The Everyday Awesome Project

103- PUMP IT UP: Unblock Creative & Connective Energy

• Polly Mertens & Samantha Pruitt • Season 2 • Episode 102

Share episode

Ever felt strangely numb after a big stressor or medical recovery—like your pain is down but your spark is gone? We open up about the odd “flatline” that can follow anesthesia, steroids, and forced stillness, and we map the path back to energy, creativity, and genuine momentum. Rather than only downshifting from fight or flight, we explore the other half of regulation: the skill of safely pumping yourself up when your system feels underpowered.

We share simple, science-aligned ways to activate your body and mind without going to extremes. Movement that circulates lymph and cerebrospinal fluid, music that shifts autonomic tone, breath and muscular engagement that lift energy from lower survival centers to higher cognitive and creative states—these practices rebuild coherence. We talk Joe Dispenza’s framework in practical terms, the heart-brain loop that turns intention into focused action, and why “rest” and “recovery” are not the same thing. You’ll hear a clear plan for phased healing: detoxing meds, gentle movement limits, PT progression, and a return to the routines that make you feel most like you.

We also confront the modern traps that deaden motivation: doomscrolling, “bed wasting,” hyper-stimulated media, and commiseration masquerading as support. The antidote is simple and human—cold water on your face before a big moment, humming or singing to shift your vagal tone, a brisk walk, vacuuming for a quick pulse of effort, and real conversations that mirror you back to your best. Nature contact, fresh learning, and intentional community are the scaffolds that hold your progress. The core takeaway: how your life feels matters more than how it looks, and lighting your own fire is a daily responsibility. If you’re ready to trade numb for alive, press play, subscribe for more episodes, and share your one practice you’ll start this week.

Follow Coach Polly @getbusythriving and Coach Sam @thesamanthapruitt

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayawesomeproject

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/everydayawesomeproject

Linktree for ALL THE THINGS: https://linktr.ee/everydayawesomeproject

Website/About Us: https://everydayawesomeproject.com/about-us/


Polly Mertens:

Hey superstars, welcome back. Paula here.

Samantha Pruitts:

And Sam Pruitt. What's up, beautiful humans? Oh my dear, our first episode, sensor surgery. So good to have you back online. I know you're getting there. And we're gonna talk on some of what the basis of what we're talking about. So this is about pump it up. And it's not our usual pump it up because, you know, like yeah, usually, you know, we're like, get on the court or get out in your lot, you know, like really like mask go. But this is about like unblocking energy and the source of creativity and things like that. So why don't you tell them a little bit about what you've been, you know. So you had surgery on Monday, and we're recording this on a Friday. So what what like like what what have we been talking about? What's been your experience that kind of led to us to going, you know what, this is a thing, because I've had some too. Yeah , yeah, totally. Um, so I had the surgery on Monday afternoon. It was it went great. So I am in the process of healing. Yeah, hallelujah. So first I went through, you know, of course, I was put out, anesthesia, I was put under, and they're operating on you. So you're kind of hoping. What's funny is I didn't even know what the anesthesia was going to be going in. I was like, wait, how are we doing this or whatever? So that was a little bit of a like, oh yeah, shit. Okay, this is gonna be um a little bit more intense. And I had envisioned or something. I was so proactively looking about my healing and getting the right doctors and all that kind of stuff. So anyway, but when I came out, so I was full of steroids for anti-inflammation drugs, you know, for pain, had been totally under for hours, you know, like all that kind of stuff. So that first day I just felt like amazing because I had no pain. Well, this pain that I'd had for almost three months was gone like that. And I was like, what the hell? This is freaking amazing. Yeah, I felt so like liberated to be able to a stand on my left leg and foot, yeah, like that alone, and not be in pain, and also be able to like move around, not do crazy stuff, but like just be able to move and like sleep, lay down, just basic things that you kind of take for granted. Go to the bathroom. Yeah, I can sit in the toilet. I was sitting on one of those little grandma things, you know, the big cushion pad things. So came out, felt great. And now my body's like, okay, sister, settle down a few notches because I do need to clear all this from my body and from my brain. Yeah, right. And so one of the things you and I were talking about is how I this week haven't been out in the world like I normally would be going and talking to people, seeing things out in nature or whatever, even though I was doing it, you know, on a very small level before because I was injured, I was still doing that because that's who I am. And not having that, having that part of me sort of closed off or stagnant was actually blocking my creativity, you know, my connection to the world and other people. Like it's just fascinating. Your own brain, it seemed like, too. It's just like it was empty, you're like weak. You're all I got nothing up there. I was like you end up kind of flatlined, or uh it's like the anesthesia is still there having its impact, even though it's worn off. Psychologically and emotionally, you're still in this sort of like flatline state. And we were comparing it to other parts and times in our lives where this has actually happened to us, and we've seen this with other people too, that sometimes circumstances happen, it's very stressful, or you go through a thing, and then you end up sort of stuck there in this blocked state. And you and I practice on the regular, pumping ourselves up to do things, to accomplish things, to be on top of our game, to whatever it might be. We have the that skill set and we realize maybe not everybody does. And a lot of people might just be walking around flatlined. And that's not gonna work for us. Well, you know, some of a lot of what we've talked about, what we were talking about, this pre-air is you know, a lot of what we help people with is like slowing their nerves, you know, getting out of that, you know, sympathetic nervous system state, the high, you know, uh fear and flight, fo flight. Fight, fight and flight. Flight and fight. Fighting and flying. Yeah, right. Because that's most people are walking around all jacked out. Yeah, you know, emails are flying at you like the tiger's coming out of the woods, you know, something, whatever. Totally. And you know, oftentimes our episodes are like, whoo, slow that nervous system down, taking breaths, like getting grounded, whatever. And this is like the opposite, because you and I both, so this two weeks ago, I uh had some uh work done, and it was like, don't don't get your heart rate up, right? So, like just you know, don't you don't want to be oh, you know, a lot of pump up, my usual whatever, running, hiking a lot and stuff like that. And it's been raining, so it's like not a lot of going outside. I mean, it's just been wet here. So like indoors a lot, it's cold, not going to the gym, walking when I can, right? But just not as much. And I just like by two weeks in, I was kind of like, you know, uh I know and not quite realizing it. Like, I was like, okay, I'm just gonna like do my walking, whatever. And I just felt sort of blah, you know. And and without you and I kind of both, you know, about but the beauty of us having this podcast and having our relationship and being coaches and stuff is like we we have the outward reflection of like, oh yeah, no, wait, that's not who I am. Wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no. You know, something to remind us of who we really are when we go into these little pits or periods, right? And not to stay in them. Also, right, right. Well, the whole point of um nervous system regulation is regulation, right? It's not a pendulum into the 10 out of 10 over here or the 10 out of 10 over here. Like you try and find some homeostasis, some balance where you can, in a very healthy manner, move back and forth as needed, as needed, right? Mastery, you know, we talked about mastery. Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah. On not just daily, but like hour by hour sometimes, depending on what you're up to. Yeah. And so one of the things is we were talking about this state that you've been in and how I realized, so you know, in the last week, I've been back in the gym, and I forget how much I do this for myself. It's just part of my what program. You know, it's like self-programming. I listen to motivational, you know, just really good stuff. I feed my brain in the morning as I'm at the gym and you know, doing my workout and stuff, and just feeling stronger again, you know, like lifting heavy shit has a way of like pulling that, I don't want to say fierceness, but that that life force of you back into your body and going, like, oh, I gotta, you know, like come together for this moment, right? In this present. And um, those two things, like feeding my brain again with like all that great juju, and then using my body in a in a powerful way. I was like, oh, here we are, here we are again, you know. And right, the emotions lifted up. Like I was ax accessing higher levels this morning. I jumped out of bed. I was like, all right, game on, man. Legacy time, you know. I was like, we're going, you know, and I just was like in this flat mode, like life is happening to me instead of for me. And now it's like, no, yeah, yeah, and that's happening for a multitude of reasons, right? There really is a physical biochemical reaction happening in the body when you do those things, when you cue those things. So for you, the cues are like the video, the music, like you priming the pump or whatever. And then you've obviously directly linked that to lifting heavy shit and like delivering the freaking goods in the gym, right? And I have my own experience like that too, and then being able to down-regulate, you know, back into the real world or whatever. All of these skills that we we don't take them for granted because we're talking about them, but we kind of just we are and we've been doing it for so long, and we've honed these skills that we feel are incredibly not just invaluable, like critical to being able to operate at a high level, like being able to drop the goods when you need to, like bada bing, bada boom, and then also um bring that back home. So pumping yourself up that way or even to do work, you know, when we have a big work project. If I'm going into a big work project where I'm like, oh MG, right? I'm gonna be in 10 days of basically, you know, boot camp or hell week or whatever you want to call it. You have to really fire yourself up for that shit. Yeah, you know, you have to get your body ready and you have to get your mind and brain ready because you have to be thinking again at a high level, you know, day after day after day or whatever, same kind of same kind of thing. And so I guess what we're really saying today is like we want to teach people how to do that in case they don't know or in case they're not doing it, and they're just walking around in an anesthesia state, you know, either from doom scrolling. Oh, I heard another term the other day. Oh my gosh, it's called bed wasting. Have you heard of this term? Oh no, no, it's people who are sitting in their bed for hours, either in the morning or the evening, on their phone. Yeah, doing the doing the scrolling, basically wasting, physically wasting, mentally, emotionally wasting away because they're just trapped on these phones. We can't be living like this people. This is unacceptable. Unacceptable. So if you feel like you're one of these people that's either stuck in one of these extreme cases, like we just mentioned, or maybe just on a regular basis, it just sort of visits you, this sort of flat, uninspired experience. Let's take them through some ways. And I want you to share Joe's work um about how they can move themselves out of that and why it's so powerful. Well, something I wanted to say that Joe does so this video, and we'll link to it. Um, and Joe Dispenza is, you know, pretty global, and you can find him um in a lot of videos and interviews. This one particular that I saw him on on the Gaia G A I A channel. He was interviewed, and he he talks about this in a lot of interviews, is this process he has, and I think his book is even called like becoming super supernatural or superconscious, supernatural, supernatural, right? So it's this process of um uh I don't want to go through all of it, but basically consider um you've people likely heard of the chakras, right? Or so just like your spinal column from the top of your head to the base of your your pubic area, whatever. So there's energy flows in there, right? And he has this process that he teaches people take taking energy, basically cerebral spinal fluid is how he starts to describe it, and using the muscles to sort of push it with intention up into the brain. And he talks to that those lower three chakras, and I'm no expert at this, but I can definitely attest to having lived in it and feeling it, is they, you know, the lower three are the sources of like, you know, reproduction, um digestion, digestion, elimination, elimination. Exactly, right? And it's like you know, they're they're the source of like the having your basic needs met, right? You get up to the higher ones, your throat chakra, your heart chalk, or your in your head. It's you know, inspiration and connection to the divine and stuff. But he says, you know, so many people, the thoughts are just keeping the energy stuck down in this, they're just living at a frequency and a vibration that this, you know, this process that he teaches is like to help liberate that energy, if you imagine, like between your belly button and your your bum, right? That energy just is like held down there, like in stuck, stagnant. Exactly. And you just sort of like it just ruminates down there. And like you said, yeah, things like constipation can be, you know, an outcropping, poor digestion, all sorts of things, you know, trouble reproductive, you know. All yeah, and you can't access these higher frequencies of you know your open heart when you're like in fear mode all the time, right? Or creativity and self-expression, or communication, rich communication through the throat chakra, or vision through your pineal gland and your third eye, or whatever. So his process, and we'll link to it, is you know, bringing that spinal fluid up, bringing the energy down there up into the brain, like lifting it out through the top of the head. That's one thing, you know, there's Tai Chi is other whatever it is, right? But I just think that being present. But you notice none of it is sitting around, doing nothing. Exactly. None of it is sitting around or laying on your damp sofa or whatever, doing nothing. It all engages movement of some type, whether it's oxygenating and blood flow to the area or movement itself, like so you can actually start to get some contraction and movement within the tissue. We're a cellular being. Cells are not gonna just do their own thing. Yeah, I think of people who, you know, you were talking about like bed wasting, that picture just sounds so terrible for me. You know, they've got their phone and they're just flipping through it. The body is just kind of like limp, you know, they're just limp and there's not much stimulation. And one of the things you and I talked about before we went on air is how um if you study the re you know, the the downstream of what happens when people watch pornography, a lot of it or you know, a fair amount of it, is their arousal with their partner or you know, people in the world, um, it it diminishes, right? So if you watch these same thing with gambling, same thing with um peak states of you know, narcotics or alcohol or scrolling, right? I mean, if I look at what and movies too, but if you look at what social looks like now to what it looked like 10 years ago, like people used to put phone uh food, you know, their pictures of their food or like their happy dog or something, and it was like, oh, like the stimulation was entertaining or enjoyable. Now I see the little videos of the stuff that people are doing to get attention and it goes viral. I mean, it's like full-on, you know, productions, you know, fireworks going off or whatever, the most silliest thing to have to bring that person out, you know, get that dopamine hit that they're looking for. And I need to, I would say the first thing is like a detox from that. Actually, I had a cow move in to the house next door to me here. This was funny. And she said, Oh, you know, interview. I'm like, oh, nice to meet you, whatever. She goes, Yeah, and just you know, I have an old school flip phone right now. And I was like, I was like, wow, just for you. Because yeah, I just really consciously see uh all of that energy and the things that I was giving to that and texting and all this stuff. She's like, you know what? I'm going to flip phone for I was like, bruh, oh, right? That detoxing from needing to be available, needing to, you know, the scrolling and and all this stuff. And like, take your life back. That was phenomenal. So well, and I think what you were alluding to also, just to kind of like pull that thread a little bit more, is developing uh an immunity or a numbness, a tolerance to, you know, you see that a lot with television. And, you know, it used to be that shows looked a certain way and were a certain experience for us when we were growing up, you know. And then now what people are watching and the level of violence and the level of just really, in my personal opinion, very traumatic visual uh stories that are being told and shown and sounds and whatever. There is no way in hell we would have digested that stuff growing up, and now it's basically being scream streamed, so younger people are basically entitled. What do you mean? Crime, rape, pillage, whatever. This is all normal. No, it's not freaking normal, and we should not normalize it. Absolutely not. I think you had a little bit of this experience when you did your um Catalina, you know, when you go back into the woods or you go out into nature and you don't have all the comforts of air conditioning and running water, and I don't know, and just the the experience, the environment is more natural, right? Yeah. It's just in its own sense, beauty and stillness and presence, right? It's it's nature doing nature versus all this animated, contrived, you know, supernatural kind of stuff that yeah, just to get people's attention. And I think it's where our nervous system, like we were talking about that pendulum, like our nervous system is like, oh, nature is like homeostasis, like sweet, hang out in here, you know, like you don't need all the jumping around or whatnot. So, you know, where we felt with this episode is we wanted to take people that were, you know, kind of in that numb state, some sort of like disconnect, numb or whatever. It's like, okay, zombie mode. Yeah, yeah. And it's not, you know, pump, you know, for you. The one thing we did want to say though is you're in recovery. This isn't like get back into CrossFit next week or something, right? So, yeah. So your diagnosis, your prescription for yourself. Tell us about your plan. Like, how do you see, you know, you already, and that's one thing is pointing out is like you have a plan. You have a plan. Totally. I mean, I was even making a plan before I was going to surgery. Like, okay, what's this gonna look like? So there's gonna be a period of time in my life where things are gonna look differently, right? First, there was the injury, and then there was that period of time of like figuring out what the hell it was and going through all the doctor's appointments and blah, blah, blah, getting myself educated, right? So then once I got to the other side of like, okay, you're gonna have the surgery, and then you're gonna come out, and this is what your the next chapter is going to look like. Again, taking ownership of that, me becoming empowered by like, okay, have the information that's knowledge. Knowledge is freedom, continue to educate myself, come up with a game plan. So, like, I know I'm gonna have two weeks of very, very light activity. Like, I'm literally not driving myself, you know. My husband's driving me around, and so there's I can only sit for no longer than 30 minutes at a time. So it's a lot of restrictions still, but I'm phasing myself slowly out of like I'm not taking pain medication anymore. That's freaking amazing. I have to detox all that out of my body, yeah, right? So I have to like get my stomach and my other systems back normalized and functioning again. Um, and then after that two-week period, we'll just call it like rest recovery detoxification. It really is a form of detox, too. You know, there's a lot of stuff floating around in this brain right now. Need to get that to move on out, right? And then after that, I will have PT for about six weeks and I'll slowly get into more activity. And there's a progression to that and what that's gonna look like. And anyway, between now and over the next couple months. So by the time I get to three months, basically I'm back to normal as long as everything goes as planned. But I very with great intention have not just awareness about what that's gonna look like. It's not happening to me, it's me doing it. Just gonna say that I'm very engaged in doing it. The most important thing I say here, yes, you have a plan is like your intentionality and taking responsibility. Right? You're like, I'm taking responsibility for the healing and the well-being in my body. I want to be where I want to be. Like, A, you had a nice state that you were in before all this, you know, this valley came in, right? And you know your normal is where you want to, you're you know, your normal, right? Which is a high state, high functioning, high energy, high uh creativity, you know, contributing, all that stuff. So she was just making me laugh because I was before I went into surgery, you know, I was in this like uh I was in the hospital, obviously, and nurses, I changed my clothes. There's this whole thing that has to happen, right? And I'm basically like waiting for the surgeon to come in and the anesthesiologist and the nurses, all these people came in. I was meeting all these people. I was just like, why is this a meet and greet? Look at me. And I was in there for a couple hours because they were running late, which is totally fine, right? Um, and during that time, it was so interesting to like be talking to people and like and I was still totally cop, you know, coherent. I didn't have any pain meds or anything. I was just laying in the bed waiting for this party to get started. And I was so chill and zen. I felt completely confident I was in the right place doing the right thing and all that kind of stuff. But when the surgeon came in and I was talking to him, he's like, So if you have any questions, blah blah blah, whatever. He's just the loveliest guy. And I said, Well, I don't have any questions, I'm good to go. But just remember, this is me talking to him. Just remember now, I gotta get back to running. Okay. I got I'm gonna do in the John Muir trail this year. I gotta get that going on. Uh he's just like, okay, okay. He's like, we got this, we got this, you know. I was very clearly like delivering the message of like, I will with your help, and I'm in your hands now. I'm literally giving my life over to your hands to get back to my old life. And I so appreciate that you're gonna be the guy to help me do it. Like, you know, instilling confidence and connection with him, I think is a very important part of like when you don't feel well or when something is happening and it's not going great, not showing up disempowered, you know, like, hey, I'm gonna just wait for you to tell me what's gonna happen next. I mean, yeah, that's just not how I roll. I love it. And you know, in my world, what was going on this past weekend was I you were telling me before we aired about um years in your past where you had this like we call it like a depression cloud, or you know, oh yeah. So you said, you know, it's kind of like a cloud that comes over in the sky, and you can you can almost feel it, experience it, you know, see it if you will. And uh how I I wouldn't say I was in depression uh last weekend, but just a funk, like a like a funk, and how I described it was like come Friday, just a bit of burnout and like things that I was doing, strategies not working, and I just went like tumbling down, like a like if you're on your surfboard and this wave comes crashing over, and then like I'm down in the rocks and you know, I'm like fighting for air, and I was like, you know, just that those moments. And then finally, like that that cloud, if you will, whatever that funk was that I was in. And thankfully, what I wanted to point to is I came out of it, and I think a couple things happen is the mind um has a way of wanting to isolate us, right? So it wants to protect and isolate and like push the world out or whatever. And I, you know, reached out, like being in communication was surprisingly more helpful, you know, in in AA and those kind of traditions. They say, call your sponsor, reach out, you know, be in communication. Um, and how important that was for me to break that pattern that was the start of things like going, wait a minute, I'm uh this isn't me, this isn't how I want to feel. And and you're like, hold up, just pause, pause, you know, and all these things that I was wrapping my head around that were just continuing it. So making those calls, being in communication, having some trusted friends, partnerships, coaches, whatever it is, to work through those things, you know. And I would say, even before you got to that piece, like recognizing out of the corner of your eye, like I can almost like smell it when it's happening now. It's a visceral experience. Yeah, you know, it's like I see a little dark cloud over here blooming around, right? And like having great awareness of like, hmm, something is not quite right. Am I going to ignore it? Or should I be like, hey, I see you over there, I don't know what that's about, but I should start getting busy doing the things I know that work for me that will make sure that it doesn't become a freaking tsunami tornado, right? Taking over my life. It becomes a thing, it's a blip in the road, it's a moment in time, right? And it could have very good reason for being there. Yeah, understanding recognizing all of that, and then starting dialogue, so that's your own awareness, and then starting dialogue with your support team, your A team, whoever that is, whatever that looks like for you, like wow, kind of in a funk today. I'm just something's not, and then let's just talk and be seen, be heard, be loved, you know? Yeah, because I think what we were pointing to is, you know, if you go through periods and you don't get support, you don't, you know, remember your normal, you have too much time in that low energy, or you're taking in information, media, whatever it is, and that energy is stuck in those shot, lower chakras, or the mind is just hijacked, you know, and the whole body just feels abnormally adrift, you know, if it's if it's kind of like a numbing feeling or if it's a lower frequency, just moving those out, whether it's through conversations to like hear your truth and go, wait a minute, this yeah, wait a minute, you know, have your internal world externalized in conversation so that you can discover, wait a minute, what's really true here? Is this is this how I want to be feeling? Is this, you know, no, right? You know, but when it's all going on inside, whether it's energetically in our gut, just sort of like like, oh, that's just there, unless it's sometimes if it's not um, what do you call it? Uh like it it interacts. Um sort of like when they had that story of like the you can boil frogs if you don't you turn it up slowly, slowly, slowly, they won't jump out, right? So it's like we're in our body. If the boiling of emotions of toxicity or whatever is like slow, we don't realize until it's you know, you know, you need to jump out of this body, if you will. So having those conversations can help us relate to like this doesn't sound normal. This doesn't sound like you. This this what are you doing over there, you know? So having our inside come outside so we can, you know, presence ourselves to no, this isn't how I want to be feeling. Yeah. And I mean, to be clear, we're not saying that there isn't a physical thing going on. There is also a physical thing going on. Yeah. Right. And the problem could be, could arise if it goes on for a really long period of time. One of these hyper-vigilant or hyper-depressed states can really have a massive cascading effect, negative cascading effect on your hormones and how your whole body and brain function if it goes on for a really long period of time. And in those cases, of course, that's going to require more work. It's going to be a bigger lift to bring those people down from those low places. But what we're seeing today is in a perfect world, you'd have awareness before it would get so extreme, or you would have people in your life who would help you recognize, hey, I'm seeing a pattern again. I'm seeing, like I can think of people that I share my life with, right? You share your life with, we share our life with each other. If you see somebody kind of having a funk for a couple days, reach out to them, you know, whether it's a very simple conversation, if you're not seeing them, to text them, call them, whatever. I mean, I just make it a regular practice to have kind of a pulse on about 20 or 30 people who are like, you know, in my space. And on a regular basis, I am asking them, how is your mental health? How is your physical health? How are you doing? I mean, this is just basic human connection. This is how we should be operating. But I think um we've gotten away from that more and more the more we have digitalized our lives and becoming siloed, really post-pandemic. You know, the pandemic kind of started it, but a lot of people have stayed in those little uh home office or small life silos. The people that will not get out of their car and grocery shop and get food because they are still doing the drive-thru thing is blowing my mind. It's like you'd actually need to go walk around and see things. And I had a conversation with someone just the other day about this. I was like, are you still having your food delivered? You know, come on now. Why are we doing that? Yeah. So it might seem like small things, but they're big things and they really are impactful in terms of the energy. And I know you're big on the energy element of this. Maybe you want to. Well, one thing I just want to touch on what you're saying, you know, as um, you know, we're recording this before my um December program that I'm leading. And I've just been reaching out to people that I think would love to do the work, you know, to be in the group. And A, I'm amazed at how much I haven't been out in communication. Like I haven't, you know, yeah, like you said, like the 20. Mine's smaller because I don't have the extended family like you do with the kids and whatnot. But that, you know, small. And then I was like, so I've been doing these little hours of like, hey, how are you doing? I haven't wondered. And like I think people are hungry for it. Like, I don't, I think a lot of people are just as not being connected with as I've been feeling, you know. So I'm like, oh, I'm initiating. Okay, maybe my initiation will help others initiate in their life as well. Like, oh, who haven't you? I'm not telling them to do that, but it's like, you know, maybe them reconnecting with somebody they haven't connected with in a while will give them the in the surge and the idea. Dude, people are starving. Starving. Look at the origins of the species, human species. We're we're social beings. Yeah. So us pretending we're not is not ultimately going to serve ourselves and each other. I want to just mention this one thing because this is really interesting to me. The um spinal fluid. So you're earlier talking about the sheet the three chakras, and in particular, Joe's work is like squeezing that area, bringing tension, muscular tension to the area, and creating like a pulsing through your breath and through your muscular into the spinal cord. And then that spinal fluid keeps pumping up and down, right? And when I was looking at healing the pain in my sacrum, which I originally I thought it was a sacrum injury, and it turned out to be an actual lumbar disc injury, but it's all in my pelvis, hip, low back region, right? Um there's protein, there's salts and fluids in your spinal fluid going up and down, up and down, which means it actually has an energy to it, like everything in the body. But it's such a great visual to think of that fluid being pushed and pulsed. We've talked about the lymphatic system before. The fact it also doesn't have a drain, you have to pump it through muscular contraction. Spinal fluid is the same. I have to move this spinal fluid. Okay. Me just sitting or laying down on the sofa waiting for my body to heal will not heal my spine. That is not going to happen. And I think it's unfortunate that people sort of want to lay back, if you will, on that idea of like rest means doing nothing. Well, there is a thing called rest, and there's a thing called recovery. So believe me, I slept 10 hours last night. I was resting. But my recovery is not the same thing. My recovery is gentle movement and getting these fluids to move around and eating healthy and exposing myself to positive things so my brain can be stimulated. It's all these other things. Yeah. Right? To bring myself back into that state of health. Yeah, I I do, I love that. And I was trying to think of like what is the metaphor. It's like um, I don't know, it's like a turkey baster, like you squeeze it, you know, and like the it's I don't know what it is, but I'm trying to think of like a thermometer and like you heat it up on the bottom and it goes up. Something, right? Like because that's I was thinking a coffee press. You know, an old coffee, old school coffee press, they're coming back now. But anyway, you put the hot water in, then you press the coffee down and it makes coffee. All the hot water comes in coffee. But like it's a pumping mechanism. So it's actually a pumping, it's literally like you have squeezing, yeah. Yeah. Like squeezing it from the outside in. Yeah. And what you're pointing to, and I love it, is you know, this fluid um gets a charge, right? And if you if you further go down, yeah, if you go down Joe's work, so where a lot of this leads, he talks about it like the pumping up and down. And like picture, you're sending this fluid up from the bottom of your bum to your head and then back down and then up and back down, right? So it's it's moving. And when it gets into your head, it's you know, it's like magnetizing your thoughts, right? So it's giving you higher access to higher energy, higher frequencies in the mind space, right? And there's three levels of that, and la la la. You can go, I think I would encourage people to go check it out. And then, you know, some of his work, other work that he talks about is getting the heart and mind in coherence. And that's a lot of the work that I do in, you know, my program, which is the heart chakra, the heart energy. The heart is, you know, a polarity, right? So it pulls things, like you get your mind with the ideas and it sends it out, and then your heart pulls it in, right? So it's this like you're you magnify the thoughts that you have, positive ones, we hope, you know, like the ones that you want to attract, not the things that you don't want to attract. So you send that out, and then the heart being aligned with it pulls it in. So they work like this, you know, this yin and yang, or you know, it's like out and in, you're sending the frequency out that you want, and the heart pulls in those things that you want. It's really beautiful to, you know. Electrical charges. Exactly. Same with the heart, right? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But it starts with like moving that those. I what I found so profound in that video was how much of culture and the things that on the external world that we get pulled into or distracted by keeps that lower energy in place. And it's more about us realizing and rising above that energy so we can move it in our own little sphere over here, our own little temple to keep us in the state that we want to be in, right? Because the outer world will keep us in that lower frequency. So it's us to generate, create that generation of energy and the spinal flowed up and down. Like you said, what are some ways that you get yourself pumped up? So if you feel like you need to break yourself out of something like that, give us some examples of what you do. Well, one thing we just talked about that I don't do enough, which is the having conversations with people in my life that, you know, help me recognize the shitty state I have myself in, you know. So that's one is like, oh damn, okay. Yeah, this is not commiserating though. Again, this is an energy thing. And I I don't have people around me that commiserate. Uh uh. Like my reflection mirror is not, oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Nope. Well, so I was thinking about myself. I'm thinking about myself just having this injury and then going through the surgery. And so I did have a lot of people reach out to me, which I love that. And thank you, everybody. But some people are the worry wart sort of catastrophizing people, right? And I'm like, okay, you're hilarious because you forgot you're talking to me. But what is this? Henny penny, the sky's falling and all things are ending. What the hell is that? This is time surgery. I was like, yeah, that's a hell no. And by the way, what the hell, what's the you know, like you have to sort these people out. Because for some people, that is a little bit of uh where they default. And then they started like one instance with somebody I hadn't talked to in quite a long time. I used to coach this guy, and anyway, he's great, love him. But he immediately went into the 50,000 things that are going wrong in his body, and it was this whole like you're not gonna believe, and then and I was like, yo, bro, stop right there. It's my temple over here. Yeah, we're right. Right there, yeah. And also, what is this story you're telling yourself? Everything's broken and it's all falling apart to hell. Like trying to the commiseration uh thing. So just throwing that out for people to have awareness. But yeah, you you go into a conversation and you're like, My energy is low. Could you bring me like I need to plug in and get a little fired up? And you and I'll do that on a regular basis. We have to go do a thing and whatever, and we'll be like, hey, oh look, I just need to talk for five minutes. I gotta go, or like I need to get fired up. Start the bonfire, pour some gasoline on that shit. Yeah, yeah, charge it up. And then I think the other thing that I do on the daily is my morning routine, you know, my meditated, like I know that I'm always coming back to that grounding, right? And they're daily fluctuations in how powerful it is, how grounding it is, how loving it is, whatever. But it's like I'm never, you know, a day or two away from recentering myself, recentering myself. So I'm just not gonna kind of drift off into you know, six weeks. Like I hear people who are like, oh yeah, I used to work out. Like it was a like a thing in the far, far past. I'm like, I don't drift that far, you know, two, three days, like that two weeks was I was still walking. I was like, okay, well, I'm still gonna be moving, you know, or vacuuming and you know, just getting some movement, if you will. Vacuuming that last that makes me laugh just saying that because I find vacuuming very meditative and fascinating. Because like you can actually get your heart rate up vacuuming. Anyway, right? I know, and I've been told not to vacuum. I can't clean my house, can't do all these things. I was like, vacuum? Like that's strenuous, but okay. Oh, you can't do that. Um pulling. Oh, if you've got one of these modern day, man, it's quite a workout. Totally, totally. And then for me, some of the pump up things that I do and what I've witnessed with being off in this period of time, right, is like because I wasn't doing my regular activities like get up, go to the gym, yeah, go to my coffee shop, go do this thing, blah, blah, blah, run my life, my day in a certain way, um, being able to clean the house or do whatever the hell the things are that I want to do. I basically move all day long. I don't actually sit down until the end of the day. And even then, I might sit for a couple hours at the end of the day if I'm watching something that's worth watching or whatever. But the rest of the time I'm, you know, moving around. So the energy in my body is pumping up or whatever. Well, because I wasn't really doing that, I had no creative juices. You know, I'm in the middle of a study program right now with Dr. Stacy Sam's, right? I couldn't focus to learn the your substacks, you know, your writing. Yeah, you know, any creative. I got nothing. And normally I can barely contain it, you know. And so finding I know you're like making recordings like all day long, or you know. Exactly. Yeah, and I'm like, uh that was really kind of a fascinating eye-opening experience for me, you know. And I told you I was awake at two in the morning and I was having all these things or like downloading, and I should have got my ass up and literally written all those things, typed them up, whatever, because then they were gone. Bye. Mm-hmm. So how how do you I know some of yours, your some of your joy, you know, your joy routine, like you said, you go to the coffee shop, that connection, the human connection for you. You go and you get your your workouts with your ladies there, and you know, like those things that you're big for you, I think is that that checking in, that connection that you get when you're with people. And um, having creative outlets and seeking them too. So I found because I was in a great deal of pain, uh, my brain wasn't really willing to have a lot of stimulus or have a lot of exposure to uh whether it's podcasts or reading or whatever. Like I was trying to read and I ended up like getting, because I read quite a bit, I had to buy the most basic, simple book that took almost no brain energy at all just to like be able to have something to read, but it took very little focus or attention from me. It wasn't something I was gonna be learning, it was more like a passive kind of reading, and I was just like, Well, I'm reading. Oh, what did she say? I gotta read that paragraph over again. It was kind of crazy. Um, so just keeping some things going, uh, but not being able to really take in much. And so you can find yourself in places like this for prolonged periods of time where you know you really are not learning. And if you think about that's a real problem, right? If I went for prolonged periods of time that I wasn't able to learn new information, that's literally such a big part of what makes me happy. Yeah, yeah. And how I feel like an evolving human in the world. I mean, that just feels like I'm starting to die. Literally, a part of me is starting to die if that part were cut off. And that's just not okay, right? Well, I think that's you stimulating your brain too. Yeah, like your brain just loves like the newness, the freshness, you know, like it's deleting old and it's replacing it. I think for me too, um, and you have this, is um being outdoors, being in nature, seeing something beautiful, precious, simple beauty, whatever, right? So like I look up my window um here and I see the these beautiful yellow flowers. It's like, oh, right. But if I'm indoor, you know, dark weather, cold weather, uh rainy weather can have us, you know, but you know, stuck inside. And I we just like having fever is a real thing. Like we just crave those even right now. I'm like standing by the window. Yeah. Birds, oh, a couple birds over there. What are they doing? There's a hummingbird. Oh, okay, there's clouds in the sky or whatever. Still staying connected to it. Yeah. Hell yeah. Or going out in the yard and walking around totally. Well, yeah. And I it's interesting. I think about my mom who watches television and there's a window and behind her. And like I've tried to like situate um seating areas and move all the furniture. She can and it's like no interest, like no interest in in that. I'm like, well, but whatever, you know, whatever. Everybody's got a little different thing. So finding what pumps you up. And if you don't know, like try, experiment, right? Um, and I would say there's different layers to this or levels to this, you know, where you're at with the recovery is we're not talking about going and getting jacked. Like you don't need like 300 miles an hour pumped up, but it's, you know, for whatever frequency, whatever band you're in at that moment, what's an elevated state from there? And then what's an elevated state from there? You know, and sometimes we do need radical interventions. Um, not I would say, you know, when you're in recovery, I'm not saying anything like this, but you know, like for me, after these two weeks, I was like, I gotta, you know, like unfortunately it was raining, but I wanted to like jump up on a mountain, get going, right? It's like something radical being back in the gym and lifting heavy stuff was like, okay, this is who I am, this is how my body likes to move. And whatever it is for somebody, it could be Pilates that just feels like flow for them, whatever. Music, I think, is really good for this. Yeah. Um, listening to music, also singing and humming is really good for this. So again, you're changing the vibration that's coming into your cellular being and the output vibration that's going out of your body as well. I think music is really, really powerful. I mean, just yeah, figuring out obviously we've talked about movement enough, but um, cold is another thing. So there's a lot of research around cold therapies right now, obviously, but just splashing cold on your face and putting your hands in cold water can be enough to be like, damn, okay. So let's say you're gonna go do a presentation to whatever you you know, you need to in a place that's not appropriate to do a lot of ranting and raving or playing music or whatever. Go in the bathroom, put your hands under cold water, splash your face if you can and get a little cold water, like even cold air on your face, like it's things like this. It can be very, very simple. People don't have to get all crazy about it, but you know, integrate these things into your practice. Yeah, like I think about like clapping has a tremendous, you know, like clapping and uh affirm like yelling or you know loudly speaking affirmations, you know, like like things that fuel your you know pump you up. Singing, like you talked about, you know, like sing to that damn song in the car, like let it out, right? You know, exactly, exactly. Whatever it takes, whatever it takes, baby. All right. Well, it's so good to have you back in sort of out of pain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was getting a little grumpy. I was getting a little grumpy for a minute there. You're like, we gotta find the thing, you know, keep finding the thing until because Grumpy Town isn't where you want to stay. So yeah. Exactly. So glad to have you back. Well, what do you excelling? What's our one thing? What's one thing from this that is you think is the most like pivotal? I think just bringing awareness to people that they do need to pump themselves up. Okay, that that the pumping up is not coming from some external, someone else's responsibility, something else. I need to be responsible for lighting my own fire. Like this is a responsibility I'm taking on, and I would like others to do the same thing. Yeah, yeah. And we can look for external support and help in that, or like you, like going out to your CrossFit. You go into an environment that serves that, and you know, like you don't stay at home and like, oh, I'm just gonna cheer myself up, right? You're like, I'm gonna put myself in an environment, or like some of you, it's like a retreat, like a beautiful retreat to bring you back to your center and let go of some crap that you've been carrying around, right? Whatever, like our my program, right? It's like completing the year, like let that go. So you're freed up for new energy. So brilliant. I love it. Exactly. Are we gonna beat drums? What are we gonna do? Are we all gonna have instruments? No, it's gonna be a little more mellow than that. Yeah, this is really sacred time. I found I was telling some um a hairdresser about this yesterday, and it was like, there's so much busyness going, intake, like there's so much coming at us from the world and so much responsibilities. We're just pulled in all these directions, lots going on. You have been, you know, taking care of yourself, but a lot of the women of the world are just out in the world, contributing, supporting, whatever. And it's like, hold up, let's let's get that container, shrink it down just to you and have time with you so we can remember the us that's in here and the beautiful soul that we are, and like what matters most to us because we can get very influenced, we can get very engaged, like we're velcro out in the world. And it's like, you know, just pull that in. So we're gonna be kind of not walling ourselves off, but like welling ourselves up, right? Welling ourselves up so that we can contribute it in what ways we most want, what feels most aligned for us. So and there's still opportunity to join, right? Yes, that very yeah, November 30th. So depending on when you're hearing this, like that's the cutoff, November 30th, 2025, uh for this year, and then we will do it again next year. So that's exciting. And you and I have lots coming up in 2026. So if you're listening to this, you know, check us out on our social and website. We'll definitely be making announcements as things are rolled out. All right. And we're talking about listening parties and all sorts of things of getting engaged with people who are following us and and supporting the work that they're wanting to get up to, right? So exactly. All right. What do we want to remind them though? Of our last, last thing after um all this yummy work. This is really beautiful. What do you want to well, how your body feels is how it feels. That's true too. That's also true. How your body feels is one thing, but how your life feels is more important than how it looks. Love it. And every day is your opportunity to find yourself.

Head Shot

Polly Mertens

Co-host
Head Shot

Samantha Pruitt

Co-host