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We need a new definition of success—one that harmonizes meaning and money.
Imagine diving into your workday with renewed energy, leaving behind the exhaustion or dread of a monotonous grind.
Traditional beliefs about success and the root cause of burnout are the same:
Prove yourself.
Work harder.
Take care of the business, and it will take care of you.
We’re recycling the mindset and practices that keep us stuck. Our souls need a jumpstart into The Age of Humanity.
Tune in for a new way of working that honors our nervous system and the bottom line, using knowledge of the brain, the Bible, and business. We’ll discuss timeless truths that amplify growth, ignite change, and reshape the world of work. No corporate speak or business BS. Let’s get to the heart of a rewarding career and profitable growth.
We speak human about business.
What’s in it for You?
Value, Relevance, and Impact (VRI): No, it's not a new tech gadget—it's your ticket to making your work genuinely matter to you and your company.
Human-Centric Insights: We prioritize people over profits without sacrificing the bottom line. Think less "cog in the machine" and more "humans helping humans."
I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hesson, your thrive guide leading you into the new Age of Humanity. I’ve navigated the highs and lows of business and life, from achieving over $40 million in sales, teaching thousands of people around the world about leadership, trust, execution, and productivity to facing burnout, divorce, raising a couple of great humans (one with ADHD), and navigating the uncertainty of starting a business.
I’m committed to igniting change in the world by jumpstarting business into profitable growth with the timeless truths of our humanity.
Sound crazy? It’s only crazy until it works.
Hit subscribe to never miss an episode, and leave a review to help other listeners discover our show.
Want insight and advice on your real career and business challenges? Connect with me on social media or email me at rebecca@wethrive.live. Your story could spark our next conversation.
Eliza Kingsford [00:00:00]:
I'm not coming down I never locked.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:03]:
It on the ground I'm not coming.
Eliza Kingsford [00:00:06]:
Down I wanna go higher, higher than.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:00:10]:
That welcome back to the Business is Human podcast, where we discuss strategies to increase our VRI value, relevance, and impact. We're here to blend meaningful work with profitable success. I'm your host, Rebecca Fleetwood Hession, here to steward what we call the age of humanity, to transform the way we work so we can transform the way that we live. As always, my friendly request, if you like what you hear, hit subscribe so you don't miss any episodes and then leave a review to tell the other humans that they might like it too. Always looking to help you and connect with others. Let's get into it, shall we? I'm happy to have my friend and business partner back on the show this week. And in addition to being my friend and business partner, Eliza Kingsford is also a licensed psychotherapist. She's a bestselling author, certified clinical trauma professional, certified shame informed trauma specialist, certified EFT practitioner, certified neuroemotional technique practitioner, family trauma professional, certified tiny habits coach.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:01:26]:
She's trained in polyhovagal theory. She's trained as a family therapist, a thrive global coach. She's trained in nutritional psychiatry and a certified integrative mental health professional. I wanted to share all of those credentials because the conversation that we're going to have today, Eliza and I, is about love and fear. And I think it would be easy to take the title of that or the topic of that and dismiss it as just a conversation between friends and business partners. But I asked Eliza to come on the show and talk about this topic because in some of her video based solutions that I use with my clients, she talks about that. All of our thoughts come from either love or fear. And as I'm writing the book, I'm writing now about a new definition of success and really trying to tie together nervous system work that Eliza brings to me as well as business application and for me also a biblical application.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:02:48]:
And of course, love and fear from a nervous system perspective got me pretty excited about it, thinking about it from a biblical perspective. And I just wanted to dig into the science from a therapist and a neuronerd, as I call her, about this root of our thoughts being from love and fear. And so this is purely a we hit record. And I said, tell me about this. And so I was taking notes as fast as I think you'll want to take notes about this topic and how this informs your life and your work. All right, here we go. It's a big day on the podcast. The Business is Human podcast because we have friend of the show, our favorite Neuronerd, Eliza Kingsford, on today.
Eliza Kingsford [00:03:36]:
Thank you. Which is, by the way, my favorite nickname. I've been called a lot of things in my life, but neuronerd is my favorite, by far. Fully accepted that as my, as you.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:03:48]:
Should, because you embody it all the time and it makes me super happy. So you and I have been working together. You're one of the thrive guides for my rise and thrive experience. We got to spend some time together last week. We. We just have this symbiotic business, friendship, respect relationship that I dearly love. And that brings me to the conversation I asked to have today, because I am deep in a. I don't even know what to call it, just I'm being very awake, aware, research, the combination of observing people, but also digging into the science and the bible of.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:04:37]:
We need a new definition of success in business, and for a variety of reasons. So when I look to you to bring me the science, the neuroscience of why we do what we do from a nervous system perspective, you said something in one of your solutions, video based solutions that we'll get into later as a reference point for people, but that all decisions come from a place of either love or fear. And that just lit my brain and my heart on fire because it ties so closely to what I see people experiencing in business, the way the Bible teaches love and fear at its foundation. And I thought, oh, I'm just going to have her on the show, and we just go and dig into it.
Eliza Kingsford [00:05:29]:
Yeah, just chat about it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:05:32]:
Teach us about that. So all decisions come from a place of either love or fear.
Eliza Kingsford [00:05:38]:
How does that work? Yes, I think for a tiny bit of context, I think what you're referencing is there's a place in one of the videos, like you said, where I say, every thought we have, which then leads to decisions, right behaviors, but every thought we have is either a thought from love or a thought from fear. And I go on to elaborate a little that they're like labels of a bucket, meaning it doesn't necessarily have to translate into exactly love or fear. It's sort of the bucket of love or the bucket of fear. A different way of saying that is an energy of love or an energy of love, or a vibration of fear, or an association of love or an association of fear. Meaning it doesn't have to translate to the exact translation of this thought was, I love you, Rebecca. The thought could carry the energy of love, positive emotion, positive feelings, positive affect, or the energy of fear. Negative emotion, negative feeling, negative affect. Does that make sense? As in, it's not a literal translation, love and fear.
Eliza Kingsford [00:06:53]:
It is the bucket. It's sort of the association. What we associate with love and fear, or positive or negative, which is the.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:07:02]:
Basis of what you teach us in rise and thrive. And the work that you do is that nervous system is based on energy, right? We are just a big ball of cells that are knocking around and creating vibration and energy is my summary of your deep dive of neuroscience science. And so what you're saying is the vibration or the energy is rooted in one of those buckets.
Eliza Kingsford [00:07:31]:
Correct.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:07:31]:
But it's a big point that from a business perspective, that's important, is we, I'm big, big collective, we of business society tend to over analyze, overdose, intellectualize things. Like, you quickly were like, hold on. It's not really an exact definition of love or fear. It's the energy of. And that's really indicative of how we move through the world, right. Is we are reacting to a chain of events, or somebody made eye contact that felt funny, or it's an energetic feeling thoughts thing, not necessarily the definition of.
Eliza Kingsford [00:08:18]:
Yes, that's exactly right. What we do so well together is you are so good at summarizing the often complex physiology and complex neuroscience that I love to get into. And, you know, I do. But then, you know, you so beautifully, like, pull out that thread, the important thread of it. And, Anne, I think this is one of those areas where it's important to sort of both go into a little bit more of the complex and come out of it, which is what you just referenced, is, you know, the sort of everyday examples of it. But what I love to illustrate is that, because this is true, every thought we have, truly, as you just said, the way we walk through the world is through an energy of love or fear. Now, that is oversimplifying the complex physiology, because if we really get down to the nitty gritty, what we're saying is your nervous system is in either safety and connection or protection. It is an either or experience.
Eliza Kingsford [00:09:19]:
My mentor, Doctor Stephen Porges, has the science to show that from physiology, we are in an either or experience. It's not just doctor Porges. There's many scientists who've shown this. It is a either or. So we're either in an energy of safety or we're in an energy of protection. We're either in love or in fear, right?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:09:41]:
And so safety and connection is the love bucket and protection is the fear bucket.
Eliza Kingsford [00:09:46]:
Exactly. Exactly. And so you can use all kinds of different language and analogies to illustrate this point, but I think what you're probably moving towards, and the important piece of this is when we are in safety and connection or love, we function completely differently from head to toe. Quite literally, head to toe. Meaning our thoughts are different, our experiences are different, our physiology is different. Our digestive system is different, our heartbeat's different, our breathing is different, our lung capacity is different. Everything is different when we are in love, and everything is different when we are in fear. And so it's not just a platitude to say every thought we have is from love or fear.
Eliza Kingsford [00:10:29]:
It's quite literally the determinant of our entire life experience. How we move through life is dictated by that. Are we in this love or are we in fear?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:10:41]:
So, based on which energy bucket we're pouring from, we are going to show up now, coming to a business context, we're going to show up on a zoom in a meeting for a client, emoting that energy based on where we started the day with which bucket we're in.
Eliza Kingsford [00:11:05]:
Yeah, I mean, well, I don't think it's too simplistic in the sense that I think it really helps people understand. However, sometimes I think it's not deep enough to help people really understand the implication. Meaning we're not just saying if you're in a bad mood, you might have a bad day, but it's so much more powerful than that. The fear bucket actually is the one that ends up changing our physiology. Let's bring it into day to day example. Let's say you are going into a meeting, and the context of the meeting is such that you were responsible for a big piece in it, and your boss has not been happy with whatever it was that you did before, and he asked you to fix it. And so now you know this is you trying to fix it, and you're not feeling so confident in it. Right? Or you're triggered by someone else in the meeting, or perhaps you're triggered by something else that happened in the day.
Eliza Kingsford [00:12:07]:
You're solidly rooted in your. We'll call it fear bucket. Right. Or this protective response in the body. When that happens, you don't show up as the same person who would show up if they were in the connected space. Meaning your delivery is different, your receptivity is different. So the sounds you hear is different. The words you receive are different.
Eliza Kingsford [00:12:32]:
Let's say your boss is giving you feedback. What you hear in those sentences will be different than if you were in a connected state, meaning that physiology runs your show of whether or not you are experiencing that as a good experience or a negative experience. And so it's way beyond just this, oh, I'm having a bad day, which means, you know, I'm in a bad mood, I'm having a bad day. It's so much bigger than that. I love keeping things simple. I love how beautifully you are able to illustrate a simple concept when sometimes I go on and on and on. And I think it's really important for people to understand that this is a. Quite literally, this is dictating our world and everyone in it.
Eliza Kingsford [00:13:18]:
The way that information and experiences get. Get experienced back and forth is due to this.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:13:24]:
And you're. You're showing up as a different version of you depending on which bucket you're coming from. And I immediately thought of examples of times when I felt defensive. For whatever reason that you're talking about, either my boss was not happy with me or my client wasn't happy with me. And I would often, in that place, before I knew a lot of this stuff, receive feedback defensively. And now I know I literally was protecting myself from hearing the truth. Probably that's it. Yes, because I wasn't open enough, vulnerable enough, coming from a place, I would love to connect with you.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:14:11]:
So I need to hear your feedback. Even though it's nothing affirming and positive, it's important, just like a friendship or a relationship would, you know, you would need to hear something difficult if we're going to continue this relationship so that we can find something that is safe and connected.
Eliza Kingsford [00:14:29]:
And you said the most important piece, which is your own experience of feeling defensive, which, as you said, is a protective response, a fear response, for whatever reason, your own experience of feeling defensive changed your ability to hear the incoming information. And so it further removes us from connection with that other person or that other situation. I think that's the piece, is that this acknowledgement, even when it's justified, because when I start to go down this road, people will say, yeah, but this person said this. Aren't I justified in being defensive? And I will say, absolutely. When we're, when we're living this way. I call it the state first approach. As you know, when, when we're living in a state first approach, it does not justify everyone's actions around you and then make you responsible. You're not to blame for the defensiveness, but when we can own it and say, oh, I recognize that I am in a place of defensiveness or fear or protection or however we want to call it.
Eliza Kingsford [00:15:38]:
If I can recognize that when I'm in that place changes things for me, then I have an opportunity to have agency and work with it differently. It doesn't mean that I'm not justified or that it's my fault or anything like that. Only then when we can recognize it, does it allow us to be able to do something different with that information. You and I were together last week. Last. Can't even remember now. We were together a few days ago, and one of the, you gave this beautiful example of an exchange you had with one of your kiddos. What you were able to say was when you were recognizing, oh, yep, I'm in this protective place.
Eliza Kingsford [00:16:17]:
And even just naming it, going, I'm in the protective place. So that's how, you know, that's why I'm feeling this way. And your kid was able to receive it and go, okay, gotcha, and respond differently. The point is, it doesn't make it anybody's fault. There's no blame. It just allows us to have completely different agency. And by that, I mean we have control, we have option, we have choice. When we know that we're in a place of protection and that we respond differently.
Eliza Kingsford [00:16:46]:
Now, all of a sudden we put ourselves back in the driver's seat. That's the big piece of it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:16:50]:
So let's unpack that. So we generally come to a situation where wanting to either have judgment or justification we're looking for, are we right or wrong in this situation? Is usually how we interact. And what we're, what you're suggesting, what you've taught me, and I've been taught my kids and clients is we want to first recognize this state our nervous system is in before we move to anything that is about exchanging with others. I call it just that reflection. What state am I in? And so they're fundamentally three places. You can be in that love safety connection place. You can be in a protection place, but you're either activated by one of those things, fear or love, all of those things. You just want to stop and say, what state am I in? Oh, I'm in a state of activation to protect myself because I'm feeling attacked by this client's feedback, because it's not positive.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:01]:
And instead of saying, I'm going to judge that person's perspective and defend myself because I'm in this fear, you're going to stop and you're going to say, hold on, how can I get myself in a place where I can actually receive that safely?
Eliza Kingsford [00:18:17]:
That's right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:18:18]:
Yeah.
Eliza Kingsford [00:18:19]:
And I will say this takes practice. This takes practice, and we get better at it over time. But anytime, anytime we are feeling judgment, defensiveness, wanting to defend our position, well, this is the thing about where we started this. Love and fear. Anytime we're experiencing a negative emotion, thought, feeling, anything, that's an indicator that we have moved into a protective response. They're just signs and signals, clues from our body to show us that we are in a protective response. And the invitation, the practice is to recognize that, that we have moved into a protective response by recognizing our cues and signals of that is defensiveness. One of them is irritation.
Eliza Kingsford [00:19:09]:
One of them is frustration. One of them is lack of patience. One of them, who knows? But all of those are cues that we've moved into a protective response. And then if we can notice that and say, okay, I recognize I'm in a protective response, we have the opportunity to bring us back to a level of connection or back to a place where we can, as you said, receive the information differently, read the email again or listen to it again, whatever the feedback is, and see if there's anything in there that might be useful to us. I say that this is a practice because it requires vulnerability, it requires love, it requires safety, it requires connection in order for us to be willing and open and receptive to feedback. And this is just one of many examples. As you know, it's not a destination. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's a practice.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:19:59]:
It's an ongoing thing. We don't get to check the box and say, yes, got it. Living in loving and safety and connection now forevermore. Yay. No.
Eliza Kingsford [00:20:09]:
Yes.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:20:09]:
Okay, so here's where it gets troubling to me, is if we go to the definition of burnout that goes all the way back to 1974, Herbert Friedenberger and his colleagues, who defined burnout as, when you get in a state where you're proving yourself, always working harder, and feel like you need to take care of the business, and then it will take care of you. I call that the outside in. Like, something out there needs to define my success. Take care. Like it's. I got to prove myself to the boss or to the client or whoever it is is to me. Connecting that to what you're saying, largely a protective state. It's a fear state.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:21:00]:
If I don't perform, if I don't achieve, if I don't get the promotion, if I don't get the paycheck, I'm afraid, in some way. So different levels, different descriptions, of those emotions, then I'm not okay. That over time, it makes sense how it would be burnout as a diagnosis, because it's changing our physiology to move through the world in a constant state of outside in. I mean, we're talking grades. We're talking how our parents feel about us, about our grades or our sports, and then we get to work, and how does our boss feel? How does the client feel? And that's obviously making us sick, physically, mentally, emotionally. That makes sense to me. But I'm trying to move us to a place of understanding inside out versus outside in. And so inside out would be, I'm going to do what I need to do to have safety and connection that I carry with me that isn't, I go get it from somebody else.
Eliza Kingsford [00:22:10]:
Right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:22:11]:
How do we do that? How do we teach people to do that?
Eliza Kingsford [00:22:14]:
Oh, just real quickly, no big deal.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:22:16]:
In the next 18 minutes or so.
Eliza Kingsford [00:22:18]:
That's right. Man, this is such an important concept, is outside in versus inside out. And like you said, it makes sense when you step back and you really think about it. If ever we are relying on something outside of us in order to be okay, a different way of saying that is something else is in control of our okayness that will always feel unsafe to a nervous system because we're in any way you want to fill in the blank. We're saying this person or this situation or this decision or this house or this partner or this child or this grade or this promotion, something that I don't have direct line of control to something outside of me has to be just so in order to be okay, will always automatically put our nervous system in a state of a lack of safety because the opposite of that message is, I'm not okay unless and then fill in the blank. So we're sending direct message to the body, I'm not okay unless. So then the brain and body working together in their information superhighway, theyre sending messages back and forth with that input that says, im not okay unless. And so its going its hyper vigilant to the unless.
Eliza Kingsford [00:23:42]:
Unless the partner okay, Im hypervigilant to the partner unless the money okay, Im hypervigilant to the money unless the weight okay, Im hyper vigilant to the body. Right. And so as long as we have that, im not okay unless it will always be fear or a lack of safety. So your question, though is, well, how do we, how do we switch that?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:24:02]:
Well, before you do that, yeah. Just to put another piece to this puzzle of a lot of things that I've talked about on this podcast, and anybody that's worked with me in coaching or keynotes is, I want people to move from a constant state of feeling like they need to control everything, which I always use the symbol of, make a fist as tight as you can and hold it. Like, how does that feel? Well, your body starts to respond to that and starts to feel uncomfortable, and it starts to impact every part of your body. And so if we move from control to connection, where we open our hands, open our mind, open our heart, that, to me, is the symbol of safety and connection. I'm vulnerable, but I'm reaching out to connect, because my head, my heart, my hands were, I'm okay.
Eliza Kingsford [00:24:46]:
Right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:24:46]:
But I also want to tie it to business people. And I'm going to focus in on women here for a minute who have begun to believe that they have to be in control of everything.
Eliza Kingsford [00:24:59]:
Right?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:25:00]:
The job, the kids, the spouse, the weekend sports activities, whatever, the birthday party. And so it makes sense to me why women are experiencing huge health crisis from autoimmune disease and all kinds of different things that are showing up for women on a large scale because of this state of, I got to control everything to protect everybody, and it's all on me.
Eliza Kingsford [00:25:28]:
Yes. And, I mean, that goes back to where we even first started. This conversation is. Think about that for a moment. What would the opposite of a need to control? Why would we need to control? There would only be a need to control if we are afraid of something else. If I don't control this, then what? It falls apart. They don't do it. Right, whatever.
Eliza Kingsford [00:25:51]:
Fill in the blank. But if we think about that from a fear and love perspective, people will say, that's not true. There's not only fear or love. And I'll say, let's play with it. Let's try it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:26:01]:
Okay.
Eliza Kingsford [00:26:01]:
Let's talk about the concept of control. The concept of control is only there because on the flip side of that is, what is fear of something? If you weren't afraid of something happening, then you wouldn't have the need to control it. So there's the fear piece. So then our way out is the love piece. And that's where you started to talk about that connection. Connection, safety, belief, faith, surrender, whatever you want to call it. That would be the other side of that fear coin. I.
Eliza Kingsford [00:26:37]:
So, when we start talking about the way out, and there's, you know, it's not a simple solution. There's a lot of pieces to it. But the. The broad answer is we have to follow the path to love, to safety, to connection, in order to get out of that. So if we're going back to business, where it becomes, you know, it's gotta be the next promotion or the next thing or the next, you name it, whether it's dollars or status or whatever it is. And those are things external, those are outside in. The question is, how do we start to develop an awareness of the inside out? And that starts with what does make me feel fulfilled, happy, supported, loved. Fill in that blanket.
Eliza Kingsford [00:27:24]:
We have to start to examine it from a different perspective because we're so used to all of the outside in that so many people don't even know how to answer those questions of what would safety, connection, vulnerability, love, happiness. You fill in. They're all the same energy. That's why I talk about it in buckets. It's all the same energy. You can fill it in with a word that feels better. But what does love, passion, purpose? You do this beautiful thing of helping people with their unique gifts and talents, but you don't say, well, what are you paid for? You say, what? How do you ask? How do you bring it out of them?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:28:01]:
One of my favorite ones is, what was 14 year old you doing for fun? Let's go back to before the outside world had a grip on you and you performing and start to get at, you know, what do you love to do that you're good at? Those are the two fundamental questions that I asked. What do you love to do that you're good at?
Eliza Kingsford [00:28:18]:
Exactly. So you're not saying, well, what would the next step on the ladder be? And how much is it going to pay? I get it. I'm making it a little light, but that's. It's a way to illustrate. We often don't ask that. And have you found that oftentimes what people love to do that they're good at, they'll dismiss because it comes so naturally. It's just part of who they are, which you then want to bring more of that out in them. Right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:28:46]:
They're like, that's not a big deal. I'm like, that is the biggest deal.
Eliza Kingsford [00:28:50]:
Exactly. What very thing is the biggest deal? Right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:28:54]:
And I think we have a real societal challenge in that. When you ask people what would make you feel safe and connected, the love bucket of energy that people have a really hard time describing it because control as a habit and a practice is what we've watched our parents and our grandparents do without a lot of conversation about why I. They're doing what they're doing. And so what we've passed on generationally is the habit of, I need to control things because that's what I've watched being done and not enough reflection of who am I? What does bring me love and joy? And so when I ask people, well, what does happen if you just don't do that? When they're just in that state of, like, striving control, fist tight, they can't even tell me, right? Well, I don't know. Well, let go and see what happens. But the thought of letting go of these habits that have been passed on over and over again, I think is one of our biggest challenges is to start having the thoughts and reflecting on ourselves for what gives us that sense of satisfaction. When I put out a survey on LinkedIn many years ago, writing my, my last book, what is a thriving life, and I gave them some qualifiers and some context, the most profound response that I got and the highest number of responses said the same version of it, which is, I don't know. I should know.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:30:39]:
Why don't I know? I need to think about this. You've really given me something to think about. And if we don't even know what safety and connection is for us, how can we come from that bucket?
Eliza Kingsford [00:30:51]:
Yes, it is so important to start to bring to life what is safety and connection for us. As you know, that's why we were together a couple of weeks ago, to help a group of people do that and figure that out and determine what that looks like. Because identifying our states, as you mentioned earlier, is the most important piece of this, so that we get cued, that we get signals, oh, I am in that state. I have moved from this state, which allows us to then work with it differently. But you said something a minute ago about habits and control, sort of watching our parents habits in control, and their parents watching their parents and gets passed down through the generations. And what I'll say is, that's the other nervous system is one piece of this. It's the foundational piece. It's the most important piece, because it controls everything.
Eliza Kingsford [00:31:41]:
But then our brain and body are so powerful, they are optimized. The brain and body are optimized to continue the path of least resistance, to oversimplify it. And so those habits and that control are a product or an outcome of a nervous system who is attuned to a certain level of protection, then the brain and body are optimized to continue that path of least resistance. So if someone is used to controlling and that feeling of clamping down and control to the brain and body. That's just what they've always done, who they've always been. And so it's just going to continue to send them down that route because it's familiar, it's homeostasis, it's who they've always been. It doesn't mean they have to always be that way. But to step outside of that path takes intention.
Eliza Kingsford [00:32:35]:
You and I have always talked about this sort of daily stillness practice and the practice of actually being and doing something different. Because if we don't intentionally knock ourselves off course, we are designed to just continue with the way things have always been. And that's true in every area of our lives. But it's why people get decades into a career path that they realize I'm miserable. I hate this. Well, a little bit of credit to you for getting there, because we are designed to just do what we've always done unless we intentionally take ourselves off that course.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:33:16]:
So I just had this thought, and I can say this has been my experience. And now my brain is scanning all the clients, men and women that I worked with, and saying, yep, that one, that one, that one, that one is that this sense of controlling things as it relates to life and business has become the counterfeit of safety and connection for us. It's the place where we have felt the safest because we are in control. Therefore, nobody or nothing else can mess it up. I'm going to fix it. And it's a counterfeit because it's not true. It's really rooted in the fear bucket instead of the love bucket. Because my sense of wanting to control everything did very little positive things to the relationships in my life.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:34:16]:
In fact, they were the detriment of most of them, including my children, for a long time, trying to control and fix everything instead of connect. And so it's this counterfeit feeling of safety that control is providing for us out of habit versus real safety. And connection is going to require us, as you said, to get out of the homeostasis of the counterfeit that we think we have control over, keeping everybody safe.
Eliza Kingsford [00:34:44]:
I love how you just said that counterfeit is a perfect descriptor of it, because if we're looking at a counterfeit $20 bill, it looks real, it feels real. You could even try and pay for it. You did. You can take it. You know it's not real. If you made that counterfeit 20, somewhere inside of you there is a little screaming voice that even if someone accepts it, even if you hand it to someone and they say, yeah, that feels really real. You know, that it's not.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:35:25]:
And they know it doesn't feel like love and connection. It feels like somebody's trying to fix me and control me.
Eliza Kingsford [00:35:32]:
Right, exactly. And I think that's the thing about the nervous system, is that the more we control, the more we clamp down that visual that you have of your fists really tightly, the more discomfort it creates. And so that is the thing about the counterfeit piece, is that the, it's the, what we call the top down part of us, the cognitive part of us, our brain saying, I can control this if I just work harder, if I just do more, if I just get there faster, I will be able to manage this situation. That's the top down process. That's the cognitive process. But the irony there is that the more we do that, the more discomfort we created. So the bottom up process, the nervous system, the way that information superhighway communicates with one another, the bottom up process is responding to the energy, to the vibration, to the fear. It's responding to the fear in you, not to the safety in you.
Eliza Kingsford [00:36:39]:
And that's when you say counterfeit, that's why that lands so well, is because it can look real and feel real and smell real, but it ain't real. And when we are living in that place of control as a way to try and protect ourselves, it's creating counterfeit safety.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:36:57]:
Yeah, which our cellular structure feels as.
Eliza Kingsford [00:37:01]:
Structure feels as such. It's saying cellular structure is responding to the energy, not the action and the thoughts or the. Exactly. So you can say the thought, it's going to be okay. But if the energy underneath is only if I do this and only if I do this and if I get the list and if I get the promotion, if I have the, the. It's going to be okay. The cellular structure is responding to that energy of fear, not to the words, it's going to be okay. So if you truly, from the inside out are feeling love.
Eliza Kingsford [00:37:43]:
So this comes back to where we started, love or fear. Right. So for feeling the love going, it's going to be okay. And you're feeling that from a place of. I'm not totally sure how it's going to work out, but I got faith and I got surrender, I got action, I got purpose, and it's going to be okay. The same words, it's going to be okay. Carry that energy of love, of connection, of safety, of vulnerability. The cellular structure responds to the energy, not the words, which is.
Eliza Kingsford [00:38:15]:
That's what you were saying. And to continue with the cellular structure, that's everything. That is the thing that runs our blood to all of our organs. It's our heart rate, it's our breath rate, all of it. Which over time, if your cellular structure is continuing to respond to your energy of fear, that's when things start to break down in the body as well, which is what you were referencing with things like autoimmune and illnesses and when we get colds easily, all of that stuff, because the body is so busy responding to this energy of fear that it's breaking down in other places.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:38:54]:
My heart is so happy that we just got this connection piece for how to describe what you and I see every single day. But I'm also feeling sad because I think of the millions of people out there who are doing everything right by societal standards to check the box and fix it and control it, and waking up most days thinking there's got to be more than this. And that literally makes me tear up with just sadness that they're missing some of the best part. I missed many years of my life in this state. And so if I take it now and add in Bible stuff that I am so passionate about. You said it, the surrender, the faith. You use those words. And so the Bible says, if you have faith and surrender to God, who is love, you will get what's called fruits of the spirit, which is joy, love, connection, self control, which means I'm going to name my state, I'm going to understand where I am.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:40:04]:
Like, that's what the Bible is trying to say is this is the way the nervous system works. But I need you to have more faith in the God who created you than you do in your own abilities to fix and control everything, because that's what's actually making you sick. And that's what's opening the door to the whole darkness of fear, spirit world that we don't even have time for today. But just from a physiology perspective, that's it. That's it.
Eliza Kingsford [00:40:31]:
And I think sometimes when people hear things like faith and surrender, I think sometimes they mistake that for resignation, as in giving up, to sit here and give up and throw my hands up, and that feels too unsafe and uncomfortable to do nothing. You tell me if you hear this differently. But when I hear faith and surrender, so you can go on with the love and fear, right? Yeah. When I hear faith and surrender, what I hear is absolutely still taking action, moving forward, continuing to make choices and decisions if I want to, but from a place of faith that whatever is in front of me will lead me on the path. That's where faith comes in is not that I'm just throwing my hands on meek or weak.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:41:29]:
Well, Meek is actually a good word, but it's misconstrued. Also, it's weak. It means I've given up. It means it's a bad thing. And that's not the best thing because it says, I, I have faith that things, I'm going to know what to do in the meeting, the right resources are going to show up, I'm going to take action with faith that it's going to work out in fear, that I have to control it because it probably or it might not.
Eliza Kingsford [00:41:58]:
And that's the, you know, this dichotomy, I think can be really uncomfortable for people saying it's either or love or fear, that's too black and white. But listen to all the ways that we have come back to faith or fear. Love or fear, right. Safety or protection. This is why that statement is every thought we have or every decision, everything about who we are is love or fear. And I think the concept of moving with faith and surrender, you can apply it. You just gave these beautiful examples of every meeting, every conversation, every decision. Can I come to it from the perspective or at least the awareness? Am I making this decision with an energy or from a place of love or fear? Am I coming to this conversation from an energy or a place of love or fear? And as we start to filter our lives through that, it becomes so clear when we have the energy of fear.
Eliza Kingsford [00:42:59]:
And that doesn't necessarily mean that we change everything. And okay, I'm just living in love, happy land all the time. It's just awareness and we get to go, oh, yeah, brought a lot of fear into that conversation. Interesting. How did that, which way did that go, you know? Or I brought a lot of fear into that decision. Interesting. What way would that go? I mean, I have been living my life vulnerably from the question of what would I do if I wasn't afraid for a while now. And boy, I tell you, sometimes that will really push it to your limits.
Eliza Kingsford [00:43:34]:
What would I do if I wasnt afraid? Right. That is, its a powerful question to ask. Even if we just want some data points for information.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:43:42]:
Im thinking about surrendering. Lets use a sales example because thats an easy business example. If Im preparing to hit a sales goal, lets say my company, or I have said Im going to do a million dollars this year. And so I've got that. It could be either hanging over your head in fear or it can be just a data point that tells you, where am I at in my year. So if I'm seeing it from a surrender, it's just a data point, not I'm afraid of it. I'm going to show up for a sales call doing the same things in terms of preparation, did I maybe research the client? Did I come prepared to talk about whatever their challenges are? I'm still doing work. I'm still preparing, but I've surrendered that the outcome is going to be what it's going to be, and I don't have to fear, oh, my gosh, if I don't get this client, everything falls apart.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:44:47]:
That energy is what skews the connection for you and the client versus saying, I'm going to show up as my best self, I'm going to come prepared. I'm going to come whatever it means for prepared in your industry or business, and then surrender it to if I'm going to do my best that day, that client is either for me or they're not.
Eliza Kingsford [00:45:08]:
That's right.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:45:09]:
And then I move on to the next opportunity.
Eliza Kingsford [00:45:12]:
That's right. And to go back to these concepts not at all being sort of latitude Pollyanna self help concepts. When we show up from an energy of fear, our access to executive functioning resources is completely different. So if you show up from this energy of, I have to get this client because I'm trying to get to make this mark, and if I don't get this client, then I'm not going to make the mark. That energy shuts off your pathways to creativity. Let me back up and say the most important one, that energy shuts off your pathway to connection. Because from a nervous system perspective, that would be wasted resources. If the nervous system needs to protect you from threat or danger, it does not have time to connect to another human being.
Eliza Kingsford [00:46:05]:
It is not safe to look at someone and hear someone and take them in and be vulnerable and connect and have that shared space and curiosity and compassion. No way. When the nervous system is optimized for protection, it is in protection mode. And so quite literally, our pathways to connection, compassion, creativity, ideas, all of that get shut off because we are coming from that energy of protection. So it's that important for us to learn to live differently with this, you know?
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:46:41]:
So if you show up to that sales call without your executive functioning to make good decisions or really connect with that, just don't go. I mean, but I showed up to a lot of meetings that way before I understood what it was. And I think there is some degree of preparation and confidence that gets billed if you're new to an industry or new to a company. But the sooner you can get to that place of, oh, I've got enough confidence in being able to talk about the solution or talk about this problem that I'm just going to show up and surrender and have faith is a beautiful place to be. I think about times that when I'm in a great state of connection and I'm talking to a client and they'll say something or ask a question, and all of a sudden something from 20 years ago that someone taught me. Well, I just had one not too long ago, I worked for the Franklin Covey organization, and literally it was a conversation I was having with Doctor Steven Arkovey because I got the opportunity to work with him. A conversation from 20 plus years ago, more than that, 30 years ago, pops into my head to use as an illustration in this conversation with this client today, there is no way I would have had access to 30 year old information if I wasn't in that place of safety and connection. No way.
Eliza Kingsford [00:48:02]:
And that is actually, that's true from both a, wow, what a cool, almost spiritual experience. And it's true from the physiology experience that your access to implicit memories are shut off, right when we are in, or the implicit memories that it pulls up change depending on which state you're in. So if you're not in, you know, if that conversation with Doctor Covey was from this place of so great and worked in, Victor had this great conversation. Oh, that was really interesting. That's stored in a place in your memory with safety. And so it's not going to pull up if you are in a state of danger. Right. So you wouldn't have had access to that frame.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:48:48]:
Those buckets store your memories and which is what, going back to the very beginning of this conversation, if there's a love bucket and a fear bucket, your memories and experiences store in that same bucket is what you're saying. Right?
Eliza Kingsford [00:49:01]:
Right. I mean, that's exactly right. That's how our memories, and I mean, don't get me started, girl. You know where I go with you. I know how our memories get stored in the brain and the body. That's how we everything about our life today. It's just a collection of stored memories and experiences and how we perceived them and whether they were in this bucket or that bucket. And yes, you need to have access to whichever bucket they're in in order to pull them up.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:49:27]:
Okay, power question as we wrap up, because we could do this for days. Let's say that you have had a long run of fear experiences in your life, maybe childhood, maybe bad boss from a previous organization. Just your fear bucket is overflowing, and your love bucket feels sparse. What could one do to shift that?
Eliza Kingsford [00:49:59]:
Yes, two things come to mind that are really important here. I think talked a lot about illustrating the two different buckets and sort of the impact, especially of the fear bucket. I think one of the important things to remember is that our systems were designed for flexibility and fluidity. Meaning it's possible that you go into a meeting in fear and through the course of that meeting, find yourself sitting in front of someone that feels warm to you as soon as you sit down, and for whom they are solidly in their love bucket, and they're really good at connection, and it disarms your protection, and you're off and running in that meeting. I feel like it's important to point out, because we are constantly interacting with other nervous systems and other people around us, and through that interaction, we can shift and change moment to moment. So I wouldn't want anybody listening to Lee feeling like, well, I went into that meeting in fear. And so that's that. The outcome is already set in stone, is a fluid and flexible relationship.
Eliza Kingsford [00:51:10]:
And. And the reason I say that is because what happens is, to your point, your question is that if you've had a lot of experiences, if your system has been tuned, we call it, if it's been tuned to protection, then it can feel like your love bucket is either minuscule or non existent. And that that becomes just your lot in life. Right? That's just the way that it will be. And what I like to remind people is that we can intentionally start to pay more attention to that other bucket and intentionally put more things in that bucket. Tiny, tiny thing. Like a smile at a stranger or a deep breath with your hand over your heart, or a moment outside just to take in the sunshine. Little tiny things that if we know that we're doing them for the purpose of expanding what we call our window of tolerance or expanding our love bucket, then they're very, very, very powerful.
Eliza Kingsford [00:52:14]:
And it doesn't take these huge things in order to expand that bucket. We want to be in the love bucket. Let's just be clear. Our bodies, our biology, our physiology wants to be in the love bucket. So if you want to expand that, absolutely do it. And it's not these huge things that we need to change. It's little things. I always tell people the little things are the big things.
Eliza Kingsford [00:52:39]:
It's you doing the little things every day and then doing more of them big when you can, it's the little thing. So, of course, like we said, we talk for hours about exactly what that means. But I just want to leave people with, number one, there's flexibility. So we're not just a fixed state only. It's meant to be fluid. And number two, it's little things that expand our love bucket. And it's not just, oh, am I in a good relationship? And do I like my job? It's what can I appreciate? How much can I appreciate? How much can I take care of myself? What makes me feel good? There's so many things that go into that love bucket.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:53:18]:
When you said our bodies, our cells, ourselves want to be in the love bucket, that's powerful. And if we see the love bucket as the magnet that we, you know, our cells are trying to get to from a Bible perspective, that clicks all the boxes like the Holy Spirit, God is love magnet is. Is constantly going, come here, come here. And so any little thing is like a little piece of metal to that magnet. Oh, this guy made me cry. I love it when we don't plan what we're going to say. I literally just called you and said, will you talk about love and fear on the podcast, saying you're like, you're just showing up around this conversation, and now I'm crying. But if we just put little pieces into that bucket, it does magnetize and it magnetizes to fill it up, but it also magnetizes our energy to attract others more powerfully.
Eliza Kingsford [00:54:14]:
Absolutely.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:54:15]:
And that's why the daily stillness practice is so important to you and I is to me. That's that space in the day. And now I have a two times a day, I have my morning one, and I have a 03:00 p.m. check in place that I just stand with my feet in the grass and let the sun hit my face and just say, ah, what a beautiful day. Or the flowers are doing this, or the dog did this, or it's not big, I won the deal, or I got promoted. It literally is those little tiny moments that I just can be in love with just a moment.
Eliza Kingsford [00:54:49]:
And anybody has the ability to do that, to look for those little moments, glimmers, these tiny moments of appreciation. And exactly what you said. They do magnetize, and then they build capacity for even more. So it becomes this snowball effect, and it's so powerful. I think sometimes the last thing I'll say about that is we make the mistake of thinking. And because it was so hard and painful and complex sometimes to get to the way that we are, it's going to take something just as big or life changing or jarring in order to get us somewhere else. Paradox is that it's actually the opposite that takes us out of it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:55:34]:
And business has a longstanding love affair with, it's got to be hard, it's got to be strenuous. It's no pain, no gain kind of mindset. And if you're listening and you are a part of a team in a business, whatever kind of business you're in, to remember that the energy that you bring does matter, even if others aren't bringing, aren't matching you with that same love bucket energy. And if you are a leader that you're looking around your team at, the people who are showing up with love, those are probably the best ones to promote, more so than the ones that know how to do a pivot table on a spreadsheet if they don't have any love, that goes with indeed, indeed. Oh my gosh. We can three more hours on this.
Eliza Kingsford [00:56:18]:
So I know.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:56:19]:
Can we come back and dig into this maybe in a couple months after people have had a chance to digest some of this? I'm going to put some links to your stuff in the show notes, of course, because you're offering amazing solutions that are all rooted in the nervous system, both for health, weight, body image, but also now bringing nervous system understanding to the masses and to the business community, which I'm really excited to be a partner with you in. So we've given people enough to, like probably today walk around with a little bit laced over, like, wow, is it simple to just have moments of more love in our lives, to have a better life? Yeah, maybe. But we'll keep, we'll keep building on this for them over the last few months.
Eliza Kingsford [00:57:04]:
So hit subscribe so you don't miss it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:57:07]:
What's the best way for people to find you these days? I know. Website, elizakingsford.com.
Eliza Kingsford [00:57:12]:
Yeah, yeah. ElizaKingsford.com. and then just Eliza Kingsford on Instagram.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:57:18]:
Probably best. Yeah. And do great, great, great stuff out there. All right. I love you. Thank you.
Eliza Kingsford [00:57:24]:
I love you. Mean it.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:57:31]:
Thanks for listening to this episode. I would love it if you would go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and a review. And then you can go to rebeccafleetwithhessin.com and join the Badass Women's Council. And if you really want to take a deeper dive, join the movement of a thousand thriving women. There's amazing thrive tools there for you today.
Eliza Kingsford [00:57:50]:
Love you. Mean it. I'm not coming down.
Rebecca Fleetwood Hession [00:57:56]:
Hey, y'all, fun fact. If you like the music for the podcast, that is actually my son, Cameron Hession, and I would love it if you would go to Spotify and itunes and follow him and download some of his other music. My personal favorite is tv land.
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