Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who
have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they
got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them.
How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success,
and most importantly, find joy.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
Welcome back to Live Free, Ride Free, where we talk to people who are
living self actualized lives, living life on their own terms and making
a go of it in whichever way they are interested in following their passions.
Making a livelihood.
What can we learn from these people?
It's what we all aspire to do this week I've got Suki Baxter now if you don't
know who she is just go on YouTube and type her in you're gonna find some videos
that an awful lot of people watch and I like many of you I'm always a bit
Curious about how do these people get so many people to watch their videos?
I mean, yes, their content's amazing and her content is amazing.
We're going to talk about it.
So obviously you can't get that without amazing content.
How do they take it beyond that?
How do they make a living from it?
More than that.
How did they get to the point where they were making that
amazing content in the first place?
So what is Ziggybax's amazing content?
Well, it has to do with your nervous system.
It has to do with your brain and it has to do with Feeling better about
stuff in a real way not in an ephemeral way I don't want to give too much away
because Suki's gonna talk us through some pretty interesting stuff about how to
live happier Not just to live free ride free more self actualized, but really
genuinely some secrets of happiness here So without further ado welcome Suki.
Can you tell us please?
Sukie Baxter: Who you are.
Thank you so much for having me.
I am an embodiment coach.
I, as you said, have a YouTube channel that has gotten quite a few followers.
And I came into this work through the door of the body.
So, I spent about 15 years having a clinical body work practice where I
worked 1 on 1 with clients and in the process of understanding how bodies work.
A lot of people who came to me had a lot of physical pain and postural complaints.
I had to really start asking myself some questions about where the symptoms were
coming from and all of my questions.
Continuously led me back to the nervous system.
So, over the course of the 15 years that I was working on people, I
just kept coming back to the nervous system as the foundational piece that
was contributing to a lot of these challenges that I was seeing in people.
And when I really began to delve into the nervous system, I.
Discovered that it was related to far more than just your physical posture
and pain or lack thereof, but really to how you were experiencing how person
experiences life, whether that's in a positive way, a pleasurable, pleasant
way, or whether it creates a life that is challenging and full of struggle.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, you said very Quickly there.
You had a physical therapy practice.
What did you do?
What were you doing?
What was your hands on?
Were you a massage therapist?
Were you, what
Sukie Baxter: were you?
Yeah, so I am technically a licensed massage therapist and I practice a form
of body work that is called rolfing, which some people may have heard of.
Some people may not have, it's got kind of a grassroots following.
But rolfing is a.
Way of approaching the body from a structural perspective.
So really looking at how all the parts and pieces of your body work together to
create optimal posture and, and movement.
So when a person would come in, I would do a posture and movement assessment,
have a conversation with them observe them walking, standing, moving in various ways.
And then approach helping them to be more integrated and to have
basically less friction in their movement from a very holistic way.
So, oftentimes, when we go to a practitioner, a specialist for
maybe we have a sore shoulder or a sore hip a lot of times the work is
focused on that region of the body.
So you go in, you say, I have a sore shoulder.
Your doctor looks at your shoulder.
Why is this shoulder sore?
When someone would come to me, I would look at their shoulder.
And also, how is that shoulder connected to a ribcage?
And a torso and how is that rib cage balanced on the
pelvis and so on and so forth.
So really backing up and looking at it from a systems level
Rupert Isaacson: approach.
And when you do this Rolfing thing, are you, is it like a massage and that you're
going in and you sort of squeeze with your hands in the way that we think of, or, you
know, put your elbow on or whatever the way we think of as a massage therapist?
Or are you doing something else?
Something more specific?
Yeah,
Sukie Baxter: I think that's a really great question.
So, yeah, a lot of times it looks like classic body work, right?
So some, you have somebody come in, they, they're standing in a room,
you do a movement posture assessment, and then typically I would get them
on a table and do various things that look like massage, right?
Applying pressure.
I may have them move while I'm applying pressure.
But yeah, there's, there's physical contact.
So it is manual manipulation, manual therapy, however you want
to classify that which is why it's classified under massage.
But the experience of it is usually a little bit different,
which is something that's a little bit hard to verbally convey.
But when people experience it, they're like, oh, yeah, this is different.
But really, I, I think what's really interesting is that this is
what led me to the nervous system.
Right?
So when somebody gets.
A body work of any kind.
What's really going on there?
And what I was noticing was that I would have these clients come in.
Some of these clients, I swear to you, just being in the room with me,
they would start to change and shift, like just having a conversation.
There was no physical contact whatsoever.
When these people started to change, it was so easy to have
their bodies shift other people.
I.
I'm telling you, like no amount of pressure that I applied
seemed to have an effect.
And that's really where I started asking the question.
Okay.
I've been told that what I'm doing here is like breaking
up adhesions in their fascia.
So rolfing uses a lot of myofascial release, myofascial type techniques.
And I was, I was told in my training, like we're, we're doing all these
things to break up adhesions or separate different sheets of fascia.
So they glide, but all these mechanical things.
And I was like, but.
I'm applying pressure to all these different people with differing results.
So something else might be going on here.
And I just, even at the inception, I was like, I think it's in the nervous system.
I didn't know.
I didn't have a lot of you know, this is, this is BG, as I say, like, before Google.
So there wasn't nearly as much information available.
And I, I didn't know where to go and who to ask, but I just started
Thinking that there seems to be a nervous system component here.
It seems to have something to do with how a person senses the
contact that is being applied.
And over time, as I learned a lot more and learned how the body works, I was
like, yeah, actually, that is true.
And I filled in many, many, many holes and gaps and knowledge and I'm still learning
as we all are, because we're still discovering how all of this works, but.
But over and over again, I kept coming back to, yeah, it's in the
sensing, it's in the body's ability to feel and to have that sensory
information processed by the brain.
That's what's actually changing the map of the body and the posture,
but there's also all these other wonderful effects as, you know, as you
mentioned, that make us so much happier.
When our nervous system is optimally functioning and that was the other piece
of it was that some of my clients would come in and I would just see their entire
lives change where people would You know, leave really toxic relationships.
They would leave careers that were burning them out and making
them miserable and unhealthy.
They would make these dramatic changes in their lives.
And it seemed coincidental.
It seemed to, it seemed to coincide with the work that we were doing and
I want us to know, okay, so why are these people like, really coming into
their own, really having more agency over themselves, really Finding a way
to follow what feels good for them and create that life that makes them happy.
Like, how is this physical contact creating that kind of a change?
And again, it led me to the nervous system.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So before we go to the nervous system, it's interesting.
I mean, we, we, this podcast called Live Free, Ride Free, and it sounds
like you are helping people to do that, to liberate themselves and self
actualize through the nervous system.
We're going to go back to that.
And I want to know how, however, there's some questions I've got based on some
things that you said, which some terms I want to clarify, because I'm sure
that a lot of listeners might not know.
So we should tell them what is fascia, what is something that is myofascial, and
when you talk about sensing, what is that?
So can we start with fascia?
What is fascia?
Sukie Baxter: Yeah.
So fascia is a type of tissue.
It's a connective tissue within the body.
It's one of the most pervasive tissues within the body.
You have quite a lot of it.
Oftentimes you will hear People say that it wraps around things like
wraps around the muscle bellies and kind of is under your skin.
So it covers things, but it actually permeates your body
down to the cellular level.
So if we could magically put you, Rupert, into some kind of a solution
that would dissolve everything in your body, that was not fascia, we would
have a 3d imprint of Rupert, which is different from a lot of things, right?
So if we just had your skeletal structure, you know, we would, we would see your
bones, but we wouldn't actually see your.
Your facial features and your, you know, the musculature of your body
and how all of that was developed.
If we just had your skin, we would see the outside, but there'd be no,
you know, in no inside no innards.
We wouldn't really be able to know what the inside organization of your body
looked like fashion gives us all of that.
It would give us almost like a spider web, like, imprint of your body.
And fascia has been something that people have been looking at as there's, there's
quite a lot of cells in fascia that sense.
So we'll talk about that in a second.
That sense where we are in space, that sense stretching and vibration
and movement in our bodies.
And so, fascia is kind of the organ of.
Consciousness or interoception, or people quantify that differently, but
it, it's a, it's a type of tissue that both supports our body and then gives
us a lot of information about our body state and our body's movement.
Rupert Isaacson: So you say an organ, do you think of it as an organ?
Sukie Baxter: Well, I don't know that it classically is considered
an organ that's just a word that people use to describe it.
Right, but do you,
Rupert Isaacson: do you feel that that's an apt description with it,
with the work that you've done?
Sukie Baxter: I think it's an organ similarly to the way skin is an organ.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: Like an internal skin, an internal sense of skin.
Sukie Baxter: Exactly.
But it doesn't it doesn't do the same things as skin, right?
It doesn't sweat.
It doesn't do all of those things, because that would be awkward if you're
sweating around your stomach or something.
Yeah, exactly.
So I, so I don't know if like, if we were being like really, you know,
linear, like Western medicine type of scientific, is it technically an organ?
I don't know if but yeah, you could say it's an organ of consciousness
or an organ of something.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so consciousness.
So is it, so when you were describing it, it sounds, the first thing
that I thought was it sounds wet.
It sounds like a watery thing.
And I remember from the days when I used to hunt deer and things like
that, and I would skin them and you would, you know, peel back the
skin and then there would be this.
Jelly like thing that was like a bubble wrap around things and I presume that
that is the fascia or part of it.
Anyway it was pretty wet.
I suppose our bodies are, you know, 75 percent water or whatever,
but it's interesting that you talk about consciousness there.
Do you feel that your fascia is a conductive part of the body that,
that conducts information from one part of the body to the other?
And if so, how does it differ?
I know I'm going down a bit of a rabbit hole.
How does it differ from your nervous system?
Or do you think it's part of?
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, I think, I think it is.
I think everything is everything to be honest.
So, so, so, and this is kind of, I think a question that I come up against a lot in a
lot of different areas where people like, well, you know, they look at this piece of
us now, like, this seems really important.
They get really fixated on that piece.
Fascia is an important piece, but it's not important on its own.
In my opinion.
I think it's important in that it's connected to a system.
It's it's sensing.
Yeah.
Our internal environment, it's sensing our external environment,
and then it's conveying that to our brain via nervous system processes.
If we didn't have those nervous system processes to receive that
information, it wouldn't really matter that we had the fascia.
So the whole system is what's important.
Rupert Isaacson: Is it a bit like the silica in a master keyboard?
I don't
Sukie Baxter: know.
I don't know how keywords are put together.
Maybe.
But, but I, I think people get sort of like, aha, this is the thing.
And they get really fixated on that.
And that is very it's very science based.
It's, you know, science seeks to kind of take things apart to their smallest
component, which is really beneficial.
It helps us to understand things.
But we, we often kind of get fixated on these smaller pieces and
lose sight of the bigger, Picture so fascia is part of our system.
You asked about myofascia.
So when you say myofascial myo means muscle.
So it's muscle fascial.
So you're talking about the, the muscle and the fascia together.
So, myofascial release, what that literally means is
we're releasing the muscle.
Like lengthening, you know, relaxing, reducing tension and we're stretching the
fashion, but that, that brings me full circle back around to what I was saying,
which is that what I was taught was, you know, we're, we're, we're doing that.
We're stretching, we're mechanically, like, if you think about like a plastic
bag, like a grocery bag, if you stick your thumb in it and you kind of stretch
it out how it, how it kind of creates a pocket or a pucker in the, in the
plastic, that was how I was taught.
We were affecting the body.
But my, my actual clinical experience did not bear that out because I was like, I'm
the same person for all of these people.
I'm applying, you know, pressure from my body to their body, but
I'm getting different results.
So why is it working for this person with a feather touch and that person
with extreme amounts of pressure?
We're not having the same results.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, and this process goes on for how long?
You're, you're rolfing, you've got your practice, people are coming
in, they're lying on your table, you're, you're, you're noticing
all these different things.
Some of them are having these huge life, positive life changing events.
Some you don't even have to touch and you seem to get a positive effect.
Some, no matter how much you touch them, not so much.
How long is that going on before you go, I want to do a deep
dive into the nervous system?
Sukie Baxter: It was an ongoing process.
It was more that every time I tried to learn something new, I sort of
came back to the nervous system.
So, I started with studying a lot of energy work because I was like,
is there an energy work component?
And I think there is but it was, it was ultimately unsatisfying for
me because I, it still felt like.
Okay.
But it's very random.
How do I actually, yeah, exactly.
I love energy work.
I think it's really great, but I just didn't feel like it was tangible
enough for me to feel confident that when a person came into me
and I also do this work on horses or have done this work on horses.
So when, when a human would come in or when I was working with a horse,
I was like, how can I kind of.
I don't know tangibly that I'm having an impact here.
And energy work was just, like, vague is a really good word.
And some people are, you know, they feel it and they're really into it.
And other people, it's like, they can't access at all.
So, so, so That was a piece of it.
But then also the nervous system runs on, you know, electricity, which is energy.
So again, I was like, okay, let's go back to the nervous system.
And I just sort of everything that I did kept bringing me back to the nervous
system is our essentially our human or mammalian really, because not just human,
but our mammalian operating system.
And if we're affecting that, if we can understand how we're affecting the nervous
system then Like you said, we can really liberate people because the other thing
that I kept running into in my studies was these sort of like limiting blueprints of
how to, how to control your thoughts or how to excavate, you know, quote, limiting
beliefs, or, you know, basically how to control yourself in a way to be happy.
And.
And that didn't seem to really work for me because, because
not all people are the same.
For me, I wanted to strip away all the layers of what a person isn't so that they
have the ability to grow into what they naturally and inherently are, which is
going to look different for you than for me, than, you know, for, for everybody
out there, we're all individuals.
So let's
Rupert Isaacson: go from vague to vagal.
Tell us what you found out about the nervous system.
Sukie Baxter: So when I landed on what is called polyvagal theory,
and I can define that term, but it's called polyvagal theory.
It really My mother's
Rupert Isaacson: name is Polly and she can be a bit vague.
It's true sometimes.
Sukie Baxter: And probably in many ways.
When I landed on that, I It seemed to really map with what
I was observing in people.
So, polyvagal theory is a theory that was put forth by a
gentleman named Steven Porges.
And what Steven Porges found is that there's a very large nerve, which we
did know about, but he didn't discover the nerve, but he found that this very
large nerve called the vagus nerve it's called the vagus nerve because
vagus comes from the vagus nerve.
It's not Las Vegas Vegas.
It's, I was, I was hoping it's from the Latin word for wandering
and it's a very long nerve.
So it, it wanders from your cranium down through your neck through
your upper torso and then into your viscera deep into your viscera.
And so if you look up, you know, an image of the vagus nerve, it's this,
this big tangly long wandering thing.
And what what Stephen Porges found is that this vagus nerve is it functions
to help regulate our stress response.
And his theory is that there are multiple branches of this vagus nerve and that
these branches have different functions, which is why it's called polyvagal theory.
So poly coming from many.
The word for many vagal from the vagus nerve and then
theory because it is a theory.
And I always want to emphasize that because there's a lot of people
talking about exactly how this all works physiologically within the body.
We're still learning.
I think in 10 years, we're going to know a lot more and we may
have a completely different.
Map at that time.
It's growing.
It's evolving.
But it's a, it's a theory.
And so I always like to keep in mind that the, that it's a map.
It's not the territory, which is the common saying in lots of fields,
but it's common in body work.
The map is not the territory.
So.
It's just, it just gives us a framework for beginning to understand
the stress response and it does map.
very cleanly with what I and a lot of other practitioners of various fields have
found observationally in our clients in terms of how stress functions and what
it does to us and how that is observed.
Rupert Isaacson: Can you give us the sort of breakdown 101 polyvagal for dummies?
Yeah.
Sukie Baxter: So the polyvagal theory the, the simple breakdown is that
you basically have three states in polyvagal theory, you have the
ventral vagal ventral meaning front.
So this is the front branch of your vagus nerve.
Stephen Porges identified this as the branch of your vagus nerve that is
responsible for social engagement.
So the ability to connect to other people and animals, the ability
to have empathy, the ability to co regulate meaning that we can kind of.
Symbiotically feel what the other is feeling and come into
a similar state as another
Rupert Isaacson: person.
And I'm listening to reggae and having a beer and feeling iry and having a hug.
I'm in my bedroom.
There you go.
Okay.
Sukie Baxter: Yes.
Cool.
Got it.
Absolutely.
It's, it's basically where all the good stuff in life is.
The, the, the love, the joy, the happiness, the, you know, the excitement,
the, all the, all the things that we think of as things we want to experience.
Rupert Isaacson: That's all down the front of my tummy.
Sukie Baxter: Ventral.
Front of your tummy.
Ventral bagel, according to the, gorgeous.
Yep.
Then you have your sympathetic nervous system.
So, your sympathetic nervous system is responsible for your
fight or flight response, which a lot of people are Is ventral
Rupert Isaacson: parasympathetic?
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, so your vagus nerve is the main nerve of your
parasympathetic nervous system.
Although I will, like, little asterisk here.
There is research that is finding that the vagus nerve can have an
activating effect when stimulated.
So I, I'm still looking into this because I'm, it's really hard to get
a grip on what exactly that means.
Rupert Isaacson: But for dummies at this stage, front
ventral parasympathetic, good.
Yes.
And then, so the other one is dorsal, right?
Sukie Baxter: Yes, so your vagus nerve is parasympathetic, your
sympathetic is fight or flight.
Your parasympathetic is rest and digest, your sympathetic is fight or flight.
If you can just kind of get that piece down, that's the simple explanation.
But
Rupert Isaacson: are there not two branches of the vagal nerve doing both?
Right.
So front one ventral, back one dorsal.
Sukie Baxter: Correct.
So, so if we go down one step from your ventral vagal, we've got your
sympathetic nervous system, different branch of your nervous system,
but that's your fight or flight.
This is what people think of when they think about, I'm stressed.
This is tension.
This is anxiety.
This is agitation.
This is, you know, like clenching jaw, tight neck and shoulders, all of
that stuff lives in the sympathetic.
It's a, this is a mobilizing branch of your nervous system.
So it's what gets us up and doing stuff basically.
Hey, there's a threat to your survival.
You better take action or you're going to get eaten by the lion which is bad.
So one step down from that, you have what you mentioned, which is your dorsal bagel.
the dorsal branch of your vagus nerve.
So the dorsal vagal response or dorsal vagal states dorsal being
like a dorsal fin, meaning the back.
So you've got your ventral front dorsal back of your vagus nerve.
And this is your shutdown or immobilizing branch of your nervous system.
You can think about this like you're playing possum.
And like you mentioned, the vagus nerve is the parasympathetic nerve.
Parasympathetic can be I'm connected to another person, but it can also be
I'm shutting you down because you've been in sympathetic for so long that
we need to pull the emergency brake or your heart's going to explode.
You cannot live in sympathetic all the time.
We are meant to have a sympathetic response to dispatch the threat.
You either run away from it and survive or you fight it.
And survive, or you die which, at which point, game over.
It's supposed to be
Rupert Isaacson: over pretty quickly.
It's
Sukie Baxter: supposed to end, and then we discharge it.
Unfortunately for humans, because of the way we live in this very
contrived world we have a lot of stimulation coming at us all the time.
Just a lot of noise, a lot of sensory noise and just a lot, and we even have
mental stress, which is not, I don't think zebras sit around worrying about
how they're going to pay their taxes.
I don't know, I haven't really chatted with a lot of zebras, but
I think it's probably unlikely.
So these things are all essentially threats to our survival that keep us.
In sympathetic quite a lot.
If you stay in that state over a prolonged period of time, it
does a lot of really bad things.
So short term stress is very beneficial.
I think that's 1 of the misnomers of stress is the
people think it's always bad.
Short term stress can actually activate your immune system.
It's how you you know, get over being sick.
It can, it does a lot of really good things in short duration.
Right.
For prolonged or chronic stress is very, very damaging to our health.
It decreases our brain matter, it unravels our telomeres, it does
all kinds of horrible things.
What's a telomere?
A telomere.
That's a good question.
A telomere is let me find the actual definition because
I am going to get it wrong.
It is a compound structure at the end of a chromosome.
So it's a structure inside of our nervous system that basically They
protect our body from aging and they naturally unravel over time.
But what, when you have chronic stress, they unravel more quickly.
So it accelerates aging.
It accelerates degeneration within your body.
It accelerates the, you know, we, we have a natural degradation over
time of our body as it copies itself.
And we produce new cells.
Each Xerox copy is a little bit less accurate, a little more fuzzy.
But when, when.
We have chronic stress.
Those telomeres do, as I understand it, get shorter.
How do we spell telomere?
Telomere is TEL T-E-L-O-M-E-R.
Rupert Isaacson: Etel.
T-E-L-O-M-E-R-E?
Yes.
Telomere.
Okay, cool.
Interesting.
All right.
Yes.
Something I didn't know.
Okay, good.
So by the way, just I have a quick question to clarify.
You're saying that the ventral vagal nerve.
is a one branch of the vagal nerve.
But you see, I couldn't tell if you're talking about the dorsal as something
that's not the vagal nerve, but surely are they not two branches of the same nerve?
One is about feeling good, one is about feeling bad, effectively.
Sukie Baxter: It's, yeah, I mean, yes, there are two branches of the same nerve.
Okay.
That's, that's the whole polyvagal, right?
Multiple branches.
Rupert Isaacson: And I've got one down the front, one down the back.
In general, my front one is associated with feel good.
In general, my back one is associated with not.
Sukie Baxter: Yes.
I, I'd say, I, I'm, I'm always hesitant to use the words good and bad.
One is a little bit more pleasant and one is a little bit more unpleasant.
Rupert Isaacson: But they're both there to, to serve the
function to keep you alive.
Sukie Baxter: And yeah, and, and, and I, I think it's really
important to say that there's no.
State of your nervous system.
That's wrong or bad.
And I think this is where like, I get a lot of people saying, well, I, I've done
some work to heal my nervous system and I felt better for a short period of time.
And then and then I, I felt anxious again, or I felt depressed again,
or I felt whatever again or I felt lethargic or I felt exhausted.
And this seems wrong.
Like I I'm doing it wrong, or it isn't working or whatever.
They're, you know, whatever they determine is the story around that.
We need all of our nervous system states.
We, they're there for a reason.
And so the goal is not to get rid of any of these states or to live, you
know, eternally in ventral vagal.
That would be great.
But when that lion comes around and you're in ventral vagal,
you're gonna be like, hey, dude.
Yeah, pretty kitty.
Can I pet you?
And you're gonna get eaten.
Like we need our sympathetic response.
We need these aspects of our nervous system.
The goal isn't to get rid of them.
The goal is just to not get
Rupert Isaacson: stuck in them.
Right.
Got it.
And as you say, you know, a shot of adrenaline, a shot of cortisol
to make you act, not think, get yourself out of trouble.
Sometimes that could even be fun if you enjoy a dangerous sport or something like
that, but you don't want to live there.
Why, apart from the unraveling of telomeres, And I also know that
cortisol, the stress hormone, is a neurotoxin, so that obviously is
toxic for the body over too much time.
What else does stress do over time?
You mentioned this word, friction, early on.
Is it tied to that?
Is stress tied to friction in the body?
And is friction tied to this nervous system response?
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, so this is where, this is I spent a lot of years trying
to figure this out because we didn't have the information we have today.
It's actually really funny to me to see how much body mind information is around
right now, because for years and years, I was like, I think there's something
going on with the body talking to the mind and people thought it was crazy.
They were, they just like, they could not get there.
And now it's, we take it for granted, I think by and large
there's a collective understanding.
And so when you ask about like.
Stress and friction.
1 of so our bodies are not these just machines that carry our brains around.
They are expressing our state of being all the time.
But they are also communicating inwardly to our brain.
So the state of your body tells your brain something about what's going on for you.
It tells you, it tells your it tells your brain.
I'm safe.
I'm not safe.
At its essence.
I'm either safe or I'm not safe.
And that's
Rupert Isaacson: what the brain needs to know moment to moment as a bottom line.
Sukie Baxter: Correct.
And that's how it determines your nervous system state.
We don't choose our nervous system states.
Our brain, it's in a non conscious process, assesses a whole bunch of data
that it's getting beneath our awareness.
And it then measures that with your past experience.
Past experiences and any conditioning you may have and kind of, you get
this, like, I think of it like a little computer printout, like, not safe, you
know, so, and then there's like, someone pushes the panic button and that's your
sympathetic nervous system or safe.
And someone's like, okay, we can go into rest and digest.
Let's get a good night's sleep at a very, very basic level.
It's, it's more complex than that, but, but I just want to say, go ahead.
So on the, on the question of like tension and stress and friction, if your body is
tense, which is what happens when you're in sympathetic, then you're sort of in
this like feedback loop where the tension in your body creates a lot of friction.
You're having to use a lot more energy to literally move your body.
Right?
So, like, lifting your arm, you're actually pulling against yourself.
You're actually, you're literally holding yourself back by having these
tight muscles that create a joint that doesn't move in a free way, so you
have to use more, you have to, you have to actually burn more calories
in essence to move that arm because you're pulling against resistance,
which is your own internal resistance.
Rupert Isaacson: And presumably put more stress on the joints as well.
the tendons and sinews to, yeah,
Sukie Baxter: potentially, absolutely.
And, and what I noticed in working with people is that we just tend to move
in these very limited patterns, right?
So we only move in ways that we habitually move in, which is because
of the kind of environment we live in, usually fairly limited.
So we get these very narrow pathways and anything outside that pathway
becomes almost inaccessible, sometimes completely inaccessible.
And then that limits the amount of sensory information that's sent to our brain and
the sensory information that is sent to our brain is one of tension and stress,
which then creates more tension and stress, which then sends more information
about tension and stress, right?
So it's, you're, you're getting this kind of loop, not safe
you know, not safe information.
Your brain's like, I'm not safe.
Let's be tense.
We got to be prepared for, to deal with this threat.
Okay.
But now we're getting more not safe information and it's just this cycle.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
So if I come to you with my tense shoulders but I'm.
In a state of tension internally because I'm afraid of my neighbors because
I'm reading a lot of negative social media stuff because I'm, I've been
brought up in a, in a conflicty sort of a culture, household, blah, blah.
And this has all been going on for so many years and I don't even know any different
because I've just been raised that way.
And I come to you and I say, Hey Suki can you work on my shoulder please?
And.
You start massaging me and that stays tense.
And then you put your elbow on me and it stays tense.
And then you and then I get up at the end of the thing and I'm still tense.
Is is that the sort of experience of a client like that where you're going?
Okay, look, something internally now needs to change.
We need to understand what this stress response is.
How do we, how do we guide this person internally?
To release that stress in a way that's not external.
No amount of, as you said, no amount of me backing my truck repeatedly over
that guy's shoulder is going to release that shoulder, even though that's
exactly what I'd be asking you to do.
And then you have to charge me for wear and tear on the truck.
I can see how you would come to need to do this research.
When you then began to tell people in your practice about this, did
you find that it made sense to them?
Did you find that sometimes even perhaps hearing about this and understanding this
mechanism within their own bodies, did you find that it helped them to release
their stress without you necessarily having to manipulate physically?
What was going on?
Or at least, did you find that if you did manipulate physically once
you gave them this information, they could release more meaningfully?
To an extent.
Sukie Baxter: I ultimately have moved away from doing hands on work because there
is just so much that needs to happen.
Like, you just described so well internally for a person in terms of
them understanding their own physical body responses, life circumstances.
And this is, it can be very complex, right?
It's not, it's not a simple thing.
There's a lot of circles of influence here that that combined to affect a person's,
State internal state and not all of them are the fault of that person, right?
We live within these systems as well.
So there's there's personal stuff.
There's cultural stuff.
Anyway so I I moved away from doing the the hands on work because I found that
the context of a bodywork session is So it's so entrenched in people's heads
that i'm going to go in and basically deposit my body In the office of this
person, my brain can go on vacation for a little while, thinking about
whatever and this person will fix me and it, it works to, to an extent.
the people who are available for it, for whatever reason, this is,
this is not a judgment, right?
It's because I, I do hear people say like, Oh, well, they just weren't ready for it.
You know, and it's in sort of a judgmental way of like, Oh, this
person is more evolved and more ready.
That's not it at all.
For whatever reason, a person is in the, in the state to be
able to receive it and actually integrate that work and take it on.
That's great.
Other people aren't for whatever reason due to no fault of their own most likely.
And And when people would come in, there was so much backing up I had
to do to explain that your body and your brain are this integrated system.
And that it's not just a muscle.
It's this, this muscle that's tight in your shoulder is not just
a rubber band that is too short.
That needs to be pulled longer.
Like, there's a whole culture in that muscle, as you just described, right?
There's a whole belief system in your body.
And there's a whole lifetime and actually multiple lifetimes because we,
we take on a lot of these things from other generations, both from a genetic
standpoint, but also from a just a mirroring and a learning standpoint.
So there's, there's whole belief systems living in your body and my elbow in
your shoulder may help if you're at that state where you're able to release
this tension and integrate that.
But if you are not.
Then we could be here all day.
It's, you know, you're, and you, most people do feel
better at the end of a session.
It's whether or not that work stays.
Yeah.
So my, my goal wasn't to have people come in every week for the rest of their lives.
My goal was to actually help people get to where they want it to go.
And I saw that for some people, the body work was the missing piece, but
by and large, there was so much more education that needed to happen.
And so I really transitioned into teaching this information and, and, and helpful
tools to people so that they could start to integrate this in a different way.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so now there you are, your livelihood is putting hands
on people, so you actually rely on these people to come trooping into your studio
so that you can pay rent and so on.
And then you start thinking, oh gosh, you know, I've got to really
tackle this in a different way.
You go off and learn about the nervous system.
And then there you are on YouTube with like 6 million, 5 million,
4 million people looking at us.
Was it that sudden?
Dot, dot, dot?
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, it was one of those overnight successes
that took 20 years to get there.
Oh good, I'm glad we can stop
Rupert Isaacson: the podcast right here.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, it actually, that was a long journey because I, I was
trying to teach this stuff forever.
I've been trying to teach this stuff since like 2000.
I mean, honestly, since the day I started my practice and I started figuring this
out, I was trying to find the words.
I was so very new and also so very young.
I really didn't know how to, you know, how to convey this.
It took a while to figure out what I Was even trying to say.
So there was that journey of just getting proficient at what I was doing
and having enough experience with putting my hands on people to be like,
I think there's some patterns here.
But then there was the experience of trying to explain what it was.
I even did with people.
So there was that segment of my journey, which as.
As you've probably noticed in this podcast, it's not easy to quantify
what, because a lot of this stuff is just not, it doesn't fit in the
boxes we already have for body work and psychology and all of that.
I was like, no, they're the same thing.
You know, actually a body worker is a mental health practitioner.
People were like, no, I have no idea what you're talking about.
So there was that journey of kind of figuring out how to even talk about this.
And then there was the journey of, Trying to share this, as you
said, this was my livelihood.
And so, you know, I would work with mentors and business mentors and people
who were kind of helping me to get, you know, get the word out and talk to people.
And how do I, how do I communicate this?
And I had a lot of setbacks.
I, I had a mentor who really said something very hurtful.
Where I was trying to talk about, you know, the connection between
pain and stress and the mind and the psychology and the culture
and all of these different things.
And I was pretty far into my nervous system journey at this point.
And I was pretty sure that I was on to something, but I also didn't
know of anyone else who was really talking about it at that time.
So it was, it was, I felt like I was bumping into a wall a lot when I talk
about it and this mentor said, well, I don't even know why a physical therapist
is talking to me about my emotions.
Why don't you just stick to telling people what height to
set their computer monitor at?
And I was so just distraught.
And I just felt so much despair at that because for one that.
It's just so it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
If setting our computer monitors at the right height
was the solution, we'd be fine.
We wouldn't need this work, you know, because I think
that information is out there.
I think we can find that at this point.
It's accessible.
And what I wanted to do was so much more in my, you know, in my opinion,
much more profound than that, which was really get to the core of people
and really help them to live more self actualized lives not just.
To eradicate the pain that they were feeling so they could go on living
lives that they didn't really enjoy living in unhealthy ways, which is
kind of what a lot of pain relief type.
Practices do is like allows
Rupert Isaacson: you to keep going with what's still hurting you.
Sukie Baxter: Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah It's it's basically it puts you on this spectrum of of pain to like numbness
where it's like we don't we don't then replace the pain with joy or fulfillment
or Desire or anything pleasant.
Rupert Isaacson: We're just or even a way of of moving away
from that pain towards something.
Yeah.
Yeah Healing.
Yeah.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, so so I was very distraught.
I struggled for a long time I tried very hard to talk about posture
in a very Posture y sort of way.
And it Really didn't work.
I, I wrote a book, a little ebook that I have.
And I found myself like, I'm going to write this book about posture.
And as I'm writing this book, I kept coming back to the nervous system
and I was like, I can't do it.
It's like, it's physically impossible.
I can't talk about how to sit in a chair without talking about your nervous system.
And so I, I had started putting things out on YouTube and I was kind of like
dabbling in it here and there and when did
Rupert Isaacson: you start messing around with YouTube?
Sukie Baxter: So I actually put a couple videos out, like, way, way back in 2009
and then I abandoned it for a very long time, like, a decade, and then I was like,
maybe I'll go back to that YouTube thing maybe around 2018, I want to say, ish,
and kind of was dabbling in it and then.
I just sort of started to decide that I wanted to experiment a little bit.
So I was like, I'm going to put out videos that are more on the nervous system side.
I just, I need to get this out.
I'm having these conversations one on one, like these conversations would
come up with my body work clients.
They would come up.
While I was working on horses and I was talking to the owner about nervous
systems and why I didn't need to pound on their horse to get actual change, why
their horses movement would change with what looked like me, just kind of gently
touching their, you know, their animal.
And they're like, well, how is this, you know, how is this happening in
their horse's eyes or, you know, doing that third eyelid blank and big
yawns and, you know, signs of release.
So these conversations were coming up over and over and I was like, I just want to,
I want to try having this conversation, not on a quiet secret one to one level.
But like, let's just try putting it out there more
widely and it was an experiment.
And I found that there actually was quite a lot of interest in that material.
So, to my surprise, it was exactly what everyone told me not to talk about.
Don't talk about the connection between the body and trauma and.
anxiety and mental health and your physical self and all of
these things that are connected.
Don't do that.
No one's going to understand it.
And it was when I did that exact thing that everyone told me not to do, that
it actually connected with people.
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting how many people on this podcast
say something similar to that.
It was when I did what everyone said not to do that things began to move.
I, I know that's been true in my life.
When I was going to go across Mongolia with my kid and everyone
said he was completely nuts.
And it's just in my gut, it's like, no, no, it's, it's the right thing,
but I totally understand why you think it's nuts, because on the face of it,
it is a bit nuts, but life is nuts.
So, you know, I, that, that bold step it seems that perhaps your own sympathetic
nervous system had gotten to a point where you were feeling maybe that you
had Your foot on the brake and the accelerator at the same time just like
these clients who were in distress with you were and Do you think it's true
that you felt in some way even if that was instinctive and unconscious that?
Until you sorted that out in yourself.
You couldn't really help them in the way that you would like to And
then that happened on a public forum Do you think that that was also
part of what was motivating you?
A sort of feeling of, well, physician heal thyself sort of thing.
If I can't, how can I tell these people how to set
themselves free from the inside?
If I myself, I'm sort of feeling frustrated like this.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah.
If I'm not letting myself be who I am, then how can I tell
other people how to do that?
So, yeah, you know, there's a really great saying, and I don't
know who originally said it.
I'm sure it wasn't the person I heard it from.
But it's don't talk about it, be about it.
And I, I really, I find it That was God,
Rupert Isaacson: wasn't that God?
Didn't God say that?
I have no idea,
Sukie Baxter: possibly.
But I think that I had to be, you know, be that example.
I had to go out and do the thing and it was, it was really terrifying.
I, you know, I get a calm, I get lots of comments on YouTube
because YouTube is YouTube.
Many, many, many, many wonderful positive comments.
And I love those.
But of course, as many people do, I see the negative ones and
they hit me more intensely than.
The positive ones.
Rupert Isaacson: The old sympathetic nervous system reaction.
Sukie Baxter: Looking for those threats.
And one of the comments that I get that does make me laugh is people say, well,
she really likes to hear herself talk.
And I just, I always chuckle to myself because the reality is I hate
watching those videos of myself.
I don't actually love being the center of attention.
I don't love a big crowd around me.
I'm kind of a, like not a hermit, but I'm, I'm an introvert.
I, you know, I, I'm not somebody to go in and.
You know, take over a party or something.
And so it was hard to get out there and start talking about this stuff,
especially at a time where it really wasn't like, so this is about 4 years ago.
Now that I really started talking about this.
I've been talking about it for like, 10 years or more, but that I really kind of
was like, okay, I'm going to do the thing.
It was about four years ago and things have dramatically changed.
There's so much more content out there.
That's really similar in tone and, you know, and in material, like where we're
talking about how the body and the mind are interconnected and related.
But at that time, no one was really talking about it.
And I didn't know if everyone was going to tell me I was crazy.
I mean, I could have made those YouTube videos and we could be sitting here and
like three people could have watched them.
I have no idea.
Rupert Isaacson: Were you surprised by how many people flocked to them?
And why do you think they did?
Sukie Baxter: Well, I think it's a combination of things.
I think one, the timing was right because it was in the middle of the pandemic.
So we were all very stressed and people were looking for help and
we didn't have a lot of resources because we couldn't go to our, you
know, I mean, you could get therapy.
From zoom, but you couldn't go to your therapist.
You couldn't go to your massage therapist by and large.
There was a lot of, you know, things were shut down or very
limited staffing was very low.
Everyone was, you know, freaking out.
It was a huge pattern interrupt.
You know, our whole lives got turned upside down.
And I was no exception to that, but so, so people were looking for resources.
So that was 1 thing, but you, you mentioned, I think, at the beginning
that your content can be good.
And then people don't see it, right?
So you can have really great videos and there are people who
have really great videos out there, but no one's watched them.
And the reasoning is that there are ways to figure out what people are
looking for and position your video so that it's the thing that they
find when they're looking for it.
And I was able to, to do that.
And I, Thanks.
You know, I, I did it strategically and I was fortunate in that.
I happened to land on some things that people were actually
looking for at that time.
So it, it kind of
Rupert Isaacson: blew up.
So you say you did it strategically.
Did you do it strategically from the get go?
Like, did you sit there I looked at a wiki of Mr.
Beast the other day and if you don't know who Mr.
Beast is these days, I mean, you're probably, like, one of three
on the planet, but nonetheless, if you don't know who Mr.
Beast is, he's this incredibly successful YouTuber who has made billions and
given a lot of it away, actually.
Planted lots of trees and things.
And I remember him reading this thing where he said, I sat for five years in a
room eating Uber Eats, only figuring out, learning how to make videos go viral.
I became obsessed with it in an unhealthy way, but it sort of paid off.
That's what he said.
Did you do something like that?
Or did you just start putting stuff out there that you were interested
in and thought other people should mention or was it something in between?
Sukie Baxter: It was a little bit in between.
I had a strategy of I'm going to, I'm going to put different
things out and see what hits.
So I would make videos on different topics because I didn't know what
people were gravitating towards.
So, I would do some research and there, there are ways.
So there are tools.
If I think people don't know that these things exist, there are tools.
That will tell you what people are searching for on Google and
YouTube is a Google product.
So there are tools to, to become aware of, like, how many people are
looking for a term on, you know, on social media or on Google and that
tells you what the interest level is.
And then there are.
People who figured out ways to name your video.
Well, so basically there's, there's lots of elements, but like the title is one of
them and there's other elements as well to position your video in a way that YouTube
knows Hey, when someone's searching for this thing, this video is kind of like,
I can, I can do the matchmaker here.
Like I can, I can give them.
This video content, because that's what they're looking for.
Now, if your video is terrible or like you spend, you know, five minutes of
rambling on maybe the last part of your video is great, but five minutes
at the beginning, are you rambling on about something irrelevant?
People aren't going to watch it.
And YouTube's going to be like, ah, that didn't work.
Let's try it.
Let's serve them up a different video.
Right?
So there there's lots of elements here.
But there are ways to be strategic about when you make your video, making
sure that you're actually creating a resource that people are looking for.
So I, I was looking to balance that when I would do my research.
I was like, okay, I have something I want to share.
How does it match with what people are looking for?
What's the Venn diagram here?
And you
Rupert Isaacson: did that from the get go.
You, you, you thought, I actually want this to go out as wide as possible.
I'm going to research how to make a video go out as wide as possible
on YouTube before I make it.
Sukie Baxter: Not exactly.
I didn't really want it to go out as wide as possible.
I wanted people to see it.
I wanted to know, you know, I thought, I thought a few hundred people, maybe
a few thousand people would watch it.
I didn't think, you know, 5 million people would
Rupert Isaacson: watch a video.
Why do you think 5 million people did watch
Sukie Baxter: it?
Because it was the thing they were looking for and because they watched
because of the way so I I actually worked with mentors like so when
I want to learn something, I find a mentor and I learn it from them.
And this is true in every area of my life.
I go find somebody and learn.
I'm like way past the point.
Well, I still read books, but I'm way past the point of self study at this point.
I want to learn something.
I'm like, you seem to know what you're doing.
Teach me.
So I found people who are really good at YouTube.
And they taught me us.
How did you find them?
They use, how did you find them?
They, they were a referral from somebody else that I knew, from somebody else.
Like I So you
Rupert Isaacson: did, you know some people who, who had been successful on YouTube
and say, who do you, who would I talk
Sukie Baxter: to?
They, they were, they are successful.
The people that I followed, I liked their ethos.
I, I like them as people, there's lots of
Rupert Isaacson: people that you were, you were subscribing to their YouTube channel.
Sukie Baxter: Actually I wasn't.
They were, I was referred to them, so I had not subscribed to their channel.
I was referred to them by a, it was somebody in another community of creators
and business people that they were like, this is, it was somebody else.
In that community had done YouTube had taught YouTube previously and doesn't
anymore and they were like, this is the person I send people to now and I went
Rupert Isaacson: online or this was someone you knew in your up there in the
Pacific Northwest where you live where
Sukie Baxter: people go online.
Okay, it's all online.
Yeah, it's an online community.
Okay,
Rupert Isaacson: so you joined an online community of people
interested in creating videos around.
the subjects that you were interested in or was it some different online community?
Sukie Baxter: It was a different online community.
It was a more of like a business online community where people
who have who have businesses get together and share resources and
information and help each other out with, you know, I need to do this.
I need to do X, Y, Z thing.
What tools do I use or who knows somebody I can hire to
do this, that kind of a thing.
Is that still exist?
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, yeah.
What's it?
What's it called?
Sukie Baxter: It's somebody's private community, so I wouldn't necessarily share
it, but I've been a member of many, many, many, I've always, but you must've found
Rupert Isaacson: your way there somehow, right?
So how did you, if someone's listening and going, well, gosh, I would like
to become, you know, part of a mentor community like that, a mentoring community
like that, what would be the steps that they would need to take in order to
find their way to something like that?
Sukie Baxter: That's a, that's a really good question.
And the reason I'm so hesitant to say more is because the online
community, the online business coaching and mentoring community is
it's a bit of a minefield to navigate.
There's a lot of really manipulative practices that happen in that space.
There's a lot of people calling that out right now too.
So there's some really good conversations.
But like you, you can, on the internet, you can find a business coach and like.
So, so they're, they're out there.
It's just that,
Rupert Isaacson: so what's the, well, let's, let's stick around on this topic.
Cause it's, I think it's useful for people.
There'll be people driving their cars right now that want to do this.
And, but don't know how if you were to, what, what, what would be the.
Way to know if it's a good business coach, what would be your test questions?
For example, i'll give you people often ask me about two things that they'll say
to me because you know, I teach dressage with Horses and so people will say how do
I know if it's a good dressage teacher and i'll say well There's two test questions.
How do you teach your horse?
The language is important piaf, which is a particular movement that's important in
that thing, and they must be able to tell you in a more or less understandable way.
And can I ride him?
Meaning, can I sit on him?
Have you got a horse that can show me?
And if the answer is something vague and no, you need to keep going until you find
someone who says, Oh, I did it like this.
And yes, you can.
He's over here.
Similarly, people know my background with, you know, shamans and healing.
And they say, well, how do you, how do you find your way?
Not, you know, how do you not get Involved with the charlatan and I'll say,
well, usually the really good shamans are in very remote areas of the world.
And they're so busy healing their communities.
You, you wouldn't necessarily, you wouldn't find them online.
But what I often do if I'm going to a place where there's places, parts
of the world where I just know the people because I was partly brought
up there and partly because of my work with journalism and human rights.
And then I might.
Actually give someone a contact but let's say I need to go to a part of
the world where I don't know anybody I take a counterintuitive process.
I will often contact a Listen up guys if you're looking for a shaman I will often
contact a hospital or a clinic in a remote tribal area Like let's say I wanted to
go up to alaska and find a healer I would look for a hospital in a native american
reservation up there and I would contact The administrator and I would say by email
and I'd send an email saying have you got a funny old guy or a funny old lady
who comes on the wards from the local community and does odd things and the
people just seem to sort of get better.
And frequently I'll get a response from the hospital
administrator saying actually yes.
I mean sometimes they won't come back to me at all.
Sometimes they'll tell me to bugger off but sometimes they'll say actually yes.
And then I'll say, oh, and then we'll begin a conversation and I'll
find my way to something that way, but there's a sort of step by step
onion peeling back thing happening.
So if someone is wanting to find their way through that minefield that
you're talking about what do you think would be some sound steps for them to
follow and questions for them to ask?
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, I don't think it's a straight at least I haven't figured
out is a straight ahead way for them to figure it out as clear as that.
I think that it can be really helpful to speak to their students.
I personally, if I'm looking at someone, I will kind of stalk
their social media for a while.
I like to look at the testimonials on their pages and then Google those people
and go and, and kind of investigate like what those people are up to.
Mm-Hmm.
, in particular to find out like, you know, are, are all of their
clients kind of the same , you know, are they all doing the same thing?
Yeah.
And then one of the biggest things is if you come across a business
coach who has a lot of clients who are also business coaches.
And everyone's kind of teaching people how to make money.
That's a big red flag.
Because there's sort of this weird, it's not MLM, but it's MLM like.
It's a bit MLM y.
Yeah.
Where it's like somebody who wasn't, wasn't very successful often.
Not always.
Sounds
Rupert Isaacson: like a midlife rapper.
Sorry.
Sukie Baxter: Somebody who wasn't maybe that great at building their own, you
know, business then decides to teach other people how to build their businesses.
But the only thing they really know how to do is how to teach people how to
teach people how to build businesses.
So then their clients start to teach people how to make money too.
And it just becomes like, everyone's almost saying the same thing.
So if you, if you start looking around somebody's, you know,
business and at their clients, and it seems like a big echo chamber and
everyone's kind of saying the same.
thing in that regard, then that's, it's not necessarily a
solid no, but it's a red flag.
And then for me, I am at this point in my work, really intentional about
choosing people who acknowledge the systems in which we live.
So I will not work with people who have this sort of ethos of like,
if you just change your thoughts, the whole, you know, like all of
your problems are in your thoughts.
Because that's just simply not true.
We, you know, there are limitations and, and situations
that people find themselves in.
There's, there's all kinds of things that happen to people.
There's all kinds of different circumstances that people find themselves
in that mean that their resources and ability to do something are important.
You know, different than somebody else's.
So if someone just has this sort of like, well, if you have
problems, it's all in your thoughts and you just need to journal.
It's not for me at this point.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So, you through these researchers, you found your way to some mentors.
What if you were mentoring the listeners now, what is the way that
you create a title for your YouTube video that will position it, as
you said, in a way that people have a sporting chance of finding it.
Sukie Baxter: So there is something called search engine optimization.
It's been around for a long time.
It's not new.
It's been around since Google has been around.
Basically it is figuring out what people are searching for on Google.
It's people don't lie to Google, right?
So they type their actual questions into the search bar.
And the funny thing is that a lot of people have the exact same question
and they type it in the same way.
Okay, and so there are tools that that you can use, as I mentioned to know how many
people are searching for these things.
So the 1st thing that I do is I try to figure out.
I might have an idea, a general concept for a video.
Okay, so I'm going to take that general concept and I'm going to go
look at Google to see what are the questions that people are actually
asking about this, and then I will use that information to craft a title.
There's no guarantee.
Right.
We none of us actually knows what the algorithm is that YouTube uses.
So you might have what seems like a bang up title and it doesn't get picked
up or sometimes it doesn't get picked up for three months or six months.
And then all of a sudden it just.
That's where it starts.
And then, then from there, once you've got your title, you want to take
into account the related questions that people are asking about that
and make sure you incorporate that into the actual body of the video.
So the things you're saying, So, some of my videos, I literally write them out.
a script word for word and say them because I can't necessarily think
when a camera is pointed at me so it's helpful for me to just have it there.
Sometimes I will do bullet points and I will, I will present that way.
But in all, whether I do bullet points or script it word for word, I'm making
sure that the way that I've structured the outline of this video is to answer
the kinds of questions that people have.
And that doesn't mean That I won't say something like, well, people ask this
question and actually I want to say, I want to tell you why that question is
not helpful, or I want to tell you why we need to be asking a different question,
because if you understand this, then it changes the way you understand the
whole challenge or something like that.
But I want to address the fact that people have that question so that
they're, they're getting their, they're getting the resource they need.
Rupert Isaacson: What is the tool?
What are, what are these search engine optimization tools that people can access?
Sukie Baxter: The two that I use are key.
Is it keywords anywhere or keywords everywhere?
I think it's keywords everywhere.
Let me make sure.
Keywords everywhere.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
Keywords everywhere.
It's a plugin.
I believe it only works on Chrome.
And the other one that I use is called Tube Buddy.
They're both very affordable tools.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Why those two?
I'm, I'm sure there's other tools out there.
What is it about those two that works better than the others
Sukie Baxter: that you found?
Well, Keywords Everywhere tells you, it gives you psychic abilities.
It tells you how many people are searching for something.
You can use it on YouTube.
You can use it on Google.
It does cost it does cost a little bit of money to, you know, every time you
do a search, it'll give you these little numbers next to your search term that tell
you how many people are searching for it.
And every time you do that, it costs you a little bit of money, but
it's, it's so, I mean, I think it was like, I don't know, 20 bucks.
And I've been using it for like a year or something.
It's not, I don't remember exactly, but it's really affordable.
But I, I turn it off when I'm not using it just so I'm not running down my credits.
And then TubeBuddy, I don't use as much.
I use keywords everywhere more.
TubeBuddy has a bunch of tools that you can use that will allow you to
see comparisons with other channels.
So if you have somebody who's like got a similar channel, you
can see like how their videos are performing compared to yours.
It gives you some.
Weighted search predictions.
So like when you're popping a title into youtube, like maybe i'm
going to consider this title It'll kind of tell you for your channel.
We think this is a really good one It gives you data like how many
other videos are in that search?
So you kind of know what your competition is So it just it gives
these two tools Between the two you get enough data to be able to make
an educated guess about a solid title
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, this is really useful.
So, okay, so you are Putting out this content through the pandemic about the
nervous system and stress and what people can do, what, apart from understanding
They're vagal reactions to things.
How, what, what tools are you giving them in these videos that you're
putting out back then that are like the 1, 2, 3 steps that people can take?
And it, if you are someone, again listening to this podcast right
now, you're driving, you're feeling stressed, you've got adrenaline and
cortisol waring around in you, you feel your sympathetic nervous system
even is not being sympathetic to you.
, I dunno why it's called sympathetic when it seems to behave so unsympathetically.
But there you go.
What's your 1 2 3 that any of us should do to begin to bring our
nervous systems back into a sort of a coherent state when we're all jangled?
What's, what do we, what do we need to know?
Yeah.
Sukie Baxter: Well, the information in the YouTube videos is a lot of
education because as I mentioned, a lot of times people are just asking
through no fault of their own, but people are asking the wrong questions
simply because of the way that we've been taught to conceptualize ourselves
as like this sort of disembodied brain that, that is, you know, this is where
we live is like in our brain over here.
What's the wrong
Rupert Isaacson: question?
Yeah.
What's an example of a wrong question that I might ask?
Sukie Baxter: What's the best way to stretch my hamstrings?
Okay.
Right.
Because How many people stretch their hamstrings every day and get marginal
or no, you know, maybe you get some, some benefits to an extent, but then
you hit this wall and that they, you know, you never get beyond that.
Right.
So, so then the education has to happen around understanding that.
It's not that your hamstring muscles are physically too short, it's that
your brain is literally sending a signal to your hamstrings to contract them to
protect you from going into a range of motion where you don't have control.
Why is it sending that signal?
Well, that's the million dollar question.
Could be a simple physical issue that you don't have enough strength and
mobility, or it could be that you have a trauma response in your body that
you've been living in sympathetic, so you're gripping and protecting.
I mean, there's so many different things.
Why are you living in sympathetic?
And this, this is what got me out of body work because I was
like, this is, it's a rabbit hole.
You know, I would say.
This is not
Rupert Isaacson: a conversation.
Yeah, but that actually was a very nice one, two, three that you just said.
So you got, okay, why are my hamstrings tight?
Because I've been stretching them every day.
Is it because my body thinks I'm not safe if I do that?
If it thinks I'm not safe and, and contracts when I do that,
why does it think I'm not safe?
Well, that is a very good one, two, three.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Why?
Why does my body think it's unsafe when I do that?
Yeah.
And surely just giving.
Attention to that question is going to set me on a road towards asking
my brain, well, is it possible that I might be safe in that?
And then might my brain then begin to say, alright, well I'll let you stretch
a little way to find out Mm-Hmm, . So it would is posing the, is it, it is funny.
Is it, is it like the algorithm of your brain is posing the
right question to your brain?
One of the.
Like keywords everywhere.
Is it one of the secrets of unlocking the nervous system?
Which is interesting because that does bring one back to
the thoughts create things.
Or changing your thoughts, but it's, but in ways that are thoughtful, I suppose.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, well, thoughts are sensory information, right?
So like, I think, I think we need to, we need to downgrade thoughts
from like this exalted thing up here.
That's like, we've got thoughts and then we've got all this sensory info.
They're just part of it.
Right.
So it's not that having a positive mindset isn't helpful, right?
Like if you're walking around telling yourself horrible things all the time
and beating yourself up in your head.
Yeah.
That is bad.
Which a
Rupert Isaacson: lot of us are, by the way.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah.
Right.
But also.
Oftentimes we will try to change our thoughts and and struggle with that
because our bodies are in this sympathetic state and we feel unsafe and the brain
Rupert Isaacson: calls bullshit on us and says, no, I'm going
to keep that relationship.
Right.
Sukie Baxter: Right.
Exactly.
And so if you change that state through these other sensory processes,
it then unlocks the ability.
I mean, this is.
This sounds very similar to when I hear you talk about the unlocking the
learning centers and autism, right?
It's like when we change the state of the body, it sort of opens up the
mind to be receptive to new thoughts.
Right?
So it's, it's not that that piece is wrong or bad.
It's just that you can't sit, you can't suppress negativity.
You can't sit around being like, I'm not anxious.
Everything's fine.
You know, I am happy and well, and everything is perfect.
And then your body's like, no, like, a lion basically has its
teeth around your shoulder, like, we're gonna die any moment.
You know what I mean?
It's, it's conflicting.
And then even that conflict, I think, makes us feel even less safe, because
your, your thoughts are telling you one thing, you're biased, and
then you're another, your brain's like, I don't know what the truth
is, but this does not feel okay to
Rupert Isaacson: me.
Right.
Okay.
So, you've got to pose a question as to why your brain is saying
that something is unsafe.
When?
All evidence suggests that, say, bending down to pick something up off
the floor, hence the hamstring stretch.
is actually okay.
There is no elephant charging at you currently while you do it.
So if I can tell my, ask my brain, why am I having this response?
Do you think that there's a value?
Do you think the nervous system responds to when we begin to pose questions to it?
Because let's just, let's also assume that the brain is an extension
of the nervous system, right?
It's receiving information from the nervous system.
So it's connected.
Is posing that question going to automatically set the nervous system
going along some more functional pathways,
Sukie Baxter: perhaps?
I think it can.
I think it's the start.
I think it opens the door.
Okay.
Right.
So now if we understand that this is a safety issue and
not a tight rubber band issue.
It, it completely transforms the way we then approach it.
Now we can be curious.
Right.
And I'm
Rupert Isaacson: acknowledging that I am feeling this, right?
I'm not denying that I'm feeling this.
Yeah.
Sukie Baxter: Okay.
Yeah.
No, no, absolutely.
And that's, that's a really important thing is that like when people are feeling
tightness or pain, sometimes they get, you know, especially when you go and
you get medically evaluated and they take all these images and they're like,
well, we can't find any reason for this.
You must be cracking up.
And they don't usually say it like that, but that's the, the impact
of what they say is like, well, you should go see a psychologist.
Cause we can't find anything wrong.
And I've had many a client come to me and be like, like kind of secretly
thinking maybe they're going crazy because there's no reason for this pain.
So maybe it's not real and they're making it up.
No, it's absolutely real.
Your anxiety is absolutely real.
Even if there's no reason for it.
What you are experiencing is completely real.
But like, like you said, you know, I'm gonna ask, okay, so
why am I experiencing this?
What is the lack of safety about it?
Whether it's anxiety, which is just, I don't feel safe.
I think something bad is going to happen in the next moment.
That's what the brain is saying, that you may not consciously think that,
but non-consciously your brain's like, I feel like I may die at any moment.
Mm-Hmm, , or a hamstring stretch, or, you know, lifting your arm,
turning your, turning your head.
Then we can be curious.
It's about, you know, well, well, what if we change the
Rupert Isaacson: context?
Well, that is, I think what I'm, was feeling my way towards there.
Thank you for saying curious.
So when we're working, for example, with learning receptors in the brain, with
what I do with autism and learning with, with movement method, one of the things
that we know is that the, the curious brain is actually the happy brain.
You, you can't learn in a state of great distress, not really.
And, but when you're in your seeking, hunting brain, you're like, Ooh,
I don't know what's over there.
You're curious brain.
It's an, it's an automatic happy state and it's also a a learning state.
We're curious monkeys.
We like to learn.
So again, that thing about posing questions, becoming
curious rather than resistant.
Like I've got this.
Pain, painful shoulder and I want it gone.
I want to resist this.
I want it gone.
I want it out I want to kill it.
I want to I want to slay that dragon or Dragons are sort of interesting.
Is this a toothless or is this a white crested?
Lesser spotted, you know Samoan dragon And if so do I need to ride it
with a a large padded Samoan saddle?
Or will my Portuguese dragon saddle that I've been using actually work?
Was it a bit too low on the dragons withers in it?
But what, you know what I mean?
It's suddenly, it's getting interested in the whole thing.
Actually, one of the keys.
When we're talking about our body's response, because so
often we are completely mystified because so much of this is going
on in our subconscious, right?
We don't know why, you know, on the face of it, most of the people
that are coming into your office, their lives are probably quite good.
Why are they so stressed?
Why are they in a state where their nervous system is saying, I might die?
It's getting curious about it.
The first step to healing.
Sukie Baxter: I think so.
And I think that when we are curious, there's a lot of richness that can
be discovered, but it's also not necessarily, I become curious and
the solution arises immediately.
And now I understand.
Sure.
And oftentimes there are many layers to this, right?
So there's the surface answers.
To the question, right?
Like, we can become curious about a stuck shoulder or a tight
hamstring and change some physical context and maybe have some shifts.
But on a more global level, you know, there can be.
A challenging relationship.
There can be a challenging life circumstance.
There could be past trauma or past conditioning about what's acceptable.
I, I worked with many particularly people who were raised, socialized
as women in the fifties.
And.
It's a very interesting thing when you start working with them around tension
around their hips, that there's a lot of conditioning around how, if you move
your hips, if you allow your hips to move, then you were considered like,
you know, loose, or, you know, it was, it was suggestive in a way that proper
girls did not, you know, should not do.
for the time period.
And so, so when you start to become curious, you, you unlock
so much more of a person.
So that's not, it's never a simple answer.
It's, I should say, it's not never a simple answer, but
it's rarely a simple answer.
There's rarely like a night and day, you know, today, you're like
this tomorrow, you're like that.
And we move on.
Rupert Isaacson: Surely that's the nature of curiosity is that
we want to go down rabbit holes.
I mean, that's, that's the nature of humanity is we like
going down rabbit holes, right?
Going down rabbit holes as long as they're not.
negative ones that panic us is actually the great joys of life, isn't it?
You know, I mean, to go find out, Oh, and I can go, Oh, and this
leads, Oh, and this leads to here.
When you, when you were working on these ladies though,
that's an interesting thing.
And you identified the tightness in the hips, or were they already
coming and complaining of this, or they complaining about other things.
And then you realized through looking at their nervous systems that it was in
the hips, how aware of it in the pelvis,
Sukie Baxter: were they?
It depends on the person.
So sometimes the complaint is localized to the area.
So sometimes it was a like a hip issue.
Often it's a low back issue.
Okay.
You know, because the pelvis if the pelvis is restricted.
Yeah, exactly.
And then the hip joints are hugely influential.
Right on the low back.
So a lot of times with low back pain, but not always.
I mean, again, everything is everything.
It's all connected, right?
So I'm looking at the entirety of a person.
So regardless of what they come in with, if I have them walk across my
office and you know, and, and this is just true for people if I'm or
horses too, if I'm watching them walk, what I'm looking for is essentially
what I call the rocks in the stream.
Like what's flowing in their movement.
What's not
Rupert Isaacson: flowing.
Is that your term?
Looking for the rocks in the stream.
I
Sukie Baxter: don't.
I think so.
I think that it has, I've heard it from various sources and I don't remember
where I was first exposed to it, but it is, it is how I conceptualize it.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: And then when you say, okay, I think it's in the hips.
At what point do you find yourself in a conversation with them about that
1950s good girl conditioning and then strategies about letting that perhaps go?
How?
Do you find that when you begin to look at it that way, and talk about it
that way, that there's a kind of a yes?
That's it response or do you get denial
Sukie Baxter: it really depends on the person.
So sometimes you never have the conversation, right?
So we don't necessarily have to consciously know these things Sometimes
it's I think it's helpful because our brains want to have explanations
for things So for most people having some sort of story and there's some
sort of cognitive Understanding is helpful, but you don't have to, you
can actually work on someone's body and it can shift their internal state.
And then for example, I had a client who one time said.
That they had a negative memory of their father.
I don't know what the memory was.
They never shared it with me, but that they had devoted
many a yoga practice to it.
Many a meditation to it, you know, really worked on this like experience
and that after doing some body work for whatever it was, that was the key
for them that like they could think about this memory and it just didn't
have the charge that it used to have.
It just seemed to be not, and not that the memory was gone, but that.
The, you know, they could remember it, but they didn't feel the, whatever
it was, the, the unpleasantness.
They weren't locked in the same
Rupert Isaacson: response that they were all those decades ago.
Sukie Baxter: And I had no idea.
I mean, this person never told me about that memory before we, we worked together.
We didn't have a conversation about it.
It just was the piece that helped it to dissipate.
But with other people, you know, specifically if you talk about, you
know, women in the, from the 1950s who was raised during that time.
Who received this kind of messaging, it might be that as we work together and
their hips are moving more, maybe she's, you know, she's walking, she's feeling it.
She might be like, this feels uncomfortable.
And then we have a conversation.
Why is it uncomfortable?
Unfamiliar?
Is it uncomfortable?
Painful?
You know what, what, tell me more about this discomfort that you feel.
And sometimes it comes up, like, I just feel like I shouldn't.
Do this or I just something about this feels wrong or vulnerable, then
we might have that conversation.
Okay.
Well, well, you know, you're moving your hips.
What does that, what concepts do you have around that?
Well, you know, I was always taught you shouldn't do that.
Oh, okay.
Well, isn't, isn't that interesting?
And that may be the extent of the conversation.
We don't need, need to have an hour of psychology on that.
You know, isn't that interesting that moving your hips
brings up this conditioning?
You know, and what's your experience of that now and, and, you know, they, they
may take, they may take that with them that day and they come back for the next
session and things may have changed.
We may have another conversation about it.
We may not.
Rupert Isaacson: So you gave up your practice and to some degree your practice
is also taken away from you by COVID.
You started putting these things on YouTube.
Was there a, an oh shit, I can't pay my rent bit?
Yeah, there was.
Sukie Baxter: I, yeah, COVID was simultaneously like the best thing
that ever happened to me and the worst thing that ever happened to
me, which, you know, I think it was a huge, just upset for so many people.
But in, in my case, I essentially lost everything because overnight
I, a business that I built over 15 years was just gone, just gone.
Like literally, I didn't, I didn't know that I went to work on a Thursday.
And I came home and I never went back.
That was it.
And, and when you build a practice like that, it's no joke.
That's a lot of work.
There's a lot of talking to people over time.
And I had a life, I have two horses that were boarded.
I had a condo and I had an office with you know, rent that I had to
pay and all of the associated things that go along with life and a cat.
And, and so, yeah, I was, I was, but nobody else could pay
anything either at that time.
So it was a little bit of a blessing that I was like, I
mean, what are they going to do?
You know, like I it's COVID my, this, I can't work.
So I just figured it out and I'll be honest, like I could go back and
figure out how I figured it out, but I don't know how I figured it out.
I just did.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, here's a question.
Did you, did you start immediately helping people privately on zoom?
Sukie Baxter: I did a little bit of that, but I was very quickly frustrated
because my clients essentially wanted me to do body work on them.
And I, you can't, you know, there was a huge educational gap and you just,
you can't do body work over zoom.
It's not the same.
And so what people were coming to me for, like they, I have a lot to offer people
in terms of my knowledge and, you know, all the research I've done, but what
people, what my clients really wanted was.
Yeah.
And I really couldn't provide that to them.
So I did start helping people over zoom.
I did some somatic meditations I just started kind of
flailing about, to be honest.
I was like, I don't know, let's just help people.
Let's just do this.
Let's just do that.
Here I am.
I've got a smartphone, I've got a computer, I've got internet.
I don't think anyone's going to kick me out of my condo in the next month.
So, you know, let's just do something.
And I filmed a bunch of stuff at home and I started putting together
some programs and honestly, it was.
It was kind of nice because I had a lot of time to focus
because I wasn't going anywhere.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you think your, your research and knowledge of the
nervous system and the brain by then helped to stop you from going
into a panic and a negative spiral?
Do you think it helped you to?
Leverage the situation in a way.
I
Sukie Baxter: think it was that, that old quote about
preparation, meeting opportunity.
Because yes, I think the nervous system work helped.
I think the fact that I know how to cook on a budget was helpful.
I was able to like reduce my food bill quite a bit very quickly.
And and then I just got really resourceful and I was like, okay,
I can't put my hands on people, but I have all these other skills.
I don't know if any of them will provide income for me, but they don't cost me
anything or they don't cost me much to do.
I have, you know, like what resources do I already have that I can use?
Well, like I said, I have a smartphone, so it has a camera.
I have internet.
I already I'd been doing a little bit of YouTube because
I was so busy with my practice.
I wasn't as consistent as I had wanted to be, but I already had some of
the things like I had a microphone.
I had, you know, I had the things I needed.
I didn't have really great lights, but I had a window, so, you know, I just kind
of was like, well, it's not perfect.
I don't have a professional studio, but.
I'm, I've got these things, so what can I do right now with what I have?
And
Rupert Isaacson: at what point did you get your first bit of money
from YouTube from these videos?
From, in the pandemic?
Sukie Baxter: I don't remember, but it wasn't very soon.
I think it was like 2021.
Rupert Isaacson: So you started going for it in 2019, and you were just like, well,
you know, I'll just put these out there.
Sukie Baxter: I think I was making a little bit, but like a couple hundred
bucks, you know, we're not talking
Rupert Isaacson: livable wage.
Even that for most of us is like, damn, I made 200 bucks off my YouTube video.
There must have been a sort of a, shit, this is possible moment.
Even when you got those first little bits of trickles.
Sukie Baxter: I think so.
I think that I, I mean, one of the reasons I do what I do is I'm
prone to anxiety myself, right?
So I think my anxious brain is like, well, I'm making somebody, but I don't
know if I can really live on this and it's not really, you know, So, so I
don't know that I was like, you know, popping champagne and celebrating,
but I was, you know, it's like, well, thank God I have that, you know?
Rupert Isaacson: But given that most people that put something on YouTube never
make a dime, I mean, that must have been an interesting transitional life moment
of going, oh, I see this as possible.
Sukie Baxter: So I knew conceptually that it was possible because I see other people
doing it, but I, I had a really hard time believing it was possible for me.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
At what point did that get blown?
You said 20, 2021.
So two years in that gets blown out of the water.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah.
Then I started making quite a bit, but I don't, I don't rely
on YouTube and it's not reliable.
It's, it's very up and down.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: So, what else were you doing in that two year period
to keep body and soul together?
I sold my
Sukie Baxter: condo.
Got out of the city I moved my horses to a lower cost of care
facility, was quite far away.
That was very hard for me.
And I started, so I had been teaching online since like 2014 in terms of
having like digital programs that people could buy with, you know.
Educational materials and coaching,
Rupert Isaacson: but already been putting together courses online I
Sukie Baxter: had, but, but they were like, I actually recently went back
and was looking at the content from one of those and I was like, this
is not, it was, it was interesting.
It's not bad.
I was surprised because in my memory I was really having a hard time again, building
that bridge from like, I'm trying to talk to people about how their body influences
their mind, you know, put these programs out there and I would have all this like
information around that for these people.
And then like, the feedback was like, you know, but how do I stretch
my hamstrings kind of a thing?
It was, it was.
It was a little bit of a struggle for me.
I wasn't really, it wasn't connecting in the way that I wanted it to connect
and it never was like, yeah, I mean, it was a little money on the side.
It was not livable at all.
So my practice was my, my bread and butter.
So I, but I had that foundation and then.
I started really talking to people as these YouTube videos gained traction
and people were like, you get it.
Like that, that was what I kept hearing was people would come to me and be
like, I've been trying to figure this out for years and you've explained it
in such a way that it connects for me.
And I'm like, okay, thank goodness we're finally connecting.
Like I'm, I'm finally understanding what people want to hear.
They're getting the information they need.
This is good.
And as I talked to people I figured out that they really needed some, some
Education and support in doing nervous system work for themselves, not me
doing it on them, not me fixing them, not me being the mechanic, but like,
let's empower them to do this work for themselves, which is really the only
way it will be lasting and sustainable.
So I started teaching a course.
Online.
And again, I didn't, I didn't know how it would work when I put it out there.
I was like, let's try it.
You know, I have, that was a live
Rupert Isaacson: course.
So that was film content that people would go through step by step.
Sukie Baxter: It was live.
And then I converted it to something that people could access
on their own time, because I.
Thought it was a little bit, it ended up being, I'm, I'm an overdeliver general.
It's a lot for people.
To me, it seemed like this is very, very reasonable for the amount of time we had.
For them, it was probably
Rupert Isaacson: worried that people are going to think they're shortchanged.
Yeah,
Sukie Baxter: probably.
Yeah.
So I converted it to something that was more self paced and now I'm actually in
the process of converting it back to to life because we find that that group.
community going through it together is much more potent than
people doing it on their own.
But regardless of whether it was live or self paced, like the
feedback has been really wonderful.
I've learned a ton working with people I've had.
I mean, when I get to interact with the people, the students who are
in my community and who are in my programs, it's, it's amazing to me to
look back over that journey and just.
I'm so glad I was able to do that because it really it is that piece that I was
kind of frustrated bumping up against in my practice was that I wasn't able to
give people this foundational knowledge.
Once they have this, the things that people are doing with it are
just, they're just really fantastic because then, like you said, it opens
that door and they can be curious.
I, I just had amazing feedback and I haven't asked specifically.
I'm going to be asking some of these people if I can share their stories soon.
But generally, people are able to set better boundaries.
So we have students who are chronic people pleasers, you know, who
are they'll bring up situations.
And then, as they understand how the what what's going on in the nervous system
in regards to situations where they feel they need to, sort of morph into
whatever it is that someone needs them to be in order to keep that person calm.
And then they understand the nervous system implications of that.
And what's driving that they're, they're able to be more true.
And it's not, it's not about everyone can just F off and, you know, I'm
going to do what I want to do.
That's not it at all.
But they're able to be more discerning about.
Setting boundaries in ways that protect them and their own, you know, agency in
life, which has been really cool to watch.
I've had clients, a lot of clients who are health practitioners in some regard, a
lot who are in coaching or mental health.
We have people who are in all kinds of different disciplines, but Including
massage and acupuncture and all that, but we've got people in coaching and mental
health who are saying like, okay, this is helping me put the pieces together so that
I'm now able to help my clients better.
Like I'm understanding what's going on with them much better so
that I'm able to bridge that gap with them and support them better.
So that we're getting, they're kind of like secondhand client stories
of, of change that are happening.
Recently we had somebody who injured their back.
Who was just, it just did something that they didn't normally do and was able
to, the, I think the clinic said that it would take like six weeks to heal, but
they were able with the understanding again of what's happening in the nervous
system around this quote injury it wasn't, it was just kind of a diffuse injury.
It wasn't diagnosed as like, you, you know.
You actually broke something.
It was more like you strained yourself.
And with some understanding, they were able to work themselves out of
pain into a functional state in about two days, rather than six weeks.
So it's, it's kind of all over the map because it's so individual.
And again, this is, it makes it a little hard to quantify, but it's
also what I love about it is that it gives people what they need.
It's not, it's not a program that is one size fits all.
It gives you what you need for your next step, your next evolution.
Rupert Isaacson: If it's me and I'm saying, okay, gosh, Suki, this sounds
fantastic, I'd like to learn all about my nervous system so that I can
make certain changes in my life, you know, in my body, in my brain, and
therefore, by extension in my life.
I presume though that people are coming in at different stages of knowledge.
So you must, you must have people doing your online courses now who are
Somewhat far along in their education.
Others who are just beginning.
How do you integrate?
How do you, how's it, how's their inclusion in that?
Yeah, because you've got to catch certain people up to speed.
Other people are over here.
Or is everything individualized?
How do you, and how do you have enough time in the day for that?
There's lots of different
Sukie Baxter: No, it's a good question.
It's been something that we've been working with that I've been working with.
I have a couple coaches who work with me as well.
So I've, I've done a couple of things.
So one, I implemented a shorter program that is newer as of last year.
That's kind of like a first step.
It is a first
Rupert Isaacson: entry level course that somebody would do.
Sukie Baxter: Correct.
And so I, and now I've, I've created that as a prerequisite for the, the
now we had it more self paced, but now live again, of course and that just
kind of, it's kind of just a little bit of a checkpoint of like, is this
something you want to go deeper with?
Is this something that's working for you?
So they actually get to have the experience of it.
And then I can have a little bit of a conversation with them.
As needed to find out if the next step is right for them.
So, so that we've got people coming into the longer program who are at
a place where like, we're pretty sure this is where they need to be.
But the other piece of that is that I am a huge fan of iteration.
So we have students who go back to our course two and three
times easily because when you go through it, it hits you one way.
And then once you've kind of.
Gone through the whole arc of it.
You're like, Oh, wait a minute.
I need to go back to the beginning.
And it lands differently.
Right.
And so then you can, you can go through it multiple times and
there's so much richness there.
So there's that piece.
But similar, you know, I, I came and spent some time with you and you took
me through like, Really basic stuff, but it's important, which is like,
here's how you walk with the horse.
Can you walk in a straight line?
Right.
You did those checks with me to make sure, because if we had progressed.
And you were like, okay, let's jump into this other thing over here.
But we didn't check to make sure I could actually balance and walk with a
horse in these different configurations, then I might've fallen over and
it would have been a real problem.
And so, you know, you, you did those checks and it was important to do them.
And it prepped my nervous system for then doing it later, even
though I was able to do it.
Right.
Similarly.
When I'm going through this with people, yeah, it might be basic information, but
there's probably a few holes in there for them, and it kind of sets them up.
It gets their brain and their body in the right state for the
next piece and so on and so forth.
So even if some of it isn't new for people, I still think it's beneficial
for everyone to go through all of it.
Rupert Isaacson: No, I would agree.
I mean, it's interesting.
You, you talk about me checking those basics with you when you came
and worked with the horses with me.
The reason I do that is because of course I used to jump in further up and then
I indeed did have people fall over and things like that and go, Oh my gosh, I, I
didn't know that that that was possible.
I realized that I had to absolutely check every step along the way because.
If you didn't, there was almost a negligence to it that because if someone
can do it, well, they're fantastic.
You just breeze through that in five minutes and then you
off you go to the next thing.
And I'm also always thinking I'm training someone to be a teacher.
So I would like them to do those checks as well.
No matter how apparently experienced the person in front of them is
because you just don't know.
But when you are teaching is a time consuming thing.
You now have a lot of people signing up to your online
courses about the nervous system.
And by the way, listeners, we're going to tell you how you can do
that, and I really would recommend it.
Learning about my nervous system happened to me through my son's autism, and it
was life changing for me in terms of Me being able to have more agency in my
own life having had to learn a bit about it because of my son So I really really
really really would recommend taking the time to do a course with Suki But so how
much time do you actually spend in your day sitting in front of a zoom screen?
Does it not take over your life?
How do you how do you balance that and you have horses?
I know How do you find time to get out to them because that does I
know there's an awful lot of people out there Wanting to do your stuff
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, well, and this is a balancing act that I'm always
working on because as you mentioned, you know, I have to go 1st and and live
my life in a way that works for me so that I can share what that's like for,
you know, people who want to do that.
They're not gonna live my life, but they're gonna live their life
in a way that works for them.
And.
So I, I have to make choices in my, in my work that allow me to
have the lifestyle that I want.
And that means, you know, both having the finances that support me and allow
me to live, but also the time freedom, which is really important to me, because
like you said, I have horses and.
As much as I value the time that I did in my practice and value the people
that I was able to meet and work with it was always very hard for me to have
a life that was so heavily scheduled because literally every hour and a
half you've got a person coming in, there's no flexibility there whatsoever.
And that was really challenging.
And I just, I think I hit a wall with that where like, I sort of, I can't do it.
So, so I'm very careful to keep time freedom.
So I've played with different structures in my business.
So, you know, my YouTube videos are always available.
So people can 24 seven go out there and watch them, which is fantastic.
Because people sometimes at one in the morning, whatever that is
for them are looking for that.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
And what might watch and rewatch something like I watch and rewatch stuff on YouTube.
that I find interesting.
I might watch it 10 times because there's stuff in there I've missed.
Yeah,
Sukie Baxter: absolutely.
So that's a resource for them.
I have other resources like that as well.
So there's things that people can do on their own time and
schedule, which don't require my presence, which is really great.
It also means they don't have to then say the same things over and over
again, because sometimes you're not
Rupert Isaacson: getting paid for that when they go and watch YouTube at
this particular stage on that thing.
I
Sukie Baxter: mean, I, I am, but not reliably, right?
Like I don't base my business on that.
So there's that element of it, but then my courses.
So that prerequisite course that I mentioned, that's that entry level kind
of first step course is self paced.
So people again can access that.
It's always there and it's always a bit as of now, it's always
there and always available.
I don't have any plans to change that, but someone can enroll in that at, at
any time at their leisure and have that course without me being there, walking
them personally through every step.
So that, that works for both of us again, right?
Cause they get the entry level information.
They're getting the practices.
They're getting their learning.
They're setting themselves up for further work if they want to,
if that's the path they choose.
And then again, I have that time freedom where I've provided that for
them and then I can be working with my horses, teaching people, helping at a
clinic, you know, doing something else, maybe working with a client when I'm
with, you know, it allows me almost to duplicate myself, which is fantastic.
Yeah.
And then the course that I'm teaching live, that was a difficult
decision because I've made it self paced for that reason, right?
Like, you absolutely can go through this material on your own
and it has worked for students.
But in observing my students, I felt it was in their best interest to reset
and actually teach it live again.
So this year, I made that decision to do it.
But when I made that decision, I sat with it for a couple of
months before I decided to do it.
And then when I decided to do it, I looked at when in the year am I okay
with Basically being on every week and having to consistently show up
and teach and, and I'm okay with that, but I don't, I don't want to do it
every week of the year, all year long, because again, I need some time freedom.
I need the ability to travel and do workshops.
I need the ability to travel for my own.
Learning and my own enjoyment.
I, you know, I need the ability to have some flexibility.
So I picked basically, we're gonna have two courses this year, and
they're each 12 weeks in length, and I picked times where I am okay with
having to be in front of the computer more during those times of year.
So
Rupert Isaacson: when are those times of year?
When are you doing them?
Sukie Baxter: So our, our first run through will be basically we've divided it
up because we have so many practitioners in our group and there was a profound need
for more mentorship for practitioners.
So our, our personal course, so if you want to do this journey for yourself,
whether you are a professional or not our personal nerve apprenticeship
course will be taking place starting in March and it will run for 12 weeks.
And then people who are in that who are professionals and would like to
get practitioner mentorship and, and start to learn how to apply it to
their own clients more intentionally.
That aspect of the course will start in September of this year.
And again, it will run for 12 weeks, although there's a break
in the middle for holidays.
So it's technically over the course of 13 weeks.
Rupert Isaacson: So for 24 weeks of the year, effectively half the year, spring
and fall, you're on, you're going to be.
live and direct doing that.
Okay.
And
that's when you do that, how many hours of your day does that take up and what's
its effect on your nervous system?
Yeah,
Sukie Baxter: it's that's such a good question because it takes up
so many more hours than the actual hours that I'm teaching, right?
Because I'm preparing a presentation materials.
I am, as one of my friends calls it, I'm in the parking lot of it.
So, like, I'm thinking about it.
Right?
So even if all the presentation materials are done and I'm like, ready to go, I'm
still like, putting my brain in that lane to an extent for quite a while
before and after any kind of course.
So it probably takes up at least 20 hours a week.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, and that's not including one to ones that
you're doing, consultancies that you're doing, and other things.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you put it all together, it's a working week.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, it is, it is, because there's also, that's
not the only thing that, as you know, it takes to run a business.
Right,
Rupert Isaacson: and you've got to, and you've got to create the material and
film it, and script it and all that.
But you are living free and writing free through this.
Sukie Baxter: And I, and I like my work.
I think that's really important too, right?
So, like, this isn't.
Yes, I'm sacrificing some time, but it's not, I don't look at it as a
sacrifice because I also get the joy of working with my students.
I get the joy of putting my head in this material.
Like, the reason I'm doing this is because I like what I teach.
It's not, it's not so that I can like sit on a beach and drink Coronas
and collect a paycheck, right?
I love what I do.
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
No, I couldn't agree more.
I love my work.
You know, I am my work.
I can't live any other way.
I, yeah, I dig what I do.
Do you think that getting in touch with your nervous system and learning about
it properly helps you to dig what you do?
I mean, I think for so many people that is the dream to not feel a fuck, you
know Sorry, I said fuck but you know, it's my podcast I can say that's many
times I want but you don't you know, we do not want to be thinking that when we
wake up in the morning and Go to work.
We all go through some phases in our lives where that's been the case and
I think that a bit of time in those trenches is character building, but
we don't want to stay there forever.
What do you think is the, if people do want to live free and ride free, they
want to break free and they want to self actualize and all these things.
The professional expression of that, what we do for a job is Of
course, really important because that's what's going to give us the
livelihood to be able to do that.
What do you think is the thing that people could find the most helpful about
knowing about their nervous systems that can help free them towards that?
Big question.
Sukie Baxter: It is.
It's a big question.
I think that I think that tapping into desire is really important.
And I talk about this in my program, because as I mentioned, we cannot
exist on a spectrum of like this thing that's unpleasant and then
nothingness on the other side.
So if we remove pain, if we remove anxiety, if we remove whatever
it is that we are like this, this sense, this feeling, this
experience I'm having is unpleasant.
I don't like it.
I want something different.
The universe of course, the vacuum, you can't just take that out of
a person's experience and then.
They're fine.
Like you have to put something there and I, I think desire is, is where
it lives and we have been so deeply conditioned to not trust ourselves
around desire and in so many ways.
Yes.
With, you know, love and attraction, but like food, you know, like we've been
taught, we have to measure and weigh and.
And, you know, like we can't trust that we, the thing we want to eat,
like, you know, that our bodies will lead us astray, essentially.
And those are just simple examples,
Rupert Isaacson: but taking a nap is a sign of
Sukie Baxter: weakness or something.
Yes.
I mean, in so many ways we, we so beat ourselves up for
wanting things that nourish us.
And we've been conditioned to believe this
Rupert Isaacson: great means for social control.
It
Sukie Baxter: really is.
And working in those factories, when you have people who are, this
gets into something I talk about.
A lot too, which is that when you have a society of people who are dissociated
from their felt self, physical selves, right, their sense of self, literally our
sense of ourself, how we feel ourselves if you have a, sorry, there's sirens
I don't know if you can hear that, but if you have a society of people who
cannot feel themselves, they're, they're divorced from their sense of self,
then they will feel anxiety, right?
So, so I look at the science around like amputees.
The pain science.
Right.
If you cut off someone's limb and your brain can no longer locate
it, then your brain's like, Holy crap, this is really dangerous.
And you get these weird phantom limb pains because your brain's
like, I got to map that somehow.
And I'm going to tell you that something, something's really wrong here.
I can't feel it.
So I'm going to set, I'm going to push the pain button to tell you.
That it's hurting.
Even though there's no actual limb there to tell you that it's painful, but your
brain is deciding that there's pain.
And I think that when we divorce ourselves from our sense of self, when we can't
feel ourselves which we are taught to do, we're taught to numb out all the time.
We feel this sense of doom and anxiety around it, and then we become
very steerable, because we will be sold anything to make that go away.
And that is an object, like, you know, fashion, or a car, or jewelry,
or, you know, something like that.
Rupert Isaacson: So it's where the pain goes for ten minutes, yeah.
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, but it's also ideologies.
Yes.
You get a very steerable group of people because we will, we will
buy ideologies that make us feel better, that make that pain go away.
And I think when you start to get people back into their own physical
bodies and their own felt sense, we become much less steerable.
And then when you get people hooked up to desire, I think that's
Rupert Isaacson: world changing.
Now when you say desire, do you mean aspirational desire?
I desire to write a novel.
Or do you mean desire as in, I desire that cupcake right now, or do you mean both?
I mean both.
Sukie Baxter: Okay.
And usually it starts with, I desire that cupcake right now.
But it's also, you know, desire is not it's not simple either because I
think people think, well, if I just let myself do whatever I want, then
I'll eat a dozen cupcakes every day.
But the reality is that if you actually let yourself do what you want over, you
know, and this is a condensed version of this, but if you actually let yourself
do whatever you want over the course of time, then you will find that desires
have hierarchy because I might want to eat a dozen cupcakes every day, but
I don't want to feel the way I feel after I eat a dozen cupcakes every day.
And so my actual desire is to feel really good.
And at the essence, that's all.
What we all want is to feel really good.
And so my desire will actually lead me to choices that make me feel really good.
My desire will lead me to a salad, because I know I feel good after I eat vegetables.
If
Rupert Isaacson: our desire to feel good is at the root of self actualization, and
I can see why it would be, because after all, the vehicle that we're going around
in, is either running well or it's not.
And if it's not running well, it's less likely to take us to
the place where we want to go.
Is the real key, oddly enough, becoming a friend to your body, is that the
real key of self actualization?
To
actually learn your body's needs, and respect them, and nurture them, and
treat yourself like a loved flower bed.
Rather than like, picked over soccer field.
Is that, is that really where it lies?
Because what else, and if it does, what is that but the nervous system really?
I couldn't have said it better.
Is that what you meant?
Because I, I wrote down at the beginning, I wanted to ask you, you talked about
sensing and the importance of sensing.
Is that what sensing, is that what you mean by sensing?
Is learning to make friends with your body to the point where you can learn?
Identify that you can have then, what's the word, appropriate responses
to things in your nervous system.
So that whether it's, well I don't have to walk around feeling
traumatized all the time because I'm actually not in danger right now.
As opposed to something traumatic happened to me, I therefore am going to walk around
with a sense of trauma for 30 years.
To, I would like to have a nap every afternoon but I feel that I can't.
Because somehow that's letting the team down, even though I kind of
know that I'm play a better game when I do, but I am tired right now.
I'm just going to burn through my tiredness for 50 years.
Is sensing, does sensing become possible when you begin to identify the nervous
system's needs and what they're telling you respond appropriately to them?
And then can you just get more and more subtle with that
until the blocks to your desire?
Melt away, because I know that, and I'm talking so much right now, and
I will stop in a minute, but I'm, I'm, I'm just, this, this is all one
question that I'm trying to pose to you.
A lot of us have a, have a very love hate relationship with desire,
because there are, there are things that we know that we desire.
Let's say it's writing a novel that you know that you would feel so
fulfilled if you did that, but you feel completely blocked from doing that,
because you feel You're not good enough.
You're not worthy of it.
You couldn't do it.
You haven't got the time for it.
There's this, the that, the da da da da da da.
You look up years go by and you haven't written that novel.
But you, the desire hasn't gone away.
The desire is now painful.
So the desire is now a sense of failure and a sense of so you push it away.
And then I want to go do heroin or whatever.
I am sensing the distress in my nervous system from that thwarted desire.
So, and heroin will certainly.
Make me feel better for a little bit.
How?
So, so, so, is it the learning of the nervous system that gives one the chance?
to sense what one truly needs.
So if I want to write that novel and not do heroin, do I need to learn how
to actually address what my nervous system needs and then I've actually got
a better chance of writing that novel?
Sukie Baxter: Yeah, well I think it's a more complicated question.
I love where you're going with this.
But say you want to write a novel, so I would be wondering, like,
why do you want to write a novel?
Because that's a really interesting question, right?
Is it because you want to write, because you have something in you that you care to
share, that you want to get down on paper?
It's important to you to get something that's been formulating out.
Or is it that you want to write a novel because you require the recognition
of saying, I've written a book and you want to be able to walk into a room?
And, and that's, those, those are something I talk about is the same thing.
Can it can be exactly the same act, but it can be completely
different motivations, right?
So two people can run up a Hill.
One person's running up a Hill because they really love to run.
It feels good.
They love how they feel.
After they run, they love the feeling of strength.
And yes, it's really hard in the moment.
And maybe they kind of are resistant because, you know, they know that they're
going to breathe hard and be sore and you know, it's uncomfortable, but they,
they do it because they are, they love that aspect of their physical fitness.
Another person might be running up that hill because they're mad at
themselves for eating a dozen cupcakes.
And they feel that they have to somehow atone for food that they ate, but they
really don't want to run up the hill.
They're doing it almost as punishment for themselves.
Two people running up the hill looks exactly the same, two people
writing a novel looks exactly the same, but what's the motivation,
what's the drive behind it, right?
So that's, I think when we talk about desire, we have to talk
about intrinsic motivation.
What are we intrinsically motivated to do?
What is it that we are doing for its own reward?
So if you are a person who loves to sit down and write, like there's
nourishment in that process for you.
Then you can break it down.
It's not that writing the novel is the thing.
It's the sitting down and writing.
Well, how can you do that for two minutes a day?
How can you do that for five minutes a day?
How can you find space for that?
How can you write it on post it notes?
How, you know, whatever it is for that person, how can I, how can I make sure
that I'm getting the nourishment of this thing that fulfills me in my life?
And the more that we make choices to do the things that nourish us, the
more we are in alignment with the life that is true to us, which again, looks
different for every single person.
Rupert Isaacson: And you use the word nourishment.
Nourishment is also a physical thing, food.
Food goes into us.
We, we, we sense that we are hungry.
What is telling us that we are hungry?
Presumably our nervous system.
Yes.
What is telling us when we're full?
Presumably our nervous system.
What is telling us actually that dozen cupcakes made me feel a bit sick?
Presumably our nervous system.
Sukie Baxter: It's, it goes back to sensing.
You're sensing it.
It's, it's the physical sensations that you have.
It's how we know everything.
Right.
It, I think this is also kind of a revelation for people, but all of
our emotions are physical sensations.
Those are just labeled.
Rupert Isaacson: It's true.
It's true.
Yeah.
It's true.
And we, we can, some of them are actually physical, physically painful, and some of
'em are actually physically, you're right.
Mm-Hmm.
, are thoughts physical?
I guess they must be right.
Sukie Baxter: Thoughts are sensory information.
So typically when you have a thought, you'll also have a corresponding
physical reaction to that.
So, maybe a facial expression, maybe a certain tension or a posture.
It might even just be like a twinge in, you know, somewhere in your
inside somewhere maybe a shortening of breath or more fullness of breath.
Right?
So different thoughts will, will impact us, which is where we get
the, Oh, if I think a thought, my body will respond in this way.
That's true.
They're, they're interconnected, but it's two ways.
It's a two way street.
Rupert Isaacson: So if I want to nourish.
Myself, then I need to become a friend to my nervous system, which means
I then have to know what it needs.
We are coming up on the over two hour mark, and I want to
continue this conversation.
I'd like to have you on again, because I feel that we're all of the rabbit
holes that need to go be gone down.
If we're coming towards wrapping up this part of what I hope
will be a longer conversation.
And we want to become, to nourish the nervous system, become friends
with the body and nourish the nervous system so that all these other
things that we talked about can flirt out from our nervous system.
What are the basic steps that you think any homo sapiens sapiens alive
on planet earth would do well to take?
Sukie Baxter: I think that the foundational step is to
develop The ability to describe your sensory experience.
Notice and describe your sensory experience.
So, in 15 years of working with people, I would ask the question you
know, essentially, I was looking for, like, what in your body or, you know,
what's your sensory experience in your body, but I would ask that in various
ways of like, what are you noticing?
What has your attention?
I try to avoid.
What do you feel?
Because people then usually kind of go off into emotions sometimes, not always.
Yeah.
But it's really challenging for a whole society of people who've been
conditioned not to notice our bodies, to dismiss our bodies, to You know,
basically, yeah, overrides a great word.
Override everything's happening.
I mean, literally, you know, when you're a child, they
condition you to not move, right?
So you get, you get recess.
It's a, it's a short period of time.
That you get to run around and then the rest
Rupert Isaacson: of the time you are in the toilet.
Yeah,
Sukie Baxter: sure.
Yeah.
And, and your food, you know, you can't eat when you're hungry.
You can't go to the bathroom when you need to go to the bathroom.
You can't move when you feel the urge to move.
You basically take every urge that you feel in your body
and you just suppress it.
And, and then we become very good at this.
Well, that's a useful skill because you can't always just, you know,
do whatever, whenever if you're on an airplane, you can't, you know,
run around like a crazy person.
There's just not enough room.
But.
Getting back to a place where you can, like you said, become a friend to your
nervous system requires noticing what your nervous system is telling you.
And I have found that the people who develop what I call sensory skills, which
is the ability to sense and describe your nervous system state do best
with nervous system work, they, they tend to have the most benefit from it.
So I emphasize that in the work that I teach.
And I think it's just a foundational skill that if we taught this
to kids, I think we would have.
You know, more productive conversations.
I think we would have healthier adults,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
And probably better economies because people are productive when they're
Sukie Baxter: happy Yeah, and I think we'd have a more peaceful world to that old
Rupert Isaacson: thing.
Yes, that would be nice Okay Stencing is listening, right?
So
Sukie Baxter: noticing it's it's attending.
It's having attention towards something,
Rupert Isaacson: right?
when we pick this conversation up again and listen as we're going
to we're gonna plunder that suki mind as much as we possibly can.
That suki mind.
I would like to talk more about sensing and listening because I feel that that
is, if the nervous system's at the root of everything and it is sensing
and listening, right, it is to listen.
To hear is a sense, to feel is a sense, but it's all taking in the information.
Noticing, as you say, it sounds such a banal thing to notice.
But as you say, we're taught to override on notice, which means we're
taught to override our intuition.
Which means that we might not sense when someone is scamming us, or whatever,
because our intuition is suppressed.
Presumably that's not helpful.
How do we What nervous system work can we do to get back to that more optimal state
where we can sense, kind of, correct, navigate, perhaps, better through life.
Can we pick that up next
Sukie Baxter: time?
Absolutely.
Rupert Isaacson: So that's a bit of a cliffhanger, guys.
But at least you know how to make a YouTube video work and you know
how to listen to your body a bit.
But the listening goes deeper.
And I want to explore this.
So, with your permission, Suki, I think we'll make a date and
go for a round two of this.
So, yeah.
I would love that.
As, I presume a lot of people are driving their cars as they're listening to this.
If you've got, as you sign off, and we also, I want people to
know where they can find you.
So I want you to give the websites and all of that.
Emails, everything they can do as they sign off and they're
driving their car right now.
What would you like them to notice and how
Sukie Baxter: your peripheral vision that's something that
you can actually notice while you're driving is become aware.
So you don't have to even move your eyes.
You can keep them on the road just as you are, which is the safest thing.
But just as you are looking forward to notice that you can see.
In your peripheral vision, notice the light at the sides of your eyes.
Notice that you see movement along the side of the road.
So you're, you're still looking ahead.
You're still keeping your eyes on the road, but you're
expanding that field of vision.
And what that does is a couple of things.
It helps your nervous system shift into that parasympathetic state.
But it also gives your brain new context, right?
Because if you're just tunnel vision on one thing.
Your brain's only taking in that very narrow field of vision, so as soon as
you begin to notice that you actually see quite a lot more than maybe you're
noticing that you're seeing, it's, it's now sending more information to
your brain about your environment, now giving new context, now, now
giving new cues to what's going on.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
I'm going to be getting in my car soon.
I'm going to do it.
I was actually doing that sitting here in the room as you were talking that,
and I'm noticing the daybed that's here in the office that's off to my right.
I'm not looking at it, but I can actually see the striped blanket
on it now, my peripheral vision, and I can see the window to my
left out of my, and it's true.
It, it feels oddly enough, a little bit
Sukie Baxter: liberating to do that.
It's more spacious, especially when you've been staring at a screen.
And this is such a great practice.
So like when you go from a screen to your car.
You know, you can get out of this tiny little, I have a laptop, so
my screen is actually pretty small.
This tiny little box that your eyes have been focused on and actually remind your
brain and your body that you have this huge 360 degree environment around you.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's a wonderful thing.
All right.
So how do people find you Suki?
Sukie Baxter: Well, my website is fullbodyrevolution.
com.
Rupert Isaacson: Whole Body Revolution.
Yep.
W, not just an H, presumably.
Sukie Baxter: Yes, W, with a W.
Yes, as in Whole Foods.
Whole Foods, Whole Body Revolution.
Exactly.
Dot com.
Dot
Rupert Isaacson: com.
WholeBodyRevolution.
com.
Okay.
Sukie Baxter: And that's my home on the web.
And then I'm obviously on YouTube and it's youtube.
com forward slash Suki Baxter spelled S U K I E B A X T E R.
And I'm sure
Rupert Isaacson: you'll think of it again email,
Sukie Baxter: Hello at whole body revolution.
com.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, I like that.
I I'm so boring with my info and my admin at you have hello at God.
I'm not worthy.
I
Sukie Baxter: don't think
Rupert Isaacson: that's true.
So hello at wholebodyrevolution.
com.
Yes.
Cool.
Hello at wholebodyrevolution.
com to email Suki and wholebodyrevolution.
com to check out the website and the online courses.
Yes.
Okay.
To tap into the nature of desire, how can one resist and
nurture that nervous system?
All right.
So Suki, thank you so much.
Thank you so much for
Sukie Baxter: having me.
Rupert Isaacson: You've given us a ton here.
Everything from, it's, it's what I love is it's also practical.
This is what you can do for your body.
This is what you can do to optimize your YouTube video.
This is what you can do to nurture yourself more.
This is what you can do to free yourself from certain types of past trauma.
You've been so informative and so generous with your knowledge.
I'm, I'm, I'm grateful.
I'm, I'm walking away with tools for myself.
telomere is.
T E L O M E R E.
Wonderful.
Which is clearly.
Taken up with genetics.
So I want to look at the these effects of stress on genetics Which
it must be the aging thing, but I wasn't aware of those until today.
Thank you whole body revolution Okay, everybody, you know where to go.
So I'm gonna press that dreaded red button Suki, thank you Thank you again.
See you next time.
Thank you for joining us.
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