The Courage to Be Seen: Emotional Vulnerability Explained

Dec 23

Episode 24 with Jill Griffin & Molly Bierman

In this episode of No Permission Necessary, Molly Bierman and Jill Griffin unpack what happens when high-functioning leaders slowly drift outside their window of tolerance, and why stress can make even small problems feel urgent, overwhelming, or impossible to manage.

Drawing from EMDR-informed concepts and real-life leadership pressures, they break down the window of tolerance in a practical way, exploring the difference between being productive and being present, and how emotional buildup can show up as irritability, reactivity, or a sudden breaking point at home.

They also share simple ways to regulate and return to baseline, including breathwork, grounding practices, nervous system support, and the basics that often get neglected first, like sleep, nutrition, and movement. The episode closes with a permission slip challenge to identify three non-negotiables that help you feel grounded and to start using them before you hit the edge.

Topics include: window of tolerance, nervous system regulation, EMDR-informed coping skills, leadership stress, emotional reactivity, burnout prevention, breathwork, sleep, movement, and staying present under pressure.

Molly Bierman (00:00)
You look legit terrifying. Not like, not your looks.
Jill Griffin (00:02)
I got my hair slicked back.
got, listen, I look like, ⁓ you know what's so funny is I had a client yesterday tell me that, ⁓ because I always like to check in. I think it's important to do that when we're working with clients. Like, hey, is this working for you? Because I think in that dynamic, same with like employees and employer, there is a power dynamic.
Molly Bierman (00:26)
It's a power dynamic.
Yes.
Jill Griffin (00:29)
And I
think that sometimes clients are not, I don't know if you've been stuck in this, we talked about the nail lady the last time. Clients sometimes aren't gonna tell you, if you're not working as their therapist, they're not gonna tell you. They will suffer through sessions or they'll ghost you. They will just stop showing up. So I was having this conversation and I said, hey, just wanna check in. I do a lot of adjunct EMDR work with clients so they have a primary therapist that they keep and I always say, when you're ready to go back to them,
Molly Bierman (00:39)
No, they're not going to tell you.
Yes.
Jill Griffin (00:59)
That's great. That means our work here is done. You're not going to offend me if you're done with the work. So I check in with them and they go, honestly, the first time I saw you, you look just like a teacher that I used to have in high school. And she was really mean. And I thought like, you were going to be really mean. And I think depending on how I do my hair and like how I dress, like I do look like more of a bitch than, I mean, right now it's pretty harsh. It's pretty, we mean business today.
Molly Bierman (01:21)
Either softer, yeah, softer, yeah.
Jill Griffin (01:30)
And sometimes you have to dress like that because sometimes you have to hype yourself up in the morning like we're going to get shit done today.
Molly Bierman (01:31)
We.
Let's go back to what I did this morning. I dunked my face in an ice bath seven times because Paracel and said she doesn't do Botox and that's part of her regimen.
Jill Griffin (01:47)
First of all, Paris Hilton's skin looks amazing. I don't believe she doesn't do something. Also, Paris Hilton has a cryotherapy chamber and a hyperbaric chamber in her house. So, yeah, so.
Molly Bierman (01:51)
Amazing.
Well, that's what she talked about. So the ice bath
might not get us too far, but I did what I could do, which was the free portion of her skincare regimen. Thank you.
Jill Griffin (02:05)
I mean, your skin looks amazing. Yeah,
it tightens it up, tightens the pores up, I get that. I'm not doing that. That's what I'm not doing.
Molly Bierman (02:09)
Yeah.
Why? I think you might like it. I actually liked it afterwards. I was like, okay, I could do this again. And I did it seven times. So I'm gonna work my way up to more.
Jill Griffin (02:22)
How many times does she do it?
Molly Bierman (02:23)
She does it on and off for 10 minutes and I did it on and off for maybe two.
Jill Griffin (02:29)
Okay, so I would say the face I could probably do and manage. I tried doing the cold showers. I tried doing, I've done ice baths before. I've actually seen,
Molly Bierman (02:40)
No, it's just to de-puff
my face. I can use the sauna for everything else. I'm not getting into a cold ice bath. It's a no. Me too. ⁓ that's how, yeah. That's how my neighbor is too. She's the same way. She's a clinician too. I don't know what that says about you guys.
Jill Griffin (02:45)
I need warmth. I run a heater in my office year round. So there's no cold thing.
It's been ever since I lost weight. can't and I have I have thyroid autoimmune stuff. So I feel like I just run cold all the time anyway. Anyway, so Molly actually was saying that I look scared because she's very nervous because I have a surprise topic that we're talking about today. It's not scary.
Molly Bierman (03:18)
Yeah,
we were supposed to do an interview and we rescheduled it. And so here we are. And Jill said, what do you want to talk
Jill Griffin (03:23)
We read.
Molly Bierman (03:28)
today on the podcast? And I said, why don't we do some like rapid fire questions? And she then said nothing. And then this morning said, surprise topic. So here we are. Let's get into it. Welcome back guys.
Jill Griffin (03:41)
Freisomic.
So,
so I thought it would be really, I've been almost talking to myself as if I am one of my clients lately, ⁓ which sometimes I feel like we have to do. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves, we got to get back to basics. ⁓ Molly's already taking deep breaths. This is good. This is good that she's taking deep breaths. So,
Molly Bierman (03:55)
Okay?
I like we're
really aligned on this. Okay, keep going. I'm feeling good about this. Let's go.
Jill Griffin (04:11)
Are we? Are we in the
same place? So what came up for me is I'm an EMDR therapist. I don't typically talk about like my clinical work that I do, but for those that don't know EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, which is essentially a modality of therapy that you use. It's a gold standard for trauma treatment. I would also say though that it is a gold standard for
reorganizing your belief system about yourself. So negative cognitions about yourself, for example, I'm not good enough. I can't trust people. ⁓ I'm unsafe. These like negative beliefs that come up from a lot of times from trauma, but sometimes like the things that they come from aren't these like massive trauma moments. Sometimes it's just like stuff that happens in childhood that like really is emotionally jarring for us, whatever.
So one of the things that we teach to our clients in EMDR is the window of tolerance, which is essentially like your optimal zone for functioning. And so in teaching this to my clients this week, I had this profound moment, light bulb moment that I've been operating outside of my window of tolerance at least two and a half weeks. And so
Molly Bierman (05:29)
For how long?
Whoa, okay.
Jill Griffin (05:35)
Well, I will say like riding the edge, like it's not always outside and I'll explain this a little bit more, but you know, it goes back to, and I teach this a lot to my staff. I talk about this a lot with, you know, fellow entrepreneurs, like we have to stay steady, like emotionally steady. Some of the worst bosses you've probably had, if you're listening to me right now, like if you think about it, it's probably the ones that were unpredictable. They're emotionally.
Molly Bierman (05:39)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (06:03)
unstable in some form or fashion. They're all over the place. They're reactive to things. That's just not, that's just not a good way for a leader to operate. A leader you want to have like, you know, there's all, we're human. We're going to have ups and downs, but you don't want to be like this. You don't want to be like up and down. So, so I thought about this more and like how this came up for me is we had a staff retreat where we had some reiki done. We did a sound healing like
Molly Bierman (06:16)
Steady state, a little steady state, totally. Yes.
Jill Griffin (06:32)
It was really about grounding. wasn't about the work. It wasn't really about team building necessarily, but it was about like checking in with ourselves and are we practicing what we're preaching? In other words, is the stuff we're saying to our clients and in my case is the stuff I'm saying to my staff. Am I doing that myself?
The answer was I was treading water for the past few weeks. That's where I've been. So we'll back up a little bit. Window of tolerance, essentially when you're in that window, which like there's highs and lows in that there's still variation, but it means that like that's where you're able to use your coping skills. That's where you're able to function. You're present, you're able to enjoy your family, you're able to hold conversations, you're able to think creatively. Like that's, that's...
The zone doesn't mean that you don't have painful emotions or that you can still be stressed, but like you're able to keep it. You're able to still function outside of that on the high end would be hyper arousal, which would be look like where you're intensely angry. You are feeling anxious. You may have a panic attack. That is where like you're in fight or flight mode. And then on the bottom is hypo arousal where you're
the freeze mode where you're kind of stuck, you're frozen, you can't make decisions, you're paralyzed, you feel like you're depressed, sleeping a lot, all that stuff.
I don't really identify with being like in either one of those extreme states most often, but I think this one crept up on me.
Molly Bierman (08:05)
Well, it's interesting that we're talking about this for a couple of reasons. One is when we go through changes or life changes or even seasonal changes at times, I feel as though our system needs a reset in some fashion, right? And so there have been a lot of season changes for you, both actual season changes as well as season changes in your business.
What I'll say about being able to relate to that is we're typically the last to recognize it. And the reason being is that it works. It helps us function in a way to get things done and to keep moving forward. And so it's not that I become less productive in those moments. It's more that I become less present.
Jill Griffin (08:46)
You
Molly Bierman (09:03)
there's a difference.
Jill Griffin (09:03)
That
the problem that I've noticed. Which in seasons, you know, as an entrepreneur, there are seasons where, yeah, I got to sacrifice my time. And I think that's, I don't think it's just an entrepreneur. I just think that's just career in general and or life, right? You have to sacrifice something to get something else sometimes. Like there's a trade-off.
Molly Bierman (09:07)
right.
Jill Griffin (09:30)
And there have been seasons over the last however many years of my career where like I've had to sacrifice. I mean, even when I was in agency work, I used to get up at three, 3.30 in the morning and I would go and supervise my overnight staff at five in the morning before they clocked out. I went on call when I got called about clients who were unable to be deescalated in the middle of the night. I got dressed and went into the office. Like, so like there was sacrifice and that was with a six month old at home.
So there was sacrifice along the way anyway, but I think, you know what, goes back, at first I was like, I wanna talk about boundaries, but in my time management, but it's like, it's not really about that. What it's about is not being present with like how I'm processing everything and how I'm managing everything. Because I think you and I both are the same where we can manage a lot of stress. And when I say that, like we just, that's just.
We can work in a fast-paced environment, we can multitask, we can put out fires, we come from those backgrounds.
Molly Bierman (10:36)
There's, well, there's
not much that there's a crisis, right? So there's not much about our day-to-day today that looks like a crisis. So I think when you have that comparison and you're sitting in a space today and I'm looking at what may be someone else's crisis, I'm sitting on the other side and saying, that feels really low-level crisis to me. Maybe kind of tipping, you know, the scale of maybe an emergency, but crisis is something different.
Jill Griffin (10:40)
No.
No.
Molly Bierman (11:05)
Crisis is, for me, when I think about the term crisis, and I think you do too, someone's safety's at risk. Pretty much that's it. Like someone's safety's at risk. That's crisis level. Right.
Jill Griffin (11:16)
Like it needs to be handled now or
there's like a threatened like, threatened life situation, life or safety.
Molly Bierman (11:21)
Yeah, exactly.
So anything kind of under that for me is doesn't need to be handled now, doesn't need to be handled by me, and doesn't need to be handled, you know, in this moment, essentially, right? So...
Jill Griffin (11:37)
So that's a really
good example that you just brought up though because when you're outside of your window of tolerance what happens is and this again I think creeps up when we are under extreme amounts of stress or more than usual or whatever things start to feel like they they may kill us.
Molly Bierman (11:57)
Yes, okay, so let's give some examples. Go ahead.
Jill Griffin (12:00)
that we may break under this pressure at this point. Like this is now a crisis in my head, although it's actually not. So I will tell you that when I noticed that I was in that state, going back to the retreat is when I had this day where the phone was off, didn't check my email, I was off for the day, like the team was handling everything else. ⁓ I'm with one of my teams, the other team's handling stuff.
There was such a profound shift and to the point where like people afterwards were like, you sound so calm right now. And I was like, I feel calm. Which I think it was just me returning to my window of tolerance because I had been in this state of like hyper arousal for so long that it just became like typical. ⁓
Molly Bierman (12:44)
Returning to self.
Well, how about
when that was essentially my baseline? I won't speak for you, but there has been...
Jill Griffin (13:01)
⁓ totally mine. I worked
in Crisis. That was my job. I worked in Crisis Residential. Yeah.
Molly Bierman (13:06)
Just baseline hyper arousal, right?
And hyper arousal just means really that you're trying to survive, right? You're trying to survive and be productive in the same sentence and there is no ability to not see the chain of events, right? So all I would see essentially is this leads to this, leads to this, leads to this. So everything was in the future.
Really not much reflection in the past to be quite honest when I was in that. Like I've maybe a little bit of a glance in the rear view, but it was always about what is 10 miles ahead.
Jill Griffin (13:33)
No, that makes sense though.
Yeah, because you're anxious. That's fight or flight. You're anticipating what's happening. When you're in freeze, a lot of times when you're depressed, a lot of times you're looking at the past. Regret, shame, all that stuff. like that.
Molly Bierman (13:49)
Yeah, I don't have that really.
I probably should have more of
Jill Griffin (13:54)
I don't either, honestly. And to be fair, what kicked this off is I had an intense emotional explosion with my husband. And honestly, it scared me to the point where I was like, wow, like I haven't flown off the handle like this. I mean, I think everybody has those moments and I've sat across from clients who have.
Molly Bierman (13:56)
don't.
Jill Griffin (14:21)
maybe shame or guilt about flipping out, especially with their children. And it's like, listen, if you think that we have all the answers because we're therapists and, and you know, that's, that's all nice. But when you're in your own home with your own family, with your own emotional triggers, like all that stuff goes out the window. Now, if it's happening all the time and regularly, you should probably, you should probably get some help with that. But it goes back to what I kind of talked to my staff about and what I talked to
Molly Bierman (14:38)
Absolutely.
Yeah, sure.
Jill Griffin (14:49)
you know, other clinicians about and we can only help clients as much as we help ourselves. And for me, that moment, obviously not in the moment, because in the moment, I feel like my nervous system needed to freak out in order to kind of like get back to some, like to regulate a little bit. Was that the most appropriate way? I mean, listen, I didn't hurt anybody. I didn't hurt myself, but I just did some yelling, some screaming.
Molly Bierman (15:08)
Well, I think you-
No. Right.
But you
look at, you know, I'll give you the example yesterday and I think it's this, you know, primal release, we'll call it, right? There's this level of release that needs to take place because you're holding things in your body. Likely, it was not the event where it came out in, right? It was a buildup of other events. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Jill Griffin (15:22)
Yes!
No, it's a culminate. That's why I said it snuck out. It snuck up
on me because it was a culmination of everything. And again, hindsight's 20-20, but in the moment, I'm like, I can't take another thing. And, you know, my mother actually pointed this out to me because she was a leader for years in the political space and, you know, in terms of being politically correct and even in our positions, like I can't behave like that at work, nor would I, right? But I think people have.
and it's because they don't wreck it, it sneaks up on them and then it's like the straw that broke the camel's back and they flip the fuck out. But my mom was talking to me.
Molly Bierman (16:09)
Yes. And there's also this level
of safety in the home that you feel like you can act that way, right? Especially you take the example of a toddler, right? I mean...
Jill Griffin (16:18)
Yes,
that was generally what my behavior looked like, I would say. I would say... ⁓
Molly Bierman (16:24)
Like how Bodie
reacted yesterday when I told him he couldn't play with the rice cooker. Full, flat, flat on the ground, screaming.
Jill Griffin (16:29)
Yeah, it just it's irrational, full-blown.
If I could have done that and not gotten hurt, I might have done that. But I feel like there would have been an injury if I flopped on the ground. ⁓ But my mom had told me that like when you're the leader, right, you don't always get to express your emotions about certain things, about changes, about staffing stuff. Like a lot of times we're holding it because it's not appropriate for us to say, I'm hurt by this. I feel disappointed.
I feel manipulated. I feel taken advantage of. ⁓ I feel regret or shame about my decision because I fucked up. Like there are certain things that like you're not going to say. It's just not appropriate. So you're in stuffing. It's not good, which is why you need mentors and which is why you need a team. But sometimes things are happening so quickly in your place in your business.
Molly Bierman (17:14)
Yeah, I mean...
Yes, and I think.
Jill Griffin (17:32)
that you don't have time to even acknowledge what's happening emotionally. That's what I feel like happened for me.
Molly Bierman (17:38)
Yes, and I think that for me, when I'm in that place, because there has been many a times where I felt...
Where I felt I wanted to say to the person across from me, you don't realize that I'm holding X, and Z. And what I realized about that was there was some...
I don't know, there was some level of ego in that, I wanna say, because if I had said that, it wouldn't have impacted the other person at all. So what I really became clear about in the years that I've been working and building my career and rising the ranks in different positions is what am I saying to win over that person to help them?
Jill Griffin (18:08)
Definitely.
Molly Bierman (18:31)
understand that I also suffer or where am I exposing some of my vulnerabilities to help build them, right? Because if I'm looking for validation from the person across from me, typically in the employee setting, especially as their boss, never gonna happen. They are always going to look at this divide between leadership and mid-level management, right? There's always gonna be that sector and or that spacer.
And I think that for me, I have really tried to get dialed in on how much I do share and where I share it. And that being said, if I go, you know, long runs of being out of my window of tolerance or feeling dysregulated in the workplace or feeling like I'm not, you know, taking care of myself to feel more grounded in those positions, it becomes this level of woe is me.
Right? I'm carrying all the weight. I'm carrying all the stress. No one understands what it's like to be me. And it's not that I'm saying that out loud, but it's coming out that way in my actions. Totally. Totally. And it can happen in the home too. You know, I'm doing X, Y, and Z. I mean, I caught myself the other day. I was like, I clean this house all the time. And my husband looked at me and he's like, it's just simply not true. And I...
Jill Griffin (19:39)
But you're building the resentment. Yeah, you're building the resentment. And so...
Molly Bierman (19:58)
I was wrong, right? I was saying it because I was frustrated about the level of things I needed to do. And so I get into that all or nothing thinking where I say, well, I'm doing all of this, right? And that again is me acting out out of that window of tolerance and saying things that may feel based in reality, but are not based in reality, right? It may feel comforting for me in that moment, but it's not necessarily what is the truth.
Jill Griffin (20:23)
now.
Well, it's just like how trauma is with people. I mean, a trauma response is essentially you're either in the past or in the future. You're not in the present moment anymore. And that is then painting your reality of how you're reacting to everything. I mean, the word trigger is so overused right now. I'm so sick of it. But like, if you're activated, if you're emotionally activated by something, that means that it's pressing on some nerve somewhere. And I think that like,
Molly Bierman (20:37)
it right.
Bye.
Jill Griffin (20:57)
I had just reached my boiling point and I think part of the aha moment this week or after I kind of had the release that I guess I needed is that, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I could have done anything differently to prevent this, to be honest with you. I think it was like a culmination of external events that I had no control over. ⁓
And it's one of those things where like in hindsight I could say, I could take better care of myself. But it's like, I wasn't not taking care of myself. I remember saying to my husband at one point during all this is that I said, listen, these next two weeks, I'm carrying more on my plate than I want to be. It's just how it is. And so I'm to need some protected time more than usual for work, which meant that there were some mornings I was working at five in the morning. There were some evenings that I was working at eight o'clock at night.
And there were some weekends that I had to protect some time to work. That is not, I think that's how people think I operate just normally, but that's not, that's not my norm. That's definitely more, that's me taking time away from family and being present to have to work. But there were certain, I just, had to, I had to take on, I absorbed this other role. ⁓ And I told them like, I need to just focus on eating good food, making sure I stick with my workouts and getting enough sleep.
Molly Bierman (22:09)
Yes.
Jill Griffin (22:22)
which meant like getting in bed early some nights. And that's the other thing, like I slept nine hours twice this weekend and I feel like I just needed to like, like I feel normal again this week. Everything feels manageable today.
Molly Bierman (22:34)
Well, also, I think it's also recognizing
where your deficits are and where the things are that really help give you relief, right? And a lot of the time, it just can't all be done. And I think what happens is we get into this spiral where then you're not giving yourself grace, you're letting things build up, you're not giving yourself any sort of time to say, okay, I can do this, but I can't do that, right? And being able to level set with yourself. Half the battle is reconciling with me.
Right? Half the battle is reconciling with my expectations and what I believe needs to get done. I am...
Jill Griffin (23:05)
Yes, because what-
Half the people
don't even know what my expectations are because you know what? Nobody holds me accountable to anything. It's me versus me all the time. When you leave an agency or corporate job and you open your own business, the boundaries are gone. Nobody's telling you when and how to work. So like, it's up to me to tell me when to work, when to stop working, what's on my agenda, what I have to get done. And I think sometimes...
What I've noticed and what's come out of this is that there are things on my calendar that don't need to be on my calendar.
I'm slashing and burning my fucking calendar. ⁓
Molly Bierman (23:47)
What else has come out of it?
Jill Griffin (23:56)
You know, I think...
I honestly don't know what else I could have done differently. Because I feel like I was communicating with people about how I was feeling. don't, I wasn't confused about how I was feeling about all these circumstances and I was communicating about it. It seems like maybe I need to do some more like, maybe somatic work around it. Like there needed to be like some breath work or some sort of like release. I don't know. When I did that Reiki, something shifted. Like very...
Molly Bierman (24:30)
You know, I'll never forget this really profound presentation I went to early, early on in my career. And it was Tim Weber who owns Adventure Recovery and they're a fabulous organization and they do a lot of work in nature with people in recovery in the behavioral space. And I think they've like expanded. So they reach people in different states now. It used to be primarily based in Connecticut. And, ⁓
What I really, you know, what really stood out to me in this presentation was he got up on stage and he said, I can guarantee essentially that majority of this room forgets to breathe.
Jill Griffin (25:20)
Yes, like I'm telling you that the breath stuff probably has more impact. There's a book by James Nestor, it's called Breath. That book
transformative to me. ⁓ I'm somebody who forgets to breathe. I am somebody who, I will hold my breath.
Molly Bierman (25:31)
But even at night, mean, yes,
and I'll find myself at night making sure I even just five deep breaths, right? Just, and first of all, I didn't even know how to breathe, okay? That's number one. And what is really interesting about this is that when a baby is born and up until, I don't know when it actually shifts, but as a baby develops, they only know how to belly breathe, which is the way
to get full oxygen in and out of your body, right? And so what happens is that when you breathe, typically you breathe from your chest when you take a deep breath. But the idea of any sort of breath work or any sort of breathing to help regulate your nervous system is that you expand your belly and then your chest comes out, right? And so it offers such an additional layer of really taking everything in and then again.
Jill Griffin (26:09)
Yes.
Well, it activates your nervous system to be able to get back into your zone of your window of tolerance. And also, it activates your vagus nerve.
Molly Bierman (26:29)
below you.
Jill Griffin (26:44)
which is responsible for that parasympathetic nervous system reaction, which calms you down, right? So again, things I tell my clients, I need to be reminding myself of because I do breathing exercises where I'm having people put their hand on their belly and their hand on their chest, right? And so, yeah, I do this in session with people. I teach people about the window of tolerance. It's just one of those moments where like,
Molly Bierman (26:49)
Yes.
Yeah, horror in their stomach, yeah.
Yes. Yes.
Jill Griffin (27:13)
Are you doing what you're teaching other people? Because this is my one of my biggest values and one of my biggest like soapbox things with clinicians because I feel like there's a lot in the behavioral health space and I've said it here before who they don't take care of themselves. They don't take care of themselves. And so then if you're scattered and you're and I'm not saying that you have to be healed in every way and you have to be perfect. But like you have to know when you're in these moments right outside your window or you
You would have to know how to get yourself back there. And I think that some people don't even recognize that they're outside of it and that they're not functioning well. I think that there's a lack of awareness a little bit with some mental health providers of like, I'm on a slippery slope here.
Molly Bierman (28:00)
Yeah, so I think a really good way to, you know, kind of provide, you know, the listener some takeaways. What are three things we do to bring ourselves back to that level ground? For me, I would say connecting in some level of nature or even the ground, essentially. Like I will take my shoes off and put my feet in the grass, I think is very helpful.
Jill Griffin (28:21)
Like barefoot in the ground, yes.
Molly Bierman (28:28)
Another way that I am able to come back to ⁓ a little bit more of a level place is breathing while meditating. And it can be a very simple mantra for me. I mean, I'll give you a tangible takeaway in that what I do is I just say, breathe in love, breathe out fear. I mean, pretty simple. Because what I'm trying to remind myself is that I don't have the control anyway to begin with.
And then another one, I mean, I have so many now, but I think another one that really helps me.
become more present is sitting at eye level with my children without technology around. And really what that offers me is looking through their eyes. What is everything that they're seeing, right? And observing them and observing their presence and observing their breath and observing their, you know, quiet moments. Because in that stillness for me or in that playful moment for me, what I realize is that
I don't have control over that, right? They're having their experience and I'm an observer, right? So it just helps me to zoom out and really become more present in where I am. Obviously, if you don't have children, you can do that in a variety of other ways, but for me, that's been a really nice shift and something that I didn't think would come out of being a mom.
Jill Griffin (29:59)
For me, I think it's putting the phone away. Putting the phone away to be present with my family for sure. Whether that's like my husband or my kids. I'm in a different phase of life. So it's like a lot of sports activities or rushing this to this and that. So it's like in those moments where I have time with them, making sure my phone's away, ⁓ making sure to connect with them. Honestly, this last time what I noticed is like,
the food stuff, nutrition is like a big one. And I think those basic things, I'll just wrap this into one. So food, sleep, and movement. Those three things I feel like are the things that usually go out the window when people are stressed or overwhelmed or overstimulated everything. I don't have time for it. I hear that more than anything with like why they can't eat healthy, why people can't exercise, why people don't get enough sleep.
Molly Bierman (30:45)
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (30:57)
But those are the things sleep is a superpower. If you are under an immense amount of stress and you're not getting enough sleep, life is just going to be more stressful. So I feel like. Yeah, and so the food thing, I just wasn't, I knew when I like took a step back, when after that moment, it was like me after that flip out, it was me taking a step back like, OK, what do I need to do to like get my head above water right now? And again,
Molly Bierman (31:09)
And dangerous. And dangerous. I just had a, yeah.
Jill Griffin (31:26)
We're not talking about like, I'm having a mental health crisis and I need to be hospitalized. Okay, this isn't, this is not what we're talking about. We're talking about like, I'm at that hyper arousal state. I flip out. I'm not that scary to me because that, first of all, that's how I used to live before I got sober.
Like I'm smashing and grabbing, I'm flipping out, I'm screaming in your face, I'm there, I'm always reacting. So like now that's very jarring for me to behave like that because I can't tell you the last time that I behave like that. Like that's just not, I don't allow myself to get, cause I can notice when I'm getting higher. So I think.
Molly Bierman (32:07)
Well, it's everything we
tell our families. think that that's a really good, know, everything we tell our clients, we tell the families that we work with is how are we gonna move your nervous system into being proactive rather than reactive? And so everything that we just named are the things that we do to become proactive and we still fall very short.
Jill Griffin (32:17)
Yeah, so.
Well, it's just, you're human at the end of the day. But what I notice is like, I'm eating more ice cream, I'm eating more candy, I'm eating more, and it's like, yeah, because just like somebody who is a normal drinker, I'm not speaking about alcoholics, but like, it's easy to like have the extra glass of wine, have the extra, you know, participate in these extracurricular activities because...
You're trying to self-soothe. That's what all this is. When you're outside of your window of tolerance, you're trying to self-soothe and get yourself back to your baseline. ⁓ But I realized that like it's counterintuitive just like drinking more alcohol or it might feel good in the moment, but like the next day it's not going to feel good. So I had to like get back to basics with that. And it's like it's literally been like a few days and I feel like a new person. I don't know what to say. It's like and that's what
Molly Bierman (33:08)
thought.
Jill Griffin (33:19)
That's what being healthy is, is like when you're outside of that window or getting close to that window, how do you bring yourself back? How do you bring your... It's always about returning back to self. I feel like that's what it is. And as a leader and as a mother and as a friend, all these roles that I have in my life, I have to be even keeled. I can't be reacting to stuff ⁓ all the time. Because I have to make decisions sometimes and you do too, right? In the moment.
Molly Bierman (33:42)
all the time.
Jill Griffin (33:49)
We have to make, there are some decisions we can't sit on and wait on. That we have to be reactive in terms of like decision making. I have to be in a good emotional state to be able to make sound decisions.
Molly Bierman (33:49)
Yes.
And I will say one thing that we left off that we didn't talk about, and then we'll get to the permission slip, is that be careful at this age with your caffeine intake after 12 o'clock, okay? Because what happened last week for me really threw me for a loop. I had a extremely nice dinner with friends, our, you know, our lovely, you know.
childcare, was her birthday, my husband, celebratory, right? I drank half of a Mexican Coca-Cola, which is my favorite, in the glass bottle, but only drank half, which likely, guys, I'm not kidding you, was three sips, okay? It was not a lot.
This was roughly at 7 p.m. I was up till one in the morning.
So in case you are.
Jill Griffin (35:03)
I don't know if that's age.
I think that's just in general. Like you can't be drinking.
Molly Bierman (35:07)
What do mean? I used to be able to slam Red Bulls at like 7 p.m. and go to sleep at 9. Yeah, totally. Probably because I needed Adderall.
Jill Griffin (35:10)
Probably because your nervous system was all over the place. Probably because...
Yeah, probably because you were unwell. Unwell.
Molly Bierman (35:21)
Listen, so there is the, ⁓ yeah, I feel like my nervous system is much more regulated today and any little bit of caffeine is gonna really throw me for one. And I wanted to do it again over the weekend, but I didn't.
I have one left in my fridge. It's calling my name.
Jill Griffin (35:41)
not
the one to talk about caffeine, because let me tell you, I quit nicotine, my caffeine intake is all the way up right now, as Fat Joe would say.
all the way up. All day.
Molly Bierman (35:56)
What's our permission slip today?
Jill Griffin (35:58)
I think it's your turn for permission slip.
Molly Bierman (36:01)
Okay, our permission slip for today, my permission slip for today is name the three things that help you to feel more grounded. know, speak them into existence, talk to your friends about it, bring it up in conversation. If you feel someone kind of going off the rails that you're talking to or your friend who feels stressed or that they can't catch up or everything feels overwhelming or they can't catch a break from their children.
Pause the conversation, right? It's an ability to redirect people. What are the three things that you're doing to keep you grounded? What are the three things that are gonna give you a little bit more peace in this moment? And I'm not talking about the materialistic things. I'm not talking about going shopping, buying a new bag. I we all know those things are fun. I'm talking about the real soul level things that are going to change the vibration in your body, right? So call your friends out, guys. I mean, that's what I say.
Jill Griffin (36:50)
Mm-hmm.
Molly Bierman (36:58)
If there's the ability to do it and you have enough courage and vulnerability and trust between you and the people around you, they will appreciate it. I mean, Jill regularly does that with me, I regularly do it with her. And it's an accountability factor that really will catapult how you show up in life. So, that's my permission slip. Name the three things, start acting on them.
Jill Griffin (37:26)
And let's all hope that you don't have to have a little menti bee to knock you back into reality. But sometimes, sometimes that's what it takes.
Molly Bierman (37:32)
Yeah.
Sometimes you'll have to do that. So feel free to tell us about yours. Until next time, see you next week.
Jill Griffin (37:42)
All right.
Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at no permission necessary and please download the episodes and share with your friends. It all helps us out.