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*Welcome to* “Take Off The Mask with CasieCasem (TOTM),” *the podcast where we strip away the filters and dig deep into the heart of mental health. I’m your host, Casie Casem, and here, nothing is off-limits. We talk about the things that matter—raw, real stories from people who’ve been there, insights from experts who know the field, and conversations that challenge how we think about mental well-being.*
This isn't just another mental health podcast. It's a community. A place where you're seen, heard, and understood, no matter what you’re going through. Whether you’re here to find support, gain understanding, or simply listen to meaningful discussions —whatever brought you here, you’re in the right place. our goal is to create a space where you feel heard and valued. Remember, you’re not alone on this journey. *Together, we're breaking down walls and opening up honest conversations that need to be had. *Together we can Change the Face of Depression Join us as we take off the mask and face mental health together.
*Before we dive in, a quick note: today's episode may cover sensitive topics related to mental health. If you feel overwhelmed at any point, please reach out to a professional or someone you trust. We’re all in this together, and there’s always help and hope.*
*Ready to take off the mask? Let’s get started.
Check out our website at www.CTFOD.com or www.changethefaceofdepression.com
Casie Ellison:Welcome to take off the mask with Casie Casem.
Casie Ellison: Thank you.
Natalyn Lewis: Thank you for having me me here!
Casie Ellison: Absolutely,so glad to have you! if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself, and then just give us a great welcome on what you do and how we got connected.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, absolutely. So. I'm Natalyn Lewis. And most people call me natty. And what I do is I do emotional intelligence and human performance coaching.
Natalyn Lewis: and what we learned in my process of of my background, I connected really 2 core components. One is my. I was a competitive athlete. My whole life which really affected my physical body. I also was a corporate executive and corporate consultant, and have worked with over 200 different companies worldwide, and done that in the space of marketing and sales, and those 2 worlds feel like they're miles and miles and worlds apart.
Natalyn Lewis: But I had the opportunity to engage in like market research, and that market research was designed to help me understand the psychographics and emotional buying patterns and emotional behaviors of people, and why they do what they do.
Natalyn Lewis: and when I started to connect the dots between that and why I did what I did as an athlete, and how the physical body and the emotional self start to really work together. Things started to change for me, and I started to really shift gears and had the opportunity.
Natalyn Lewis: Had the opportunity when Covid hit had a direct disrupt to my life. Right? I at that time had sold my last company, and was just speaking and all speaking engagement shut down because all events shut down. And I was actually approached by a nonprofit organization called my story Matters, and they talked to me about taking the things that I had learned.
Natalyn Lewis: and helping them put together a curriculum that would actually go into prison.
Casie Ellison: Oh, wow!
Natalyn Lewis: People who
Natalyn Lewis: who were struggling with addiction, struggling with life patterns they didn't understand, struggling with behaviors that they needed and wanted to change and to help bring both the physical and the emotional aspect together, and see what we could do to help make a difference.
Natalyn Lewis: And so did that. And it's been unbelievable. It has been my full time effort ever since. For the last 4 years I've been doing that in both corporate America and incarceration.
Natalyn Lewis: So.
Casie Ellison: Wow!
Natalyn Lewis: That is what I do. And your story and the story of your your audience here, with regards to just resilience and the desire to just change something and to do that, and to move forward with it was was kind of what inspired me to reach out here and say, this is a space that I would that I would love to be a part of, and just any anything I can do to help, and the people who are looking in this space is something I'm just deeply passionate about.
Casie Ellison: Oh, man, that's so awesome! Oh, my goodness.
Casie Ellison: that's fantastic! I have like
Casie Ellison: emotion that's fantastic.
Casie Ellison: I have so many questions go into.
Natalyn Lewis: You don't.
Casie Ellison: I'm so curious in the prison systems because I you know, I have appreciation for
Casie Ellison: the fact that my life could have gone absolutely any way.
Casie Ellison: Some people
Casie Ellison: have no outlet, and they have no understanding on how their emotions work, or how to communicate their emotions, how to handle their emotions, any of those aspects, especially in prison, because it's not a fix. It's just a punishment.
Casie Ellison: So when you're doing things like that.
Casie Ellison: if you wouldn't mind go into, what are you finding? How is that.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah.
Casie Ellison: Related.
Natalyn Lewis: Well to give like just a super simple analogy to help everybody kind of understand. If if my hand were to model a brain.
Natalyn Lewis: One of the things we don't understand is how that brain actually works when we get emotional and it's and if we understood it, just even this much. All of a sudden the dots start to connect. As to why behavior shows up that is not necessarily aligned with character.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, like.
Natalyn Lewis: Probably felt this even yourself, where you're like. Why am I doing this like what this is? Not who I am? And yet for something pulls you and compels you almost like you can't make it stop right. And that's not uncommon in in any of these circumstances. But if we think about the brain. Super simple, these these fingers right here, if they were to represent our logical prefrontal cortex, part of our brain where we can actually think through situations and make decisions on purpose.
Natalyn Lewis: They connect to our brainstem and send those instructions. So when we're logical and we're rational and we're making decisions on purpose that's happening on purpose.
Natalyn Lewis: The problem is is what it covers up is our hippocampus, which is where pictures and memories are stored, and our amygdala, which is our emotion center, and it sends off the alarms to the brain, saying, right now, I don't feel safe, whether that's physically unsafe or emotionally unsafe, and when that alarm goes off. If you were to think about it as this alarm goes off.
Natalyn Lewis: it basically disconnects that prefrontal cortex from the brain stem. So we call it flipping the lid, the alarm goes off and boom, it flips the prefrontal cortex off the brain stem, so that in that moment
Natalyn Lewis: we're not logical or rational.
Natalyn Lewis: The brain do that. It would do that to protect us, because most of the time, if we're not safe, we need to just react to the situation.
Natalyn Lewis: The problem is so much of what goes on in prison. So much of what goes on in life around us is not physical unsafety.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Personal and safety.
Natalyn Lewis: And when we get yeah. And and so we get these people who they don't feel emotionally safe, they don't feel loved, they don't feel seen, they don't feel connected with, they, they feel judged, they feel comparison. Social media is like massively big on this and that. Emotional and safety starts to do this. And then where are we when we're making choices about? How do I make this feeling of discomfort, this feeling of unsafety stop, and people will.
Natalyn Lewis: whatever sources feel fast and safe at that moment and those they're not safe
Natalyn Lewis: in terms of like. Logically, they're just safe in the moment of emotional reaction.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, I can resonate with that, because I've been, you know, told that it. And it doesn't even have to be anything that's happening in that moment. It's something that triggered me of something that's happened in the past, and I'm like peaked
Casie Ellison: wondering if something like that past event is going to happen, and that can be overwhelming.
Natalyn Lewis: Oh, for sure, and that's that's very, very clearly defined in the brain as well, because our brain, when it stores a memory in that hippocampus. It's almost like a filing cabinet. It takes a memory, stores it like people and places and time and events. But when things happen in our life. That would be what we would call slightly traumatic, even if like, not by the world's definition of traumatic, but just by the brain's definition of traumatic meaning. I didn't file that memory properly. It doesn't file in that little file folder that says time.
Natalyn Lewis: So you might experience something that was attached to that and that that alarm goes off on that filing cabinet, that little file, that little memory that never filed time properly so for your mind and your body and your emotions. When is it happening.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Right now.
Natalyn Lewis: So you react to it like it's happening right now, because there was never a time folder there that our brain can lock onto and say, Oh, that was 10 years ago. That was 5 years ago. That was 3 weeks ago.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, it's not right now. In this moment.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, but you don't. You literally don't know that, like, your brain's not reacting that way. And we we see that all the time with people who are struggling with behavioral change. They're also struggling with this. The emotion is so real and it's so present. And it's so right now that they're trying to figure out. Why, why am I still reacting to something that happened to me a year ago?
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Casie Ellison: well, how do you.
Natalyn Lewis: It's happening right now. Yeah.
Casie Ellison: How do you?
Casie Ellison: How are you able to separate oneself from that and recognize that? That's what's happening. It's not, you know. Maybe it's a a fight or flight reaction, but not an actual like, need to have this reaction.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, well, one of the things we talk about a lot. I mean, we we bring a lot of tools to the table, and we try to make that process very tangible. Now, one of the problems is when we get into that space of thought, as you know, like, if everything's out there in a swirl, and we're trying to make sense of the world around us, and we're trying to pick things apart. But it feels like our body is battling with our brain, and they're not working together.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: And so we use a lot of tools to actually bring those 2 things together. And one of them is is just the idea that I'm going to. I'm going to actually, physically give myself a minute to regulate when this thing pops up. It's a very physically, it's a very physical experience, and we don't realize that most of society wants to try to handle emotions in the brain.
Natalyn Lewis: So people feel they feel wrong or they feel bad. So they sit down and they try to really think about it, or it's like what's going on. And I've got to try to. But they do it in a sitting position when the reality is when this alarm goes off and and flips that lid, the physiology in the body is sending signals and alarms that we have to move like we, our body needs to physically release. So.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, almost a panic.
Natalyn Lewis: So the 1st thing we do is say instead of we're not thinking about it yet. The 1st thing I want you to do is, bring that lid back down because our thinking brain not attached. We sit down right now and try to sort it out, thought Wise. We can't do it because we're not even. We're not even using the prefrontal cerebral cortex which is responsible for all that logic and reason.
Natalyn Lewis: 1st thing we tell people to like physically, engage, go for a walk, go for a run, do some burpees, do some push ups, take some deep breaths in. Take right, not not normal breathing, but like, take a reset breath, take a.
Casie Ellison: Yeah. A belly breath. Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Like we. We teach people a a reset breathing where you breathe in
Natalyn Lewis: and hold it, and then at the top, spike it.
Natalyn Lewis: and then, when you release you release from the bronchial system with an actual sound, and then you can shake it off a little bit. And the reason we teach. That is because if this goes into automatic function, when the lid flips.
Natalyn Lewis: There's nothing automatic about. Breathe in and hold, and then breathe in again and hold because the body's automatic breathing mechanism and is in and out.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, can we practice one of those.
Natalyn Lewis: Sure. Yeah. And I would encourage people to do so. There's 1 is breathing, the other is body tension. And so what I would encourage people to do is if they start to feel themselves coming here, and they feel those emotions welling up, and they don't know what to do about it. I would highly encourage people like, just Start. You can sit. You can stand to do this, but start with curling your toes and cinch up those toes as as hard as you can.
Natalyn Lewis: and then flex the calves, and then flex the quads, and then squeeze your glutes, and then flex your abs, and then flex your shoulders, and then tense the arms and hands, and then, while everything's in a state of tension, breathe in
Natalyn Lewis: hold.
Natalyn Lewis: and then at the top, spike it through the nose
Natalyn Lewis: and hold, and then squeeze everything tight. And now we're gonna release everything and shake.
Natalyn Lewis: Oh.
Natalyn Lewis: and just shake
Natalyn Lewis: as you do that you'll feel almost like a little decompression valve.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Head, and you feel this. Go.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Does that make sense.
Casie Ellison: Yes, I absolutely did.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah. And you probably felt that. And we keep that. And they're like, Whoa, what just happened? We're like your your lid closed.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: And then I'll say, now.
Natalyn Lewis: now let's think about what we're experiencing.
Natalyn Lewis: because now we can start to separate real from true
Natalyn Lewis: see in our brain when we're experiencing something like we get triggered by something that happened.
Natalyn Lewis: Emotions. You're feeling the physiology. You're feeling the thoughts. It's all real to you in that moment, right?
Casie Ellison: Yes.
Natalyn Lewis: From here, though, we can start to separate. What's real versus what's true?
Natalyn Lewis: What's true is is that happening right now?
Natalyn Lewis: No, it's real for you right now, because your brain's experiencing it physiologically and emotionally. It's not true that it's happening right now, when we can start to separate real from true, we can actually start to give some validation to the fact. You really are experiencing something. You're not going crazy. You're not.
Natalyn Lewis: You're not a head case. You're not a mental person, you're not. You're not incapable of sorting your thoughts.
Natalyn Lewis: You're having a real physical experience to a very real emotion, to a very real picture in your brain. That's that's real.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, it doesn't make it true. And when we can separate truth and reality.
Natalyn Lewis: then those things we can start to actually do some things, to start to work through
Natalyn Lewis: actually filing that memory properly, in truth, so that we don't keep reacting to it the same way we are now. And even if the only truth that needs to be established is it didn't happen today. This happened on this date
Natalyn Lewis: 2 years ago.
Natalyn Lewis: That's the only truth that our brain gets, we can at least start to establish that and file that file that memory properly in its proper place, and start to heal from it a little bit better if that makes sense.
Casie Ellison: Yes.
Natalyn Lewis: I try to keep those things as simple as possible to just because we're not going to get into big neuroscience or psychiatry or anything like that. We just want to recognize, how does the brain work? And how do I work with my brain because we got to work together? And sometimes it doesn't always feel that way.
Casie Ellison: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's just fantastic and beautiful at the same time, because you're not taught
Casie Ellison: emotional regulation whatsoever, and that
Casie Ellison: what's real and what's true. For a moment
Casie Ellison: I felt my inner child come out and be like, but it's true, and that's real, you know, like. And so I understand the separation of yes, it's real and yes, it's true. But it happened yesterday, not right now. In this moment. You know
Casie Ellison: that separation right there.
Casie Ellison: I resonate with personally.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah. And it's really important for people. Because I think, especially in the space where people are struggling with challenge.
Natalyn Lewis: One of the one of the things they'll come forward, and they'll if they ever give voice to that challenge. Their fear is that they that they'll be that people think they're crazy, or that that they just should get their get the crap together, or whatever somebody's gonna tell them to do. And there's a fear of actually even expressing the feeling or the thought.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, and.
Natalyn Lewis: But that is that if there is a real feeling, and if there's physiology or physiological reactions happening with that feeling to that person in that moment, regardless of anybody else's opinion.
Natalyn Lewis: It is real, for that doesn't matter if it's real for me.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: For them. And it's important that we validate that as many ways, because otherwise they can't ever get to the place where they can settle into what's actually true and and start to divide that out. And I don't mean that to say we create memories. I don't mean that at all. I simply mean
Natalyn Lewis: that sometimes we're experiencing the the reality of a situation right in this exact moment. And what's true is it didn't happen right now, and that just triggered me is probably not something I have to be afraid of, and it's super real that it triggered on safety in me.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, well, that's Ptsd.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah. And does that hopefully, that separation makes sense to people. And they can start to see that because it's it's a powerful, powerful exercise for people when they can, and most people can't do it because they don't ever get this down. First.st
Natalyn Lewis: They try to put in that state of dysregulation and fear.
Natalyn Lewis: and we can't do it from there, because we require the function of our prefrontal cortex to do that. So we've got to regulate first.st Bring the lid down, go, go for a walk, go for a run, do that breathing technique do individual body tension and temperature control is the other one that I if if there were 3 things anybody could do to regulate and bring this back down.
Natalyn Lewis: it would be that breathing exercise, the tension, exercise and temperature control
Natalyn Lewis: like, just put get a piece of ice, hold it in your hand, grab ice water down
Natalyn Lewis: because we can do. If we can hit the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system at the same time. And we can do it with those 3 elements. And we can usually do a a significant work towards bringing that down.
Casie Ellison: So temperature control is
Casie Ellison: just going to go get anything that is a different.
Natalyn Lewis: Mccain.
Casie Ellison: Like you can hold a warm towel. You could drink a cold glass of water, have an ice cube, hold it, put it in your mouth, and.
Natalyn Lewis: Most people get hot. And let's say the vast majority of people get hot. And it's because they're getting elevated heart rate right when people start to feel this. Their heart rate elevates. Maybe it compresses. Maybe they they start to get. They can feel the sensations in their fingers. Their head might get hot. Some people will start to sweat
Natalyn Lewis: hot, I mean, if you go, run your hands under cold water, splash some cold water on your face and your neck, and like put an ice cube in your hand, and for for women, I seriously tell them, take an ice cube, throw it right down the shirt between the ladies down there. It does a magical job
Natalyn Lewis: immediately. It's like your body's core literally. It's like what just happened. And if we can just do that.
Natalyn Lewis: This amygdala that is sending off the alarm
Natalyn Lewis: is also responsible for our body's sensory experiences. So when we give it an extreme sensory experience. It's like it calls attention to this alarm. It's like we have another job to do right now. Right we have. Here. We got to shut the alarm off. We have another job to do, and we need this to do that job.
Natalyn Lewis: And so just this whole process is all about. We need to turn the alarm off.
Natalyn Lewis: bring the lid back down and function from a place where we have our our logic and reason intact. But yeah, temperature control that that breathing type of nervous system reset breathing and then
Natalyn Lewis: body tension. That's very intentionally targeting, because we don't do that when we're not safe, like for physically unsafe. We cannot intentionally flex and release a certain muscle group at a certain time. So all of those behaviors basically speak to this amygdala and say, turn off the alarm. There's not danger here. We need this to figure out what's going on.
Casie Ellison: Yes, so those are fantastic ways to
Casie Ellison: regulate it. Now, how do you give yourself, grace, and remind yourself to regulate it?
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah. So the biggest things is we we talk to people about number one is like for for every individual like get a master's degree in recognition.
Natalyn Lewis: What I what I mean by that is, every person's body will physically respond to the cues of not feeling safe.
Natalyn Lewis: Take a teenager who goes on social media, and they see a picture of their best friend and the guy that they like. And they're together.
Natalyn Lewis: What starts to happen.
Natalyn Lewis: Oh, yeah, there's harvest.
Casie Ellison: And yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: The heart rate increases maybe their stomach starts to churn a little bit. Maybe maybe it feels like hamsters or butterflies got let loose in there, or that I've been riding an elevator all day long, or my my clamp, my palms get clammy, or my ear, my ears get tingly and hot, and my head starts to get hot, or maybe I feel tension right here in my throat or a pinch right here in my shoulders
Natalyn Lewis: if we can, if we can start to become masters of recognition, like, what is my body doing right now?
Natalyn Lewis: Because what happens in that moment, if in that moment of recognition. We are like, the physiology is sending me some signals that I don't feel very safe right now.
Natalyn Lewis: If we will physically engage right then.
Natalyn Lewis: if that's when we'll take the deep breath, if that's when we'll just get up and go for the walk.
Natalyn Lewis: if we will physically engage immediately upon recognition.
Natalyn Lewis: There is so much power in that.
Natalyn Lewis: and then that. And then, as we recognize the things that trigger us, we can start to be even a little bit more proactive.
Natalyn Lewis: I had severe anxiety. One of the things that really pushed me into this work was, and in combining those 2 learnings for me was that I? When I finished my career as an athlete, I got severe anxiety, and I didn't understand where it came from. I'd never had it before.
Natalyn Lewis: I didn't realize that I was unintentionally regulating myself quite a bit, because I need to move and move hard in order to really regulate me. I was doing that as an athlete. I didn't realize the emotional and mental benefit I was getting from it. I only considered the physical.
Natalyn Lewis: And when I stopped being an athlete, and I wasn't getting that big expression a physical expression anymore and started to feel it emotionally.
Natalyn Lewis: I had no idea what was happening to me.
Casie Ellison: What was that like.
Natalyn Lewis: Most terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. I thought I was way too young to have a heart attack, but I thought, that's what was happening, I'd have these anxiety and panic attacks. I found myself curled up into a fetal position in my closet one day, unable to move my lower extremities, I ended up hospitalized. I mean, it was a whole thing, and I didn't even. And it was terrifying because it feels like there's like physically, something's wrong with me, and then people like to tell you it's in your head which then makes all of us just feel like we're going crazy right?
Natalyn Lewis: And it when I started to study this I was like my gosh, I'm not broken.
Casie Ellison: -
Natalyn Lewis: This isn't in my head. It's literally in my body.
Natalyn Lewis: and my head and body are inseparably connected, as one can see, and I've got to work with both of them together, and when I start that and I started to wake up in the morning and intentionally do a little bit of a explosive action, not not because I wanted to quote unquote exercise.
Natalyn Lewis: but because I wanted to give my body what it needed to give my mind and my heart what it needed, so that I could just feel good all day, feel good.
Natalyn Lewis: feel good in my mind, feel good in my brain and my heart. That's when things started to really shift for me. And so, if people will become masters of recognition in your own life, not not with judgment, but with curiosity.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: What does my body feel when I start to get a little bit of stress
Natalyn Lewis: like? And and what one? When I sat down at my desk, and that stress started before I even opened my inbox. Why.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Anticipation of what I'm about to read? Or is it the clutter on my desk
Natalyn Lewis: when I walked in my house? If my, if I started to feel something different when I walked in my home. What is it about? What I'm anticipating is about to happen in my home?
Natalyn Lewis: That's causing the problem is that
Natalyn Lewis: is it chaos at my home? Is it clutter? Is it noise? Is it contention, like if we can start to be aware and just recognize, based on our body's physiological cues, where we find a little bit of unsafety in our life, there's so much
Natalyn Lewis: proactive action we can take to start.
Casie Ellison: Gotcha.
Natalyn Lewis: Settle in and help our own selves like you'd be shocked with the number of people that if you can just order their desk, organize their desk and put a little to do list on their desk before they get up the night before to sit down the following morning.
Natalyn Lewis: How much anxiety that releases. And I work with people who have prescription, medication, addictions that that has been game changing for them to not start their day in anxiousness and fear has been made it possible for them to regulate throughout the day, and then come off of the use of that medication.
Casie Ellison: Oh, yeah.
Casie Ellison: I have some questions for you, if that's all right.
Casie Ellison: So we have established that you did athletics.
Casie Ellison: were you? So I have a couple of questions. Were you like a professional athlete? Was this like a passion thing that you just love to do? And then what
Casie Ellison: made you stop.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, I was a collegiate athlete, and so I went. I I was an athlete all the way through college. I played 4 years division, one soccer and graduated. And so the only reason I stopped really was that I graduated and I started my job in the professional world. And I went from, you know.
Natalyn Lewis: on a field 5 HA day to add a desk 8 HA day, and
Natalyn Lewis: that dynamic of that was was really intense, an intense shift for my physical body. I just didn't. I knew it would be an intense shift to my physical body. I was not expecting the emotional tie into that because I didn't. I didn't understand. No one had educated me on that at all.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, I'd love to dive into that with you, and then I'm sure you went through a identity struggle almost like what is what in? What am I supposed to do with this life? This is not what I want to do every day. Going to go, you know. Have fun, and then. Now I'm at a completely different career, not doing anything that used to make me happy. How do I become a better person now? So I'd love to dive into that with you.
Natalyn Lewis: Oh, absolutely. And I I love that. We go there next, because that's exactly where we go with people next is, once they have figured out how to regulate. It's like, How do you go from there? Well, you remember again, you remember who you really are, not not the labels.
Natalyn Lewis: And for me. Athlete had become a bit of a label. It was important part of who I was, but at the end of the day it was never actually who I was. I was an active and unstoppable woman of God, that's who I really was, and I was pouring that character into athletics. But that's not what I knew then what I knew then was. I was a d 1 athlete.
Natalyn Lewis: So then, when I'm not a d 1 athlete. Who am I? Oh, now I am
Natalyn Lewis: pursuing a career as what? Right now I'm a marketer. Now I'm a marketing director. That's what I am now. I am a marketing director. And so then, taking on that position and carrying that label, I had to pour all of those same characteristics into that career, and then the and then that that dynamic became really intense and really forward progressing. And and again, it's not that those things didn't. That didn't kind of serve me right.
Natalyn Lewis: All of those labels give us some kind of service at some point. But if I would have shown up in that space instead, as a really active and dynamic and unstoppable woman of God, which is who I really was, and said, How does that woman show up to work?
Natalyn Lewis: I would have said, well, that woman? And how does that woman take care of her physical body before she goes to work? And how does that woman provide self care for herself. And how does that person show up for relationships?
Natalyn Lewis: Then it would have been way better in my life than go than claiming labels and circumstances
Natalyn Lewis: as my identity, instead of showing up as my true identity in my various roles and responsibilities.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Casie Ellison: when you're
Casie Ellison: I guess how to break that down like. So, my husband, I I have been struggling personally with my own dopamine, right like I will do these projects, and it'll be, you know, really hard and really fast, and I'll do it for 3 to 5 days, and then you have like a month where there's just lag time, and you're getting ready for the next thing, you know. And so during that month I have
Casie Ellison: all these different
Casie Ellison: Casey's that will come up. You know the awesome. I'm in love with life, Casey. Everything is awesome. And then, you know, sometimes I am just absolutely
Casie Ellison: done with my dopamine, and I'm looking for something like, what can I do? That will suffice me. And so you know my husband's like. Write a list. Write a list of everything that makes Casey happy.
Casie Ellison: and I'm sitting here like, you know.
Casie Ellison: F. You what is supposed to make like. I don't even know what makes me happy, you know. So how? How does one get out of that? Where I'm crippled in the closet to
Casie Ellison: just.
Casie Ellison: you know, giving me the best advice on how to just be my better person. How do I? How do I start from that? To to be better.
Natalyn Lewis: For sure, the the 1st step really is
Natalyn Lewis: capturing a a vision or a picture of of who you are and what you really want in life like, truly, what do you really want? And when I when I talk about vision, too, I'm not talking about big dream like dreaming off into la la land. And I'm not talking about setting goals I'm talking about really, truly creating a picture in your mind of like in in 5 years from now. Who is Casey? Where is she, and what is she doing, and what does her life look like.
Natalyn Lewis: and and creating a picture so so clearly and crisply in your mind, you can actually feel it.
Casie Ellison: Hmm.
Natalyn Lewis: And then, seeing that feeling and saying, This is this is who I am, and this is what I've built, and this is what I do. And this is what I really want when you connect to that, that future impact, that future vision, that future construct, and the character of the person who's there like when you see yourself in that space, and you can really feel it
Natalyn Lewis: from there, you can then align and say, Okay, so what do I do today? What's my right next step today? That takes me there because one of the challenges people face in this space is that they they do try to find dopamine from today my action day.
Natalyn Lewis: And when we start to focus on becoming the art of becoming, which is which is going towards a vision reaching towards a destination that's bigger and better than I am today that has more to it than I am today. We can find that dopamine release in something as simple as waking up in the morning.
Natalyn Lewis: So I'll give you an example of this as we work with people who are facing or who are in in prison.
Natalyn Lewis: We were working with one gentleman, and he was serving multiple stacked life sentences. He he was, he knew, when we even started working with him that he would die in prison. He was serving over 200 year sentence.
Natalyn Lewis: and he, when I asked him when I 1st met him, and I said, When will you get out? He said, he's a natty. My parole officer hasn't even been born yet. He's like I don't. I won't get out, I will die here. And he. When we started working with him he had significant behavioral issues. He was constantly doing write ups. He was taking anxiety and depression medication, and when we asked him he said, Well, there's what is the point.
Natalyn Lewis: I mean, what are they? What are they gonna do to me?
Natalyn Lewis: So if I get in trouble, what are they gonna tack onto my sentence?
Natalyn Lewis: And he had this kind of attitude for life. And as we started to talk.
Natalyn Lewis: We started to talk, and we I asked him, I said, Who are you? And he? And he said his. He gave me his nickname from prison, which was associated with all of his crimes.
Natalyn Lewis: I and I said, No, not that like, who are you? And he said, Well, I'm an addict, and and he said, and I'm
Natalyn Lewis: I'm pretty much like the scum of humanity. I'm a danger to myself and society. And as he started to list who he was like. He listed all the things anyone had ever said about him and the things that the judge had put in his reports. And
Natalyn Lewis: and as we started to talk about. Okay. So
Natalyn Lewis: the if that's who you really are.
Natalyn Lewis: what do you act like?
Natalyn Lewis: And well, you act like those things. And how do you feel about yourself, and what what picture? So so take that
Natalyn Lewis: and tell me with that, how does that guy create a future like? What does your future look like when that's who you are.
Natalyn Lewis: And he told us a picture of it was pretty bleak, right?
Natalyn Lewis: And I said, no, I want. I want you to get a vision like a picture of who you really are, what you really really want.
Natalyn Lewis: And we had to fight. We had to fight this for about 6 weeks. It took him about 6 weeks before you would engage. He's like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And I said, you're gonna have to just trust the process like work with me.
Natalyn Lewis: 6 weeks later he came and he sat down. He said.
Natalyn Lewis: I want to. I want to be a pilot.
Natalyn Lewis: and he said, But that's just stupid, because I'm never getting out of here. And I said, Well, let's let's just run with it like, what does that look like? What is the picture? And he started to describe this picture, and I said, It sounds to me like you want to be free.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: And the emotion started to come, and I said, Can you feel it? And he said, I can feel, he said, when I in my mind. I can picture myself being this pilot. I can feel the freedom I can feel, the release I can feel. And I said, and and what are you doing?
Natalyn Lewis: And he just stopped. And he said, I'm helping people.
Natalyn Lewis: What are you doing to help people? And he said, I'm like, I'm I'm bringing them to freedom. And he created this picture. Well, 6 weeks later he he came into class and he asked us if he could certify to teach
Natalyn Lewis: the concepts that we were teaching to the other men men in prison.
Natalyn Lewis: And we said, Why do you want to do that? He said. Because I just realized what that picture is, he said. I am a rescue pilot.
Natalyn Lewis: and he said, That's who I am. And he said, but I rescue men's hearts to freedom. I liberate the captive, and he said, I will never fly out of this place, but every man that I touch their life will fly out of here and never return.
Natalyn Lewis: because they will find freedom. So he claimed this identity. And you should. I wish so bad we could take video or pictures of this man. He's not even the same person.
Casie Ellison: Oh, wow! I'm.
Natalyn Lewis: He doesn't take medication, and he doesn't. He's no longer using, and he's no I mean he's he's been clean for clean for 2 years, and he told me he said I never thought there would be a day
Natalyn Lewis: when I wouldn't even think, or want, or even consider taking a substance.
Natalyn Lewis: He said. I didn't think possible, he said. I thought I would always be an addict, and he said, I can honestly look at you and tell you I am not an addict, he said. That man doesn't even exist any longer, he said. I'm a rescue pilot. I liberate the captive because I don't. There's nothing in the action I want to do when I wake up in the morning, and and the thing is so if you think about that, and you you latch onto that identity.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: And that's what it feels, and he's pursuing that freedom. Then getting up in the morning and choosing to do what he chose to do which was, was to go for a walk, and to make sure he was reflective, to do breathing exercise in the morning, and and connect with his just his inner soul
Natalyn Lewis: that moment, in time every morning that connected him to being that rescue pilot and showing up for others, gave him massive dopamine release because he was engaging in something that was so powerful to him
Natalyn Lewis: in motion and identity.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, so if we can find vision
Natalyn Lewis: and associate that vision with who we are, and the purpose that we have.
Natalyn Lewis: the actions that we take in alignment with that produce the dopamine it no longer becomes about producing outcomes and and finding projects, it becomes about the daily things we do in alignment with that vision. Give us a dopamine hit.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: so is that. Yes.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, that's fantastic.
Natalyn Lewis: Hopefully, that was an okay story to share. To. To illustrate that application.
Casie Ellison: Oh, that was a fantastic story to tell.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Casie Ellison: So I've got a couple of notes. Let's see.
Casie Ellison: We've talked about. Oh, the impact of trauma informed approaches on emotional well-being.
Casie Ellison: so
Casie Ellison: how does one?
Casie Ellison: So you've worked a lot with people in prison. So I'm sure you've come across all different stories.
Natalyn Lewis: Every every kind of trauma you can possibly imagine. I think I don't. I mean, if I've come across one I haven't seen yet. I
Natalyn Lewis: we've seen a lot.
Casie Ellison: Are you staying in touch, or able to stay in touch with people that have
Casie Ellison: come out of the prison systems.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, yeah. And that is our favorite part about what we do. So we've been doing this now for a little over 4 years, and just the impact that we're seeing. Like as they come out, we have. We have community for them to participate in and things that they keep going. And we're just. We're watching them embrace life. And
Natalyn Lewis: it is. It's amazing. It's amazing to watch what they're capable of doing when they, when they figure out who they really are.
Natalyn Lewis: They set aside inmate and addict and felon, and
Natalyn Lewis: every other kind of negatory label that they have claimed when they set those things aside and truly claim who they are. It is it's remarkable, and
Natalyn Lewis: we do get to keep in touch. But the the key, with all of that, as you, as you said, like the trauma informed approach. The the reason why that becomes powerful is a little bit goes back to what we talked about in the beginning, where it it comes down to the understanding of real versus true, it comes down to the understanding that in a trauma environment
Natalyn Lewis: what is real to that person is not always relevant to the facts or the details, like what? The way you interpret a situation, the way I interpret a situation make those things real to us, even if we experience the exact same thing.
Natalyn Lewis: So non-trauma based approaches, basically say.
Natalyn Lewis: okay, 2, 2 kids. We we see this every day. We work with this in in youth, too, 2 kids both went through Covid.
Natalyn Lewis: And why is one of them perfectly emotionally healthy, and the other one is paranoid.
Natalyn Lewis: They both went through the same experience. Yes, they lived the same experience, but not from the same perspective. One kid went home, and and his family. He had a family environment, and he had people there, and there was food in the house, and
Natalyn Lewis: and his parents were kind of relaxed. For example, about Covid, and didn't think too much about it. And we're like, Hey, we're going to use this to have a good time while we're all home together. Whatever the case might be, the other person had a parent who never let them talk to anybody, never went anywhere. Masks were 100. There was hand sanitizer in every single room. The we're not leaving this house, and we've run out of toilet paper. We're never having toilet paper again. The world's coming to an end. And there's going to be a zombie apocalypse, right?
Natalyn Lewis: We there were so vastly dynamic responses to what was happening that just because those 2 kids were alive at the same time, same age, and went through the same crisis. They did not experience it the same way.
Natalyn Lewis: And so it's critically important that when you have a trauma informed approach that I take your experience, and even if I've lived something similar. I cannot put my interpretation or perspective on your experience, because it minimizes. However, you perceived the situation which created your reality, and if I don't go there with you. If I don't let you also have that space for yourself.
Natalyn Lewis: we cannot make progress. We can't help you to heal. We can't help you to find
Natalyn Lewis: some peace and understanding. We can't provide any validation there for what's really going on for you, which is super real.
Natalyn Lewis: And so that's that trauma based that trauma informed, approach it. It fits there, and it also lets us give space for people's personal experiences without necessarily holding them on to ourself. Probably the number one question I get asked is, how do you go into these really intense spaces and be part of these really crazy stories and be okay.
Natalyn Lewis: And it's and it's because it's not my story.
Natalyn Lewis: I can be there. I can allow space for them to live. Their lived experience the way they lived it. It doesn't make it my experience
Natalyn Lewis: that makes sense.
Casie Ellison: Yes.
Natalyn Lewis: Really where that trauma based approach becomes really powerful, and and I feel like a
Natalyn Lewis: We often we often find approaches or find people who take approaches in the mental and and emotional wellness space that don't always
Natalyn Lewis: don't always give people the the
Natalyn Lewis: the permission, if you will, that they need to be able to recognize that their lived experience is different. It's unique to them, and they need to honor that.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, I love that word permission. I struggled with the word allow for a long time, like I am allowed to feel this way. I am allowed to experience these emotions. I'm allowed to be angry.
Casie Ellison: Those things. So when it's
Casie Ellison: you were in the life coaching
Casie Ellison: Field. Now is that
Casie Ellison: fair for you to say.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, we we don't call it life coaching mostly because we take such a framework based approach, like, when we get on and work with people. We work very specifically with very specific tools, with a specific endpoint and objective in mind. But we definitely coach people through life using those tools, so we call ourselves human performance coaches as opposed to life coaches. But yes, we get in with people and work through life and through emotions and through the hard, through the challenges and and through the great stuff, too, to to build something better.
Casie Ellison: Yeah. Well, it's
Casie Ellison: a fantastic avenue for cognitive therapy, I mean, that's
Casie Ellison: saved my life. Hands down.
Casie Ellison: So when you're doing the
Casie Ellison: would you mind if we refer to it as cognitive therapy just for the sake of the conversation.
Natalyn Lewis: That's okay. Yeah. I'm not a I'm not a licensed therapist, but as long as everybody.
Casie Ellison: Either.
Natalyn Lewis: And then we're good. Yep, yeah.
Casie Ellison: Me neither. I am trying to more. My my intention behind it is to just break it down a little bit more in bite size pieces, because I have so many
Casie Ellison: questions and so much curiosity. I want to be able to resonate it with people that aren't familiar with terms, and, like
Casie Ellison: all of the information that you're giving is so
Casie Ellison: like informative. It's just like really logical. And there's a lot of things that I'd really like to dive into to kind of get deeper, so that we can understand what you do like in a 6 week with somebody. So somebody.
Casie Ellison: So when you think of somebody in
Casie Ellison: a prison. That's
Casie Ellison: basically the lowest that we're gonna go right now, like, you know, you can't really get much more low than being in a prison. And so when you're in that rough of a space, and you're able to
Casie Ellison: maintain a motivation or any great aspect of life that you have to look forward to, just to keep you thriving just to keep going. How do we get from? You know
Casie Ellison: that super dark space to be able to see that light like. It's the the maintaining of, you know, good breathing and understanding. What's real versus true. I resonate so much with that. I I wanted to dive into like. What do you do daily to be able to just maintain that? Because I have good days and I have bad days, my great days. I'm rocking it. But my bad days! It's like I need help getting out of bed, and I'm I'm not in prison so.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, yeah, well, that is the very 1st step we take is a concept that's called survive. We're gonna thrive instead of survive. And the vast majority of people walking the face of the planet right now are in survival mode. And even if they don't realize that they're in survival mode, and it's quite practical application. Actually, it starts with like, the foundation is because the we are physical beings having an emotional experience. We have to start with the physical body. And so we literally start with a quick checkpoint, and it's like sleep.
Natalyn Lewis: We help you. Whatever your sleep is. I just want you to start to get a consistent pattern of sleep, time, and wake time.
Natalyn Lewis: whatever that looks like for you. I'm not even tell you number of hours right now. Just consistency, find consistency and sleep time awake time. So set a time. Let's say your time is 1030.
Natalyn Lewis: Try to get into bed within 30 min on either side of that window. So between a 10 and 11, and if your wake time is 6 30, try to consistently get up between 6 and 7 like, just start to create a pattern of consistency with sleep.
Natalyn Lewis: And then we go to sunlight. And we say, I want you to make sure that you intentionally go outside in the morning and the evening sunlight on purpose, even if all you do is go out and stand on your front porch for 2 min and stare into the sun. There there is unbelievable physiology happening that turns on the entire body's electrical system when it comes to sunlight
Natalyn Lewis: and we don't. We don't always talk about that in the world and talk about it that much. But the reality is like our entire body is an electrical system. So if we don't turn on the electrical system, we can't turn on what's going on up here.
Natalyn Lewis: Can't control it. So we turn on the physical body. Sleep, we say, get outside morning and evening, just take in a little bit of sunlight on purpose every day.
Natalyn Lewis: and then hydrate.
Natalyn Lewis: like most most people, do not get any electrolytes, and all of the electrical systems in our body require these electrolytes.
Natalyn Lewis: So we have people that are like start taking an electrolyte supplement whether that looks like some Lmnt or some relight start taking some electrolytes every day into your system.
Natalyn Lewis: and then
Natalyn Lewis: micronutrients, fruits, and vegetables. If you're not eating any, start eating at least one a day.
Natalyn Lewis: and then start paying attention to making sure you get protein. We start with that.
Natalyn Lewis: We literally start with that, and then we say, and then intentional movement, if that looks like a walk for 5 min.
Natalyn Lewis: If that looks like
Natalyn Lewis: burpees for 2 min, I don't care what it looks like. It's not for exercise purposes.
Natalyn Lewis: It's literally just to activate the electrical system of your body, so that we, you and I can start having a conversation about what you're really experiencing from a different place, because we cannot be in survival mode. If we're trying to thrive
Natalyn Lewis: the body, the brain has a job to do, and that is to help you get through the day.
Natalyn Lewis: Its job is survival, though it's brain. The brain's 1st job is to make sure you're surviving. So if you're sleep deprived.
Natalyn Lewis: what does that look like? There's a reason why the people have made up the word tangry
Natalyn Lewis: or right, because I I can't. I have no emotional resilience. I've no window of tolerance for my emotions whatsoever when I'm tired
Natalyn Lewis: and same thing with hangry like what? There is no emotional resilience, there's no space for emotional regulation when I'm hungry.
Natalyn Lewis: and if and I want you to just think about why, when somebody feels depressed, do they literally take each one of those things I just talked about and attack them.
Natalyn Lewis: Don't want to sleep, or they sleep too long. They won't go outside. They make it dark in their room.
Natalyn Lewis: They don't eat, or they eat crappy things, or they pound soda or or coffee, which both dehydrate the system. Why, when we're depressed, do we push ourselves deeper into that space?
Natalyn Lewis: So our 1st thing we do with people is to say we need to retrain your brain.
Natalyn Lewis: that we're no longer going to simply function in a mode of survival.
Natalyn Lewis: We're going to start to function in the space of thriving.
Natalyn Lewis: So that's the 1st step is like, let's just take a few, and it's not it. I know it sounds like a lot when we go through them, but it's really not. It's like, set a wake up and a get up time. Walk outside, take your little electrolytes while you go outside. Just combine those, make them nice and simple. Right.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: You're a vegetable in your lunch.
Natalyn Lewis: and
Natalyn Lewis: and then and then take a little walk
Natalyn Lewis: like, just just start to engage with your body a little bit. Just give it some some love on purpose. That is literally saying, I know that for a long time we've been surviving.
Natalyn Lewis: So we're we're going to prime the system now to thrive.
Natalyn Lewis: and then the very next step we do after that is, we move into vision like with with our body starting to recognize that. Oh.
Natalyn Lewis: I feel a little bit different. I feel a little bit better.
Natalyn Lewis: I could do something more than I'm doing right now. I could be something more than I am right now. We start to cast a little bit of vision
Natalyn Lewis: really hard to cast vision when you're in prison.
Natalyn Lewis: really hard to start thinking about the future when you don't know what day you're getting out, or if you're ever getting out.
Natalyn Lewis: and you don't know if the people on the outside will ever forgive you, and you don't know if, when and you're full of fear to even face tomorrow, because you have no idea the uncertainties and the unknowns are so massive in prison for for what tomorrow looks like, and even then the next step is vision.
Natalyn Lewis: because it has to look like? What am I? What am I doing this for? Why am I getting out of bed? Where is the where? Where am I finding my my joy and my peace. And where am I finding my fulfillment? And who am I striving to become? And even if that.
Natalyn Lewis: because as simple for them as I will be like we have a man we're working with right now. I'll use his example. I will be a great father.
Natalyn Lewis: So his I am. Statement is. I am a great father.
Natalyn Lewis: and this is a man who hasn't gotten to speak to his child for 5 years, and doesn't know if he'll ever get to see her when he's on the outside.
Casie Ellison: Wow!
Natalyn Lewis: So he wakes up in the morning, starts to claim that vision. I said, what does that feel like? And he goes. It feels right.
Natalyn Lewis: It feels like I'm right when that's who I am. I said, Okay, so how does that guy wake up in the morning?
Natalyn Lewis: How does that guy take care of his physical body.
Natalyn Lewis: What does that guy do intellectually like with his brain? What does he want to learn about? What does he want to do. And he started talking about how he wanted to focus on learning and focus on his language.
Natalyn Lewis: And I said, Why? He said, because the day I do get to talk to my daughter. I'm not going to talk to her like an inmate.
Natalyn Lewis: I'm going to talk to her like a father speaks to his daughter, and so he started learning intentionally a new word. Every day
Natalyn Lewis: I started writing it down and understanding its definition.
Natalyn Lewis: and he started waking up in the morning and working out, I said, why are you working out? He said, because I don't know how long it's going to take to get an opportunity to meet my daughter, but when she meets me I will be healthy, and I will be strong, and I will be a good example to her of what it looks like to physically care for your body.
Natalyn Lewis: And and we talked to him about what else? What else do you do during the day? And he said, I pray.
Natalyn Lewis: And I said, Why do you pray? And he said, because I need my daughter to have a connection to something that is bigger than this place.
Natalyn Lewis: and he said, and it's what I can do for her right now.
Natalyn Lewis: And it was amazing to watch him change his little patterns of behavior with the intention to become that Great father.
Natalyn Lewis: and he doesn't know
Natalyn Lewis: when he's gonna see his daughter, or if he's gonna talk to her.
Natalyn Lewis: We showed up last week, and he brought me. He brought me a stack of papers. It was like this, tall. He's been through like 3 notebooks, and I said, what are all those? And he says I've started writing a letter to my daughter
Natalyn Lewis: all day.
Natalyn Lewis: and he said.
Natalyn Lewis: I will tell her my story, and I'll give it to her, and he said, and only when she's ready to know me. But that's what a great father does. He shows up for his daughter, and when she needs him he's already there.
Natalyn Lewis: and he's created this picture, and it's changed. The man.
Casie Ellison: Hmm.
Natalyn Lewis: And that is what we. So we start with this place of physically allowing our bodies to recognize that we are built for more than survival. We are truly built to thrive. Then we find the picture of what thriving looks like, and we establish the identity associated with that picture. And we start to just take small, simple, daily actions in alignment with that identity that start to release
Natalyn Lewis: dopamine.
Natalyn Lewis: And we start to recognize, we can feel differently and see differently, and function differently and literally receive all of that beautiful chemistry that our body needs and wants from a place that is so positive and so beautiful and so calming and so peaceful. And we we have a few more steps beyond that. But hopefully, that gives you an idea
Natalyn Lewis: of how we start to use tools one by one. Then that's what it kind of looks like to start down that process. And that's that's kind of the 1st 3 steps we take.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah.
Casie Ellison: That was fantastic.
Natalyn Lewis: But hopefully, that's all making sense. I know it's a little bit challenging when it's just audio, but we have so many, so many tangible things that I can't reach through the screen and give. But hopefully, it's it's
Natalyn Lewis: making sense. So.
Casie Ellison: Yes, yep, that is beautiful. That was beautiful. So if I were to practice.
Casie Ellison: My vision.
Casie Ellison: What are some
Casie Ellison: pieces of advice you would give me?
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah. So the 1st thing I would tell you to do is number one. It has to be in writing. The brain does something called encoding, which is a really powerful process that requires something to be in writing, and it also requires that it's written in the present tense, 1st person
Natalyn Lewis: and claim only what you want, not what you don't want. So I would tell you to use the 3 P's
Natalyn Lewis: present tense.
Natalyn Lewis: personal and positive.
Natalyn Lewis: So write what write what you want, but don't say I want it's I have, and I am, and I do you write it like it's already here in the present tense.
Natalyn Lewis: and there's science behind that which we won't get into. But you just have to trust me on it, for today. Don't have time to get into that science, but and then also it's personal. So it's it's about you, right about you. I do these things like like for our for this man. He can't claim how his daughter's gonna feel.
Natalyn Lewis: because he doesn't have control over that.
Natalyn Lewis: But he can claim how he's going to show up as her father.
Casie Ellison: Yeah. The intention behind it, for sure.
Natalyn Lewis: Yup, and then and then claiming what we want. It's too frequently people. We have no idea what we want. We just know what we don't want.
Natalyn Lewis: I don't want that. I don't want that, and I don't want that. Well, if you have to start there and write that down, do it, but then claim claim what you really want? Well, if that's what you don't want, what do you want?
Natalyn Lewis: What do you want?
Natalyn Lewis: And I would encourage people to take opportunity to have like before you sit down and write, go for a walk
Natalyn Lewis: and think about the question while you're walking. What do I really want
Natalyn Lewis: like if I could, if I could have anything, what would it be
Natalyn Lewis: if I if I really just gave myself permission to say what I really want, even if I laugh right out loud at the thought that pops in my head.
Natalyn Lewis: what is it
Natalyn Lewis: because we don't? We don't give ourselves permission to have answer that question anymore. And we've answered that question up until maybe we were 4 years old. And then after that, we've nobody asked us the question anymore. And we stopped thinking about it because life got in the way. And there is a part of us. There's a part of our insides. There's a part of that true identity and that true character of who we truly are
Natalyn Lewis: on the inside that soul that's having the physical experience. It knows darn well, right now we're not thriving because we're not even pushing to that place we could go to if we would really just understand what it was.
Natalyn Lewis: And so that that's the 1st piece, as I would say. Go for a walk, engage the physical body as much as you can
Natalyn Lewis: in the thinking process, and then write.
Natalyn Lewis: start writing, and let it be exploratory, and let it be curious, and don't give yourself any judgment, and it's going to feel super super weird because you're claiming things that are happening today that are nowhere near happening. And you can't even conceive of how they would happen
Natalyn Lewis: and write them anyway.
Natalyn Lewis: because sometimes they're literal, and sometimes they're figurative, like our like our friend with the helicopter pilot right.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Why his picture came as being a helicopter pilot and flying 1st and not helping people on the inside.
Casie Ellison: Easier to receive. Probably.
Natalyn Lewis: It was easier for him to receive, and it was picture. It was tangible, and it was visible, and he knew what that felt like and what it looks like. And
Natalyn Lewis: the brain met him where he was.
Natalyn Lewis: So don't be afraid of whatever picture comes. Just start writing, start exploring, and I think we just don't often give ourselves a space to sit in curiosity because we want a fast paced demand the answers. Today. Type of thing.
Casie Ellison: Yes.
Natalyn Lewis: Don't be afraid to sit in curiosity. It's a powerful place to be.
Casie Ellison: That's awesome.
Casie Ellison: I like, I'm gonna implement that my own self
Casie Ellison: that's fantastic and see what it I've heard vision boards are.
Casie Ellison: That's just how the brain helps to metamorphosize it, I suppose, is being able to see it every day.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, well, there's something called the reticular activating system in the brain. That is literally what calls attention to what we need to focus on right now. So there's a reason why you can be sitting in the room you're at, and without even turning your head like, I could probably list a hundred things, you know to be true that you're not thinking about.
Natalyn Lewis: Like, I'm I'm on a computer. I'm talking in a microphone. Microphones transmit sound. They transmits back to the computer. The computer is using the Internet. I'm talking to Natalie. She has a clock in the background. I know what time it is like you could, I could. There's a hundred things, you know right now that you're not bringing to the forefront of your thought. What's in charge of that.
Casie Ellison: Hold up!
Natalyn Lewis: Why don't we all run around? Go nuts all day long with all the knowledge we have? How are we able to just focus on what we need to know right now, that is the job of the reticular activating system.
Natalyn Lewis: So when we tell the reticular activating system something that I want or in the future, I'd like to. What does it do with that knowledge? Oh, we don't have to think about that right now then, because that's in the future when I take a picture, and I put it on a board, and I stare at it all day long. It is in my present reality. When I write down that I am
Natalyn Lewis: and I have, it is my present reality that forces the reticular activating system to bring some subconscious awareness and thought to that. And all of a sudden there's programs working in the background, helping us establish that reality right now, whereas if we just keep pushing into the future.
Casie Ellison: Yeah. That's where.
Natalyn Lewis: Always, be.
Casie Ellison: It helps to rewire it.
Natalyn Lewis: That's exactly right.
Casie Ellison: Oh, wow!
Casie Ellison: So, being active, as far as you know, walking around, giving yourself some breathers, making sure that that
Casie Ellison: heart rate is pumping, and you're getting some type of environmental outside.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, writing all of our visions down what we want
Casie Ellison: our vision to look like.
Natalyn Lewis: Yep.
Casie Ellison: And then.
Natalyn Lewis: Sleep, hydration and sunlight. Those would be the other ones, I would tell you. Try it. I I mean, I I'm gonna challenge you on a personal basis. Try it.
Casie Ellison: Oh, I.
Natalyn Lewis: Like. They're salty right if you don't like salty, I like to take it with extra water and ice, because it's super salty, but you're fascinated if you'll just do it every day, how quickly your taste buds will acclimatize because of what it's doing for your brain. You're gonna feel like somebody switched a light switch on like maybe your lights have been on, but they've been on dim. You're gonna feel like somebody just puts you in a full, full, light light, and you'll be like, why is my! Why am I capable of thinking with so much clarity.
Natalyn Lewis: sunlight, and electric
Natalyn Lewis: dock you how they will change your life.
Casie Ellison: So just add
Casie Ellison: an electrolyte into my life like just one drink a day.
Natalyn Lewis: Yup, and it needs to be a good one like I. We always recommend relight or Lmnt.
Natalyn Lewis: lot of people try to use like liquid Iv, but they don't have very much electrolyte in them, so you'd have to drink like 4 of those.
Casie Ellison: Sodium, but.
Natalyn Lewis: But yeah, like, introduce an electrolyte supplement, like, if you'd like to drink them, then drink them throughout the day, or drink and if you like. If you don't like to drink them, then take the relight pill, which is just electrolytes in a pill form.
Natalyn Lewis: Try it.
Natalyn Lewis: try it with some hydration, like if a little bit of sunlight in the morning and evening, with some hydration and a consistent sleep pattern. Just try it for a week, and and and I I am excited to hear how it changes things for you like it's fascinating how much like I've never had a person who hasn't done it for a week and been like what the heck is just like. What's going on.
Natalyn Lewis: Oh, wow!
Natalyn Lewis: That's cool.
Casie Ellison: Sure! Well.
Natalyn Lewis: I like.
Natalyn Lewis: okay, we're ready to do something more. Let's go. We're no.
Casie Ellison: Yes.
Natalyn Lewis: And that that's what brings the energy that that is needed to cast vision.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, you gotta have all of your supplements. And like, when your body doesn't have what it needs to work, it's just gonna be halfway.
Natalyn Lewis: When we just fascinatingly enough, we just in our regular diet. We don't get those minerals like we used to. And so it's it's amazing that we're just not getting that the those electrolytes which are literally designed to make sure our electrical systems function.
Natalyn Lewis: We're just not. We're just not turning them on. It's like literally having a light switch with it has a dimmer, and all of us are functioning on. Dim. The lights are on, but we're on dim.
Natalyn Lewis: So when you when you brighten that thing up, you're gonna be like, Wow, Whoa, look at me! Wow! I could do something. Here. What am I gonna do. Okay. Now we're ready to cast some vision. What are you gonna do? Let's get excited about it.
Casie Ellison: Alright. Yeah, I need to be on that level. That is absolutely right. I'll give it a shot. I'll let you know in a week how we're doing.
Natalyn Lewis: I love it. I can't wait to hear.
Casie Ellison: Oh, man, I'll let everybody know. Let you guys know which one we pick out, and which one works the best.
Casie Ellison: Well.
Casie Ellison: I'd love to go into anything you want to share with the outcome of people that have, you know, thankfully done all of their sentencing with the prison. And then how are they maintaining
Casie Ellison: their vision in a world that's just not necessarily set to succeed, for.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah.
Casie Ellison: Bye-bye.
Natalyn Lewis: It's been. It's been amazing to watch we had. We had one man one man who got out. He's and he is working with parole officer. And let's just give you a little example of how hard it is for these guys is he got out, and his vision was that he he was gonna start his own company
Natalyn Lewis: and to start some company he'd been. He'd worked in construction his whole life, and he actually really loved it. He didn't want to change careers. He just wanted an opportunity. He knew that with his sentence he would be a laborer at the lowest wage anybody could pay him for the rest of when everybody said, I want to start, and he said, I don't just want to start at anything. I want to start it in. I want to start it in mechanical engineering. So I want to get into engines and cars, and I want to do it different and better than everybody else.
Natalyn Lewis: And his I am statement fascinatingly, was, I am a legend.
Natalyn Lewis: Yes.
Natalyn Lewis: and so we're like, Okay, how does a legend show up in this mechanical space, like, what does he do? And he goes well, he's not afraid to start from the bottom if he needs to, and he goes and gets a job as a base level mechanic, because I've done a lot of construction. And he said, but I want to construct mechanically. So I need to learn engines first.st
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: But I'm not afraid to go get a job as a low, level mechanic. So he walks in. But he didn't just walk into this job. He walked into this job and he told the man he said, This is who I am. This is where I was, and this is where I'm going.
Natalyn Lewis: And he said. This is what I'm building now, and I'm here to learn to build, because this is what I'm about to build. And he shared his vision with this guy
Natalyn Lewis: and this guy looked right at him, and he was like.
Natalyn Lewis: that's amazing. He's like I
Natalyn Lewis: I want. I would. Oh, that's amazing, he said. Oh, I will give you a job. But then his his parole officer was like.
Natalyn Lewis: he's like you're his parole officer had plenty of things to say, and a lot of harassment for him about this job, and
Natalyn Lewis: and wouldn't let him. He wouldn't let him keep his 1st appointment to go on his 1st day of his job.
Natalyn Lewis: and literally like set him up to get fired on his 1st day. We were like what is going on with this system, and he did. He got fired.
Natalyn Lewis: but so he wouldn't. He wouldn't stop. He did. He kept his vision. He's like, Nope, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna let this guy push me back down. And he had been incarcerated, just, you know, 12 different times before this.
Natalyn Lewis: And he said, This is what's happened every single time.
Natalyn Lewis: every single time I get out, and I try to do something good, and somebody shuts me down, and so I go back to my old identity of this is just who I am, and I'm gonna have to be this guy forever, because no one will let me be anything new.
Natalyn Lewis: he said, but not this time this time. I'm a legend, and legends don't do that.
Casie Ellison: Yeah. Yep.
Natalyn Lewis: Legends just go to the next job. So we went to the next guy
Natalyn Lewis: and he said, I I this is what I this is who I am, and this is where I was, and this is where I'm going. And they shared his vision. And this guy was like on board and he go, and then he said, and I need to help you understand something. My parole officer is not on my team.
Natalyn Lewis: And there's a chance he's gonna schedule my next parole meeting with him at the exact time as my starting time for this, this for this job, he said. So I'm gonna tell you that ahead of time, because it's not an excuse. I will show up immediately after my meeting, and I will work all the hours I'm supposed to work. I just might be late, and I don't want you to think that I'm flaking. I just have a guy who doesn't believe in me.
Natalyn Lewis: and this guy's like okay, fair enough and same thing happened pro officer schedule, his meeting, right at the exact time he was supposed to show up on his 1st day of his job.
Natalyn Lewis: and so he went through his meeting and then still went to his work, and that guy was like you said it would happen. And it happened. And
Natalyn Lewis: and he said, I'm impressed that you thought ahead of time enough, and he goes. And I want you to know that I've been thinking about your vision. And I have an idea. And he had called Napa auto parts, and they have a program where people can be trained and certified in specific parts of mechanics. And he said, guys have offered
Natalyn Lewis: to to give you scholarship for your training in mechanics for your 1st 4 licenses, and if you pass those 1st 4 license I will scholarship your next 4. And he said, and then, if we if you pass 8, you'll have more. You'll have more licenses in the State of Utah than anybody else. And he he's he goes like goes well, that would help me be a legend, he goes, it would would make you more qualified than anybody else in in the State. And he said, yeah, but how many are there? Nation like? How many are there? Total?
Natalyn Lewis: And he said, 18, he goes, does anybody have all 18? He goes. Nope, and he goes, I will have all 18.
Casie Ellison: Oh, man!
Natalyn Lewis: Been pursuing this and still pursuing, doing exceptionally well, and he got married. He is, he is doing, and his wife is beautiful. Day. We got invited to the wedding like it's just been so amazing to watch over the past 3 years of what, how his life has changed as he's been able to move from. I am an addict and a felon
Natalyn Lewis: to. I am a legend.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Something like that.
Natalyn Lewis: So we stories like that. I mean, we could. I could tell you stories for days. They they just keep coming in it's been. That's a beautiful thing to watch as they as they embrace. It's never easy.
Natalyn Lewis: No.
Natalyn Lewis: and it's it's it's never easy. But as they stay really focused on that vision and the most important tool. Probably all of them tell us, every one of them, as a matter of fact, tell them, tell us. The most important thing we taught them was to pay attention, to recognize, like to become masters of recognition, so that they could catch that physiology before it flipped their lids, and they made some. They made some really stupid decision from a place of no logic or reason, which is what kept putting them back into 4.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Well, if they pay attention to that physiology, they catch it.
Natalyn Lewis: they honor it, they physically respond to it. They close this, and then they're able to from that place to to deal with the hard that's in front of them.
Casie Ellison: Wow!
Casie Ellison: Oh, my goodness, that is fantastic! I've really taken away a lot. Today. I'm so happy. I'm gonna implement it in my own life.
Natalyn Lewis: I'm very excited to hear how how it goes for you. These little changes. They make big, big differences.
Casie Ellison: Oh, yeah. Well, it seems overwhelming at 1st to have, like, you know.
Casie Ellison: the simple things, but logically.
Casie Ellison: every one of them. If I were to implement it, I know it would make an impact on my life like it's just, you know, self destructive at that point, you know. So it's just getting out of that mind frame and and then being
Casie Ellison: out of a mind frame of
Casie Ellison: being
Casie Ellison: what? Why? Why, is it difficult for someone anyone to get into a mind frame of a vision like saying, I am like, how do you take those words away? That are the negative words, scrape those, and then be comfortable, staring at the I am positive words.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah. Well, that that's that is a that's a. There's a lot of steps involved in what we do to get rid of old labels and old identities, and and to be able to make room. But truly, some of the basic, the most basic fundamentals you can do are the things we talked about like literally just a consistent sleep time going outside and hydrating like even just those 3 things.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: And the my people like well, why, why would that be so associated with my old identity? And I'm like, well, it is completely associated with your old patterns and the brain.
Casie Ellison: Rewiring. Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Into patterns. If we can rewire something so simple
Natalyn Lewis: like I get up. I drink electrolytes while I walk outside.
Natalyn Lewis: It's a new 5 min routine in the morning, and it's complete shift to your pattern. What does your brain know? And it's not just a pattern of survival. And maybe this is the most important thing is like, why do people get stuck?
Natalyn Lewis: Because our brain is wired for survival, and it has created patterns that are consistent and easy and fast and for survival. And when we up that when we level that thing up just a bit when we're like we're gonna level that up a bit. We're gonna bring that survival like our our standard brain functioning is currently here. And I'm gonna make sure my brain knows this is no longer an acceptable level of survival for me. This is.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: There is a element there that pushes us into a space of thriving, and as soon as we unlock that physically, we also unlock it with mental and emotional capacity, and you and all of a sudden creativity and vision can come
Natalyn Lewis: a lot of times. People will try when they start. This is like, I just sit down with a pen and paper. And I think, okay, well, what do I really want.
Casie Ellison: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: And they're like Maddie. That exercise was terrible. It was awful. I was like uncomfortable in my own skin. I couldn't think of a single thing to write down.
Casie Ellison: Yes.
Natalyn Lewis: Right.
Natalyn Lewis: because look at the pattern that you've built over. How many years
Natalyn Lewis: wake up in the morning, go through the go through your day like Groundhog's Day. You can do your I said. I bet I bet you did almost everything in your day today. Subconsciously.
Natalyn Lewis: you probably didn't activate your conscious brain once today, because you just went through the motions of waking up and getting ready the way you always do and do what you always do, and then eat the way you always eat, and then go to bed late and do your nighttime thing the way I always said what part of your life was like super intentional. Where you told your brain we're going to do something different today.
Casie Ellison: Yeah
Casie Ellison: switch from survive to thrive. That's what we're gonna do.
Natalyn Lewis: From survive to thrive, and when we do that everything will level up with us. Our brains and bodies want to work together. It's just trying to make things easy for survival right now. But when we
Natalyn Lewis: when we retrain it and say, That's not, that's not acceptable any longer. Here's where we're headed. It'll come along for the party and and that's when things get really fun.
Casie Ellison: Oh, man.
Casie Ellison: switch it from survive to thrive.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, that's what we're gonna do. Switch it.
Natalyn Lewis: What we're gonna do. Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: in a very real way, and it feels good. It's a it's a good thing.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, it does. I feel better. I'm excited. I'm gonna implement every single one of these things into my personal life like.
Casie Ellison: I think I'm gonna go to the store this evening and go get some electrolytes. And then tomorrow, instead of having coffee, I'm just gonna have
Casie Ellison: water and electrolytes and go outside and then let you know if I feel better, because thinking about it out loud, saying it out loud, I already feel better.
Natalyn Lewis: I know it's amazing, isn't it? Even when you picture yourself doing it, you're like, Wow, I feel, I feel like I turn some lights on. Yeah, I can picture the sun, and I feel better. Imagine what happens when you actually stand in it for a minute. Yeah.
Casie Ellison: Yeah, like, that's the epitome of happiness. I think.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, it really is you. You will be surprised at what it it just what it just does. It's it's I call it soul soothing. It's it is a. It is a morning routine that there's not a client I work with that does not have this pattern established now, and it's it's game changing.
Casie Ellison: Oh, yeah, I'm already. I'm already game change, like I can tell you. Going into this. You know, I was nervous because who doesn't get a little.
Casie Ellison: you know, crowd like what audience, you know.
Casie Ellison: And then
Casie Ellison: we did the breathing exercise and the intentional tension through the body.
Casie Ellison: and that gave me
Casie Ellison: an instant dopamine spike, like I was just like, Wow! That feels better. And I felt clearer. I'm not sure how to verbalize that. But other than I really felt like. It was just like a shoot boost. And then I just felt clearer.
Casie Ellison: And then the visions just talking about what I want
Casie Ellison: my life to look like without the labels.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah. And you felt clear because this came down. And when you're functioning from here, you're this, you're an unstoppable force like from there, whatever you want
Natalyn Lewis: for sure.
Casie Ellison: You can control the room. If you can control yourself.
Natalyn Lewis: This is true, this is true, and the self is the hardest. So.
Casie Ellison: Yes, yeah, it is. Yes, it is. Oh, man, I have loved this. Thank you so much.
Natalyn Lewis: Hi! It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.
Casie Ellison: Absolutely. Do you want to talk about what we talk about with the ascendy queue? Or do you want to talk about Chatty with Natty, or would you like to go any of that.
Natalyn Lewis: Yeah, Cindy, queue is where is the name of my company and the people who are looking for this type of assistance or help? We do. We have some. We have an online product for people. Just learn the principles for themselves and kind of do self guided application. We have some group classes, and we do some private coaching if people need that, and they can find it on a Cindy queue, or they can reach out through social media@natty.o.lewis.
Casie Ellison: Awesome.
Casie Ellison: Thank you so much, Natty. I have had a blast. Thank you.
Natalyn Lewis: Thank you.
Casie Ellison: And we'll be in touch. I'll let you know how it goes, and.
Natalyn Lewis: I'm expecting it. I'm expecting I'll be following up.
Casie Ellison: Sounds good. Oh, thank you so much.
Natalyn Lewis: Okay, have a great day.
Casie Ellison: You too.