How to Truly Show Up for Your Life – with Marcy Axelrod

Welcome to Hard Beautiful Journey, where we embrace vulnerability as our superpower and let courage light our path.

I’m Tiff Carson, here to share heartfelt stories of healing, grief, and resilience.

Each week, I’ll talk with guests, from experts to everyday heroes, about their journeys through adversity.

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Together, we’ll uncover the beauty that emerges from life’s challenges and how each experience can spark profound growth.

Join us on this courageous journey of connection and transformation.

Let me ask you something, where in your life are you showing up but not really present?

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Maybe it’s your work, maybe it’s your healing journey, maybe it’s your relationships.

You’re doing what’s expected, you’re getting it done, but something in you knows that you’re not really there.

Today’s guest, Marcy Axelrod has spent over 2 decades researching this exact phenomenon.

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Why we go on autopilot.

What pulls us away from our design and what it means to truly, fully show up in the way that we are built to?

Marcy’s work has been praised by leaders at Stanford, Yale, and Harvard, and trusted by global companies like HP and Cisco.

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But it’s her ability to bring this knowledge into the personal, the human and the real life messiness that’s going to make this episode so powerful.

But before we dive in, I want to ask you this.

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Where have you been just showing up?

And what would it feel like to stop surviving and really live again?

Hold that close and let’s begin.

Hello Marcie, How are you?

2:15

Tiff, it is so wonderful to be here and I have to tell you today I’m actually really good because, and I know your listeners will relate, both of my kids are in pretty good places.

So does any parent knows we’re we’re only feeling as just inspired and jovial as the state of our children?

2:40

Kind of let let us be right, because that connectedness is so transcendent.

Absolutely.

I I feel that to my core.

So yeah, thank you for sharing that.

So I know that you may have done a lot of interviews where people dive straight into maybe the science part of what you do, but I want to start from the heart.

3:06

So when someone really sees you and asks you what do you love most about the work that you do, what’s the honest answer?

That people share how they were transformed by it.

3:29

And I’d like to comment on the words that you chose when people really see you, right?

And ask you what about it?

Seeing so much of what we’re doing is this bit by bit by bit, we see this and we, we’re, we’re doing something related.

3:52

And then we see that and see that the word that you did, some words, 2 words that you chose not to use because they’re less colloquially accepted instead of when people see you, when people feel you or when people are truly with you.

4:11

There’s a whole lexicon behind showing up.

And then when you use that lexicon, right, two becomes with and four individual becomes all dividual, right?

People interact with you differently.

4:27

And I’m going to, I’m going to stop here because I think we’re going to get to the big picture that weaves this together.

But I really just did want to immediately pick up on the truth, right?

The way that we relate right now makes us more kind of to each other as opposed to with and for for people who are listening and not watching.

4:51

What I just did is I kind of clapped my hands together, notice they’re kind of pushing against.

And then what I did is I inter interwove my fingers and that’s a that’s a much deeper way of, you know, you can still use the word see, I guess.

But let’s face it, there’s seeing and then there’s truly, you know, feeling and flowing with.

5:12

I absolutely felt the difference even in that energy of the pushing of your hands together and seeing somebody and then the the energy of weaving your fingers together and feeling.

5:30

I’m so glad.

Yes, OK, more.

So let’s get into some of this.

But before we do, can you take us back to a time in your life when you were just showing up?

And what did that look like and what shifted?

5:47

Oh, oh, absolutely.

And I mean, this also very much is kind of the hard part of the hard, beautiful journey.

So is this the right time to mention?

I mean, people ask me what, like, why are you showing up my thing?

And I mean it, you know, it was designed into me, just like so much of our lives are.

6:06

At age 6, my family moved from Baltimore to Boston.

You know, my my parents, who were physicians, they were finishing their postdocs at Johns Hopkins.

My father was offered a great job in Boston.

We move, Little Marcy loses everything she knows, right?

6:22

You know what I mean?

The friends, the school, the house, the, the, the familiarity, the flow of the family, everything shifted.

Now we’re in a different place.

And you know, I, I’m not one to act out, so I acted in which means that kind of that that conspiring elixir of environment and your genetics came together.

6:44

So stuttering was my genetics and then the environment turned it on and I lost the ability to speak when I was 6.

So imagine you’re in school 1st and then second, third, 4th grade, you know, teacher asks a question, Marcy’s hand goes up, the entire higher collective energy of the class.

7:10

The teacher’s going to have to call on Marcy.

And the teacher was like, Oh my God, there’s going to be some point like here we are everyday I’m going to have to call on Marcy.

And it’s because they knew that when I tried to speak, what was going to come out is just this effortful struggle of just sounds like even the first sound, you know, like, you know, stuttering is not kind at that stage.

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It can become your life’s gift.

So that’s where the struggle started.

And to get at your question, I mean, that’s, you know, really the beginning of why I’m doing what I’m doing, what started to happen because being me in those moments was too painful.

7:57

So I felt like I was letting down the world, letting down everybody, making them feel pain.

I don’t want people to feel pain because of me.

So I shut myself down and the self mirror, right?

So for people listening, I’m holding my hands up such that my, my palms are facing me.

8:17

And I decided to turn it all outward.

I’m turning my hands outward and instead of thinking about myself or even feeling myself, I started to observe everyone else around me with a tremendous keenness based in desperation.

8:36

If I can’t show up as I choose, let’s observe how everyone else is choosing to show up and what I readily saw.

When you see at the Foursquare, you know, the game that we’re often playing on the behind school in in America, there’s a bully and he’s slamming everybody out.

8:55

And then there’s kids in line who are the scaredy cats.

Oh my God, if I get slammed out like everyone thinks, I don’t have, you know, a presence here and the bully is bullying me.

And then there’s all the kids who are just kind of aloof looking around thinking, I don’t know what to do with this.

And then there’s the teacher not intervening.

9:12

And I kept seeing to myself, why are they throwing their show up choices away?

So that.

Was the beginning and that’s the answer to your question about like, was there a starting point?

That was my starting point.

9:27

And in essence, it shifted my life away from Marcy the I me mind, right, that lives in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of our brain.

It’s the source of our sadness.

This is what was measured in that study where people were kind of left alone for 15 minutes and they had an option of shocking themselves.

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And like, you know, it’s something like almost 60% of men and over 50% of women chose to self inflict pain instead of being able to sit alone with their thoughts, right?

That’s the I me mind thing that makes it miserable.

I kind of just left it behind and started to focus on others.

10:03

And you can call it getting rid of your ego because like, mine didn’t matter.

I didn’t want it when I was sick.

When you don’t want something, when you’re sick, like you have a very unique magical way of getting it done.

I think your guest spoke about this and everyone talks about ego in in a different way.

10:19

But I think it’s very clear focusing on the self in some way, especially as defined in our Western culture now, is harmful.

We lie to ourselves.

We talk to ourselves in detrimental ways.

We believe what the world tells us about.

10:34

Here’s what success is.

Such lies.

It’s not what you wear, how you look, or what job you have or what title you have or whether you’ve checked the boxes that someone else told you are meaningful.

No.

So anyway, I’m going to stop there.

But this is where the truth about showing up really starts.

10:50

Wow all the way and that’s interesting.

It’s in that six year, right?

Because in one to seven that’s usually right when things are just how do I word this?

That’s where some of our real challenges might start in our life.

11:13

Would you agree with that?

Yes, yes.

So the the developmental theories of Piaget and Ericsson and things when you, when you look at when the brain of a child matures to a point where they can start to structure something other than the eye as their absolute only thing.

11:30

Yeah, yeah, it’s in the 789 around 9 something really different shifts.

Yeah.

But we can, we can move that.

You can tell my background is psychology.

So can you get into the science piece a little bit?

What is nature’s model and what happens when we go against it?

11:52

And second question is what happens?

Or can you explain the difference I guess between just showing up and truly showing up?

Yeah, yeah, you, you said a bunch of things here.

Give me just a second.

What is nature’s model?

12:07

What happens when we don’t?

And the third part is.

The difference between just showing up and truly showing up?

Yeah, got it.

OK, I’m going to just quickly answer what happens when we don’t, OK?

12:25

It’s how you feel, how most of society feels right now.

Anxious, unhappy, that life doesn’t have the meaning that you want it to.

You feel disconnected much of the time.

You feel like you’re against.

Maybe you feel like you want to control things.

Need I go on?

12:42

OK, so that’s just showing up Fields.

It’s what 80% of us do 80% of the time, according to my research.

That goes back to 1999.

By the way, those are global studies, hundreds of thousands of data points and it’s been mostly Evergreen, meaning like repeated on a regular basis since that time.

13:00

So these are very data LED findings.

That’s what happens when we don’t understand the truth about showing up as nature designed nature’s model.

I will show you the model.

Well, first I’ll briefly talk you through it.

Bottom line is we’re not in one role.

13:18

You know, when we grow up, you know, we’re kind of taught that we’re in this role.

You’re the self, the other person’s over there.

Society’s over there, fine.

Not so true or not so accurate.

It’s not that simple.

Bottom line is we’re in three roles at every time, at every moment.

13:35

So, Tiff, the way we started, right?

You asked a very connected question and you felt me and I felt you feeling me.

So a large part of what you felt, what you thought about and how you behaved in that moment was because of me and this podcast.

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So the external environment and me as a human took up inhabitants in your body, in your mind.

So you can’t just say you’re just an eye, you’re just Tiff.

You actually have a situation member role, and it’s not just how you presence.

14:22

We can talk about presencing and what it is.

It’s much deeper than people think, but literally the chemistry of your body was shifted then as it is now.

So that’s our second role.

I call it our situation member role.

And everything in every moment is in a situation, not just people.

14:41

I’m looking at a tree outside my window where it’s storming.

The tree would be doing something very different than it’s doing right now.

Extremely calm with no wind, drinking in the sun.

So the tree has a life that’s also a member of a situation.

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Are there other trees near it?

Is it in a desert?

Is it by a river?

So all of our lives, each moment are interacting with the outside world based on what’s going on, right?

No one’s going to argue with with that.

The third role that we’re in is the broader picture.

15:16

Why are you doing a podcast?

We’re doing a podcast because society came to a point where it offered this to you as a way to express a really important core of who you are.

You’re not just the accountant, Tiff, right?

And you want to be helpful to the world, and you want to bring expertise and distribute it such that people can choose to help themselves, right?

15:41

Yeah.

So there’s a societal member role.

Everything that we’re doing right now is because society has told us it’s a good thing for you and I to get together on this podcast now, right?

We’re also a member of a family, a company, a sports team, a community or religion or race, whatever it may be, an ethnic background.

16:02

We’re all part of something beyond ourselves.

So those are the three roles that we’re in.

And you might say, well, Marcy, why does this matter?

I’ve kind of known that my whole life.

So like, where’s the, So what the So what is that when I’m in front of a group and I say, everybody, we’re going to do a pie chart.

16:17

What’s your pie chart about?

How you live in your 3 rolls?

The default thing is people draw a line straight down the middle and their self roll gets about half their focus.

And they say, and then they kind of come back and say, it’s not really this way, but like 25% is like my societal role.

I try to recycle and I’ve got a hybrid car, right?

16:35

And then 25% is that like I really tried to presence in the moment?

And when you look at that, it’s like, well, is it creating meaning in your life to be so focused on yourself?

Basically, what I believe is how nature designed is that we have an equal distribution and we’re and this is how when humans lived in tribes.

16:56

And I’m holding up a slide that I’m going to give you tips so that you can share showing up.

And I’ve used a rainbow ’cause that’s the, for many, many reasons, self situation society.

It looks more like a sign that’s not happenstance.

OK.

17:12

And what it leads to, I’m gonna explain what the relationship is between the three roles and moving from living barely there through just showing up into truly showing up.

When you think about everything, think about the tree out there.

Is it more just the individual tree or is it also maybe 30%?

17:30

The fact that it’s right by a river, that’s a big part of its existence, right?

The fact that maybe you’re a parent, that’s a big part of your your existence and how you choose to interact within society.

It’s much more of a 3030 thirty type of thing, but we live disproportionately in the self because our society unfortunately has taught us all about, you know, the brand of you, and it’s all about you and you have to do this and you have to achieve this.

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We very much lost the turning of ourselves outward as we evolved as humans.

We were in tribes and we lived much more on the land, in nature.

That’s our situation, member role and much more connected to the other.

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Let’s say 100 or 125 people in the tribe.

If the main hunter had an injury and couldn’t hunt, maybe no one in the tribe for the next week had the big game to eat.

So literally what we fed ourselves was limited because of something else going on in the tribe.

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Are you with me?

We were very much interconnected.

My fingers are like this.

Yes, yes, now we can pick up the newspaper and we see the struggle of people, let’s say in Gaza and, and, and Israel or Ukraine and Russia on the on the front cover.

18:55

Our heart sinks.

But what do we do unless we’re going to go over there and help in some material way or change our lives and and help.

We put up a wall and it hurts and we don’t like it, but we do it because we’ve got to go on with our own day.

And the reason we hate doing it and it and it cleaves us from our hearts is because we no longer live in such a connected society.

19:18

We are not designed to be so in touch with what’s going on so far away in a place where we really can’t do that much right unless we’re going to go stop our life and go go to where the flood victims are of the recent storm, right?

19:33

We aren’t designed to shut ourselves off so much.

We are designed to very much live where what we feel literally changes what we do right now.

OK, I’m going to, I’m going to stop there.

So nature’s model, we’re in three roles and there are three levels.

19:50

The more you live more evenly in the three roles, the more you naturally start to truly show up.

And I can tell you a story at the right time about how this works because you’ve experienced it.

You’ve experienced the transition less left brain, get it done mode and more right brain.

20:10

I’m feeling you.

But beyond that?

I’m feeling you, feeling me now.

I feel felt.

Those are the words of Doctor Dan Siegel, who I consider to be the founder of the field of medicine called interpersonal neurobiology.

20:28

But it’s not just neuro.

And I’m pointing to my brain now that mind and the heart are very much connected.

It’s your entire body.

And he talks about feeling felt.

And when you feel felt, you’re deeply interconnected with someone.

And you can say this is the truly what love is.

20:45

Love is that depth of presencing with another.

They can be a stranger Tiff, but love for a stranger?

I sure have.

OK, Did I answer your three questions at least at a?

You sure did, and it’s opened up a whole bunch more.

And like I told you before we started, I want to be one of your students for a few minutes.

21:09

So can you walk me through a part of your showing up process?

And yeah, I’m just going to, I’m just going to let that land and let’s work on that.

And I know I use different words than what I used before and see I’m like OK go.

21:31

OK, all right, quote, walk, walk you through the show up process.

Yeah.

And it’s not my process.

It’s nature’s process.

All I’ve done is the words in a model on it, you know, and I don’t really think in terms of opposites because they don’t really exist.

There’s no real right and wrong, right?

21:47

If you keep going north, you end up coming up from the South.

All of that.

You can’t cut a mag that the north can’t get rid of.

The South.

You can chop the magnet.

The South Pole even gets closer to the north.

Right.

So so I’ll walk you through part of my process.

What I will do is support you and experiencing your own transition into truly showing up more deeply.

22:07

I do believe you’re truly showing up right now.

So I’m not taking you from a just show up state into a truly show up state.

But let’s let’s start.

So what I’d like you to do is envision in your mind someone who is challenging you.

OK, Tell me what you feel about that person.

22:29

Well, I have a couple.

It’s tell me what I feel about.

Yeah, a little bit of heartbreak mixed with sadness.

Not sadness, longing, I guess, for it to be different.

22:50

Heartbreak and sadness, so you’re already connected with them in your heart.

Should I say who it is and what it is?

No, let me do this first.

Let me share a because I think you’re already truly showing up and feeling that person.

23:09

Let me share a quick story of someone who started more in the just show up and how they transition to truly show up because you may be kind of quite far already into the green truly show up.

I met a gentleman at a gym where I go and he was holding on to an infant, happened to be his grandson.

23:29

And I remarked to him how beautiful the relationship felt to me.

And then we parted and about a week later I get a message.

He had looked me up and found me and he said, Marcy, what you said impacted me so deeply.

23:45

He said because I’ve never truly I felt been in the moment and you felt it with my granddaughter and I didn’t and and I can’t.

I’m so desperate to feel that, which you helped me.

So I said yes.

24:01

And we met at 11 AM at a cafe.

This is like 3 months ago now.

And we get to the cafe and he’s telling me about his past.

And his parents would fight and there were three sons and he would feel like everyone would be afraid.

And he felt so ungrounded that he just naturally started to protect his younger brothers.

24:21

Hey, let me help you with with your schoolwork.

Let’s go out and play basketball like it’ll be OK.

He wanted to protect your mode and his protector mode became so deep and so desperate that his entire life is designed by protector mode.

He had he has five kids.

He married a woman who really depends on him and and wasn’t really self-sufficient.

24:41

And he said, you know, Marcy, even when I’m on vacation, what’s happening is I’m always like, OK, is this set?

Is this set?

Who needs to be?

And the moment everything is good and I can check every box, my mind says, what’s next?

What’s next?

What’s next?

In his job he manages 500 people.

24:57

OK, so his entire life was designed because his safe zone, his success was always in an abstraction, not present, but focused on how do I create?

25:13

How do I create control?

How do I make it a copacetic smooth running thing?

So he’s telling me this and he’s and he’s almost beating his chest explaining it.

But at the same time I knew that he was desperate and I just said, OK, we can call him Chuck.

And I’m like, got it.

25:30

The fact that you understand, this is fabulous.

And he’s like, what should I do?

What should I do?

What should I do?

And I said, there’s a man right at the table over there.

Look at, just look at, look at that man.

He glanced at the man for about two seconds.

25:46

He’s like, Oh my God, what a schlump.

Why isn’t he at work?

It’s 11:00 on a, on a Tuesday and he’s just on his phone.

He’s not even with the person that that he’s with.

He should be, you know, how can he be so irresponsible?

Massive judgement.

And he was all worked up about it, like the how could he do that?

26:04

And he was so sure of himself because that those were facts for him.

And that’s the way it is.

And I listened to it, and he was validated the whole time.

And then he’s looking at me like, OK, now what?

And I say, Chuck, keep looking.

26:25

And he looks at the man again.

And since he had already gone through all of his judgement, there was a little bit more openness.

And he looks at the man.

And now he took a few more seconds.

And he looks back at me and he’s like, you know, he’s not very happy.

26:42

And as if that was all, he looks at me again to check the box.

Right, we’re in, get it, get it done right here.

And I said, Chuck, keep looking.

And in his chair, he started to slump a little bit.

And he started to have his eyes stay on the other man as he spoke to me.

27:02

And he said, you know, I think there’s something wrong.

And he said, I’m feeling sad now.

I’m really sad.

And a tear came to his eyes.

It’s coming to mind right now.

27:18

And he said, you know what?

Wow, maybe he’s not looking at the person he’s with.

Maybe maybe she’s his daughter.

So now he’s really relating to the man and he’s feeling what he’s feeling.

Said maybe, maybe it’s the mom and maybe she’s in the hospital.

27:37

And and he said, do you think the man might accept a hug?

Now you got to understand Chuck.

Is.

Chuck looks like he lives at the gym.

Chuck is one of these people like you wouldn’t you know, and he’s 50 years old.

27:53

He’s got a square jaw and he’s a good looking guy.

You wouldn’t expect him to come over and say like, you know, wow, you look sad.

Can I give you a hug?

So I said, you know, Chuck, it’s up to you if you accept the man and just think I was feeling maybe what’s going on with you right now.

28:09

And I, I felt your sadness.

Would you like a hug?

And in that moment, what Chuck did is he moved from his head, from judgment mode, from knowing he was right, from being closed to truly feeling, from an absolute lack of presencing.

28:30

And I will explain how this happens in the left hemisphere based on what Ian Mcgilchrist is psychiatrist out of the Isle of Man has taught us, and how he moved from his head into his heart.

And it turns out it’s exactly what I wrote in the book about two years ago.

28:48

So what the book explains, we start out just in our self mode.

Yeah.

One, our single role of self.

Oops.

And then as we start to present and get into our situation member role, we start to move toward into into just showing up toward truly showing up.

29:08

And once we’re in truly showing up, we go from.

So this is noticing, tuning in, feeling with is what happens next.

And then there’s the Holy Grail.

Enacting care, noticing, tuning in, feeling with enacting care.

29:29

Can you say we just transformed society?

Oh my goodness.

You say a child will feel felt by their parent and they will be grounded for their entire lives and they will not need to do thrill seeking behaviors.

They will not need to be testing out the what the premature intimacy feels like and that the vaping and the drugs, instead of feeling a sense of competitiveness, we will look at each other and say, you know, how can we both help out the company at the same time?

30:01

How can we apply as a team?

What can we do together?

I mean, revolutionary thing.

So that is the process that Chuck went through.

And the entire thing was about 3 minutes, 3 minutes.

And he said to me, he’s like Marcy.

30:19

I’ve never felt misconnected to somebody.

And he’s a total stranger.

So what I recommend to people, people will often ask Marcy, how do we practice truly showing up every day?

I want you to just look at someone.

It can be someone from across your kitchen.

30:35

It can be within an office.

It can be at a line, at a checkout.

Look at someone and just let yourself be with them.

You will notice immediately how you breathe is changing.

30:52

It’s deepening.

It’s going from off in a shallow thing to a deeper thing.

You will notice your gut and your muscles around your chest opening.

You will notice how you stand and how the weight is borne on your feet shifting.

31:13

And as you do that, you will be perceiving the other person less as an object.

You will be less to them and more with and for them.

And that is how truly showing up plays out.

And the reason I’d I think you we weren’t going to get through this process with you is because right away you said heartbroken.

31:34

Are you with me?

You were already into the green.

You weren’t might had you started with I have a teenager in the house and why can’t they do this?

And I’m so right.

You you would have had to start out in that in that less connected mode, the less caring mode, because that is how most of us walk down the street.

31:56

And the moment you’re in get it done mode, you’re not engaged in feeling with.

All right, I’m going to pause there, but I, I hope, have I demonstrated what you wanted.

I am just blown away and like you said, I’m definitely feeling like I’m in closer to the green with this person.

32:22

I feel myself in moments, go back right to red.

Right, right.

I’m so glad you said that.

Tell me, tell me when and how that shift takes place so that everybody can can hear about it.

When there’s so this is interesting.

32:40

I’m I’m going to say who it is just to it’s my daughter and she is almost 17 and.

Yep, she has 15 and 19.

I am so with you.

And she has 12 year old twin brothers and so we had her for 4 1/2, almost five years without them.

33:04

And then so we, she was our life.

And then her brothers came along and twins is no joke.

And she definitely, you know, didn’t get our attention like she used to.

And I know that some of that has because she was in those developmental years, 4 1/2, almost 5.

33:30

And there’s still so many times where she lashes out at them, just lashes out at them.

And when that happens, my whole body just tenses up.

And I have to remember to like, and I’m doing breath work and somatic training right now to really get into my body and really slow down my breath.

33:53

And but there’s moments where literally marks like I just fly right to red, I’ll lose it, right?

It happened on our vacation just like the last last couple weeks and afterwards I feel terrible.

34:11

But what I have learnt in the last couple few years since my brother passed away is that I am going to deal with this sooner than later.

I am going to have a conversation with my kids.

34:30

I’m going to share my heart, share what happened, why I said what I did, why I reacted the way that I did so that they, it’s not a mystery.

I guess you know of why mom went off the rails.

So that’s that’s how I go from red and make my way back, I think to close to green or in green.

34:54

Yeah, yeah.

And for everyone who’s not seeing the visuals, barely there is red level 1, and then we get into orange and yellow just showing up.

And then truly showing up, you get into green.

So there are three levels of showing up. 123, barely there, just showing up, truly showing up.

35:16

I was just trying to make it simple.

These have always been there, right?

It’s kind of like that book.

How full is your bucket, if any of you know know that?

And they say everyone as an individual has their own kind of bucket of water above their heads, which is basically their emotions and how kind of full of nourishment they are such that they’re able to withstand with optimism kind of negative things that happen throughout the day.

35:41

So 123 is kind of my version of everyone’s making a choice at every moment, how we show up and we’re always at some level.

I love that you said you’re going to kind of really like reflect for your kids and talk back through this because what you’re doing is you’re explaining the levels of showing up.

36:01

Now, most people just show up.

And the reason they just show up is because many people don’t realize they have a choice.

They don’t understand, like we we all have some sense of like, hey, I wish I’d done that.

I wish I’d behaved that way.

Oh, Gee, how did that happen?

I should have known better.

But when you know that, I mean, really there are three distinct levels and I mean, if someone else could put 5 levels on it, it doesn’t really matter.

36:25

I felt, I felt that there’s definitely some version of really not good and some version of really good.

And what’s in the middle is really the important thing to describe just showing up.

And so if it’s OK, let me let me explain this.

To survive out in the wild, we needed to do 2 things.

36:46

We needed to feed ourselves and I’m doing like a grab and get type thing and we needed to not be fit to something else.

So we had to surveil.

We had to see the predators out in the Bush.

Our brain can’t do like you can’t have one system of attention that’s doing the extremely laser focused spotlight.

37:05

I’m focused on this one little Berry that I’m going to pick from the Bush.

You can’t be doing that.

And is that rustle over in the bushes a tiger or the wind, You cannot be doing that.

So evolutionarily the way we and every mammal evolved is we have two systems of attention, one’s in the left hemisphere and one’s in the right.

37:28

And there is a connection, supposedly a connection point that the the corpus callosum in the middle, but it’s not really connecting.

What it’s really doing is filtering.

What it’s really doing is arbitrating and stopping stuff from going across that we don’t care about.

37:46

The left system is the IT controls the the right side of the body, the right arm.

And most of us grab it, control it, get it done, pick the Berry from the Bush, shoot the arrow and kill the deer, whatever it is, right?

38:01

And you know that when you’re locked in on that, it doesn’t matter if someone walks in the room behind you.

You’re not going to know because you are so locked in.

Most of our day we are in that mode, right?

Empty the dishwasher, open it, reach in our hand, pick up the dish, put it away.

38:20

We are in get it done mode and there’s often a little bit of stress in the background and when there’s a little bit of stress or call it time pressure or when do I get to that next meeting or what does my boss really think or Oh my teen is driving me crazy or why can’t my my partner do this thing I asked of him or her?

38:41

Any of that type of stressor, it puts us in that left hemispheric mode.

That left hemisphere cannot see what’s truly going on because it is.

It is designed to stop time.

You know the gazelle is running and it’s running.

38:58

You aren’t thinking about wow, the way the sun is reflecting off of its fur, so beautiful.

You aren’t thinking about maybe it’s a baby gazelle on the mommy’s looking for it, or maybe it’s a mommy and there’s babies over there and it’s trying to.

You aren’t thinking about anything other than this is an object of my control.

39:16

It’s an abstraction.

You are literally in the number or in the map.

You’re not the the territory.

You cannot experience the truth of the moment or of flow in any way.

So represent the past.

My team is doing this.

Whether or not the team really is, what your mind does is IT projects into the now what you’ve experienced in the past.

39:40

This is why it’s all Groundhog Day.

Every day at work is the same.

And I know what he’s going to say and I know what he’s going to say.

And I know what’s going on.

I know it.

I’m done.

This is truth.

It’s fact.

It’s done, and it’s completely wrong.

The right hemisphere is the one that is connected with the actual flow of what’s going on.

40:00

It’s the only system that can perceive the bigger picture.

This is the system.

You’re up on the mountain now and you’re looking down and you’re like, oh, now I see how things are working.

It’s the bigger picture where the new idea comes, the new perspective shows up.

40:19

It’s the system where, Tiff, as you and I look into each other’s eyes, you know what I’m feeling, and I’m feeling it because of what you’re feeling.

And that smile and that nod, Tiff, that’s really good, and I want to thank you.

40:36

So feeling others, reading the language of someone’s body, even somewhere across the parking lot you’ve never met, that’s a right hemispheric thing.

Feeling the music and swaying to to it and you feel your body move, that’s your right hemisphere.

Reading a poem and sensing all the depth, that’s the right hemisphere.

40:56

So the human aspects of life, the thing that lead you to feel the heartbreak, to feel the love, that’s your right hemisphere.

It is hijacked.

It is not online when you’re in good done mode and when you’re stressed out in any way or when you’re exhausted and when you’re hungry, like all those things that never happened.

41:15

Oh, what about if you’re sleep deprived?

You’re absolutely going to be left hemispheric focused and it’s not kind because the left hemisphere doesn’t care.

The left hemisphere is AI, however accurate the the AI chat bot therapist may be.

41:32

Oh, you’re feeling this way.

Oh, and I bet you feel this way and the words are perfect and it feels like it’s a human and we anthropomorphize.

It will never care about you until blood runs through the veins of that computer chip.

It will never care about you.

41:49

Makes it dangerous because it doesn’t even know what a human being is, and it should know who you are.

So when we’re in that left hemispheric mode, we’re treating each other as objects.

We are in the two mode.

We are not in the width and form of.

So that’s really what’s going on when you’re suddenly triggered by your daughter is you’re using this very helpful part of your brain.

42:15

We need it.

We need it to get things done.

But it’s the emissary, it’s not the master.

And in society we’ve shifted and the emissary is now running, running the world.

And the reason I use the master and emissary metaphor is because the book by Ian Mcgilchrist that describes all this is called The Master and Emissary, The Making and Unmaking of the Western World.

42:39

So it.

That is so super helpful for me to break that down.

And now, now I I have a different lens.

I think not.

I think I know.

Can can I just briefly explain how do you shift in a very simple way?

42:59

You’re already doing the breath.

It’s an embodied shift, the breath work.

You can literally just soften your eyes and look at her differently.

I have done that.

I did that on our vacation, Marcy, where I because I am in, in that training right now and I, that is one thing that I have been learning to do.

43:22

And in that moment in the I just stopped and I took some breaths and I soften my gaze towards her.

And you felt her.

And then you were no longer judging what she was doing.

And right.

Oh, I’m going to get a portion.

43:41

Yeah.

I felt all of them actually because my we’re divorced now and like going on vacations with my kids.

Looks different, yes.

And it’s not just different for me, obviously it’s different for all of them.

44:01

And so the very first day of our vacation, there was a a moment in the hotel and where it just got loud and anger and all of that, right.

44:16

And I just, I just stopped.

I stopped all of us.

And I just said, let’s have a family meeting.

And I just, I just stopped.

And I felt them and I felt what was going on in their hearts.

44:36

And like that they wish their dad was there too.

And I said I, I feel that and I, I honor that.

Oh my God, I’m so with you.

I’m divorced as well.

Vacations with my kids are really.

They’re different.

44:54

They’re different now and beautiful.

Yeah, I just, it’s a success that they go with you because mine refused so.

Yeah, it’s yeah.

Oh my God.

Seems like you did such a great job and you said we’re going to pause and have a meeting yet you know, some family time and the.

45:18

Word.

Oh, sorry.

Go on.

The word meeting, by the way, is is a brain focused thing.

It’s not a hard focus thing.

We’re going to have a family reconnection time.

We’re going to reset.

I don’t know how you want to do it, but.

Yeah.

45:34

Label it So what you want.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

How successful that you even knew.

You noticed, right?

The books about shoes you chose.

You said I see what’s going on here, right?

You’ve got to.

As you move from barely there into just showing up, the first thing is notice notice and then TuneIn feel with and I care.

45:57

You did the entire thing and you probably reset your kids.

How did they respond?

Really well and we went and had dinner and we it wasn’t tense.

46:12

It was, we were joking around and, and like, I can feel that energy shift when, when I connect with them and when I feel what’s going on in their hearts and in, in their energy, right?

46:28

And so, so if there’s people that like Chuck, how you worked with Chuck, you gave us an exact like feel what’s going on, right?

If is there anything else, if there’s somebody out there right now who doesn’t know how to start this process, what would you like?

46:49

If they’re in grief or burnout or they’re in a big life transition, right Where should they start?

Yeah, so that’s a grief and burnout that those are barely their states.

The first thing you have to do is process that, you know, you can’t just try to move out of it first.

47:07

You have to stay with it.

That’s the very first thing.

And whatever your process is, journal, walk, cry, accept, you have to accept, you have to forgive.

There are a lot of ways of doing it.

I’m just watching the time and we have one minute here.

47:23

But after that, you know, the way to start to practice showing up.

I mean, this is a daily thing is to the first thing you do is either notice that you’re not truly showing up and just pause.

47:39

You have to stop.

You have to let your muscles relax because you’re switching from your sympathetic nervous system and your parasympathetic system.

Deep breaths is a really good thing to do.

And how to widen your gaze, get more into that open awareness so that you can.

47:57

What you’re doing is opening your body, which is your perceiving system, to the more of what’s out there, that shifting from your left hemisphere into your right, and that is what’s doing it.

You can choose to just look someone and feel them.

48:14

So these are all ways of doing it.

The book has a ton of ways of doing it.

I’m just going to switch to this screen.

This is how you can check out more of Marcy’s stuff.

Choose to showup.com.

She’s on Instagram at Marcy Axelrod and on LinkedIn as well.

48:34

Before we wrap up, I would love to know what you are grateful for today.

Oh my God.

Well, I’m grateful for this conversation.

I’m, I’m just, I’m really grateful for like an endless number of things.

I’m grateful to be able to open my eyes and, and be awake.

48:50

I’m grateful to be where I am.

I’m grateful my kids are here on and on.

And I’m really grateful to be able to share Tiff with, for and through you these concepts.

And let’s let’s hope that they help somebody, if not more than one person.

There were so many moments in this conversation where I know I caught myself holding my breath and obviously I was crying.

49:13

I realized that I do still do that.

I just show up in some areas.

I go through the motions and I forget that I have a choice.

So I want to ask you again, where in your life are you showing up but not really here?

49:28

And what would it feel like to return to yourself, even just 1% more?

I want to thank you, RC for your brilliant heart and your generous wisdom.

If this conversation resonated with you, please check out her book, How We Choose to Show Up and visit Choose to showup.com.

49:49

She is doing powerful work in this world.

Thanks for being here for this episode of Hard Beautiful Journey.

I hope today’s episode inspired you to embrace your own vulnerabilities and recognize the strength within you.

Remember, every story of resilience adds to the beauty of our shared journey.

50:10

If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe and leave a review.

Your support helps me spread hope and healing to even more listeners.

Until next time, keep shining your light and embracing the beauty in your journey.

50:26

Bye bye.