Why Do I Feel Guilty When I Rest? Brea Segger on Earning Calm

Brea (00:00): if we really check our system right now, a lot of people listening to this, just like if you just stop and be like, what’s going on right now? There’s parts of your body that are tense. Maybe your jaw, maybe you’re not really fully breathing, maybe your legs are clenched, maybe you know, whatever, right? There’s the physical and then there’s the energetic, the emotions. We’re like. holding. And it’s like allowing that all to just settle where we don’t have to hold anymore.

Ky (00:25): My friends, welcome back to The Vibe With Ky Podcast. I’m Ky. I am so glad that you are here right now. If you are new around here, this is the podcast where we talk about ADHD, anxiety, and the chaos of being human. And we talk about it honestly and we do it with a lot of humor and zero toxic positivity. Today’s episode got more personal than I expected. it’s about the idea of That the calm you keep chasing is not something that you earn. It’s already in there. And most of what we call self-improvement is just a new set of rules standing in front of it. My guest today is Brea Segger. She’s an embodiment guide who works with leaders and entrepreneurs and high achievers, the people who look completely put together on the outside and are running on empty underneath it. She knows that world from the inside. Her career started in international business development. And mergers and acquisitions before she spent more than a decade running a holistic medicine institute in Canada. She’s been doing this work for over 20 years. So here’s what we get into in this episode. Brea tells us, tells me that she has nearly taken the the phrase nervous system off of her website completely because the language turned into another rule book. She makes the case that suppressing your emotions was protective, not a failure. She puts the high achiever and the person in active addiction on the same continuum. And when I asked her where to start, her answer was five minutes, lying down, doing absolutely nothing. I’ll be honest with you, my friends, there is a long stretch where I could not tell the difference between rest and guilt. And this conversation put a name on that for me. It was great. And I’m I’m working on it with a lot less shame now. With that said, my friends, sit back, relax, and enjoy my chat with Brea Segger.

Ky (02:14): My friends, I am sitting here with my friend Brea Segger. I said the last name right? Segger, right? Perfect.

Brea (02:19): You did, yes.

Ky (02:22): And you know, it’s funny. I I when when you first filled out the the form, it it said Brie, as in like the cheese. And like I’m a

Brea (02:29): Yeah.

Ky (02:30): cheese fanatic. And so as soon as I saw that, I’m like, we’re gonna get along just fine. We’re gonna get along just fine.

Brea (02:35): Absolutely. I mean the fact that Brie is somehow woven into my name, I feel like it’s a very good thing. You can’t go wrong with Brie cheese.

Ky (02:40): Yeah. No, it’s perfect. It’s perfect. It’s perfect. You know, in in my research, the thing that that kept jumping out to me about your work is this idea that you don’t just listen to people, you actually see them, and that seeing creates a kind of safety that their whole system will respond to. How would you describe what is actually happening? in someone when they feel truly seen for maybe the first time in like years.

Brea (03:11): So one thing about that is is the ability to really see somebody, like yourself who does that too, means that there’s a certain safety in your nervous system already where you can actually allow yourself to be that present to fully see somebody beyond what

Ky (03:26): Yeah.

Brea (03:26): the words are that they’re saying. And I don’t mean from the head, we’re not looking for like what’s their aura, what’s their colors, what’s going

Ky (03:32): Right.

Brea (03:33): on, like it’s not that. It’s just like you’re really present and your whole system is there and not. in a way that is pulling from them to try to get information. So sometimes when people think we’re seeing the other person, it means like we’re trying to pull information, what’s happening underneath. It’s not that either. It’s just a settling in the system. Okay, so when we’re with that, you’re holding space like that or you’re just being present with somebody, that allows the other person to feel that sense of safety. And for so many people, they have truly never felt safe in their life. Or if they have, it’s been a few times they can remember. You know, sometimes they’ll be like, I remember this happy moment. I probably felt safe because I was able to be just so present in that moment. But a lot of us have been so, I guess, learned, shown, taught through teachers, parents, society, conditioning, that to truly be present and safe isn’t okay. We don’t even know what that is, we don’t have to access it. So it’s a huge relief for people when they first feel that. And it can also be overwhelming. It’s like space. There’s space inside. Okay, what do I do with space? Right. There’s like the next part that comes after that.

Ky (04:41): Right. Sure. Yeah.

Brea (04:44): What do I do with that? And a lot of people be like, Do I feel that? Do is there something I have to look for? Is there something I have to do? And it’s like, can you get used to that spaciousness first? Like, like that

Ky (04:54): Yeah.

Brea (04:54): is more true to you.

Ky (04:56): Yeah. And a lot of people that that find your work are leaders, founders, high achievers, those types of people who who look incredibly put together on the outside, right? But from what you’ve seen, why is it so often that the most successful people are are the ones that are most disconnected from themselves underneath of the performance?

Brea (05:20): Well, one of the beautiful things about being successful and having that drive to go do whatever the thing is means that you’re likely avoiding that spaciousness and that peacefulness because quite frankly, for a lot of us, that feels like a waste of time. Like, what do you mean? I’m just gonna be with that. Like, how does that have any value when

Ky (05:39): Right.

Brea (05:40): I can have output, be on my computer, managing a team, creating a business, making money where that is more valued right now in society? Right. And so it

Ky (05:49): Yeah.

Brea (05:50): comes to a certain place though with a lot of the people that I work with that reach a certain level and they go to, well, what’s next? I’ve made the money. I’ve built the businesses. I know how to fill my days. I know how to stay completely busy with building, creating, whatever. It might also be like I add in these wonderful sports and I go sailing on my yacht, like whatever it is, but it’s all stuff. It’s all a it’s all a busyness. It’s all a bit of an avoidance of that space.

Ky (06:15): Yeah.

Brea (06:16): And that being that you started talking about, right? And

Ky (06:18): Yeah.

Brea (06:19): so really that’s where people want to go. And I think everyone wants to know there when they wants to go there once they know that it’s available, but it’s very elusive at first. It sort of comes up of like, I can’t keep doing this, I’m overwhelmed, I’m burning out. What else is out there? And well, okay, so what else is out there? It’s actually in,

Ky (06:39): Yeah.

Brea (06:40): it’s inwards, right?

Ky (06:41): Yeah. Yeah. And and you have you have these retreats that are coming up this fall with with a handful of spaces that are that are still open. And and I want to I want people to know that I want people to know that early so that they can sit with that information like as we sit and talk. For someone who has never done any sort of immersive work like this before, how would you describe what a few days in that kind of container? actually does to a person.

Brea (07:08): It’s like being able to breathe without having to try to breathe. We all know what it is like to breathe. We all know,

Ky (07:13): Mm. Mm.

Brea (07:15): like, we’re always on this holding. Like if we really check our system right now, a lot of people listening to this, just like if you just stop and be like, what’s going on right now? There’s parts of your body that are tense. Maybe your jaw, maybe you’re not really fully breathing, maybe your legs are clenched, maybe you know, whatever, right? There’s the physical and then there’s the energetic, the emotions. We’re like. holding. And it’s like allowing that all to just settle where we don’t have to hold anymore. What happens in there? Like what happens when we’re not holding physically, emotionally, spiritually, energetically? What happens when we just get to let go of that? And this is where we get to know ourselves from a completely different place. And like I used to I like to say a place beyond words. Because this is where the mind isn’t coming in and being like, now you’re happy, now you’re joyful, now you’re at peace, now you’re calm. It’s gonna do that because that’s what our brain is really good at doing. But there’s something else within us that is connected, nature, God, source coming through us. And it’s getting to know that without having to define it, articulate it, and think we need to give it a rule book and go back into the same cycle of productivity and all the things that we are trying to actually get away from.

Ky (08:31): Yeah, yeah. There’s there’s this belief that I think a lot of us carry that if we just push harder, if we just optimize more, if we just stay disciplined enough, that we’ll finally arrive at some sort of peace. Your whole message pushes back on that. Your whole message is is is the idea that we have to That we don’t have to earn the calm, right? Like, why is that idea that we have to earn the calm and our worth, why is that so deeply wired in us? Why, why is it such a trap?

Brea (09:04): Yeah, well, we already know we’ve done it. We’ve already taken all the courses.

Ky (09:08): Yeah.

Brea (09:09): We’ve read the books. We’ve been striving in different areas of our life, whether that’s spiritual, personal development, relationship development.

Ky (09:15): Mm-hmm.

Brea (09:16): Lovely, right? There’s a beautiful sentiment to that. You know, and yet we’re still like trying to brain our way through there. If I meditate like this, then I will get like this. If I work hard on this, then I will get like this. You know, fill in the blank of whatever the task is to get somewhere. You’re back into the brain. You’ve completely missed this in beautiful, infinite spark of potentiality within you because you’re you’ve just gone right over it and you’ve missed the whole thing. And so it’s more of a delayering, if I had to explain it, but if we then focus on delay delayering and we talk about it like that, we go back into that same Pattern again. Okay, now I’m gonna take I’m gonna take my anger off, take my resentment off, I’m gonna take it all off, right? And then we get very fixated on all of that. It has its usefulness. I don’t want to say it does. Of course it does. Of course, we need language to it. We put words to it. We want to be able to articulate some of these emotions. But what I’m talking about is something deeper inside of us that isn’t a destination. It’s just an allowance for you exactly as you are right now, but we’re not allowing ourselves to be right now because we’re Holding everything so tightly.

Ky (10:28): Yeah, yeah. You know, there was this there was this long stretch of time when I genuinely could not tell the difference between rest and guilt. Seriously. I couldn’t I couldn’t tell the difference. And and sitting still, it felt like I was it felt like I was failing at something, right?

Brea (10:45): Yeah. Yeah.

Ky (10:47): From a nervous system standpoint. What is going on in a person when when stillness itself feels unsafe?

Brea (10:55): Yeah. So this is what we also need to understand. We can’t expect to jump into stillness. And so that messaging again creates like this destination. I’m gonna be still. The stillness is inside of you, the spaciousness is inside of you, the

Ky (11:05): Mm-hmm. Shass. Yeah.

Brea (11:08): alignment’s inside of you. You don’t need to get there, you don’t need to be still. And when we put ourselves in places like that, if we go from like nervous system overload, like what you’re describing, into stillness. So, like someone decides, like, say you just decided, I’m gonna go and sit in meditation tomorrow, I’m gonna go to the meditation group in my community, like it’s probably not gonna feel very good. And I’m not saying that everything is supposed to feel good or anything like that. It’s just that that’s very shocking for your system to go and try to do that. And your brain is going to be going overtime for like say an hour meditation that and you’re trying to get your brain to stop. Again, we’ve gone into trying. My brain needs to stop. The words are supposed to be clouds, supposed to come. I’m supposed let them go. We’ve gone right into rule and guidebook again and again and again, versus just allowing ourselves to be as it is and start paying attention to these things. What you just described is a huge thing. So many of us hold. We feel like we are not getting anywhere, doing anything, accomplishing anything. We feel so much guilt if we stop, if we pause, right? And that is a big thing that

Ky (12:11): Mm-hmm.

Brea (12:12): our society is holding. And we hear this and see this everywhere. We’re supposed to be productive. We’re supposed to be

Ky (12:18): Yeah.

Brea (12:18): making money.

Ky (12:19): Yeah. Yeah. Whenever whenever I have this sort of conversation with someone, I always wanna talk about some of the myths and misunderstandings around it because I feel like I I feel like sometimes with some of the things I see on social media, especially, there’s a lot of buzzwords that are that are thrown out there. And I I like to go a little bit further past that ’cause a lot a lot of the mental health language kind of just gets thrown around loosely. online

Brea (12:43): Yeah.

Ky (12:44): now and and things like like nervous system regulation when you say things like that like it it in in the social media world it’s kind of become like a buzzword of

Brea (12:53): Yeah.

Ky (12:54): of of sense that people will just kind of say but you’re in that space every single day you work that space every single day are there any myths or misunderstandings about regulation that you wish would just go away forever

Brea (13:07): Well, I mean, you just gave a great example. So I think I’ve almost wiped

Ky (13:09): Yeah.

Brea (13:10): nervous system off my website. I was absolutely at

Ky (13:12): Yeah.

Brea (13:13): fault for using that too. But here’s the thing n we give the words to it, right? Like, like n like there wasn’t this thing that said, hey, all of these nerves and everything and the vagus nerve together, and that is your nervous system. It’s the same as saying we have a digestive system. It they’re not really systems. It’s something that we’ve created to try to describe it a little bit more of what’s happening. And so I actually find like if we’re just sitting there, if we’re talking about, hey, I’m just gonna allow myself to be, I’m gonna try to just see what is there. I’m gonna lay down on my bed for 20 minutes and pause and let that be. We’re not going in our mind, now my nervous system is doing that. Now it’s in flight mode. Now it’s in fight. Like we don’t really think like that, right? So why are we continuously putting these sorts of words to it. If you are an academic and you want to go researching it and having these words for articulation to describe that to other people, that amazing. But that’s not really what’s going through most of our minds. We’re just showing up. We’re in relationship. Maybe we’re fighting with our partner. Maybe we’re feeling a time of calm and peace. Maybe we’re playing with our kids. Maybe we’re upset and feeling sad and lonely. Like it’s not really beyond, my nervous system and now like I’m having some bowel issues because of that. Like we don’t We can’t really quite directly correlate all of that together, nor should we, because we have so much more than we are aware of from the physical stance, the emotional stance, the spiritual stance. And so we’re always trying to get to the bottom of it and we’re not really just letting ourselves be. So I mean, yeah, fill in the blank with any word you want. It’s probably not that needed. And that was one of the first

Ky (14:48): Yeah. Yeah.

Brea (14:51): things I said, the space beyond words. It our brain’s gonna keep going on overtime. Are we going to

Ky (14:56): Mm-hmm.

Brea (14:56): keep letting it Do that, sure, because don’t fight it, but also realize

Ky (15:01): Right.

Brea (15:01): it’s maybe not that important.

Ky (15:03): Yeah. An another phrase that I I want to throw at you is is emotional into emotional integration. Cause that is a that is a phrase that that you use. And I I think a lot of us were raised to to manage or suppress emotions rather than actually move through them. Why does pushing feelings down tend to keep us on tra or not on track, but keep tend to keep us stuck? You know, what what does what does it actually mean to integrate an emotion instead?

Brea (15:29): Yeah, well, let’s back up. So let’s imagine

Ky (15:31): Mm-hmm.

Brea (15:32): you’re in utero and your mother is feeling stressed and anxiety and maybe she’s angry

Ky (15:37): Mm-hmm.

Brea (15:38): about some things. We are picking that up, right? Our cells

Ky (15:41): Yeah.

Brea (15:41): are responding to that from us being, you know, microscopic. We’re picking that up. And so

Ky (15:46): Mm-hmm.

Brea (15:47): then we’re born, maybe we cry, maybe our mother doesn’t come, you know, there’s all these sorts of things. Again, so we take these emotions, fear, anxiety, loneliness, whatever that

Ky (15:56): Mm-hmm.

Brea (15:56): is, and we push that down. What does that do? It keeps us safe. It keeps us alive. So the first thing is to realize suppression of emotions was actually really helpful for a very

Ky (16:07): Mm.

Brea (16:07): long period of time. Let’s say we experienced some abuse, or not even. Let’s just say we had a parent that was distant that didn’t really see us. It doesn’t have to be always trauma and abuse. It can just be like a not showing up. We felt lonely. We felt abandoned. We didn’t feel like we could express. We weren’t allowed to be ourselves, whatever that is. And so that suppression keeps us, okay, I’m here, I’m okay, I’m making things okay. And so we want to celebrate that too in a way like that little child in you, that little baby in you did the best it could do. Then we get to this point where we’re like, do I really need to carry around loneliness, anger, resentment, anxiety, all of those things? So I need really need to carry those around for the rest of my life. And then we make that decision. Yes or no. May maybe we want to, maybe we don’t want to. And that’s where that emotional, if we want to call it integration, starts to come in, where we can start to see where we’ve actually defined parts of our life by these emotions. So let’s say we’re we experienced a lot of loneliness as a child. Perhaps now our way of expressing that is to always be socializing and creating parties and we’re like always showing up as the happy person. Is that really true to us? Or is that based on that loneliness that we experienced as a child that we’re now trying to cover up? Right. And so that’s

Ky (17:27): Right.

Brea (17:27): so that’s where we’re kind of looking, start looking at those things. But again, like I said earlier, not in a way that we have to figure it all out and be like, that caused that, this caused that. Just some of it comes up naturally. Most of it has nothing to do with whatever is happening in the mind. It’s just gonna come up with a few

Ky (17:43): Yeah.

Brea (17:43): stories. That’s what our brain does.

Ky (17:45): Yeah. and I’m gonna throw one more word at you here.

Brea (17:48): Yeah.

Ky (17:48): and I’m just I’m just throwing all the words at you. The other word

Brea (17:50): Ha

Ky (17:51): that I wanna throw out there is addiction, because you work with addiction as as one of your themes. And I think whenever somebody says that word addiction, they they often think of the extreme version of of that word. in what ways do you see the same underlying drive? showing up in high functioning people through work and achievement and just constant busyness.

Brea (18:14): Yeah, I mean, this is a really good point. This is something I think we should all have an understanding. Whether we’re addicted to drugs or shopping or porn or work

Ky (18:22): Mm-hmm.

Brea (18:22): or athletic performance or anything that releases dopamine, which we can talk about now from our phone

Ky (18:28): Mm-hmm.

Brea (18:28): screens up to being a skydiver, right? The things that are celebrate. look at this extreme person, this extreme athlete, they’re so amazing. Yeah, they’re looking for the next hit of dopamine as as much as they can. We’re all doing this.

Ky (18:40): Pretty much. Yeah.

Brea (18:41): We’re all doing

Ky (18:41): Yeah. Yeah.

Brea (18:43): this, guys, because we’re wired to want dopamine to feel good, to get

Ky (18:46): Mm-hmm.

Brea (18:46): that little hit. So recognizing that, and I think that helps take some of that stigma away from addiction, it’s just certain people’s systems found different things at different points in their life and had an affinity to that and went down that path, right? And so then we come back to responsibility. Is it, you know, are they taking responsibility? Can we talk about addiction? What what’s the desire there? And are we gonna judge

Ky (19:10): Yeah.

Brea (19:10): others that maybe don’t have any need whatsoever to move through that? And so yes, we celebrate people that are high achievers, that are making lots of money, that seem to have it all together. It’s the same sort of the addictions coming from the same the same place. Absolutely.

Ky (19:24): Yeah, yeah. You you’ve you’ve spoken about the okayness at the core of yourself, especially when life feels painful and and messy and and and how you’ve you’ve learned to not resist what you’re experiencing. What is it what does it mean to have this okayness at the core of yourself? What does that what does that mean exactly?

Brea (19:48): Yeah. So many people put a lot of words and language to that. So okayness is a subtle alignment. It’s like we can allow the emotions of anger, fear, regret, shame, guilt, like those icky ones that we really don’t like to talk about, they come, they go. Our mind changes all the time. It’s like now you’re feeling this, now you’re feeling that, and we beat ourselves up for feeling that. Underneath all of that is that. Okay-ness. You could call that source connection. You could call that God. You could call that infinite nature and being connected to everything. But soon as we put too much language to that, we get this idea of what it’s supposed to be. And we put find ourselves in that same box where it’s supposed to be a beam of white light, you know, or it’s supposed

Ky (20:35): Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brea (20:36): to be multiful colored and it’s supposed to feel like perfection and love and everything.

Ky (20:42): Yeah.

Brea (20:42): What I like to describe it is is an okayness, not really an okayness from the mind, spaciousness, okayness. And it’s something that we can feel when we’re around somebody that also holds that in their system. And without describing it, we can get an idea of really what that is when you’re around someone that has a deep okayness with them. I don’t mean because their life is perfect and they’re not going through something really hard, or they might be on top of the world. But that is something really subtle in each person that is very much there. It’s just we don’t recognize it. When people come to recognize what that is and the silence of that, it’s a stability that’s within us. And so, no, we can’t really define it. We can’t really put words to it. As soon as we do that, we’ve gone on to that other place again where we’re supposed to, I don’t know, experience fairies and unicorns and and magical crystal balls.

Ky (21:31): Yeah, yeah. I wanna I wanna make sure that people I always wanna wanna make sure that people walk away with some actionable items here, right? So that you know, as soon as the that they’re done listening, they can they can actually put into action some things that’ll that’ll help improve themselves from the standpoint. So for someone who’s listening who feels that pull to reconnect but has no idea where to start, is there something small that they can like genuinely do? like like as soon as like they’re done listening today, to begin practicing that reconnection without it becoming like another item that they fail at or or need to add to the to-do list.

Brea (22:10): Yeah. Lay down on your bed. Close your eyes. Five minutes. Five

Ky (22:12): Done. I’ll do that right now. Yeah.

Brea (22:16): minutes today. And wait, work your way up to 20 minutes at a pace that feels comfortable for you. Don’t do anything. Allow yourself to be exactly as you are. You’re not trying to meditate. You’re not trying to reach a certain state. You’re not trying to become some sort of spiritual enlightened person. You’re not trying to make your brain stop giving you stories. You are allowing yourself to be exactly as you are. Bonus points if you can feel your body, right? The system is holding so much. If you can just be with your whatever is happening in your body. So that would be the only thing. But just

Ky (22:49): I love that. Yeah.

Brea (22:51): you’re just being you. Why

Ky (22:53): Yeah.

Brea (22:54): we really struggle to just be us. We pick up the phone, right? Especially now. And you know, like I was born in 79, so I have that. good old memory of like that laying on the grass, that being this and whatever was happening in my family and dynamics and all the stuff. We had

Ky (23:06): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brea (23:12): that ability to just be, we’ve lost that. And all of us have lost that.

Ky (23:17): I agree.

Brea (23:18): and that’s really it. And so we’re getting,

Ky (23:20): Yeah.

Brea (23:20): we want to come back to that, to that spaciousness there where it doesn’t mat it’s not about performance. And I mean, gosh,

Ky (23:27): Yeah.

Brea (23:27): we have turned healing, personal development, spiritual everything gor has the word development in it for starters. So we’ve just already gone into we need to get somewhere. And we

Ky (23:35): Yeah. Yeah.

Brea (23:37): have turned it all into a very complicated task oriented world.

Ky (23:41): Yeah.

Brea (23:42): And and I think we just need to come back to ourselves in in in simplicity without outcome.

Ky (23:46): Yeah, yeah. Follow up question, ’cause I know that my audience is thinking this. Once you lay down, how do you get back up, Brea? How do you ’cause

Brea (23:55): Ha ha ha

Ky (23:56): once I’m down, like sometimes like that’s it. That’s all that’s all I got, you know?

Brea (24:00): Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, put an alarm on your phone and put your phone on silent, those two things. You know,

Ky (24:04): Yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Brea (24:08): I’ve been doing this for years and I still do it. I do it for 20 minutes. I’ll do it for 30 if I can. it is a whole reset for the day. And you might fall asleep at first. You know, your system might be like, my gosh, like this is this is too much. I I’m finally giving myself permission to rest, or it might just be buzzing and wired. I don’t like I mean, you know, it’s like telling someone to do something without telling them to do something. We’re still like saying do something, but we this relationship with that deeper part of ourself, we have to start somewhere and at some point in time, I think we have to spend that time on our own and we have to start to be okay with spending that time on our own and just with ourselves exactly as we are. An easier way to do it honestly is to be in nature when you’re doing that. To if you know, if you’re in a place of good weather to to lay on the beach, to lay on the grass, to lay on your patio, it just helps. It it just helps it having the sun on you. It reminds us that we’re connected to everything. And also we

Ky (25:03): Yeah.

Brea (25:04): don’t have to figure it out. I mean, just look at nature. The trees are growing, the flowers are blooming, life is happening, and it doesn’t have a brain, right? It’s not going now, I’m going to grow this petal, now this time for my leaves to shed.

Ky (25:16): Yeah. Yeah.

Brea (25:17): It’s just being and this is what we want to remind ourselves that we can

Ky (25:18): Yeah. Yeah.

Brea (25:21): just be and that’s okay and it’s safe to just be.

Ky (25:24): Yeah, yeah. A a big theme in your work is is self-trust, right? And so for the for the people who have spent years, including myself sometimes, overriding our own instincts in order to meet everyone else’s expectations, how do we how do we start rebuilding trust with ourselves from the ground up? What is something that we can do there?

Brea (25:47): Yeah, it I mean it’s a s it’s a similar sort of thing is getting to know that place first. Lay just lay down, lay on your couch, lay on the floor. I don’t care where you lay. But I like the

Ky (25:51): Yeah. Lay down in bed, step one, right? Is that what Yeah, yeah.

Brea (26:00): thought. I like to say lay down in bed because that’s fun. I’m like, it’s permission to go lay in bed. Go lay down.

Ky (26:02): Next time somebody asks n next time somebody yeah, exactly. Next time somebody asks, Hi, what are you doing today? I’m like, I’m gonna, Brea told me to lay down for twenty minutes, so I’m gonna go do that, you know?

Brea (26:10): Right. Yeah. That self-trust really does take time to know. Like, and I don’t I want to say build. It’s there. It’s within us. We’ve just forgotten that that’s there. I mean, most of us experienced parents that sort of told us not to trust ourselves. And if they were telling us to trust ourselves, then our teachers were telling us not to trust ourselves, right? Things weren’t okay. They weren’t good enough. we were doing it wrong. Like whatever, whatever it is. And so this is really deep, deep stuff. And this is why

Ky (26:40): Mm-hmm.

Brea (26:41): we don’t trust ourselves when we second guess everything that we do. The other thing to just know is that if you’re you’re trying to choose between option X or option Y, is to know that if your brain is involved in that and it’s telling you, no, this is this, or doing a pro and con list, should I do this or should I do that? You’re in the brain. You’re not in this space of alignment. So know that 99% of the time when we’re trying to make decisions, we’ve already gone into brain mode and we’re trying to figure it out based on that. That is different than making decisions from that space of alignment, from that spaciousness, that okayness within us. It really is, but it takes a while to get to know what the difference feels like. But no, first,

Ky (27:24): Yeah.

Brea (27:25): it’s not from your brain. It’s not the pro, con, this or that and the endless stories that are looping in our head. We all know the loops. They love to be there over every little thing. It’s not the same thing.

Ky (27:37): Yeah. I want to play a little game with you, Brea. It’s called This or That. And what I’m gonna do is

Brea (27:39): Okay.

Ky (27:42): I’m going to give you a couple options. You can either choose one or the other, or neither, or both, whatever you want. It is not deep. I just want you to be. I want you to get out of your head. I just want you to be. And I’m just gonna give

Brea (27:50): Ha ha ha okay. All right.

Ky (27:54): you some options. And whatever pops into your head first, you just go with that and then and then we go from there, okay? All

Brea (27:58): Okay. All right.

Ky (28:00): right, here you go. First one a quiet morning alone or A slow lingering dinner with people that you love.

Brea (28:07): Always a quiet morning alone. And I love my people, but I love a quiet morning. I mean, we can add to this

Ky (28:10): Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Please do, yeah.

Brea (28:17): taking mornings to ourselves. It’s really setting ourselves up for a whole different day. Then we can add

Ky (28:22): Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brea (28:24): the dinners and all of the things, but people’s lives I see transform when they start claiming their mornings. It’s a special time, it’s a magical time. Getting that

Ky (28:30): Yeah, I agree with you. Mm-hmm.

Brea (28:33): early sunlight is also amazing.

Ky (28:35): Absolutely. Absolutely. Next one. A walk in nature with no phone or 20 minutes of stillness with your eyes closed. I didn’t say it was gonna be easy, Brea. I didn’t say it was gonna be easy.

Brea (28:44): Okay, okay, okay. it’s probably not on my website, and people would only know this if they ever go to my Instagram. I am an

Ky (28:52): Mm-hmm.

Brea (28:52): epic mountain lover. Like this is

Ky (28:55): Mm.

Brea (28:55): my I find mountains to be recharged. So I’m I’m I’m

Ky (28:58): Yeah.

Brea (28:59): I’m interpreting your walk in nature

Ky (29:00): Mm-hmm.

Brea (29:01): with a little incline and some like

Ky (29:03): Yes.

Brea (29:03): rocks involved and some trees involved, and I’m gonna I’m gonna take that.

Ky (29:07): Got it.

Brea (29:08): you know, that letting our brain when we do that, have its way. It likes to go on overtime at first. If ever anyone goes walking in nature, you’ll know. Your brain goes like and it tells you all it’s like it wants to vomit out everything

Ky (29:15): Mm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Brea (29:20): that you haven’t really let it during the day, especially if your phone’s not there, right? You’re in silence.

Ky (29:24): Yeah.

Brea (29:24): And then after a while, longer than twenty minutes for most of us, it

Ky (29:28): Yeah.

Brea (29:29): it starts to simmer down and we start to become aware of our body and the physicality and the emotions

Ky (29:33): Yeah.

Brea (29:34): that we’re holding or the silence in between. It’s an an it’s an incredible thing to do. And

Ky (29:39): yeah.

Brea (29:39): Yeah, I wish I wish everyone could it’s just not possible. I know for a lot of people in cities and based on where they’re living, but it’s an incredible thing to be able to walk and spend time alone in nature.

Ky (29:49): Yeah, I was gonna say I I grew up I grew up in New Jersey, so I’m I’m a beach boy through and through growing up on the Jersey shore.

Brea (29:55): Yeah.

Ky (29:56): So so I will always I’m I I take if I had to choose between beaches and mountains, I would always choose beaches, but I like mountains. I do like mountains. I do like mountains, but give me a beach any day.

Brea (30:02): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you might get, would you get the same thing, like laying on the towel under the sun? Like would you feel that? Yeah, right.

Ky (30:10): Yes. Or I’ll tell you I’ll tell you what’s even better, Brea, is when when like talking about early mornings, an early morning walk on like a summer like a summer morning, a walk on the boardwalk before like the crowds get there and you’re just kinda like just walking and all you

Brea (30:23): Mm. Right. Yes. Not morning light.

Ky (30:26): hear is the the water splashing against the the the land. and like There’s no like music playing or anything yet. You just kind of just go for a walk. Like there is that feeling is such a beautiful feeling. And I I love it so much. And I think that’s in line with what you were talking about, you know, just kind of like being in touch with nature. I it it’s it’s only been fairly recently, Brea, that I’ve started to embrace just going for a walk. You know, like I don’t I don’t live right now, you know, near any mountains or or anything or the beach but if i just go for a walk around my neighborhood and just like i leave my phone you know back home and i just go for a walk it’s actually really it’s really nice it’s not necessarily nature because like it’s in a city but like still like you’re I’m just like in connecting with my environment and I like that I like that a lot yeah yes

Brea (31:14): And notice like how you’re describing it. You’re describing it where there’s no outcome. You’re like, I’m just, I’m just going for a walk. That’s the thing. And this is the thing

Ky (31:22): Yes. Mm-hmm.

Brea (31:24): about like lying down. Like, it’s about can we be with ourselves in a way where that’s not outcome-oriented? Soon as our phone

Ky (31:31): Yes.

Brea (31:32): is involved, soon as we want to tell somebody about it, or we want to like get content for social media or whatever, we’ve just taken away the whole point of it, right? And so it’s like you’re.

Ky (31:38): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brea (31:43): Absolutely describing that. There’s no outcome, you’re just being and and that’s it. And

Ky (31:47): Yeah.

Brea (31:47): sometimes I bet you probably have really amazing revelations or ideas come

Ky (31:51): yeah.

Brea (31:53): to you and you’re like, wow, right?

Ky (31:55): yeah, absolutely. But if I don’t document it on social media, did it actually happen, Brea? Like did it actually happen, you know? here we go. Next one. Feeling it fully in the moment or processing it later once the dust settles.

Brea (32:09): Hm. I I like to feel things fully in the moment right there

Ky (32:13): Mm-hmm.

Brea (32:13): and allow that. I think there’s a lot of freedom in that because you’re not scared to feel whatever is there. So I really like that first and foremost. But a lot of times things come up and it’s not the appropriate time to go into that full process. You’re you’re like you’re you’re at a dinner party, right? And suddenly you’re like, you’re the big

Ky (32:32): Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brea (32:34): emotion comes up. Why did it come up now of all the times? That’s probably not the time that you need to have a breakdown and and go through everything. I mean, maybe,

Ky (32:40): Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Brea (32:42): maybe if there’s a certain group or whatever, but there’s a lot of stuff we can do after and just come back to that sense and allow it to come in in, you know, our bedroom, our couch, whatever that is. But I think

Ky (32:51): Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brea (32:53): having the having the empowerment to know we can do it in the moment and we can be with it is like is tr really gives us a lot of freedom. It means we’re not attached

Ky (33:01): Yeah.

Brea (33:01): to it. It means we’re not defining ourselves by whatever that thing is. We’re like, okay,

Ky (33:05): Mm-hmm.

Brea (33:05): that’s here. All right, I can let that be here. Oof, that fucking hurts. Okay. You know, so

Ky (33:08): Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Brea (33:12): we’re not scared of it. So I like that.

Ky (33:13): Yeah. next one’s a little bit more simple. tea or coffee? Yeah.

Brea (33:18): Coffee. I love coffee.

Ky (33:21): Yeah, yeah. I’m a tea, I’m a 100% a tea drinker, but every now and then, because

Brea (33:24): Okay.

Ky (33:25): there’s a there’s a great coffee shop like right across the street from where I live. and I I so their coffee is really, really good. And so I’m like the northeasterner in me has to have some coffee you know, like every now and then.

Brea (33:35): W okay, I need to know though, what kind of tea are you drinking?

Ky (33:38): So the tea that I drink so it’s called Yogi tea. and I wish I had like a little

Brea (33:42): Okay, I know that brand.

Ky (33:43): thing. Yeah, and they have like this vanilla they I drink two different flavors. They have like a vanilla flavor and like an orange spice flavor that it it has caffeine in it and but it’s like light. It’s not like heavy, like a heavy dosage

Brea (33:56): Okay.

Ky (33:57): of of the sugar and caffeine and all that stuff. So I like the taste of it and it gives me just the right amount of energy that I need to power through the rest of the day. Yes. Yeah.

Brea (34:06): So perfect. I you know what? And tea and coffee, like these are one of those things where

Ky (34:11): Yeah.

Brea (34:11): with like every food and everything we ingest, it’s it’s like what is good for our system right now. And we all react differently to different things. And

Ky (34:16): Yes, yes. Mm-hmm.

Brea (34:19): sometimes I have to go without without coffee, which is sad because I’m for sure an addict. And I’m okay with that.

Ky (34:24): Yeah.

Brea (34:27): And you know, it’s also listening to the body when it’s like that that’s too much or you need to take some weeks off, you know. And and

Ky (34:31): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Brea (34:34): this is the thing, having relationships with these things, even to our addictions where we can see

Ky (34:37): Yeah.

Brea (34:38): it from the bigger picture and what is in our best interest and what’s not.

Ky (34:41): Mm-hmm. Yes, absolutely. and then last one here, Brea. a planned structured retreat day or letting the day unfold with zero agenda.

Brea (34:51): Absolutely number two.

Ky (34:52): I I figured I figured I already as soon as I started saying it, I’m like, I already know the answer to this one.

Brea (34:58): You know, retreats have the ones that I run, they have structure. We need that for safety. There needs to be an understanding of what’s happening.

Ky (35:03): Sure. Yeah.

Brea (35:04): Is this again, you know, helps helps people feel like they can drop into the space more. but if we are, if any retreat or a teacher or whatever, if we are so fixated on what the message is that we have to get across at any given time. The timing might be off, the messaging might be off. We’re not aware of what’s happening in the people in which we’re holding space for the retreats, in my opinion, or our teaching or whatever it might be, how we show up in the world, it’s not about us, right? The retreat’s not the Brea Segger show. It’s

Ky (35:35): Right.

Brea (35:36): I’m I’m there for the other people. And so I think again, like a bit of this has got a little bit mixed up in this industry. So to speak, where we’ve started making it about us and like what can I say? What’s my message? And really it’s like, what’s going on with the people there that I’m working with? Like how can I best be of service to them? And adjusting

Ky (35:52): Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brea (35:55): it based on that.

Ky (35:56): Yeah. this this whole conversation has been the type of conversation I wish more people got to sit in on, right? So for anyone that’s listening right now who wants to keep learning from you and follow your work, people that might be interested in learning more about, you know, the fall retreats or anything like that before, you know, before it’s too late, where should they go and how can they connect with you?

Brea (36:17): Yeah, go to my website, sign up for my newsletter. I do have a podcast, like I said, coming out soon where, you know, hopefully I will have this out on a sort of these conversations on the on a weekly agenda. But also I I’d like to start very soon too. Larger containers where people can come and talk in sort of a larger Zoom tech setting, but where they

Ky (36:38): Mm-hmm.

Brea (36:38): have access, where you can have this stuff, where you can feel like what what is that com? What is this thing that Brea’s talking about or other people are talking about. How how do I get that? And knowing, getting to know that for yourself and and knowing that this isn’t this isn’t complicated, but the hardness is in the easiness of it. It’s almost

Ky (36:56): Mm-hmm.

Brea (36:56): so easy, it’s so subtle that we so miss it because we’re so wrapped up in all the teachings and the learnings and all the places and things

Ky (37:03): Yeah.

Brea (37:04): we need to do and get and states we’re supposed to feel. And so yeah, just go to my website and start there.

Ky (37:10): Yeah, absolutely. And I’m going to include the links to all of that in the show notes of this episode. So if anybody that’s that’s listening or watching wants to learn more, all you have to do is go and click. All the information will be there. Brea, I really appreciate your time and your insight here. Honestly, it means a lot. I want to ask you one more question. it’s the same question that I I ask everybody that’s a guest on the show. If there’s one thing that you want the audience to take away from our conversation today, what is that one thing?

Brea (37:36): That you are okay. You are not broken. You don’t need to be fixed. You don’t need to do a whole bunch of stuff. You don’t need to reach a certain state. And and perhaps there’s just that subtlety that you can allow yourself to get to know that that that actually exists. That okayness I’m talking about isn’t some elusive crazy thing. And even if you don’t feel it and your brain tells you that life is hard and horrible and painful, that they’re actually is an okayness. You are okay underneath and you are whole and you’re perfect exactly as you are. And and I wish people knew knew that more. Yeah.

Ky (38:11): I love that. I I love that. I appreciate you. Brea. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate you.

Brea (38:16): Thank you. This was super fun. I really appreciate you and everything you’re doing and creating and just your being this too.

Ky (38:22): Thank you so much. I’m gonna go lay on my bed for 20 minutes and I’m gonna say it’s because of you. Thank you so much.

Brea (38:24): Absolutely. Let’s do it. You’re welcome.

Ky (38:28): Okay, let me tell you what I’m taking out of that conversation. First off, Brea thank you. thank you for being willing to take apart the language of your own field on my show today and for giving people something they can actually do tonight instead of a five step system. I really appreciate that. Here’s the thread of it. Brea’s whole point is that the stillness, the spaciousness, the alignments, whatever word you want to put on it, is is not somewhere you you you have to get to. It’s already inside you. What’s in the way is the holding, the jaw, the shoulders, the emotions a lot of us pushed down as kids because pushing them down kept us safe. She was clear that the suppression worked, it protected you. And at some point, you get to decide whether you want to keep carrying it or not. If you take one thing from this episode, let it be that you are not behind on some invisible schedule. So here’s what I actually want you to do this week. Number one. Lie down for five minutes with an alarm set and your phone set on silence. Don’t try to meditate. Don’t try to fix anything. Just be there. If five minutes feels like too much, do two minutes. Number two, the next time that you’re you’re stuck on a decision and you catch yourself running a pro and con list in your head, just notice that you’re doing it. That’s the whole exercise. And three, take one walk with no outcome attached to it. You can find more about Brea at BreaSegger.com. Where you can sign up for the newsletter and on Instagram, you can find her @BreaSegger. she’s also got a podcast too. It’s called Beneath The Story, and she has a retreat coming up: the embodiment, the Embodied Woman Mastery Retreat, which is six days in Costa Rica, and that happens this November 2026. It’s for women and it’s capped at eight people. So if that’s calling you, go look go look at it sooner rather than later. Everything is linked in the show notes of this episode. And make sure you come visit me at TheVibeWithKy.com. And follow me @TheVibeWithKy on all of your favorite social media platforms. With that said, my friends, thank you so much for watching and for listening. As always, much love, good vibes. I’ll catch you next time. Bye.