From Collapse To Coherence: Lisa Babincsak On Apapacho And Presence

What happens when the life that once looked perfect begins to quietly undo you? We sit down with writer and movement-builder Lisa Babincsak to explore Apapacho—an ancient Nahuatl concept meaning to embrace from the soul—and why tenderness, presence, and coherence might be the most advanced form of intelligence we have. From career heights to seismic collapse, a move to Mexico, and writing that became alchemy, Lisa shares how slowing down made room for truth and how truth made room for connection.

We dig into the physics of presence and the science of co-regulation: how a steady nervous system can calm a room, why chaotic energy ramps our anxiety, and what it takes to become the person who steadies others. Mexico’s cultural fabric offers a living case study—less consumer distraction, more family and community—which contrasts sharply with Western independence that often isolates us. Lisa tells vivid stories, like gatherings where guests bring only words that matter, to show how simple rituals can shift conversations from small talk to soul talk.

We also challenge the attention economy. Algorithms are trained by our behavior, pushing shallow engagement over depth. Lisa refuses to game that system, choosing signal over noise and honesty over performance. We connect the dots between spiritual growth, psychology, leadership, and culture-building, and we talk practical anchors—Pilates as moving meditation, listening without fixing, and returning to the truth faster. If you’ve felt the ache beneath the scroll, the fatigue of pretending you’re fine, or the pull to build communities that actually hold us, this conversation names the path back to our human operating system: presence, connection, and care.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-babincsak-a63237317/?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app

https://substack.com/@lisab3819

HELP contribute to this growing community.  Email topic ideas, suggestions for interviews, and feedback to venessa@squatsandseances.com.

FIND new episodes of Squats & Séances on all major podcast platforms and the vlogcast on our YouTube channel - Squats & Séances.

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode. 

VISIT us at www.squatsandseances.com to subscribe to our newsletter.

FOLLOW us on social media @squatsandseances (IG, FB, TT, LinkedIn).

Until the next time - stay gritty you badass! 

Transcript

Meet Lisa And Apapacho

Venessa 0:17

Today we are chatting with Lisa Bavensack. Lisa is the founder and creator of the Apapacho movement, rooted in the word meaning to embrace from the soul. Her work explores how tenderness, coherence, and care can serve as the next intelligence of humanity. She is the voice behind the Apapacha series, the fifth intelligence, and the reframes, three deeply interwoven bodies of work that bridge soulful inquiry with leadership, culture, and emotional evolution. Through essays, talks, and consulting frameworks, Lisa challenges how we define intelligence, success, and spirituality by inviting a return to our human operating system of presence, connection, and care. Her mission is to turn apapacho into a world movement because if there's anything the world needs now, it's soul level embrace. Welcome, Lisa. Am I saying Apacho correctly?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

You are, you got Apacho correct. And my last name, you're Bat in a thousand. I'm crushing it.

Venessa 1:37

We're off to a good start. So before we begin, I like to ask every first-time guest on the podcast this opening question. And if you've listened to any of the episodes, you probably know it's coming. What does gritty mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Gritty. Gritty means having a lot of what is the word I'm looking for. Gritty means when you have a lot of uh grit. I'm going back to the word grit. And grit is when people have a lot of resilience. So somebody that is gritty is someone who has deep resilience.

Venessa 2:28

That's a great one. I am making a big compilation of everybody's answers to that question because it can mean so many different things to different people. But I love the idea of deep seated resilience.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yes.

Venessa 2:43

That's beautiful.

Grit And Deep Resilience

Venessa 2:45

Well, let's learn a little bit about you to give our listeners a reference base. Where are you connecting with me from today geographically? Because that's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I am in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. It's often voted as one of the most beautiful cities in the world for the past, I think, five years by Travel and Leisure.

Venessa 3:12

How did you end up there?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Well, well, I lived in uh another part of Mexico for six years before here and on the beach. And then I love the beach, but it's a different type of social life there. It tends to be more party oriented and not so much culturally oriented, and that's not my thing. And so for the social aspect of my life, I was kind of missing the more cultural aspect. And you know, I was always drawn to San Miguel. And from the first time I came here, I just fell in love with it. This cultural aspect of this town is so deep, and there's so much, there's you know, a deep arts community here. The people you meet here have lived, many of them, all over the world in the top destinations, and they chose to live here. And people are just very, very interesting here.

Venessa 4:07

I'm going to need to um look on a map to get a point of reference for where that is, but it sounds beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

It's in the central highlands of Mexico, uh, about four and a half hours from Mexico City.

Venessa 4:21

Okay. And are you fluent in Spanish as well as English? Absolutely not. I'm fluent in English. I love that. Okay. And did you grow up in the States? Your accent is very much American. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Yeah, no, I've only lived in Mexico for eight years.

Venessa 4:42

Already a hero to me, to move someplace that's totally foreign and not speak the language and just integrate into the culture. That is so fascinating. All right. Well, so one of my first opening questions for you is to go back to the beginning for your story, the where, when, why on your journey to self-actualization. This season two is all about lifestyle optimization and the many different paths that each individual soul can take to really embrace an authentic life. And so I'd love to hear about how your journey started.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

It goes back to what you were mentioning about move to another country. It well, it kind of started before then I for two careers. My first career was in the wine industry, and my second career was in the interior design industry. And for both careers, I traveled internationally and domestically extensively. I was on the road all the time. And I really loved it when I was younger, but it got to

Why Mexico And Choosing Culture

SPEAKER_00 5:50

the point that I had no balance in my life. You know, I didn't have a lot of friends because I was always in a relationship. So at the for the short amounts of time that I was home, I would spend that time with my boyfriend. So I didn't have many friends. And I just started feeling like my life was really out of balance and I needed more connection in my life instead of working all the time. And the more I denied that ache inside of me, the louder it got. And to the point where I was thinking, like, well, maybe in 10 years I'll move to Costa Rica because I had been there. But then I went on vacation to Puerto Valleta and I had never been there before. I went alone. But when I got there, it was September and it was hurricane season, and there was a tropical storm in the bay. So the entire week it rained torrential torrentially, and I didn't see the tone. I didn't do anything except go to a timeshare presentation. And um they yeah, that was all there was to do when it was raining like that. And um they kept telling me, like, oh, you know, you should come here and work for us. You know, if you could be here in two months for high season, that would be amazing. And I didn't realize that was part of the sales pitch. They really didn't want me to come work there. But I I went home and I quit my job and I moved there two months later.

Venessa 7:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

I knew nobody. I knew nothing about the town. I just knew that, you know, I mean, it had just gotten to the point that the ache inside of me was so loud that I felt like if I continued to stay in the life I had, um, which seemed successful from the outside, that I was, you know, dying on the inside. So I just took that leap and moved with seven suitcases and two cats. I didn't even have a job or a place to live when I moved there. I stayed in the Airbnb for a week and I found a job and a place to live in that week.

Venessa 7:54

That is an incredible story. How brave to listen to step into this unknown world of whatever it is that's waiting for me is hopefully going to fill this space, this calling that was being unfulfilled. When all of the external markers that our society likes to use for gauging success weren't meeting it. That is amazing. Okay, so that would have been you said you've been in your present location. Did you say six years?

SPEAKER_00 8:26

And then No, I I've been in total in Mexico for eight years. I've been in Gian Miguel for two years and six years in Nuevo Valleta previously.

Venessa 8:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

So 2017, I moved here to Mexico.

Venessa 8:40

With this huge leap of faith and this journey that you took, how does that translate into the work that you do now?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Well, it birthed the work that I do now, not by plan. I would have to say that consciousness had its own plan. And I do write about that through my just going back. I mean, my life had somewhat been dismantling for well, the dismantling started in 2008. In my life, I was at the top of my career doing what I really loved for the first time, where it felt like I was doing something that fed my soul. And then uh the economy crashed in 2008. Two two weeks after I was working on designing a fabric line, which was you know a huge opportunity for me, and I loved it so much and and had worked two years on that, and then we launched it, and two weeks later, the economy officially tanked, and the rug was just pulled out from under me. And I had created, I was always the type of person that if there wasn't a path to where I wanted to go, I would build that path. But and I had in that with that company I worked for, I had done that. I created a niche for myself in that industry that didn't exist, and I was making like five times this the average income in that industry. But when the economy crashed and uh within a year I lost my job because the luxury market had really dried up at that point, I that niche that I built for myself ended up putting me in a cage, and it it created a huge collapse for me because I was making so much more than the average that I couldn't find a job making half or half of half or half of half of half.

Venessa 10:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

And

Careers, Burnout, And The Leap

SPEAKER_00 10:35

um I just didn't know what to do. I mean, I came from, you know, being and I was considered way overqualified. So I was trying to, you know, I tried to long story short, I lost everything during that time. Everything. I went from the top to the bottom basically overnight, not that quickly, but it was within a year. And um, you know, I over the last years, you know, I have or since that time, I have tried to rebuild my life with that same, that same that same drive that I always had to create something that I wanted if it didn't exist. But for some reason, you know, over the last, well, since 2008, so what, that's 17 years? 17 years. Every time I would build something, I'd get to a certain point and something would happen to pull the rug out from me again, from under me again. And it you was usually out of my control, like COVID, the shut the initial shutdown from COVID or something. So, but when I moved to Mexico, um, yeah, I did take a huge leap of faith. And, you know, I thought I was gonna have the dream life that everybody thinks they're gonna have when they move to Mexico, but that's not exactly what happened. Life really slowed down a lot for me. And, you know, I always say that in the States, our pace is so fast in the States, and people don't have barely a minute to breathe, let alone really take in how they are feeling and process it. We were taught to suck it up and keep moving because you don't have time to stop. And in Mexico, the pace of life is much slower. So as the pace slowed down and I started, I could actually hear my own voice and hear my own pain and you know, everything that I had gone through an entire lifetime, not processing, it started it all bubbled up, didn't it?

Venessa 12:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah. And there were situations, things that happened that, you know, that also, you know, helped activate that. There, you know, difficult situations. But yeah, and I was always a person that never lived was good at living not in coherence with myself. Like if I felt that ache of incoherence, it would drive me crazy until I made a change. You know, I'm just I can't bypass that. And anyway, but you know, so in Mexico, it really my inner voice became very loud and the processing, you know, became intense. And again, you know, I built another business and built a really good design business. And I, well, first I started to, I was had planned when I moved to Mexico to open a furniture store. And I spent, again, two years working on that, tons of money planning it. Yeah, I signed a lease on a space, was just getting ready to start the construction, and the initial lockdown from COVID happened. Oh boy. And six months lockdown, nobody knew what was gonna happen. So I had to buy my way out of the lease, lost a ton of money, started an interior design business. It was very successful. And then I had so much theft and betrayal with, you know, my with an assistant and with, you know, some artisans I was working with, it it completely collapsed me and my business.

Venessa 13:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

And at that point, you know, I took the decision to move to San Miguel. And I had hoped that San Miguel would hope me, would hold me gently. It was kind of at the edge of the cliff when I came here, but instead it pushed me off the cliff. Yeah, for sure. For sure, pushed me off the cliff. It was that leap of faith was, I mean, it's been two of the hardest years of my life in San Miguel, but that breaking down of it, that complete dismantling of my life, that was like the total and complete dismantling of everything in my life, who I thought I was, what gave me safety, you know, relationships, you know, everything. And but it broke me down to such a raw place that I was able the the writing just started. I just started writing. And I think it was just years and years and years of, you know, all these things I had experienced. Like if I had more time to tell you, I mean, it was really like crazy 20 years of crazy things that happened in my life. Yeah. And I'm a systems thinker and my mind never stops. I can't just look at a situation and see it for what it is. I see the structure behind it, you know, what the patterns are behind it, and I track all that, you know, without even realizing half the time. And the writing was the processing. It wasn't the sometimes people think people close to me think that my writing is me living in my in my past. And it's not at all. I mean, I have metabolized and alchemized all of the emotion from that, but in doing that, I'm sharing it in a way to help other people. It's not about poor me or or villainizing, you know, anybody who, you know, had hurt me. Right. It's it's about having empathy for them and understanding where that pain that they had that they pass on came from. And, you know, what looking at the bigger picture of what this really means in my life. So, you know, I've built all these cosmologies, I guess you could say. It's really a complete cosmology in all my writing without even planning to. If you look back, if once I look back at it, it all links together, whether it's deeply spiritual or whether it's more based on psychology and you know, and physics, you know, it all links back to the same thing.

Venessa 16:38

Right. Couple thoughts

2008 Crash And Identity Collapse

Venessa 16:40

on all of that that you shared. Thank you, first and foremost, to bring vulnerability and authenticity to this conversation, just right off the bat. I have a profound amount of respect for, especially for us as women. I think in many ways that we do a lot of masking and we're like, everything's good, everything's fine. Like, no, my life was leveled, and I had to reconnect with sense like with who you were. Right. And there's that saying that the universe will always give us what we need and not necessarily what we want. So I really appreciate you sharing that. Very similar in some respects. So they'll did not get to relocate to an exotic location, never too late. I know. I wonder, I wonder what my three kids and my husband would think about that. They would love it. I'm sure. Oh, I bet they would. Is this where you're writing? Having this just bubble up and come up as you were processing and healing and working through your own history, your stories that you brought with you. Is that where the Apapacha movement came from? And what is that? Could you touch on what that is specifically as it relates to writing? Um, and I had a quick note here. Oh, also specifically, we were going to talk about why people feel something when they encounter it. So maybe we'll start by defining what it is first.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

So I was introduced to Apapacho for the first time only, yeah, say six months ago. A dear friend of mine, we were at dinner, and uh, I was at dinner with two Mexican friends and an American friend. And my one of my Mexican friends had just brought, you know, said the word. And I said, What is that? What is that word? And he was explaining it, and I said, Well, what does it mean? It's it comes from it's an ancient Aztec language called Nahuatl. And and the meaning of the word is to embrace from the soul. And I just be literally became obsessed with that word. You know, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was writing about it. I was, I'd be at a luncheon or a charity event or wherever when I was speaking with people, and I would bring up the word and I would, you know, share the little things I had written about it. And and people were always leaning in like they wanted to know more. They would ask me, like, you know, can I have your number? Can you send me what you wrote? And they just wanted to know more. And within our friend group, I kept bringing it up and it changed the way we were interacting with each other, where we were much closer because, you know, when we would greet each other, we would truly hug with depth, you know, and not just a performative hug. And then a friend, my friend who first introduced me to the word, he has a vineyard and he started producing an apapach wine, and it just was snowballing. And then I set up a LinkedIn account because I'm posting uh posting on Substack now like three parallel series. One is uh the APAcho series, and another is the fifth intelligence, which is related to the Apapacho series. And the fifth intelligence was something that I could distill like leadership, thought leadership from. And so I set up a LinkedIn account which I hadn't had in like 12 years, and so I had zero contacts. And I set up this account, you know, to post some of this thought leadership stuff that was connected to Apapacho. And um I sent out some connection requests, but I didn't just, I mean, I just went big. I went for the top thought leaders in the world, Raj Sisodia and Dan Chapman and those guys, you know, like they had get hundreds of requests all the time. And and I was nobody, I had one connection. And on my second day, and I'd say the most that's probably the top most well-known thought leader in the world is Raj Sodia. And on my second day, he accepted my connection request, and then Dan Chapman accepted, and then all these other ones. I don't have a whole lot of connections, but the ones I have are these top people, most of them. And I have to believe it's because they recognize something. There are certain words that are coded. I mean, that's a fact. I mean, certain words have coding in them that speaks to our essence. And um, I believe that Apple Pacho is one of those words. And I think that people recognize it on a soul level because it is something that we are missing so deeply in our lives. I mean, truly deeply in our lives. We've built an entire society around we think connection, but we're so profoundly connected through technology, yet so incredibly profoundly disconnected because of it. And everything we built as a society really keeps us more disconnected. And but I think the Ache of humanity is for connection because that's who we are, that's how we're built. And you know, Apple Pacho speaks to the soul in that way where people recognize it.

Venessa 22:11

When you're writing about it on Substack, well, I I look through a little bit of it, but I would love for you to share with the audience, the listeners, what how does it show up for you? Where how do you see it and feel it or use it to transmute or not? Okay, great. Yeah, let's what we're gonna we're gonna talk about the physics of it. Like, is there is there something to it? It sounds like it's more than just a state of flow or a transient connection with somebody else. It goes deeper than that.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Well, let me just preface that by saying I don't want to reveal too much of it, but I have a new triad of series, it's a complete cosmology. I'll be launching soon. It starts with when we forgot to be human. So that names the disconnection that was a point of disconnection from our humanity, and then it goes into the sixth intelligence, which

Moving, COVID Shocks, And Betrayal

SPEAKER_00 23:10

is presence, and then it speaks about why presence is so important and what um returning to presence does. And then it culminates in Apple Patch of the original operating code of humanity. And it's not, it really what blew me away the other day is I wrote all this and then I was scrolling through Substack and came upon this physicist post. It was actually a note, and I just and I never like really read any of those things. And I happened to read it, and I was like, oh my God, in a scientific through fit physics, he was ex or she was explaining the exact same thing I was saying in what I wrote physics, and then I was reading more of her work, and without a doubt, physics backs exactly what I say in this whole series. But the where your question was, where do I feel it or where do I don't, where do I not feel it? Say, unfortunately, I feel more of the lack of it than I do the presence of it. But um, because of our disconnection from our humanity, I see it more glaringly in the lack. But Mexico is Apapacho, I always say. So Mexico, one of the things about Mexico that keeps people more connected to their humanity is they don't have the distractions that other societies have in it. They're not Mexico is not the only country in the world like that, but it's a great example of it.

Venessa 24:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Because a lot of the distraction in society is what keeps us away from our humanity. And Mexico is not as a culture built on credit, it's a culture that is, you know, built on cash, it's a cash uh society. So the consumerism isn't obsessive here. They buy what they can afford and they live within their means. And so it's not all about what you have, it's more about connecting with people. And they have, even though you know they have been colonized throughout history, they their sense of who they are as people, especially the indigenous, they refuse to give it up. And you know, they their refusal is a form of apapacho, it's resistance. Actually, the essay I'm posting tomorrow in the apapach series is apapacho as resistance. Interesting. And and it talks about how resistance can be a way of showing apapacho too, because they refuse to give up, you know, the core of who they are. They keep that connection to their humanity because of it. The Mexican society is so family-oriented and um, therefore, you know, it's connection-oriented and connection and family support, and community support is what how apapacho exists. You know, that's how you, that's the outward expression of apapach, whether it's within a business culture or in a community or a family, it's you know, the the feeling of being held by the community, the culture, the family. And in the US, I mean, I was raised in a family, you know, Eastern European, you know, after I graduated college, you know, my mother said, we paid for your your, you know, your schooling, you're done, don't come back. Yeah, just don't come back unless it's absolutely necessary. And, you know, and if you if you fell and you had to ask for help, I mean, you were shamed and probably not supported, you know, and that's a lot of the American culture, you know, you can't say all of it, but the American culture or the Western culture is built on independence. And that's what is that's what is rewarded is independence. And I think we've really lost our way. I mean, people are just so isolated, you know, they're isolated, they don't feel supported when they need the support, you know. And I experienced that myself, like going through what I've been going through. And I mean, I need to be very clear, I'm not out of, I am not on the other side of this.

Venessa 27:26

None of us are ever. I feel that the journey is never done. It's never done. No, well, that is true, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:34

So I'm still I'm still in the dismantling. I I don't know if I'm still in the dismantling, but I'm still in deeply, deeply in the struggle. But I am far from the other side of it yet. But and I I think that's part of what gives my writing such gravitas, is because I'm writing from inside, you know, not from above.

Venessa 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Yeah, it's through the experience. But so Apapacho, let me give you a real good example that people don't really think about. I met a woman here several months ago. She had just moved here and she we became friends. And my friend who has the vineyard, we had gone to a harvest celebration at his vineyard. I had in had invited 15 people. I'm a real connector, and I knew all the 15 people. They didn't know each other. A few of them had met briefly before, but like magic happened that day. Everybody, it was just a great connection between everyone. And so um, this woman invited some of us over to her house the next day. And as I said, she's only been here now four months. And she said, just so you know, like when you come over, she said, I don't want anyone to bring wine or flowers or food or anything. She said, I only allow you to bring words. That's amazing, it's very interesting. So, and she I think she doesn't like that I always talk about her like this, but it's out of reverence and respect. But you know, she had instructed us that we are to bring something that either we wrote or somebody else wrote, words that were meaningful to us, whether it was a small quote or something longer. And so, like one person brought a roomy poem that was meaningful to her and explained why it was meaningful. Another woman read song lyrics that were very meaningful to her and said why. Another woman read a short quote. One woman, I she had just been introduced to AI like

Writing As Alchemy And Systems Thinking

SPEAKER_00 29:30

two days before, and she was playing with AI and asked AI, gave AI three facts about herself and asked AI to tell her who she was. And she was overwhelmed because she said it was like it read her soul, and she read that. Um, yeah, I read because I write. Yeah, no, really, it was truly amazing. And because I write, I I read the first essay and the first series I ever posted on um Substack was a series called How Mexico Saved Me. And um, but anyway, it you when you typically go to a party, you know, it's very surface. People are laughing, drinking, you know, not really talking about anything deep. You rarely get to see a glimpse into the the depth of someone, yeah, especially someone you've just met. But when in this circumstance, like where you're reading these things, find pieces of that are very things that are very meaningful to you. And so people see more your vulnerability, your who you are beneath the surface. And it was just magical. I mean, it was deeply connecting, you know, experiences I've had. And I'm found out after that that she not only, yeah, it's a really good example. And and I found out after that, not only does she not allow people to bring anything but words to her house, but when she goes to people's homes, she only brings words. Yeah, so she is very unusual, but it amazes me about her. Yes, the thing that may amazes me about her, and I always, you know, say when I describe her, is that she refuses to not connect deeply. She puts people in a situation very casually but comfortably that they might be a little bit uncomfortable at first, but they ease into it and people enjoy it, you know. But she puts people in a situation where they have to connect more deeply.

Venessa 31:29

I have a question that is a pacho. Yeah. That was a really, really good example. What you just described in a way that I could relate to in experiences that I'd had, where sometimes it feels that things are just very superficial. Just up here, we're talking, you know, even friends, gatherings, social outings. But then there are those moments where you know you're having a conversation and you're not quite sure how you got there, but you just dropped into this space beneath. And all of a sudden, maybe they're just burying their soul or they're sharing a struggle or they're sharing something that was deeply moving for them. Do you think that there's certain individuals who have that ability to bring out Apapacho and others?

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Oh, absolutely. I mean, she's definitely one, but you have to be what I, you know, in order to bring it out in others, you have to live every day of your life. She does it in many other ways for people to bring that out in people. You know, it's it's an energy, you know, it's an energy of coherence will bring like you, like that person last week. I wrote about the uh physics of presence. And you know, it's it's that person that walks in a room and their stability, their their energy is so stable, it stabilizes the room.

Venessa 32:56

Yeah. That is a real thing. I've seen it and I've experienced it.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah, our bodies, our systems are built, our nervous systems are built to co-regulate. So when we are around somebody who has a regulated nervous system, whether we realize it or not, it helps to regulate our nervous system. When that's why when you're around somebody who's very chaotic, you feel anxious because your nervous system is registering that the chaos in their nervous system.

Venessa 33:25

I actually read a study recently, similar vein, a little bit different example of couples together. And if the woman was dysregulated and very anxious, then it actually translated to the man underperforming in his job because of that co-regulation aspect. And when the woman was regulated, sturdy, and felt secure in that relationship, it actually translated to that man. This was obviously looking at heterosexual couples. So then the man would go out and he didn't have any issues with his job and he was actually able to perform better. It was some bizarre study. I don't know how I stumbled upon. But I felt like it it is describing what you're explaining here. So on a on a very physiologic level, on a cellular level, what we're surrounded with, we become.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah.

Venessa 34:24

It's you know energy.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna spoil my series that are coming, but you know, there's so much more to say about this in the series. But now that you're touching on that, I have always been a believer, whether I'm looking at the scientific side or the spiritual side, that everything is spiritual and it's all interrelated, you know, we can't compartmentalize any part of our human experience as non-spir-spiritual. And I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. But um the thing is, if you look at it like that, then the macro and the micro are mirrors of one another.

Defining Apapacho: Embrace From The Soul

SPEAKER_00 35:05

So if speaking to what you were just saying, if we if we as humans are dysregulated and our nervous systems are dysregulated, our the systems we build from that dysregulated perspective are dysregulated.

Venessa 35:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

And we are from the ground up truthally dysregulated. I mean, you know, I think about it so much with technology. I posted, well, that's one of that will be the entry into this new group of series is an essay I wrote called uh technology is the is a mirror of the unhealed ache of humanity. And that came from it was birthed from a lot of what I write about is birthed from my own frustration in something specific. But then because I'm a systems thinker, it starts in the micro and it always goes macro. So I started writing about again, a spoiler on this one, but it was I was very frustrated with fighting algorithms on Substack and LinkedIn. You know, I'm I don't post for, you know, for virality or, you know, to you know, what I post is deep. And I'm not looking for reaction, you know, I'm looking for the signal to be shared. And, you know, and I would get like really great momentum going. And then all of a sudden you just dive and it's not you're not losing subscribers or followers, but you're just getting no visibility all of a sudden, and it's because the algorithm keeps changing, yeah, and it's just maddening, and I refuse to game the algorithm. Yeah, it's just against everything in me, it's against against everything in what I write. And so, you know, I was very frustrated with that, and and I started thinking about how our behaviors, our behavior teaches the algorithm. That's what people want. They want, you know, quick interaction, they want quick reactions, they want surface level, they don't want deep. So that's what the algorithm rewards because that's what people react to. And you know, I have had arguments, yes, I have our had arguments with AI about, and I have one use. Yeah, no, for real. And I have one, um, some, but but with with chat GPT specifically, because I am not a person that wants, I want the truth, whether it's hurts or not, I want the truth. And if I'm asking a question, just tell me the truth. Don't sugarcoat it, just tell me like it is, and it can't do that. And it was drive me crazy. Like and I'd go round and round and round with it. And finally, it admitted to me that it just cannot do that because it's not programmed that way, right? Because it's programmed for what most people want, which is to be told what they want to hear. And I thought, oh my God, like that is such a sad statement of our humanity that people want to be told what they want to hear and not to live in reality. As the basis for generative AI. Absolutely. And so technology is a mirror of the unhealed ache of humanity, all of that type of behavior, you know, not wanting to live in truth, not wanting to be real with ourselves about who we are and what we want and what we don't want, and is is an unhealed ache of humanity. And, you know, it's we have the further we get away from our truth, the further we get away from our humanity, because we're living in dissociation, we're living in in compartmentalization, we're living in avoidance, we're not engaging in truly engaging because everything is an avoidant behavior, even the behaviors that are rewarded by society by you know by you know working really hard or caretaking or those types of things are avoidance behaviors.

Venessa 39:22

Oh, you are preaching to the choir. I so align with that. That is why I started this podcast, because I was a product of that mainstream thinking, of the physicality. I am a professional fitness coach, and I've been doing this for over a decade. And then I've done all of the psychology on myself because I struggled with depression and anxiety for a long time, and still cognitive dissonance, and it kept coming up, and everything wasn't quite fitting. And then I realized you have to have the spirituality component. Your mind, body, and spirit need to be nurtured. If you compartmentalize, then none of them reach the potential that you're looking for. You're always missing, you're always feeling like something isn't quite connected.

unknown 40:09

Right.

Venessa 40:09

It's so interesting that you shared what you just did about these societal standards that exist where we think, especially in the health and wellness industry, certain things get praised. Oh, you work out every day, you know, two twice twice a day. Look at you, you're so dedicated. I used to be in that camp, and now I think, what are you running from that you don't want to feel? It's just one example. You could take any extreme behavior from anything, even if it's labeled as something that we would think is healthy. So if you distill it down to what are the causative reasons behind that, or what is this person, this individual not wanting to feel in a very tangible way that this has shown up in my industry, going from exclusively functional fitness and strength training and building in yoga and meditation. Because you have to be able to sit in silence, there's strength, and sitting in silence with yourself, you can't always just be crushing mad weight under a barbelly. I had a couple questions come up, and I don't want to give away anything because you guys, I am going to include the link for her Substack

Presence, Physics, And The Sixth Intelligence

Venessa 41:20

account. Ways that humans regulate each other. If we know ways that we walk around dysregulated, could you name, without giving away too much, maybe one way that you see we can show up and help regulate each other?

SPEAKER_00 41:37

I it's through a true connection. I mean, when most people, when they ask, how are you? When people ask how are you, they really don't want to know. You know, and like you talked about not really letting people know how you're really feeling, people don't really want to know. You know, and I'm just I'm not that person. I mean, I am who I am. I'm not going to hide who I am. And I'm human. And when I'm going through a tough time, I can't pretend I'm not going through a tough time. You know, not that I live in that tough time my entire, you know, my entire existence, you know, but there are moments when you are just in that tough time and you can't hide it. But some people still will. They're so shut down emotionally because people don't really care anymore. Most people don't, but to um regulate one another, we have to show true care and compassion and really connect on a deep level with someone, you know, and really care about how they feel, really care about what you can do to help them, even if that just means listening to them and just witnessing what they're going through. I mean, people are so uncomfortable with that. I can't even tell you. I was talking to a friend of mine recently, and she was hoping that when she called this time that things were better, and they weren't. And um, you know, when I told her that, she was like, she's like, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know what what to do for you. And I said, you know, honey, I don't need you to do anything except listen to me. I said, I know you can't do anything for me. I said, I don't know what to do for me. I said, but you know, you just witness what I'm saying. Just as she got so uncomfortable, she rushed off the phone. Oh, yeah. Because it's uncomfortable for people, you know, they feel like they have to um fix something, you know, and even if the fixes they're offering are not really good options, or sometimes you just can't fix what somebody's going through. And you shouldn't feel unless they ask you to help them fix it. Really, all people really want is to be heard, to be truly heard and to be witnessed. In what they're experiencing, but we are so uncomfortable with that. And I think that's one of the clearest examples of how you know we can regulate one another.

Venessa 44:13

I believe that in my core. And I do feel that often our inability to be present and witness and hold space for other people's uncomfortable emotions is usually because it's like holding a mirror up to the things that we don't want to feel on ourselves. You're so spot on with that, Lisa, that what people desperately need is just someone to hold space to be sturdy and let them feel what they need to feel without taking it on themselves, not making it their problem to fix. And that is the journey, I think, a lot for a lot of us of a lifetime. It takes a long time to just give that awareness. And then once you have the awareness to try to practice that and hold space for somebody that's suffering, especially if it's somebody that you care about.

unknown 45:03

Yeah.

Venessa 45:03

I've experienced that with my oldest who's 18. And he has to walk his own path and do his own thing. And sometimes what he does is so painful, the choices he makes, and I have to hold space for that.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Absolutely.

Venessa 45:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

You're a good mother to do that.

Venessa 45:22

Oh boy. And that was a slow process to learn, and one that I'll continue to learn at parenting now, a young adult is a whole new journey. I wanted to ask before we wrap up here, in your day-to-day life, your practice of apapacho and of holding space for yourself and others, are there, could you name one key practice you have for balancing those three foundational pillars of body, mind, and spirit? What helps you anchor?

SPEAKER_00 45:55

I'll answer that question in the way you're asking it, and then I'm going to answer it a little differently. The only practice I have that keeps me grounded, and that is I do Pilates. And for me, that's very grounding, and it's my meditation because you it it calls for such awareness.

Venessa 46:16

I love Pilates. I do it every day too.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

So great. Um, but the other way I'd answer that is I don't know how to not be there. You know, I I write about uh in my reframe series, I write about the bare boned. And it's a term I coined about people who in my whole life I've never, I've always been very deeply sensitive, profoundly sensitive. And I've never, with all the trauma and betrayal and you know, grief and everything I've experienced in my life so deeply, I have never been able to numb or close my heart.

Mexico’s Culture Of Connection

SPEAKER_00 47:00

And you know, I have a friend who's an al, she's a recovering alcoholic, and she is her mission is to she used to be a healthcare executive, and so sh her mission is to change the way that rehab is is approached with addiction. But we were having a conversation about that one day, and I and I was deep in my in a bad place, and I said, you know, I can't tell you how many times I wish I could numb, yeah, and you know, just stop the pain, you know. But I've never been able to drink or do drugs or do anything. I always have to sit fully in it. I've just always been wired that way. And there are other people that are wired that way, and that's the term I coined the bare bone. Um, they can't shut down, you know, they just feel everything so deeply. So for me, I've never been able to close my heart, you know. I've despite all the hurt I've had in my life, you know, and so I live in my wiring keeps me in that, you know, mercilessly.

Venessa 48:10

So I was gonna say, and I can only imagine challenging. And what a gift to have somebody in your friends or in your circle to have someone who doesn't shut their heart down and doesn't numb out and just feels what needs to be felt. I mean, that takes an incredible amount of courage. So I don't know if anyone's ever applauded you for that, but I think that is amazing. It's easier to numb out, it's easier not to feel, it's easier to shut your heart down, it's easier not to trust. And it takes a hell of a lot of bravery to say, I'm just gonna keep doing this because this is who I am and this is what's right for me.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Well, from a spiritual perspective, I believe, and I wrote about this in the reframes, is I believe I was I came here with that vow. My soul came here with that agreement that I would never close my heart. And you know, there are those people that that's part of their soul agreement.

Venessa 49:11

Yeah, soul contracts, right? In closing, we touched on at the beginning, this season is just to give people exposure to other ways of thinking, new ways of doing, ask questions is what I always tell listeners. Don't settle for the answers that you think you're gonna get because you just don't even know. Like there's so much out there. If you were to choose one takeaway from our discussion today, based on what you shared, which would be the key point you would want to drive home.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

It's what this whole next series is about. I mean, our world is crumbling, all of our systems are crumbling worldwide. People are crumbling, you know, with with exhaustion and depression and anxiety and all of these symptoms of the ache of humanity.

Venessa 50:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

And we need to really take a different look at how we approach society, how we approach our own personal lives. Um, and we need to come back to our humanity, and that's what the Apapacha movement is about. But, you know, it's people need to realize how far we have drifted from our humanity and that it wasn't by coincidence, it was architected that way, slowly over time, and for a reason. And, you know, it's all laid out in these coming series, what that reason is, but it also gives you a way to come back to it. It lays the path of how to come back to your humanity. But, you know, that is a not such an easy thing because it requires the one thing that you said is most terrifying for people, which is being truthful about everything in their lives. You know, the truth of our lives, of who we are, of life is terrifying for people.

Venessa 51:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

And that's why they dissociate from their emotions and everything, because it's too much. You know, even physics talks about how the brain is wired to, you know, our perception of reality through a physics standpoint is that, and I just read this is, you know, there are many, many layers of reality. Our brain is only able to perceive a very small amount of them became it's for protection. Yeah. Because most people cannot handle the truth of the reality if they saw all of it. Yeah, it would collapse them. So their brain filters out what feels safe. And different people have different thresholds for what's safe.

Venessa 51:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

And um, but that's protection, you know. But we've got to get back to not having so much distraction in our lives so we can be present and come back to what really humanity was supposed to be about, because what we're doing now is not working.

Venessa 52:15

The series, when will it launch or come out or be shared on Fibstack?

SPEAKER_00 52:20

In a couple of weeks. So I'm right now I'm um hosting the Apapacho series on Wednesdays, the fifth intelligence series on, I'm sorry, Apapacho series on Tuesdays, fifth intelligence on Wednesdays, and reframes on Thursdays. And the Apapacho series and the fifth and I think the fifth intelligence will end will complete first, and then I'll start posting that series. So I think maybe two, three more weeks.

Venessa 52:49

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

And but you know, just reading the background, it's important to have the background of the Apapacho series and the fifth intelligence because they're referenced in these series. They build upon one another. So that gives people, if they're interested, some time to look into those a little bit.

Venessa 53:05

The last thing I was gonna ask is where would you like people to go to find more about you and about your writing? Substack, is that gonna be your preferred place?

SPEAKER_00 53:14

Yeah, Substack is where I post, you know, most of my archive is. I also post on medium,

Co-Regulation And Nervous System Science

SPEAKER_00 53:20

but it's parallel, but I don't post as often on medium because it's like posting into a void on medium. I do it more just to have the archive there, but um I don't do it as consistently as I do with Substack. So I'll post, you know, that's my posting schedule every week on Substack, and then I'll catch up later and post a bunch of things on Medium. But um Substack is the most consistent archive of everything.

Venessa 53:45

Thank you so much, Lisa. It has been a pleasure to get to know you over this last hour. I have really thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I think our listeners are gonna walk away with a lot to think about, which I love. Like, let's stop being so surface level all the time. And what does reconnecting really look like? And how do you feel it in your body? It's a journey that starts inside, but that ripple is gonna touch everybody if you do the work. So thank you so much for your time. It has been an absolute pleasure, and I hope you have a fantastic day.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Thank you, you as well.

unknown 54:23

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Thank you for having me on the show.

Venessa 54:26

Help contribute to this growing community by emailing topic ideas, suggestions for interviews, and feedback to Vanessa at squatsandseances.com. You can find new episodes on all major podcast platforms and the vlogcast on our YouTube channel, Squats and Seances. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode, and leave us a review if you are enjoying the content.