Creating Psychological Safety from the Inside Out with Deborah Lee

What if the key to safer workplaces isn’t a new policy... but your own nervous system?

In episode 157 of The Empowered and Embodied Show, Kim Romain and Louise Neil sit down with trauma consultant, speaker, and founder of Creaturae, Deborah Lee, for a deep conversation on embodied leadership, psychological safety, and the courage it takes to show up without the mask.

Together, they unpack the hidden toll of performative leadership, why so many leaders are silently struggling, and how real change begins within, not through control, but through connection. Deborah shares how embodied leadership—rooted in interoception, movement, and gentle self-awareness—can create the conditions for real trust, real connection, and real change.

This one is for every leader, healer, entrepreneur, or human who’s been told to be “professional” while quietly falling apart inside. Because the truth is that nervous system regulation, presence, and authenticity aren’t luxuries—they’re leadership essentials. 

“If your life is a performance, you can’t create safety for anyone else.” – Deborah Lee

Key Takeaways

• Leadership is about creating space for authenticity, not performance
• Psychological safety is foundational to effective, healthy workplaces
• Self-awareness and nervous system regulation are core leadership skills
• Every emotion is valid and offers insight
• Authenticity fosters trust, connection, and relational safety
• You don’t have to know it all to lead well, you just have to start with knowing yourself

Key Moments

00:00 – Welcome and intro
02:22 – Introducing body-based leadership work
04:50 – A hard truth: “Leadership is not the same as masking”
06:31 – Changing leadership culture when the system resists authenticity
07:32 – The loneliness of leadership and the limits of transparency
12:16 – Why psychological safety must start in your own body
18:48 – What is pendulation and why it matters for emotional regulation
23:34 – A nervous system reset you can do in under 30 seconds
29:01 – Stuck energy, speechless terror, and how trauma blocks communication
35:06 – Heartbreak and healing from domestic violence
39:30 – Reconnecting with your body as a source of truth and safety
41:21 – Explanation of somatic terminology (pendulation, titration, interoception)
44:04 – Why people shut down around money—and how embodiment helps
46:04 – The longing for presence, truth, and real connection
49:04 – It’s okay not to know: how we’re all learning as adults
51:53 – Final takeaways

Connect With Deborah

Website: http://www.creaturae.org

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/leeydeborah

Instagram: @creaturae7 

Join a circle of changemakers committed to leading with purpose, presence and ease inside Kim's Rising Visionaries community and mentorship program.

Reclaim your career and confidence during midlife through Louise's Rise & Redefine program.

If you’re loving this show, come check out the Feminist Podcasters Collective, where creators like us are uplifting diverse voices and driving meaningful change. If you’re looking for new shows to fill your feed, head to feministpods.com to explore everything we have to offer.

Transcript

The Empowered & Embodied Show

Episode 157: Creating Psychological Safety from the Inside Out 

Hosts: Kim Romain & Louise Neil

Guest: Deborah Lee

Release Date: April 29, 2025

INTRO (00:00)

KIM ROMAIN (01:46)

Well, hello, hello, hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Empowered and Embodied show. I am one of your co-hosts, Kim Romain, joined as always by my other co-host.

LOUISE NEIL (01:59)

Louise, that's me.

KIM ROMAIN (02:00)

Louise!

LOUISE NEIL (02:05)

Yes. No, I don't know. I have this weird scratchy little voice today. So not little. I don't want to have a little voice. I want to have a big voice. But it's scratchy. But yes, I'm here. And we're joined today by a wonderful guest. We're going to have a great conversation.

DEBORAH LEE (02:22)

My name is Deborah. Thanks for having me.

KIM ROMAIN (02:24)

Deborah, we're so glad that you're here. We're so glad. Let us let the world know a little bit about you. So Deborah Lee is a speaker, writer, facilitator, host of All Things Uncomfortable and is the founder of Creature Ray, a trauma consulting company based in New York City that bridges healing, leadership, and transformation. Drawing from her personal journey as a trauma survivor turned Thriver, Deborah brings in a deep understanding of the complexities of trauma and the mind-body connection. Her work empowers individuals and organizations to navigate challenges, foster psychological safety, and unlock sustainable growth. Deborah's approach supports developing confidence, breaking unhelpful habits, improving communication, and fostering leadership development by helping leaders show up with greater presence and connection.

Deborah, that is a lot of beautiful work that is much needed in the world. Thank you for doing what you do.

DEBORAH LEE (03:22)

Well, thank you for having me, Kim and Louise. I really feel so much resonance with this empowered and embodied podcast that you run. And that's exactly the work that I do. I run an embodied leadership workshop and it just had a soft launch yesterday. This is exactly what we're talking about, where you allow your responses to come from an empowered and embodied place rather than from conditioned reflexes that you learned in the past, right? So you're more present, you show up with greater presence, authenticity, there's greater psychological safety because the communication is better, there's a flow. And, you know, at the end of the day, you have greater and more resilient and more enjoyable workplaces. So that's the work that I do.

LOUISE NEIL (04:19)

Yeah, so desperately needed, like stuff gets really messy in leadership, right, and in companies and all of that. Deborah, I'm really super curious about, you know, you talk about trauma and leadership and bringing all of this messiness out onto the table. I would love to hear maybe what's a truth about leadership that most people maybe don't want to hear, but desperately need to.

DEBORAH LEE (04:50)

Well, one of the biggest truths that come to mind right now, I can think of a few, but the first thing that I want to say to all the leaders out there, and you might not like it, is that leadership is not the same thing as masking.

And I want to draw a distinction here. It's also not about letting it all hang out. When they talk about authenticity, it's about creating a space where you can be real, but also create that psychological safety for people so that they can show up as their true selves as well.

And there is a level of relational safety. It's not just performative, but it's relational. So that when you're going to work, you're spending eight to 10 hours a day. You're not working under what you call the elastatic load. It's a mental, cognitive, emotional load of putting on a mask of performance.

So you go to work, you show up as your true self. Yeah, you have good days, you have bad days, you know that there's going to be some degree of understanding. Let's say if something, you know, doesn't work out, you don't feel like you have to perform and lie and create all the, you know, some kind of story and backdrop around, you know, what happened. But you can actually say, this is actually happening at home. I'm dealing with this right now and I need an extension.

And that is the kind of atmosphere where people can actually really connect and relate to each other one-to-one as human beings instead of playing toxic political games, which is what you see all the time in every arena of life.

KIM ROMAIN (06:31)

Yeah, I feel that's particularly challenging for leaders, right? When I know when I was a leader, I attempted to create the space and the leaders above me did not appreciate it because they wanted the mask. They wanted this place of, you know, you are elevated. You are in a different sphere. You want to create a place where people know that they can come to you, right? So there's the softness where they can come to you, but to be in a position where nobody knows what's happening, like there's an elusiveness. And so I find that that's really hard when we get into leadership to be in a position to say, I'm going to change the culture of our organization.

KIM ROMAIN (07:29)

So what do we do to help the leaders start to change that culture?

DEBORAH LEE (07:32)

Yeah, so, and I want to acknowledge your experience. I think many other leaders have also experienced that same kind of conundrum where upper management is demanding a certain level, a certain, for want of a better word, lack of transparency around certain processes or decisions and then those that report into you feel like they can trust you and they are looking to you to give them greater, you know, support and greater even transparency and then they're working at almost like cross purposes and you're stuck in the middle. So what you just described happens to so many other people.

The other truth that I wanted to bring up when you first asked me that question, Louise, is leadership is lonely. A lot of the time, it's really lonely. And it's hard for people to really understand or get into your mind space because there are certain things you can't share. And that's just the nature of it, right? When you are leading, psychological safety is also creating an environment where people feel safe to focus on their work and bring their best selves into work and to connect on a level that is productive, right?

So it's the same reason why, you know, for example, parents may not want to tell their children everything. And I'm not saying that it's the same apples to apples consideration, but there is a little bit of nuance when you think about disclosure, which is that you want people to know as much as they can to do things well, but you don't want people to know so that they start thinking in spirals and it affects team dynamics and psychological safety. You want to give them a structure so that they know what to expect and that they can do their jobs well. And in scenarios where let's say things change are changing all the time, like in our current environment here in America, you can't guarantee that.

But the only thing that you can do is to show up authentically and sometimes even just say things like, I don't know. And people resonate with that because on a very deep level, like you're being honest. And if you're really like in a place where you're like, I don't know, and people could see that, you know, at least it gives them the freedom to know you don't know, and you're not trying to hide things from them. And then from there, they as agents of their own, you know, destiny or future or whatever you want to call it, they can make considered decisions based off the message that you're sharing with them. Because your message is not to control them, it's not to hide from them, but it's also to create psychological safety.

And that's why I want to come back to the idea of psychological safety is that it's not just about letting it all hang out. It's not just about disclosing everything and just keeping no secrets because if there were no secrets in life, I don't know what our world would become today, right? Because there's a certain amount of information that every human being can take at any one point without overloading our minds cognitively and our bodies emotionally as well. Yeah, that's the first insight that I have on that question. And I wonder how it landed for you guys. What do you think?

LOUISE NEIL (11:04)

I know that there is a large portion of leaders out there that very much believe that a psychologically safe environment is productive because people are engaged, they have trust, right? Like all of these things we talk about here and pick any number of articles to read the science behind that. Yet I still hear so many middle leaders struggling with leaders who just don't feel that way. And so you talked about that conundrum, right? And that pulling apart. And what I'm seeing and hearing is that people would rather show up and be quiet than show up authentically because of fear of losing their jobs. That's what I'm hearing. I believe in all with all my heart that a psychologically safe environment is productive. I've seen it happen. We know what happens, but people are still quiet. People are still scared.

DEBORAH LEE (12:16)

And to your point, if people are scared and they're operating off of fear, that place is not psychologically safe. So coming back to a body-based approach to psychological safety, which is what I do in my embodied leadership workshops, is to establish the body among leaders. Leadership affects the entire organization in a trickle-down effect. It doesn't matter how flat your organization might come across or how much you want to make it. At the end of the day, leadership sets the tone.

So my workshop is targeted for leaders who want to, who sincerely want to create psychological safety, who sincerely believe that they can invest in this in themselves and do their own work to gain that level of awareness within themselves to create that psychological safety for both themselves and others. It always starts with yourself. In any work that you do, it always, always starts with yourself because you're always gonna be projecting out words. It's just human relations, right? Human nature, human relations. We go through life, we use all sorts of heuristics to understand the world. So projection is one of the most basic ways that we connect with other people. And if you yourself haven't done the work and if you yourself haven't established psychological safety within yourself, where your life is not just a performance, but it's actually coming from an embodied place of authenticity and presence, it's very hard to create that space for other people.

So when I talk about psychological safety, I'm targeting it more on a baseline level, starting with your own body. Like, do you experience your own body as a safe place. And when you feel activated, when you feel like you're under a lot of pressure, what are your coping mechanisms? What are your go-tos? If your go-to is just to double down and work harder, that's not going to create psychological safety. Right? If your go-to is, okay, I understand I'm going through this now, let me put it aside for now. Let me just take a break so that my brain is not like clouded up, you know, and I clear it out.

Maybe talk to one or two people within the team that I can trust and connect with, get them to share the message out, create a shared understanding around this, right? You know, reassure them, tell them they can expect this at this date and we are working and just communicating, right? Communication and mindful communication is so important during those times. First, you have to communicate with yourself.

I need a break. Let's take a break, Deborah. Let's go for a walk, a 10 minute walk. Talk to yourself, right? And then feel the sensations that come up within your body. And sometimes even like, just being curious about the sensations and what the sensations are trying to tell you can cause a complete shift in how you feel, a shift in your mind state and a shift in your perception. And so this is a bottom up approach to awareness.

It's not just staying up here because this can go in loops. When we talk about a mind-body connection, we're taking messages from the bottom up and from the top down. How you cognate those messages will inform the rest of your body. So this is neuroscience backed. And our bodies are one of the most reliable sources of information because we are using our senses all the time, our five senses are immediate contact with the world and our brain is behind many, many other layers. So it takes a while for those sensory messages to get translated into forms that we understand. And so if we don't take in the sensory messages our body is telling us, if we try to repress it as we are often told to do, as we're conditioned to do, if we try to ignore it, we try to block it out mentally, can you imagine what that's like?

The analogy that I love to use is if you're a business owner and you have all these email messages coming in and you don't open any of them, what's going to happen to your business? Right? So this is your business. This is your body. This is your business. This is your enterprise. Pay attention to the signals your body is telling you. And when you do, when you do and you create space for yourself to experience those sensations, you know, in a way that feels gentle and soothing and kind, you are creating psychological safety through a body-based approach, another system level approach. And when you're in that headspace, it has a ripple effect, right? It affects all of those around you, your team, those under you. It affects the way you talk, the way that you connect, your body language, your non-verbals will show up. 80% of our communication is non-verbal.

So even if you try to mask, guess what? It's gonna show up in your voice. The giveaway is the voice. It's gonna show up in your body language. It's gonna show up in any number of ways and people will be able to pick it up implicitly. Even if they can't articulate what they're experiencing, they will know it somehow and it will affect them. It will affect the morale of the team. It will affect the sense of psychological safety.

KIM ROMAIN (17:43)

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that sense of starting with the psychological safety for ourselves is so important right now. I mean, it's always important and yet what's happening with the high, high, high level of uncertainty of the world. We're just going to say that. High level of uncertainty of the world. The amount of self-work we need to do to be able to show up regardless of do we own our own business? And yes, we own our own bodies, but do we own our own business in addition to that? Are we an employee? Are we a leader in an organization? Right? Are we a founder? Whatever the role is that we have, that work, that self work to understand the messages that we're receiving. And yet the tendency to turn all that off because it feels too intense. Right?

KIM ROMAIN (18:39)

Those are the conversations I'm having with people right now is I don't want to be in touch with my body because everything feels so intense right now. And so it's the, how do we gently allow ourselves to be back with our bodies so we can start to create some more psychological safety with ourselves? What are some of the things that you do to help people gently step into?

DEBORAH LEE (18:48)

Got you. Yeah, so you raised a really good point. It is much easier to block it out, but it's not adaptive in the long term because it basically gives you access to only a small part of sensory information, right? In order to make decisions and your repertoire for dealing with things when under pressure becomes very limited. And if this is your window of tolerance, if you keep shutting it off, it's going to go smaller and smaller and smaller.

And then after that, your repertoire of responding to stressful situations, you're going to sound like a broken record after a while. Right? And nobody wants to feel like stuck in that position. Nobody wants to come be in that stuck place. And so I think that's why they're having conversations with you because they're trying to find answers. Right? They're trying to tell you, hey, I know this is what needs to get done, but I just don't have the bandwidth. I just don't. And I totally understand that. And there is a solution. There's a way to approach it in a way that's gentle, that's not re-traumatizing, that is not overwhelming, that helps you to gently open and widen that window of tolerance over time. And it comes with an increased awareness and practice. It's basically, if I had to distill it down to one word, and you can look this up on the interwebs, it's called pendulation. So you're pendulating between tuning into your body, opening up that awareness, opening up that reflective space where you might encounter some thoughts that are less than pleasant. Like, I could have had a better conversation with that person. I could have chosen my words better. Or like, you know what? I shouldn't even have spent any time on that thing. It was just a waste of time. These are the thoughts that will actually, even though it's uncomfortable, it will give us greater insight.

It will help our decision making. So when you encounter thoughts like that, or even, you know, in some cases, you know, I was stuck in Ottawa recently on my way back from Vancouver. There was like a snowstorm and crew couldn't come and I got stopped there. And I was like, what do people do in Ottawa?

KIM ROMAIN (21:22)

People all across Canada want to know what do people do in Ottawa?

DEBORAH LEE (21:26)

Like I've never seen so much snow in my whole life okay and I was like my gosh like what am I gonna do and I just remember having like this extended window period of time to reflect on everything and you know how you can get into those head spaces where you're like nothing to, you know, it's hard and and and when you get into those spaces, yes I do agree that sometimes the way to get out of that funk is to go and do something that you enjoy. Okay, and so what I did was I went and ate some oysters. It wasn't intentional but I, what I found was like getting more miserable and hungry by the minute because I was trying to do so many other things and then finally when I realized hey you know what I need a break. I haven't eaten dinner.

What's opened around me and I looked up Google map and I saw that was a seafood restaurant and I'm like I love seafood and so I went and then the waiter when I went there he was like hey we're having oyster specials today you know it's two dollars per buck like I was like yes hit me hit me with the whole dozen and then I and he like said do you want some shots of that? And I was like, yes, hit me with that too. And so, you know, was things like, it's little things like that. They can help get you off a funk. Like, you know, it doesn't have to be as extravagant as, you know, an oyster dinner. Like even taking a bath, for example, a hot bath can help with getting you out of that mind space and giving you a break. Right?

So when I talk about coming back to your body, I'm not talking about extended periods of like, you know, meditation which I do not recommend by the way, right? Especially for the uninitiated, like it's a bit too much to open all of that up all at once, right? You need to build up your window of tolerance for that. So I think it's good to sort of approach it from a very practical standpoint, like we all need some enjoyment in life, right? At the end of the day, no matter what's happening internationally, politically, if you still have access to a cup, some hot water and a bag of tea, I say take that, you know, take your cup of tea, sit down and enjoy it.

LOUISE NEIL (23:34)

Yeah, it's so interesting because what you're talking about is like, do you reset? How do you reset your nervous system? How do you reset? Right?

DEBORAH LEE (23:34)

Right. Okay, yeah, so I'm gonna just show you guys really like quickly like and follow along, you know, if you feel so inclined. So just, just, you know, stretch out a bit like that. Just do some gentle stretching. Yeah, like just ease yourself into it. Feel your body, feel your limbs loosen, your joints. And also just notice like any sensations that are coming up for you, any movement right now.

Yeah, and I see you guys are like starting to breathe as well. Okay, so continue with your breath. And then just keep moving. And like now, I want you guys to stretch your arms out like that. Like all the way out. As far as it can go. Like you're touching the two ends of the corners of the earth. Yeah? See how far you can go. Okay. And then come back to your body. And then take your right hand, put it underneath your left armpit and then take your left hand put it over your right shoulder. This is a self hug and animals like it when they get enclosed like that and so we're also animals you know like social animals so this also helps to give you a sense of comfort.

So what was your experience? I'm curious to hear Kim and Louise.

LOUISE NEIL (25:16)

I love that coming back to myself. That's what it felt like when I was stretching out my arms really, really far and then just bringing them back. It did feel like a coming back, like, like all of that just it came through my arms, hit my chest and then like just drained out of my feet. It was really cool. Yeah, yeah, it did. It just drained. Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Kim?

KIM ROMAIN (25:45)

Yeah, it's so interesting is that that self hug, we so rarely give ourselves an opportunity to give gentle touch. We will work out our bodies, we'll exercise, we'll move our bodies in different way. Sometimes we'll put hands on our heart if we're feeling that, right? But to actually envelop ourselves and to give ourselves gentle touch. It is one of the fastest ways that I know to just settle, right? To allow myself to... If breath isn't enough, I always turn to something that's gentle. And very often I'll stroke my other arm. I'll just give myself some just gentle, right? Just reminding myself that I am here and I am with me because we don't think of that. It's like, Ooh, where's help coming from? Help is right here. Help is right here.

DEBORAH LEE (26:44)

Yeah, yeah. And thanks for saying that because it's so true. It's like we feel so under resourced when actually all of the resource comes from within, right? Like even how you relate to other people, even how you reach out to other people, that comes from within, right? If our sense of security is always from the outside, we're always gonna be fluctuating, right?

And that's not to say that we can't fluctuate because part of human life is that you are exposed to plethora of human emotions and every single one of them is valid. Every single one of them has a purpose, you know? And so we're not saying that you can't experience that, but this is, for example, when I did this and stretch out, this actually increases your dopamine.

Right? So it's like, there's a dopamine increase, but then also you want to be able to come back to your body and end with this. And, and I wonder for you, Kim, when you were doing that, like, did something shift for you in your body? Like as you did the self hug or as you went through that repertoire of movements?

KIM ROMAIN (27:50)

In that moment, what I had noticed when I was stretching, when, like when I did the arm stretching out, I noticed that I wasn't breathing as deeply. And when I came back in, I was able to get the fullness of my breath.

DEBORAH LEE (28:06)

Right, right. And so like the things that you do can shift. Like yes, this like stretches out your chest. So it's not so the breath is not as, you know, it's there's a tightening over here. So when you bring it back, there's a shift. And that's part of why I connected those movements. Because the shift, the constant movement changes your physical body state, changes your mind state. And because what happens a lot of times when people are feeling stuck in this loop of worry and anxiety, are just, nearly incognitively, there's no movement. It's just going down the same route over and over again. And so this shift, it breaks up, breaks it up, breaks it up, breaks it up. That kind of intensity of thought, right? And brings you back and gives you a little bit more perspective so that you can look at things with fresh eyes.

KIM ROMAIN (29:01)

Yeah, I love that. Yesterday I was working with my group and there was one of the women in my group who could not grasp her words. And it was one of those moments where I said, okay, we're not gonna use words in this moment. What I want you to do is I want you to feel where that energy is getting stuck in your body. And she had recognized it was actually getting stuck down in her solar plexus. And so we did some work of her just breathing into the solar plexus, some stretches, some movements, some tw- a few twists just to kind of heat up the area a little bit. And that energy was able to start to move for her. And we were able to continue moving it until she got her voice back again. And the reason she was, she said she felt clear of mind, but the difference between getting it from her mind and out her mouth was where it was getting stuck, but right, it wasn't in the head. It was actually in the solar plexus where it was getting stuck. We don't always know that, right? That's through being guided by somebody who kind of can see where the energy might be getting stuck. But if we're on our own, right, we can also start to feel, and this is where knowing yourself, you can just start to feel, you can do that check-in and say, where am I feeling a tightness? Where am I feeling uncomfortable? What would it feel like if I moved this arm or moved my hips or moved my foot, right?

DEBORAH LEE (30:27)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, like giving yourself the permission to move different parts and explore and experiment like what would make you feel better because the intent is not so much like, I got to stop this feeling. All this feeling is terrible. All this feeling means something about me. It's more about like, how can I help myself to feel better? Like what would ease the anxiety or tension? Like maybe let's try this. Like approaching it almost with an experimental or curious mindset.

And like the other thing that I, you two things came up for me even as you were talking. And the first one is that, you know, your client who experienced difficulty with articulating what you wanted to say, you know, a lot of people have gone through trauma and who haven't been able to fully process it. They experience that and it's called almost like a, sometimes it's speechless terror. Not specifically in your client's case, but I'm just saying that for certain people when they have to revisit certain parts of their lives and it hasn't been integrated into their present time, there's almost like a speechless terror where they don't even have the words for it. And that's because trauma itself, it has an impact on your brain. And it affects this part of the brain called Broca's area, which is to do a speech production, which is why so many people who have gone through trauma even forget it unconsciously because unless you speak it out, it's hard for you to actually bring that into your awareness. So a lot of children who have seen things that they should never have been exposed to, when they didn't have the words for it, that memory never stayed because nobody validated it for them, nobody confirmed it with them, and nobody helped them understand what had happened back then. So it's there. It's still impacting them today, right, if they haven't worked it out. But they don't have the words for it.

And then the other thing that I wanted to say about having another person to kind of bring your attention to certain parts of your body, you know, like how you did Kim with your client, that whole process of interoception of that awareness of the sensations and feelings and, you know, processes, you know, that are, that you're experiencing in your body. That's something that we're not taught in schools. That's something that we should be taught in schools, you know, because that's emotional regulation 101. It's awareness of your own body. It's awareness of what's happening to you in a moment. And sometimes, you know, the greatest support that anybody can experience is just to be witnessed. Like to be seen, to be heard, and to be felt. And what you did in that moment was to give your client who had trouble finding the you know, agency to express her own self to you gave her back her agency in many ways just by your simple act of observation and you know directing her back to her own interoceptive abilities.

LOUISE NEIL (33:32)

Yeah, I find it so interesting how the body can calm the mind. Right? And that spinning that we do, that busyness that we all get swept away in, that until we notice that it's getting too much to handle, right? Like the body's always the answer. Right? Like it's always with you. You always have these tools, right? Like the breath is always with you. You don't have to walk around with any special gadget or anything at all other than, right? That recognition of things are not going as planned or things are, I'm not, right? Things aren't going well. How can I take a moment? Because that exercise you walked us through Deborah was literally seconds.

LOUISE NEIL (34:28)

And we always have that with us, which I love. But being someone who, for most of my life, I spent it in my head. I could try to logic my way out of almost anything until I couldn't. And this rediscovering of your body and the knowledge that we hold from the neck down has been like a reawakening almost for me, or a reinvention.

LOUISE NEIL (34:58)

There's some more rewords, Kim. Is it still retrograde? I'll throw some rewords in there.

DEBORAH LEE (34:59)

Wow. A revolution maybe?

KIM ROMAIN (35:02)

Yeah, we're technically still in retrograde. Yeah.

DEBORAH LEE (35:06)

Well, I resonate with that, Louise, because I too, it really caused me a real shift when I read the book, The Body Keeps the Score, which is the whole reason why I started my company in the first place. I wrote it in 2021 when I was walking out of an abusive marriage and I didn't even know what heartbreak was then, you know. I would call, I called up my friend I said rijo rijo i feel like i'm dying she's like what what's happening she knew what was happening but you know she's very practical minded so she was like what what's happening and i was like you know i um i just looked at the bed this is a few days after we were separated i separated from him because he assaulted me and i had to protect myself so i just looked at the bed and i was like this could be empty for the rest of my life given the situation, right? Like, and I mean, it's not bad given that, you know, he had almost tried killing me at that point in time. But the point is that when you're trauma bonded with someone, you can't see past all of these things. All you know is that the trauma is that the emotional bond is like, the attachment is like suddenly threatened. And, you know, it was three days in and I felt completely like, and I was not in touch with my emotions at all. So I just thought I was dying. Literally, I felt I was having a heart attack. And then I just said, know, when she said, what's going on, what's going on? And she already knew what was happening. And I was like, okay, she's not asking what's going on. Like she's asking what's happening to me. So I just said, you know, it's like, I have this thing in my, my heart. It feels like that's something that's breaking, you know, like it's, and I feel like I, and I just, just tried to put into words what I was experiencing and it was so hard to do. And at the end of it, she said, darling, that's heartbreak. And I was like, it's just heartbreak. Okay. I was so relieved.

KIM ROMAIN (37:08)

Just heartbreak.

DEBORAH LEE (37:17)

Like dying or heartbreak. When she told me it was heartbreak, and I'm not laughing at what I went through, but like, it was horrible. I went through something really horrible. But it was like, it gave me a sense of relief because it was like, okay, this is not something wrong with me. Like, there's nothing wrong with me. What I'm experiencing is heartbreak and like the anxiety that I'm feeling is normal given the situation, given all of these things going on.

And from there, was like, okay, this is not going to kill me. Like I can experience this in my body without dying, without feeling like I'm losing my mind. Right? So that, that knowledge in and of itself, the ability to come into awareness of my own body, like that's a pivotal moment for me. And the next pivotal moment was reading the body keeps the score and knowing that so many trauma survivors like Louise, yourself and myself, you know, we live disconnected for years and years. That's our way of survival.

Because when we were, and I will speak for myself, when I was younger, my environment was, was unremitting emotional distress every day, every day, every day, every day. And after a while, you learn to live up here, because that's the only way that you can survive. But as an adult, it's not adaptive. It's not adaptive for putting yourself into situations that are safe, that are healthy, that are life-giving.

Right? So what feels familiar is the chaos. What feels familiar is the disappointment and the betrayals and all of that. And that's what I found myself in for 10 years. Right? Until I was forced to leave because if I knew if I stayed on, I could lose my life. This is this is the reality many women coming out of domestically violent situations face. And that's the reality most of us, a lot of people in society don't want to face that because it's ugly. It hurts. Like how could the ones closest to you betray you?

You know, but intimate partner violence is so real and so many women lose their lives because of it. And I'm very lucky, very lucky to have gotten out when I did. So coming back to your body, Louise, is a gift and I just want to celebrate that.

KIM ROMAIN (39:30)

It's so interesting how we have these things, these bodies, and when we're little, we explore the world through our body long before we're ever exploring it verbally, cognitively in the way that we think of cognitively now. Like we're not telling stories or making up stories about what we're seeing, we're just experiencing it. And then we shut it down.

You know, right? And it becomes so much harder to re-access, get to that access in our bodies again, as we get older. And I know that, right, in the work that I do with the entrepreneurs and the leaders that I support, there is a prevalence of disconnection from their bodies when we start our work together. And so it is part of the work that we do together is to say, okay, you have done a lot of work in your world, in your journey to make sure that you are cognitively safe, right? And I think particularly as women, we have found that using our cognition has kept us safe. We know where the dangers are. I mean, we're taught to be prepared for dangers out in the world and we're taught in some ways to be aware of what dangers lurk within our own homes or potentially could lurk within our own homes. So we're always those spidey senses. We also need to be the smartest ones in the room and we need to be the smartest ones in our community, like all of these things with our minds. And so thank you brain for doing all that work and what's happening in our bodies so that we can spend, right?

With the whole, pendulation is huge, being able, pendulation, titration, going in just little bit by little bit to see what's there. Because you're right, interoception, proprioception like we're not taught these things. Like we didn't even know these words, right? Most people have no idea what those words even mean.

LOUISE NEIL (41:41)

I still barely know what you're talking about.

KIM ROMAIN (41:45)

Do you want to give an explanation?

DEBORAH LEE (41:45)

But Louise, so interoception is what we were doing when you're tuning into your body to the sensations that come up within your body, like just a body-based awareness. Like, let's see if there's any tightness in your back or any tightness in your chest or something in your throat or like maybe there's like a nice warm feeling that's like spending outwards as you think about, you know, I don't know what makes you happy, Louise.

LOUISE NEIL (42:10)

My puppy dog right now, she makes me pretty happy.

DEBORAH LEE (42:12)

Yeah, okay, so just think about your puppy dog. Any sensation coming up for you within your body?

LOUISE NEIL (42:18)

Yeah, it did get a little warm. Like, really, like, it's kind of like right in here. Yeah.

DEBORAH LEE (42:22)

Yeah, see, because our bodies are intimately connected, like the sensations in our bodies are the kind of basis of which your brain makes sense of emotions, right? Like there's an expectation around emotions that builds up and there are many neuroscientists that actually talk about this, but essentially at the end of the day, our bodies give us our sense of safety.

Right? We derive a sense of safety from within our bodies. And if we're able to use our bodies as an anchor and comfort our bodies, you know, do things that give us a sense of safety, we can establish that that safety and then, you know, go out into the world and do whatever it is to order our world from the inside out. Right. I'm not saying just stay in your body and do nothing. Do it from a place of embodiment. Do it from a place of embodied awareness. And like, as you were saying, Kim in school, there's so many things that they teach you and so much of it is unnecessary. That's what I feel. I think that people need to be taught number one, know, somatics, interoception, proprioception, because all of that builds back to self leadership, right? Emotional regulation, awareness, good decision making, right? And then the other thing that people need to learn is, you know, financial management.

There are so many ways of managing your money that people don't ever even touch because they don't even know about it. And you know, I just feel like there are all these tools that people go through and they learn later in life. And if they had access to this when they were younger, it could change the trajectory of their lives.

KIM ROMAIN (44:04)

Yeah, for sure. And when we start talking about money, most people shut down again inside their bodies. It's so fascinating. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't have to shut that down.

DEBORAH LEE (44:12)

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Yeah, like money, money has become associated with a lot of other things that actually has nothing to do with. It's the same way that you think about anything in life. Think about AI, for example, or think about writing, you know, or any other tool, it can be used for both good and bad. It can be used in any capacity. We can use our bodies for good. We can use our bodies for bad. And so that's the same thing. And money has the ability. It's fungible. So it's like you can use money to buy time. You can use money to, I don't know, start a business that has an impact. You can use money in any number of ways that are good.

So it's just that the association of money and power and then the shame that often comes of that because certain people in power behave in really shameful ways. So that's kind of the essence of why people associate money and power in such negative ways. But there is actually nothing inherently wrong either with money or power. It's really how you use it. And I would say that for any almost anything in life. Right. Like like a lot of people are against AI or they are afraid of it, they're not fans of it, but I love AI. And I think that AI can be used to fill a critical mental gap, a mental health gap in our world globally. Because a lot of people actually need support and not getting the support and there's no means for them to do it.

KIM ROMAIN (45:45)

My goodness, so many different paths we could go down in this conversation. I'm wondering what, if we were to circle back and say, what is the one takeaway with that golden nugget that we want to make sure that people heard? What is that that you heard today, Deborah, in this conversation?

DEBORAH LEE (46:04)

I think it's the longing for the ability to show up with, you know, more authenticity, more presence, more connection. I think everybody has that, like even in the conversations that you've had, Kim, with those people who are saying that, you know, I don't have the bandwidth for it. Like life is just so overwhelming right now. Why are they talking to you? Why are they telling you the truth? They're telling you the truth.

KIM ROMAIN (46:31)

Because they feel seen.

DEBORAH LEE (46:33)

They're telling you the truth because number one, you created a safe space for them to tell you the truth. Number two, they feeling overwhelmed and they need to be able to open up to somebody, right? And number three, don't you think that gave them a sense of relief when they spoke to you, when they could show up unmasked? All of us want that to some degree. We don't want to completely, you know, spill the family jewels or whatever like you know, we want to be able to show up with presence and authenticity with both ourselves and with other people. And so one of the easiest ways that anybody can start doing that is by developing interoceptive abilities, tuning into your body and learning little somatic tools. Know, it's a minimal commitment and it's bound to increase your window of tolerance over time, it's bound to give you the ability to reflect more deeply about your life, about what you want and how you want to move through life and how you want to connect with people. So that is the biggest takeaway, right? Like even when it comes to challenging things, like let's say if money is an issue for you, like you shut down when money gets brought up.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs, especially people starting out, might deal with that. Yeah, there's a lot of stigma around that. But if your interoceptive abilities are there and you're able to reflect and sort of, we call it discomfort tolerance. Have a greater tolerance for dysregulation and discomfort in a moment. And you have the tools. You're equipped with the tools to sort of bring yourself back into a state that you feel okay.

And that also gives you the resources to start actually venturing into areas that typically you avoid it because you were feeling overwhelmed or fearful. Right? And then also adopting a curious mindset where it's more like experiment, what happens if I try this? What happens if I try that? So it's really about breaking away from a fear driven way of connecting everything to the world because anything that is driven at root cause by fear has its inherent limitations in terms of how much you can show up and feel connected and feel like your real self.

LOUISE NEIL (49:04)

Yeah, yeah. And I would add, for me, would kind of add on to that Deborah around like this idea of like, it's okay that we don't know how to do this. When we are adults in midlife, there's a lot of stuff that's happened in our lives. And to take that beginner's mindset to say, I'm going to be trying something different, I'm going to be experimenting.

It's okay that we don't know this stuff. We're not really set up for success. And I love that you highlighted that, right? We've never learned that this kind of stuff before. So it's really okay to be figuring it all out now, well into your adulthood. It's okay. And that's what stood out for me, yeah.

DEBORAH LEE (49:41)

Yes, yes. Yes. It's. It's really the mindset, isn't it? It's like when you tell yourself it's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to learn and figure it out, you're giving yourself permission to try new things without expecting perfection. And you're giving yourself permission as well to basically show and tell. So I grew up in Singapore, which is more conservative society, more Asian, one of the things I love about American culture is show and tell when you can like, you know, the simple act of just taking something from home or like talking about, you know, some aspect of your life is actually really helpful. It releases oxytocin. Gives you a sense of connection with other people. It increases your self confidence, especially when people respond to you in ways that are affirming and encouraging. And so being able to, kind of open up and just be like, Hey, I like this, blah, blah, blah. And you know, it's not about the KPIs. It's not about the bottom line. It's not about just being relevant. It's not about about contributing, adding value. It's like all of those, you know, matrix bound things can just go out the window. I just want to show you this because I love it. And there's a resonance of that. And when people can connect with that part of you that feels authentic, that is like truly enjoying something and wants to bring you into that inner world, right?

KIM ROMAIN (50:57)

Mm-hmm.

DEBORAH LEE (51:08)

People can feel that on a very, deep and visceral level because they too have the inner world and they understand how hard sometimes it is to bring people into that world. And they appreciate you showing that to them in that moment of vulnerability. And so that's really special. And I wish when I was growing up that there was a bit more of that. But I always noticed it. And I did some research around it recently, show and tell. And there are actually a lot of benefits, a lot of good hormones are released and neural connections are made that actually help you to feel better, to feel more connected, more emotionally regulated as well.

KIM ROMAIN (51:53)

So interesting, so interesting. Yeah, yeah. I think one of the things that I want to underline for people in today's conversation is that idea that psychological safety literally starts at home in your own body. And we hear it a lot out in the marketplace and leaders are wondering how to create more more psychologically safe environment for their teams and to know that it starts with you within your own body. And we can step into it in the ways that we were stepping into it today, which comes with a little bit of ease. It can feel scary, but it really comes with some ease. And so that's my little takeaway for today. Yeah.

DEBORAH LEE (52:37)

Yeah. And I want to add to that because when you talk about the scary feeling that comes up...

KIM ROMAIN (52:42)

Okay.

DEBORAH LEE (52:45)

Think about surfing a wave, like a surfer and a wave, right? Like the anxiety or that fear, it's like riding a wave. And if you can sort of like think of it in those terms, it becomes excitement. And you're riding that wave of excitement and it's driving you to new heights, right? So that's the idea of like emotional agility as well, when emotions can be interpreted in a variety of ways that actually help to motivate you, you know, and push you in a direction that you wanna go.

KIM ROMAIN (53:18)

Yeah, such good stuff. Deborah, where can people find you in the world and do you have anything coming up that you want to make sure they know about?

DEBORAH LEE (53:28)

Yeah, people can definitely find me in the world by looking me up online, Deborah Lee, Creature Ray, or they can go to my LinkedIn account. I'm a very active LinkedIn user. I post twice a day. I like sharing my insights. I research on things all the time. That's my, okay, I don't actually have ADHD, but like I do have certain tendencies I noticed and I just constantly ask questions. I have a very curious mind and any insight that I find that's worth sharing, I will post about it. So there's always like posts coming up on LinkedIn and also you can go to my website, creatureray.org, C-R-E-A-T-U-R-A-E dot org. And I am launching this year in New York City, Creature Ray and Body Leadership Workshops for corporates, for schools, and for any institution that wants to give their leaders and their employees a set of somatic tools that they can use to establish their body as a place of safety. Talking about psychological safety, that's what embodied leadership would do, Creature Race embodied leadership workshops. Yep.

KIM ROMAIN (54:41)

Love it. We will include all of that information in the show notes as well. Yay.

DEBORAH LEE (54:45)

Yeah, thank you so much for this opportunity Kim and Louise. This is really great what you guys are doing and I couldn't be more enthused and you know, just grateful to you guys for like having me on your show. Really appreciate you guys sharing as well.

KIM ROMAIN (55:01)

So glad to have you here.

LOUISE NEIL (55:03)

A great conversation today. Thanks Deborah for just showing up so authentically. You just modeled it beautifully. What a great, great conversation. I just wanted to thank you for that. And thank everyone for tuning in today.

DEBORAH LEE (55:18)

Yeah, thank you guys. Thanks, Louise. Thanks, Kim. It's so nice. Okay, bye-bye. See you. Bye.

LOUISE NEIL (55:22)

Take care, everyone. Bye. Bye.

KIM ROMAIN (55:22)

Thanks, Deborah.