking or so just physically shaking your body.
Zack Glaser (11:56):
Really?
Supriya Venkatesan (11:57):
Yeah. So animals do this naturally. So if you see animals in the wild after any stress response, like being attacked or having some violent act occur, they just shake because they’re literally shaking off the stress.
Zack Glaser (12:12):
Yeah. Just kind of shuttering it. Okay. Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (12:16):
Yeah. Dancing is kind of a form of shaking if you think about it.
Zack Glaser (12:20):
So
Supriya Venkatesan (12:20):
You can also dance and just not like ballroom dancing was rigid, but some
Zack Glaser (12:26):
Wild. Yeah. So something fluid, something getting you moving, getting your body going. Okay,
Supriya Venkatesan (12:32):
Yeah. The next is tapping. So you can tap your body everywhere. So you’re literally breaking the pathways that are there.
Zack Glaser (12:40):
So not tapping on the table, like tapping myself.
Supriya Venkatesan (12:45):
So for people who are listening and not watching this, I’m tapping my shoulders, my chest, my belly, wherever I might feel the tension or not feel the tension just everywhere,
Zack Glaser (12:55):
Just,
Supriya Venkatesan (12:57):
And don’t be afraid to reach towards your back, your low back and tap down there as well.
Zack Glaser (13:03):
For me, things like that are always in my upper back. Right under my neck is where I kind of hold those. So yeah, I go to anxiety with this, and that’s probably because that’s the thing that I notice. If I were to notice something where I say, Hey, past actions, past things in my life, past interactions are affecting the present, it’s probably going to be that I’ve noticed anxiety. It’s unlikely that it’s going to be, I’ve noticed, oh man, this makes me super happy and that I hold anxiety as far as I can tell, kind of in the top of my back, I guess.
Supriya Venkatesan (13:47):
So that would be a good place to tap another tool for you. And for anybody, not just necessarily anxiety, but for any emotion is tied to what’s called the vagus nerve, which the top upper of your body and your neck is connected to. So the vagus, we have many nerves in our body. The vagus nerve is a very large nerve, which connects the brain, the heart, and the gut, and which means it communicates in both directions. So many nerves when it sends communication like signals through neurotransmitters and whatnot, just goes from one part of the body to the other. But the vagus nerve goes both directions. So all three organs are in communication. When you can change the vagus nerve, you are literally changing the brain, the gut and the heart. The way to change it is very, very easy. The easiest one is a tap on your vocal cords, which will affect your neck and your upper back for you.
(14:43):
And you do it while you’re saying, talking, humming like, ah, right now I’m talking and making that sound and tapping it.
Zack Glaser (14:51):
So that feels very non exact. How do I affect something? When would I do that? That would affect the right thing, I guess,
Supriya Venkatesan (15:09):
When you’re feeling in the moment.
Zack Glaser (15:11):
So when I’m feeling, and it seems to me like that would be more of a reset of things. Is that a good way to think of it?
Supriya Venkatesan (15:20):
It’s a great way to think of it. I love that analogy. Yeah, it’s a reset.
Zack Glaser (15:23):
Okay. So I’m having a reaction that I recognize is not really tied to the moment necessarily.
(15:33):
And so I want to reset that. And so I would go and I would tap on my actual vocal chords, and I’m doing that now. So if you can hear it exactly
Supriya Venkatesan (15:47):
Well talking or saying something. So your vocal chords are in use. Okay.
Zack Glaser (15:52):
Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (15:52):
Yeah. And just using the vocal cords as a whole will begin to rewire the vagus nerve, which rewires the whole body. And using the vocal chords is very easy, singing, humming, those are both easy. Gargling is another tool that is popular. So if you’re feeling some
Zack Glaser (16:10):
Garing, yeah, okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (16:11):
Just grab some water and just gargle.
Zack Glaser (16:13):
Okay. Humming feels right.
Supriya Venkatesan (16:18):
Yeah. That’s my favorite one is the humming, because I’m not a singer, even though I’d like to be. So, but humming is something I can do very easily. I could do it quietly. When I used to work in an office, I could even sneak into the bathroom hum by myself, quietly in a stall, and nobody would know down and go back out in the public,
Zack Glaser (16:34):
Because I work remotely and I work from home. Now, I didn’t always, I worked in my office and there were people around, and I’m trying to think of, I get an email from opposing counsel, and it’s that person, that one that just gets your blood boiling. And I’m thinking, what can I practically do to humming? I could hum, I could shake, I could
Supriya Venkatesan (17:06):
Gargle.
Zack Glaser (17:06):
Yeah, I could gargle. Probably not dancing. But as I think about these things, this isn’t so off from what we think about anyway, if I have a moment that something happens, alright, let’s say I’m about to cross the road, car goes in front of me, oh my God, almost got hit. I feel like that’s probably happened to many people. I would probably shutter, I would probably shake that off. We say things like Shake it off and Taylor Swift, you think, oh, well, you mean that metaphorically, but quite literally shaking these things off.
Supriya Venkatesan (17:53):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s good that for you, you observe that you’ve naturally done it. And I think many people in our audience, when you think about it, you naturally shudder when you’re scared or you sigh. Sighing is another way for releasing the vocal cord, and you can purposely just let it out.
Zack Glaser (18:10):
Okay, okay. That’s also how my wife knows that I’m annoyed
Supriya Venkatesan (18:16):
Your body.
Zack Glaser (18:17):
As I sigh. When I sigh, there’s usually a what’s wrong.
Supriya Venkatesan (18:24):
So it’s helpful to start observing what you do naturally. What’s your natural pattern? That’s another automatic behavior you have. So you have an established pathway of releasing, so you can lean into that more.
Zack Glaser (18:38):
Okay. So yeah, a lot of this is being observant, being in the moment a little bit more. And I don’t dare say lawyers aren’t always good at that.
Supriya Venkatesan (18:52):
No,
Zack Glaser (18:54):
I don’t think people are really good at that. I’m certainly not. How would you suggest that people go about making this first step of just even recognizing that I could potentially do something about this?
Supriya Venkatesan (19:10):
I’d say becoming mindful awareness is just the easiest way is just to start tuning into any sensation in the body as you’re moving through the day. So if you’re working, just tune in, do I feel anything? Do I feel a tightness here? Do I feel my stomach gurgling? Do I feel any pressure? Do I feel just any sensation? And there’s always a sensation, I promise you. So just becoming aware of those sensations. And over time, really, if you start doing this, I’d say over a few days or even a week, they’ll become automatic, that level of tuning in. Like, oh, just doing the sensations. And then you can start figuring out what is that discomfort versus just a sensation. Sometimes the mind can’t tell us what’s going on, but our body can, body keeps score is a very popular book on this topic. It’s always keeping score.
Zack Glaser (20:02):
And that’s different from meditating from even mini meditating?
Supriya Venkatesan (20:09):
Yeah. Yeah. I’d say most meditative practices are eyes closed. This is something you do in the moment. You can do it while working, while talking. Just becoming aware of how people, your environment, things are affecting you and how are you naturally releasing for you the sighing or the shuttering.
Zack Glaser (20:27):
Okay. Okay. And so that’s our short term sort of stuff. You’re saying working with a coach, working with somebody can take you even deeper into this?
Supriya Venkatesan (20:42):
Yeah. Correct.
Zack Glaser (20:43):
How does that happen?
Supriya Venkatesan (20:45):
Yeah. So when clients come to me often I try to help them identify what is that pattern that’s playing out over and over again. And we find it’s called the root cause, when did it first start? And then once we find it, then what was the pattern in the body? And we break it. It’s kind of like a long process. It’s way too long to describe here. So an example, sorry.
Zack Glaser (21:07):
Yeah, I guess that helps me a little bit with this because when I think of in the moment stuff, it seems very surface level, very like, okay, well I’m anxious with this, but it’s not really why I’m reacting that way. Yes, it is. There’s almost twofold reasons that I’m reacting in a way. And so getting kind of further into, okay, yes, that’s how you think of it, and then we can get even further into what’s the deeper meaning behind this. What’s the reason that when you walk into this courthouse, you get anxious? It’s not just because you’re about to go to trial, it’s because who knows, but further into it. But I can call myself in the moment, but that’s not necessarily going to take care of, I’m still going to always almost have to call myself in the moment.
Supriya Venkatesan (22:04):
Exactly. Yeah. So one’s like regulation and the other’s reprogramming.
Zack Glaser (22:08):
So
Supriya Venkatesan (22:08):
They’re two different things, but we’ve been talking about is regulation. But certainly if you keep regulating, you’ll start to slowly erode that previous pathway.
Zack Glaser (22:17):
Okay. Okay. So it’s not, I mean, it’s not just a bandaid.
Supriya Venkatesan (22:25):
Correct?
Zack Glaser (22:25):
Yeah, it can. Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (22:27):
Yeah. If you disrupt something enough, it’ll break. Yeah. Another tool I forgot to mention that I think is important and fun is laughing. So sometimes even for myself, if when I’m really angry about something and when I’m in conversation, I just laugh. Has that ever happened to you? Right. You’re like, I’m so angry, why am I laughing
Zack Glaser (22:52):
A lot?
Supriya Venkatesan (22:56):
So now you can do it on purpose, and TikTok is a great tool. Just find some comedic and just that becomes your tool. Now you have an excuse to go on TikTok.
Zack Glaser (23:06):
Yes. Okay. So I don’t have to force myself to laugh. This isn’t like, okay, make yourself fake laugh. It’s like, go find something that’s funny.
Supriya Venkatesan (23:17):
Yeah. Because you’re overriding that angry neural pathway with a joyous laughter pathway.
Zack Glaser (23:23):
Okay. Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (23:24):
Yeah. And over time, what will happen is whenever you start to get angry, you’ll just recognize how silly the situation is.
Zack Glaser (23:31):
Yeah. Okay. So I can laugh at opposing counsel when we’re
Supriya Venkatesan (23:39):
Be luck with them, not add them.
Zack Glaser (23:41):
Okay. Okay. We’ll say with them. Okay. So using this in business, how have you seen this kind of manifest in some of your coaching calls or some of the people that you’ve been interacting with?
Supriya Venkatesan (24:00):
It shows up in everything because our body’s always there. Your body doesn’t go away.
Zack Glaser (24:10):
Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (24:11):
Yeah. So yeah, I get the example of literally the call that I was on earlier today with somebody earlier in this week as well. I had somebody who struggles with boundaries with her employees. They’re often taking advantage of her because she’s new in leadership with her company. So that’s also a common, having boundaries in businesses, you’re arising in your firm and having more and more employees. It’s a new skillset for many of our lobsters, and they don’t always know how to navigate it often, especially my female clients are too nice. The nice girl syndrome is there a lot. So with that, it’s like, let’s figure out why that’s happening and then start changing that behavior by tuning into the body. Because before it was an automatic pattern that was just happening. She wasn’t even aware until after the fact.
Zack Glaser (25:00):
So in interacting with employees, even if it’s not a massively high stress sort of thing, but just making it to where you’re more deliberate about how you interact with employees.
Supriya Venkatesan (25:15):
So in this specific case, her employees were doing poor quality work, so she had to go back and redo it over and over again.
(25:22):
They were also taking very long lunch breaks and walk breaks throughout the day. So trying to get paid basically for time that they weren’t doing. So essentially taking advantage of the bus and of the firm.
Zack Glaser (25:33):
And so in this type of scenario, because I can feel this scenario, I can feel this one, and I imagine that a lot of people listening can kind of feel this one as well. And what I like is this doesn’t have, for me, a lot of this is about anxiety or anger. This doesn’t have that in it necessarily, but would one kind of self-regulate and then go talk to the people about, you’re kind of getting yourself hyped up before and not hyped up, but getting yourself regulated before going and talking to them
Supriya Venkatesan (26:10):
Neutral. Yeah. I like to say, let’s get back to neutrality. So even on a spectrum, you can be excited, which is high energy, or you can be low energy, sad or depressed, but we want to be neutral because either side is not necessarily good, not in control of yourself. So regulate, but first become aware, as we talked about in the case of this lapse, or she wasn’t even aware most of the time until it was too late days later or weeks later, like, oh, this pattern’s happening. So by having that tuning into the body sensation, the body tells her like, oh, something’s going wrong. My brain’s not telling it, but my body’s telling me, let me tune into that. Oh, now I’m aware of what’s going wrong. I’m being taken advantage of in this moment right now I can regulate and now I can go have that conversation and snip this in the bud.
Zack Glaser (26:56):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I can also see where that could be helpful. Literally in trial in the moment, I remember being in trial in some small courtrooms and things go very fast in general sessions court in Tennessee, and it gets very, can get heated very quickly, quick, and your heart rate goes up, goes through the roof very, very quickly. And I could have used some kind of discreet self-regulation sort of things. I could see tapping being, if it’s tapping on my thigh even, I could see where this could be used in that situation, but also recognizing it.
Supriya Venkatesan (27:48):
Yes. And for very discreet I to tap my toes, nobody’s seeing my toes inside of shoes.
Zack Glaser (27:55):
Oh, I like that. We’re not talking about this is theoretically we would actually get to a place where we’re not having that reaction in that moment. And so we would have potentially said, okay, let’s kind of get ourselves to neutral before we even go into court. And then we don’t have that reaction. But if we’re having it in the moment and we need to regulate, then we’re really kind of trying to mitigate in a sense. And anything is better than just having your heart rate skyrocket.
Supriya Venkatesan (28:34):
Yeah. Another way to have preventative measure, if you know something’s going to be triggering like a courtroom, is to actually visualize it and start feeling in your body and then changing it. So there’s an exo right now with this courthouse example. If you close your eyes and just imagine that courthouse and then imagine yourself and then just what are the sensations in your body that’s coming up? Tune into that. And now imagine yourself getting closer to the courthouse. I bet the sensations will change. They magnify. Now imagine yourself walking into the courthouse. Are the sensations getting stronger and more pronounced for you? So now then change it. So distort it however you want. You can either diffuse it everywhere or you can tap it out or breathe or all of the tools we just discussed,
Zack Glaser (29:26):
Shaking it out.
Supriya Venkatesan (29:28):
There you go.
Zack Glaser (29:28):
Shaking it out for those of you who can’t see. Okay. Okay.
Supriya Venkatesan (29:31):
Yeah. Do you feel different?
Zack Glaser (29:33):
I do actually.
Supriya Venkatesan (29:34):
Yeah. So we just did it for two seconds, right? You shaking it out. But imagine if you sit there for five minutes with that visual in your, and shake it out, then you’re breaking that association, that anchor. Like Pavlov’s dogs.
Zack Glaser (29:46):
Yeah. Okay. And I can imagine this for sport, for anything for flying in an airplane, I don’t always do great flying in airplanes. And so I do wind up having to do some meditative stuff in order to get past that anxiety. But I’ve never thought about, well, you could probably imagine the scenario. Imagine going into the airport. The airport doesn’t bother me once we’ve taken off and we’re in a tube of metal, 30,000 feet above the air, I mean above the earth. Yeah, I can see this in right now. Even in many scenarios.
Supriya Venkatesan (30:35):
The airplane actually. So we did a presentation Lawyerist with affinity for lemonade earlier this year. And I sort of went in depth with these tools. One of the participants was flying that day and somebody else, and their passenger was having a panic attack and she helped that person completely calm down and be able to fly in that airplane with these tools.
Zack Glaser (30:57):
For a second there, I thought you said be able to fly the airplane. It was the pilot that had
Supriya Venkatesan (31:04):
Wrong profession for that person.
Zack Glaser (31:06):
No, that’s amazing. Because as we go about in running our businesses, I want to say it’s stressful. It is stressful to run a business, but it’s emotional I think is really more about it. We can get stressed, we can get depressed, we can get angry, we can get sad, we can get cranky, I can get cranky. But being able to just recognize that sounds like, I mean, step one at the very least, right?
Supriya Venkatesan (31:39):
Yeah. Awareness as we discuss is the key. And as you’re talking about anxiety and depression and stress, I think there’s Buddhist saying anxiety is about the future and depression is about the past. So when you think about it, anytime you’re anxious, it’s always about something that has yet to happen. And whenever we’re upset or sad, it’s about things that have already occurred. So you can pull up those memories of the past and to regulate it, we discussed or the future and then regulate it.
Zack Glaser (32:08):
I like the visualization aspect of this. I think that’s something you that I can, for me, I can put that into practice pretty easily
Supriya Venkatesan (32:19):
Because when you visualize it, then you’re bringing up those somatic sensations because we want to find those sensations and change it
Zack Glaser (32:25):
And then break that.
Supriya Venkatesan (32:26):
Yeah. Okay.
Zack Glaser (32:28):
What else do we need to know about somatic regulation?
Supriya Venkatesan (32:32):
Yeah, another thing that’s actually important is posture. So this is something I’ve been personally playing around with a lot lately, is even when we think about someone who’s depressed, they’re like this. So what I’m doing right now, for anyone who’s listening is like, my shoulders are forward, my head is low. When you think of somebody who’s depressed, it’s that sad.
(32:51):
When somebody’s confident, it’s like that superman or superwoman pose. So your posture automatically changes with your mood, but what if you change your posture and therefore you affect your mood, go the other direction.
Zack Glaser (33:03):
So you do a power pose.
Supriya Venkatesan (33:05):
Yeah, that would be one example. And there’s a lot of science behind that. But really any pose that makes you feel different, the opposite of what you want to feel. So right now, if I’m feeling angry, for me, my head might come out forward. My eyes might get big. I might be like micro with things changing in my face. Not necessarily my body, but both. And I can feel like my hips going forward as well. But if I’m calm, I’ll probably more relaxed, more leaning back. So my postures actually the opposite for calm versus angry. For me, it’s different for everybody. So I don’t know what it is. And just literally get in the posture because then you’re tapping into those established neural pathways of your body.
Zack Glaser (33:45):
So kind of a fake it till you make it sort of thing. But just like, okay, well put yourself in a posture and a position that you would be in if you were relaxed, if you were calm, if you were fine. Yeah. Neutral.
Supriya Venkatesan (34:03):
And then tap, shake, laugh, sigh, whatever, all of it.
Zack Glaser (34:09):
Okay. I like it. I like it. Alright, we’re getting to the end of our times. Priya. Obviously this isn’t everything about somatic regulation or anything like that. What else should we know? What’s kind of a last little thing of, if somebody wants to jump into this type of thing, if somebody wants to say, you know what, I’m going to go ahead and use that. What should they be doing?
Supriya Venkatesan (34:36):
So another cool tool that you can Google or YouTube, and there’s a lot of clinical evidence behind this, it would be too much for me to discuss, but you can easily YouTube watch a five minute YouTube video. It’s called EFT or Emotional Freedom Technique. And it’s based on acupressure points on your face as well as your, a couple of points in the arm. But mostly the face and acupuncture we know exists out there, which is the science of meridians of these pathways in the body. And again, there’s so much clinical evidence on the efficacy of acupuncture. And now we also have so much clinical evidence of EFT. So EFT is you yourself tapping on different points. Okay. Yeah. And there’s a specific phrase and a specific pattern that you follow, but anyone can YouTube it. So you just type an EFT or emotional freedom technique, and then the thing that you’re trying to solve, maybe anxiety or anger or whatever. And then you’ll just find a tutorial and you follow along with it.
Zack Glaser (35:31):
It’s really powerful. So EFT, and then the thing somebody will, man, this is why we’re getting our stuff on the YouTubes. Everything’s out there. You can find so much, so much.
Supriya Venkatesan (35:46):
And one other thing I want to share, I was actually talking about somatic regulation with the other coaches here at a Lawyerist in Affinity the other day. And one of our coaches does this with their dog, who often has a lot of anxiety and goes into epilepsys. I had no idea this is effective for non-humans.
Zack Glaser (36:04):
Well, I guess we started with this conversation with nonhuman, right?
Supriya Venkatesan (36:08):
Yeah.
Zack Glaser (36:10):
But we got so far away from it. I wouldn’t have thought that it was either. That’s fascinating.
Supriya Venkatesan (36:15):
Yeah. Specifically, there’s a point right below the nose that where your nose and your upper lip meets even on yourself, you can find it. It’s super tender. So he presses that point on the dog’s nose right below the nose and they instantly calm down. And another thing called eye compression, so finding that tender spot in the inside of your eyes where your eye meets your nose, I guess, and then you’re pressing it
Zack Glaser (36:38):
In the bridge. Yeah.
Supriya Venkatesan (36:39):
Yeah, the bridge.
Zack Glaser (36:40):
There’s probably some sort of very, very technical term for both of those places on your face.
Supriya Venkatesan (36:46):
So I don’t know if this is good for humans, but for anybody who’s a pet who’s maybe has treble traveling in a car or otherwise you can do this for your pets.
Zack Glaser (36:55):
Nice, nice. Alright. Well we can make ourselves better and our best companions.
Supriya Venkatesan (37:02):
Yeah.
Zack Glaser (37:03):
Awesome. Well, Supriya, thanks for talking to me about this. I’m, I’m going to go try some of this go kind of regulate. Yeah. I appreciate it.
Supriya Venkatesan (37:17):
Yeah, absolutely. I hope it helps.
Zack Glaser (37:19):
Thank you. Thank you. And as always, love having you on here Supriya. Thanks for joining me.
Supriya Venkatesan (37:25):
Thank you, Zack. All.
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Lawyerist Podcast |
The Lawyerist Podcast is a weekly show about lawyering and law practice hosted by Stephanie Everett.
