Thorpe-Scott — Matthew Cooke

Matthew Cooke Part 2

Sarah: [00:00:00] If there's one thing that's clearer from my coaching and advisory work, it's that tensions run highest in systems where the stakes feel deeply personal, whether it's in a family enterprise or in traditional corporate leadership. That's when understanding what happens. In your nervous system and in the system around you becomes essential.

I had so many light bulb moments the first time we had Matthew on the show that I had to bring him back To go deeper into how this work applies to the teams and organizations we lead every day. Nervous system Literacy isn't just a personal tool. It shapes how teams function, how decisions get made, and how patterns either repeat or shift over time in organizations.

Across generations. Matthew and I explore what's actually happening inside our bodies during conflict, how dysregulation keeps us stuck in familiar patterns, and what it looks like to start shifting that at both an individual and a system level. This is a powerful one, [00:01:00] and if you're a leader, it's an especially important one that will help you understand what's really driving tension and give you practical ways to shift it.

My original conversation with Matthew meant so much to me that it's evolved into something more. Matthew and I are now co-leading a Nervous system summit in the UK in Somerset from Thursday, July 9th to Sunday, July 12th, 2026. It's designed for a small cohort of leaders, caring, complex responsibility, and I couldn't be more excited about it. Stay tuned for more or check out the show notes for details. Welcome to. We Don't Have to Live like this. This is our second episode with Matthew Cook, who is the founder of Body-Based Breakthrough, also known as B three, which might be a little bit easier to say.

It is a somatic approach that combines neuroscience, movement and trauma-informed practice to help people understand what's actually happening inside their bodies when they're stressed, [00:02:00] overwhelmed, or trying to make big decisions. His work supports leaders, founders, and whole systems in building cultures that feel grounded and human, not reactive and burnt out.

Today's conversation. Is part two of our prior conversation, and it's about the relationships that shape us most, the ones that happen around our dinner tables and the ones happening inside board rooms. We're talking about nervous system dynamics and families partnerships, leadership teams, where the stakes and emotions often run high at the same time.

Welcome back, Matthew. It's so good to have you here again.

Matthew: Oh, well thanks for having me, Sarah.

Sarah: So a, as I've already said, it is part two. The first conversation was so good, we just had to have you back for more.

I'm really curious, When you think about your own work within leadership environments, what are the moments you most often see that mirror your own? We [00:03:00] don't have to live like this moment.

So what's the common breaking point or recurring pattern that makes other people stop and say, we don't have to live like this. There's gotta be a different way to do this.

Matthew: Yeah. There's this moment that shows up when someone or, or a group of people recognize. Oh, it's not just the problem that we're discussing on the surface, it's the way we're doing the problem. So if it's leadership teams that typically looks like the same conflict that keeps playing out every single meeting we might just have different content at the surface or like one or two people carrying sort of like all the emotional labor while everyone else is either in a nervous system state of shutting down or just explosive.

And so we have people that'll live on these extreme ends of things. And then there's one or two people that are kind of hanging out in the middle that are carrying all of it. Or I guess like a leader who's [00:04:00] like wildly capable on paper. But who, whose body is just exhaustedSo those are probably some of the big ones, but it's, it's, it's actually really ordinary it can be Sunday night where it's like my jaw is clenched, my chest is tight, and I'm just dreading this conversation.

If it's like a family office, it might be with a sibling or maybe it's with Yeah. A board member. And, and that seems to be taking over my life

more than me actually enjoying my life.

Sarah: Like an extreme case of what I know in our twenties, we used to call the Sunday scaries.

Matthew: This Sunday scaries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is, it's, it's, we're running on survival. It's called in somatic experiencing. And in b3, we'd call it survival energy. and that's really where innovation happens, is when the, the prefrontal cortex is online.

Like when my full brain capacity is working. And soit's not, we need a better [00:05:00] agenda. It's we need a better nervous system environment

this is just like a good litmus test for people. If I start to see the world in black and white.

It's either this or it's this. These are the only two options that is when my prefrontal cortex has come offline and I am purely in survival.

 it's life or death. It's one of these two options. So the cool part is that I can know my nervous system state in some ways when the world begins to appear in HD color or like

technicolor eight K, you know, whatever it might be.

But it's that I start to see possibilities in all of the options. And there's so many different ways to see an outcome, but when I start getting into it's this or this, that is when we start to, can be a good red flag for, we need to slow this thing down. We need to back out of this and find more possibility here.

Sarah: it's incredibly [00:06:00] helpful, and it's so interesting that you're saying that because when I think about the state of the world today and just political discourse, we are very much caught often in that binary dialogue instead of this technical approach to things being multifactor and complex.

 I do wanna encourage everyone to go back if they've not heard the first episode because you did such a brilliant job of explaining basically how the nervous system works.

And what we wanted to do today was really. Talk more about how to put that into practice and some of the key contexts that we see both at the individual level to better notice in ourselves.

And also for anyone who is a leader, in their home, in a business context or in any other setting. I was particularly intrigued by the work you do to help people become nervous system aware and to understand what's going on in the bodies of other humans,

, With whom they work and [00:07:00] live.

I think it's super fascinating and you already alluded to this, but one thing that I see again and again in senior teams, family enterprises, in relationships in our own homes is people getting caught in this same conflict loop that they just can't seem to get out of or to break.

And since we last spoke, I keep coming back to the fact that so much of this isn't about. Having the right strategy or personality type thing. It's really about nervous system overload and people being out of touch with what's happening inside themselves and also with the other person you had alluded to, the spinny wheel that might be happening, like what we see on our Mac laptops and use that as a nice metaphor for what might be happening with someone else, but we can't see the spinning wheel, for instance.

So with that, I'm wondering when we are in conflict, what is actually happening inside our [00:08:00] bodies?

Matthew: I used to call this, , the conflict cyclone. and we all have been there. We all know that very viscerally, that experience of like, we're not act, we're just spinning on the thing. We're not actually making any real headway in the conversation and feeling like we're both seen, understood, heard. From a nervous system perspective, conflict. Yeah. It's not just a disagreement, it's actually a threat signal. When conflict hits, it's our body quickly asking inside I safe or am I under threat? Basically, am I in danger? , Stephen Porges, who came up with, polyvagal theory, coined this term he calls neuroception. And neuroception is our nervous systems automatic. It's incredibly unconscious. There isn't a, it's not a conscious choice that we make to, to go in and assess this, but it's our way of detecting safety danger and, and even life threat. And it's, it actually happens like, [00:09:00] it's like milliseconds before the thinking mind actually pops on.

And, you know, when you're in a room and you're like. that guy just feels really slimy and he hasn't even said anything to me. I'm not really sure why I feel that way, but he, he the like stranger danger kind of energy and

that is neuroception at play. So it's, it's a combination of our nervous system picking up a ton of signals from our organs,, from our breathing, our breath rate, as well as what I'm picking up or observing about other people, but also the distance in between us, the space in between us.

So it is picking up. Boatloads of, information and, and stimuli. 

We're also checking out posture, our own and others obviously proximity. I mean, proximity's an obvious thing, right? If somebody's too close to me, that's not safe.

Right. We all have our bubble, but the energy in the room, again, our internal sensations, but yeah, our, our physiology is tracking. Am I safe? Can I socially engage here? am I in danger? Do I need to [00:10:00] fight or flight, or life threat? Do I just need to go into shutdown and freeze and collapse?

Which, you know, most of us don't typically do in most social settings, but you know what, actually you do sometimes get in meetings where somebody just completely like, checks out So to, to all of this, to say it's, it can be survival.

So when we get into conflict, it is all about the nervous system shifting into flight, fight, and freeze, which we all have some. Semblance of understanding of, I think the, the term is pretty ubiquitous. These, these words but fight can certainly look like arguing, interrupting people. , The need to be right is another really big one.

I'm sure we all have experienced that where it's, it's not about us actually connecting and coming to resolution. It is about you are wrong and I need you to feel how wrong you are. And it's, and it's, we're competing to be right rather than to be understood or [00:11:00] to come to mutual agreement.

And that is, that's fight, flight can look like changing the subject. 

 or over intellectualizing.

That's another really interesting one is people can avoid the thing that's actually happening in the room by overly loing something.

It's a way of escaping the body, of

heading into the, getting too heady with it. And then the other one is like the last one, freeze is the brain sort of going offline. We go blank. You know, people that, that will be in a conversation and suddenly they're like, ah, what was I? We wait, we were talking about something. And they just kind of lose their train of thought that that can be a moment, like a blip of freeze or just really going quiet to try to keep the peace in a. in a boardroom meeting.

Sarah: those are really helpful descriptions of what fight, flight or freeze might look like in practice.

I'm particularly interested in the over intellectualizing as a form of [00:12:00] flight. 'cause it's a tricky one, right? It looks like someone's engaging, but I mean, and I do see this sometimes where people really get into the data of things, which is totally important and has a time and a place, but it's a way of avoiding something else and usually feelings or, another deeper issue that really needs to be said.

Or dealt with. And I also think the conflict cyclone thing is just interesting viscerally. That makes sense. Like we all kind of know when we're there. And also the fight thing, just this noticing when you're in a, in a space of needing to be right versus connection and, and usually even if one is right and, and another person is entirely wrong, that it's probably not helpful to tell the other side how right you are and how wrong they are.

And that there's probably a different, more connected approach that we could 

take. And all of us are guilty of this.

Matthew: Right. It's like when I tell you that you're cranky, it's like that never goes over [00:13:00] well

for anybody. No one likes being told they're cranky. So it, it, yeah, it does. It brings up a lot of our defense responses. When people tell us how wrong we are, and if we really zoom out and go, what are we trying to do here? Which is generally, we wouldn't be in a meeting if we weren't trying to come into a greater connection, but a greater, solution because of all of our brains on a topic and brains and bodies, our nervous systems on a topic. Otherwise we would just work in intentionally in silos where we wouldn't talk to each other. And that happens inside of organizations too. So I think in some ways why this is so important in businesses, it's about actually authentically bringing us together into connection. And I don't mean some kind of kumbaya woo woo thing.

I mean, so that we actually can

 get shit done. You

know, it's like we can actually get shit done and like move forward. 

It's like that's actually how we become efficient, ironically.

And that's actually how we [00:14:00] move business forward more effectively and efficiently,

is by coming into true connection with each other

Sarah: which can mean disagreeing and having 

Matthew: Which can mean disagreeing. Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah: So The idea is that we have smart groups, a few together to accomplish way more than we could possibly accomplish alone. Sounds so simple. And yet we have all, we have all been on teams where it's just not working and it feels like there's so much conflict and you're coming home at the end of the day and you just feel the tension instead of progress.

When you think about those scenarios, what are people either misunderstanding or getting wrong most frequently in those settings as it relates to their nervous system?

Matthew: well, I think a lot of it is that these are old patterns. These are really old patterns. The nervous system runs in patterns. Our thoughts run in patterns, our behaviors run in patterns. Um, there's a book, uh, Marcy Shimoff is her name short, wrote a book called happier [00:15:00] for no reason. She writes this book and she says that 98% of our thoughts are the same thoughts that we had yesterday. It's very much so like a record player. And so really it's when we have these moments of insight that we go, oh, oh my gosh, that's it.

That's actually our brain having a breakthrough moment where that 2% is actually a new thought, which is wild because yeah, we mostly run on patterns. And so I think the thing that most teams, or, or individuals get wrong is that we don't recognize that our body is pulling information and data from earlier experiences.

And we've all seen this where it's like somebody starts acting like a five-year-old in a meeting and it's, and the the point is not to shame them, but it is a really interesting moment to go, oh wow, that's, that's like their little one. You know, we all have like a little five-year-old in us that didn't get to grow up, you know, in

this particular setting or this particular trigger moment.

And so again, it's not necessarily. On the team [00:16:00] to like, need to fix that. That's why they hire people like you and I and other people that, that know this kind of stuff to be able to support either in the one-on-one or in a group setting. But I think it, yeah, I think a lot of us are just replaying dynamics from our childhood,

which is really unfortunate and it's, it's just a part of life.

Like, it's just a fact of life. It's not, no one's bad or wrong for it, but that, I think why the best leaders and the most successful leaders are the ones that actually are quite self-aware

Sarah: Mm.

Matthew: and that they're able to, they're willing to humbly look at their patterns and choose a new pattern because that's how we affect, that's how we ultimately, again, are the most effective and efficient.

Sarah: Yeah.

Matthew: So if you wanna win the game,

Sarah: Yeah. 

Matthew: the game of business, that's the way to do it.

Sarah: yeah, there are a few things that you just said in there. They're really interesting. So really quickly, just like that we are replaying old patterns, like is a thing. The thing that we are getting wrong is just not being wise. The fact there are [00:17:00] patterns that live within each of us individually, that we are bringing into every room that we sit in with, or that we sit in with any group of people.

And you also just said something really interesting the book that you mentioned, what percentage of thoughts are 

Matthew: per thought. 98%.

Sarah: So can you say that one more time, what it is?

Matthew: Yeah. So 98% of our thoughts are the same thoughts that we had yesterday and the same thoughts we had the day before and the day before that. And then she even gives a number,

I don't remember if it's like 60 or 80% of those thoughts are actually negative thoughts. Which from a Darwinian perspective is makes sense actually.

It, it, it would behoove us evolutionarily to not trust that rock that's moving. It's like, well, that, that could kill me. So, so, you know, from an evolutionary perspective, it would make sense that it actually would be beneficial to us on some level to, it's called negativity bias. This idea that, that it would be, it would be intelligent for us to actually not quite [00:18:00] trust everything.

And so, so it's just important to know that, that, that in order to be happier, more optimistic, joyful, fulfilled, and successful people in life, the best way is to actually really try to balance the scales a little bit more by bringing a little bit more joy, a little bit more fulfillment intentionally into our lives to bring wellbeing into our lives very intentionally as well as connection.

So. Anyways

Sarah: I'm 

curious. 

Matthew: like woo woo train of that. Because I know some people are like, oh geez, happy. Yeah, happy thoughts, whatever.

And we don't wanna do that either. 'cause I think there can just as quick, like, I think there can also be like toxic positivity. So I don't want to go too far in that direction either.

But just to say, one of my teachers, Steve Hoskinson says, simple, non-addictive non-habit forming pleasures

like watching a sunset or like drinking your warm cup of coffee every morning with your loved one. Really simple things that just bring us joy and that allows us to feel a little [00:19:00] bit more connected to safety,

to like the world is an okay place

to 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Matthew: Yeah. 

Which again, is gonna play out that in those conversations when I get in the boardroom two

hours later. 

Sarah: Yeah, if we feel safe and regulated, we're gonna show up in a better way and be more productive. 'cause we're operating from a spirit of possibility instead of panic or 

fear. It actually makes a lot of sense. It's not woo woo. It just makes sense.

I'm also curious on this this is maybe a bit of a tangent, but so it's 98% of the thoughts that we had today are ones that we had yesterday and a high degree of them might have also been negative thoughts,

is that if we are operating in our best kind of po, if we, if we are operating in the best possible way in alignment with our nervous systems and can and in a connected way,

Matthew: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: could we have more than 98% of our thoughts be new ones?

Or is that just a baseline?

Matthew: Yeah. That, [00:20:00] well, that's the baseline. But, but yes, certainly we can have more thoughts. It, the, the key here, this, okay, this is good. I'm glad we're chatting

about is curiosity,

that's the key word. Curiosity. Because if, if, if I'm open and I'm curious, that's when new things can happen. But if I'm clear that this is how things work, it's just gonna be the same thing that I've always seen.

Like

I'm just gonna keep saying the same thing. It's

Sarah: Fixed mindset. 

Matthew: yes. I was just gonna say Carol Dweck. Yeah. Fixed versus growth mindset. Absolutely. That's it. So, so the key if I'm a, if I'm a high performing executive or leader or family office or anything

is, is curiosity. I want to be open, and I've heard this about even like Warren Buffet actually is like, he's like one of the most wildly curious men and, and he or people, and he will, he sticks with his investments, but he's really like always learning and always [00:21:00] curious. I think really successful

Sarah: I find that a fascinating stat because it terrifies me and feels so depressing to think that 98% of what I thought today is what I thought yesterday. And when you scale that out and think about if you're running teams and organizations, if 98% of what we are thinking today, it's what we thought yesterday, that ain't good.

So

again, a little bit of why we're getting into this

discussion about nervous system and how we become more aware of it individually for ourselves and also for what's happening in teams is because we want to make, the percentage of new thoughts go up from 2%. Right?

For leaders who think that nervous system work is maybe too soft or too personal for business,

how do you help them understand its relevance to performance and decision making?

Matthew: Yeah. Well, I get that. I get the skepticism. E especially 'cause I think it's, while our biology has been shaped for over a billion [00:22:00] years, I do think that. In business. Right. Since the industrial Revolution, we were trained to be machines. We were trained to pump out widgets.

And so we, again, we talked about this on our last set conversation as well about computer consciousness.

There is sort of this humans run in this biological pulse. There's this rhythm to life of expansion and contraction. That's just how life works. And so I don't think that any good leader needs to become a therapist. That I think is probably where a lot of people go. It's like, oh, geez, I don't, yeah, I don't.

I have a lot, I have plenty to worry about. I don't need to like become some feel good therapist, and I don't think that that's important. What is important is that leaders understand biology. So

it's not even necessarily bringing like feelings into business just for the sake of it. It's about recognizing that every decision, every negotiation, every conflict already sits on top [00:23:00] of a nervous system or a, a collection of nervous systems. So it's just a, it's like a bio. It's just, it's just this is the gr this is the given circumstances, y'all. We can fight it, we can avoid it. That's what we've been doing since the Industrial Revolution. Yeah, we can do that and we can continue to do that and people will burn out and people will die because of the, over the overuse of our resources.

And yeah, it just, it's, it's not actually working with. People's biology, it's working against people's biology. So yeah, if we're in a, if we're in a meeting and a people in a full group of people are in flight and fight, it's gonna be short-term thinking, it's gonna be defensiveness, it's gonna be blame and reactivity. But when we're more regulated, yeah, we get like better actual risk assessment more creativity, more nuance and, and a greater capacity to hear the [00:24:00] uncomfortable truth

about a situation. That's where a lot of people like hubris and some of these things that like big behemoth companies come crashing down because. The, I, it doesn't have to even be hubris, but it's that 98%. It's that like, we just, this is how it is, this is how it's always going to be. And it's actually that, you know, what's coming to mind, Sarah, is that I was, that Steve Jobs or somebody said, like, my goal is to always put, put us like put our own company out of business to create and innovate in such a way that we're, we're putting our own products, we're making them obsolete.

'cause we're just making them better and better and better. And

that takes a really curious mind, was

that jobs? 

Sarah: I don't know. I don't know who said it, but I've heard this. It makes 

sense. 

Matthew: Yeah. 

So to me it's not, soft, it's actually strategic.

And so for me, nervous system literacy is unlocking higher quality thinking. Better collaboration, better questions, and more sustainable [00:25:00] performance. I used to give this analogy. I don't, it's funny I haven't brought this up in a very long time. I used to, with some of my teams, I'd ask, or, or leaders, I'd say, Hey, listen, how long do you plan on working for? They say, well, I mean, I, you know, I'm in my mid thirties. I just started my career like presumably until I'm in my mid fifties, maybe into my late sixties. Who knows? And I said, great. Well then why are you running?

Like, you're like, it's a sprint. 'cause it's a marathon. And so I think that is the, what we need to posit in our own daily, how I'm waking up and recognizing like, I have to run 26.2 miles. I dunno what that is in, in British metrics. But Right. It's like

I'm, I'm running a very long time and I need to treat my body as such.

Sarah: Yeah,

Matthew: Yeah.

That's 

Sarah: I 

think,

yeah, I'm loving your exploration of this and the answer, and I think the concept of. Understanding the biology is [00:26:00] key because it is the scientific it's the science behind how our bodies work and if one thinks about it. And I, and also this, this, uh, the computer consciousness thread that we had last time, and this came up on another episode, uh, another interview I've done with Oliver Berkman, about how we conceive of ourselves since the industrial revolution and this kind of comparison between man and machine, which I find fascinating that it's, it's so standard that we don't really even think about it.

We're not even really aware of it. But if we're, that it's so standard that everyone will get what I'm saying if we're running teams and we think about if we were machines, we would wanna understand how we were built, how we work, we would wanna understand our operating systems so that we could optimize.

We would wanna know the capacity and also the limitations. Like do they need to be rested for a day or do they need to have maintenance in [00:27:00] order to survive for many more years?

It just seems like it's a quite practical thing to understand the tools. And we are the tools, like at a table, if we're all leaders at a table to solve a problem, we need to understand the tools we're working with, how they operate, and how to take care of them and preserve them for the long term so that they can keep being useful.

Matthew: Yes, Sarah. I love to give this analogy of like high performance cars.

It's like if I wanna

be high performance, I need to have the best tires. I need to have the best brakes, I need to have the best oil, the best gas in in my car in order to be a high powered, high charging Ferrari. And a lot of us are treating our, you know, and again, no, no shade on Honda Civics, but a

lot of us are treating our bodies like we're Honda Civics.

And if you truly believe in your heart of hearts that you're a Ferrari and you're meant to run with all that horsepower and go 250 miles an hour, nobody treats their Ferrari that they spent half a million dollars on like [00:28:00] garbage. Then they give it the best, they give it the best storage, they give it the, so it's funny to me that we treat our cars better than we treat our bodies.

Sarah: Yeah. And another obvious one too, and just driving home the point, I think it's worth spending some time here because there is a lot of skepticism of like, really? Why are we talking about nervous systems at work? Everyone just needs to, I, I can see myself as a leader in the past being like, I don't have time for that.

Just get your work done. Like, 

it sounds 

Matthew: get your 

shit done. 

Sarah: but, you're just, 'cause everyone's dysregulated and running around and it's so goal orientated. But of course when we think about the most elite athletic teams on the planet. They're not, not paying attention to their biology and like of course it matters when and how they rest, how they fuel their body, how they do their routines.

And there is that rhythm and season that you're talking about where, you know, I'm, I wouldn't call myself an athlete necessarily, but I know I'm not really meant to do, I'm meant to do interval training. You need to stretch after you do [00:29:00] intense workouts. You shouldn't do high intensity cardio workouts back to back all the time.

You need to do other things to make sure that your body rests and recovers and so that you can perform for anybody who grasps that concept, and for many of the leaders I know out there who do like, think about how to fuel their bodies, we need to be bringing that thinking into how we think about like understanding and maintaining and our teams.

Matthew: Yes, that's

it. And you know, actually it's interesting, Sarah, this is just, this is very, this is part of the 2% for me. This is

brand new thinking to say that, that, yeah, the reason that it feels like there isn't space for this is actually the problem because we're in that survival energy and we're in that, oh my gosh, I don't have any time.

Like we're just so busy. They're like, how would we ever find time for nervous system literacy? Because there's just so many things to do. And the irony is that if we actually took the time to do the nervous system literacy, the funny thing is everything else would [00:30:00] actually get really smooth. And we would feel like, again, the, the sort of subjective experience of people and, and objectively as we would see trailing in the numbers with that it's sort of like leading indicators, legging indicators, is that the, the legging indicators would show up as a lot higher performance and we would all feel a lot more enjoy.

Like the work is enjoyable and yeah, it's, it's really interesting when teams start to implement this stuff, it is amazing to see the amount of comradery and the joy and the, the sense that we're really doing something. So I think if you're caring about longevity, if you're caring about succession and keeping good people, you're already caring about the nervous system, whether you're using the language or not.

Like the care is there. The question is what are the words that you're using around it? And for a lot of people it's like, yeah, we want longevity. We want sustainable performance. We want succession, we want, you know, we want good people, we want [00:31:00] engagement. That's like the old school HR term. It still is used, but it's like, what's, what's engagement?

And at the end of the day, what we're talking about is nervous systems.

Sarah: I think something you just said there is so interesting around this concept of people thinking they don't have time

and how the 2%, as you talk about how we can have more new thoughts and to be, to help ourselves and our teams be more productive.

Matthew: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: I'm really intrigued by that because I think that's something we can all relate with. And in fact, the truth is there are many times where people are time strapped and there is actually a lot to do. It's a really nice segue for a question I have, which is how do we use your expertise around the nervous system, particularly when we think about.

High stress situations or high conflict situations on teams [00:32:00] so that we can actually have more productive relationships and team functioning in any kind of context, especially when there actually is, a timing related issue. I think a lot of people will have been listening to you and be nodding their heads

but not know how to make that real, especially when something is time sensitive and there is limited time.

Sarah: Can you help me understand that?

Matthew: Yeah, yeah. There's a, there's a teacher, her name is Deb Dana, and she is a big proponent of polyvagal theory. Stephen Porges work again, around the nervous system. And she says the focus should be on state over story. And so I'll break that

down. So state is our nervous system state. So we talked earlier about am I in safety and connection?

We call it ventral vagal or am I in threat, which is sympathetic which is the, the can be, it's mobilizing [00:33:00] energy

to take action. So it could be flight, fight energy, and it's the more chaotic energy at times. And then we have life threat, which is freeze, and then eventually becomes shut down and collapse and what we call the dorsal response. So she talks about instead of us focusing on the story, which could be, Hey guys, we need to get this. We need to get this thing done. We need to have it done by the end of the day. We have a lot of urgency around this deadline. The issue is that urgency is, is a nervous system. State of sympathetic is flight and fight. So she says the way that we're meant to actually make these big decisions, to open the aperture of possibility beyond these, these, black and white, yes or no, or live, die this very survival energy is we need to actually shift out of sympathetic into engagement, into safety [00:34:00] again.

And once 

Sarah: do we 

do that?

Matthew: How do we, yeah. How do we do safety?

Sarah: Because I, and sorry to cut you off, but I, 'cause I'm sold, this is something that I struggle with so much. 

Matthew: yeah, 

Sarah: so how do we practically in the moment when stressed, and not just by ourselves, but maybe when someone else, or groups of people are with us, how,

how do we do that?

Matthew: This is so great. This is regulation. This is, I mean, regulation is the thing, but obviously people are like, yeah, great. That's a buzzword. What does that

act? How do I regulate 

Sarah: let's 

demystify. 

Matthew: Yeah,

so what's cool is there's, there's self-regulation. I can do this by myself and there's also co-regulation. So in a work setting, typically if we're, if we're valuing state over story, meaning it's not the words we're saying, it's not the over intellectualizing, it's not the the fight that conflict that we're focusing on.

We're actually focusing on our nervous system state first and foremost. Then what I wanna actually do is I need to shift the state, [00:35:00] and this works actually, a lot of relationship teachers teach this, which is when my partner and I are at such odds,

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Matthew: the best thing to do is to actually separate for 20 minutes. And for me, that might mean I need to go journal for my partner. That might mean they need to go for a walk, but it's, we just need to actually separate and find that connection point again, and then we can come back together.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Matthew: Otherwise, what happens, Sarah, is the conflict cyclone.

When we're in the urgency, when we're in the sympathetic, when we're in the fight and flight, and when we're in the, you're go, you're doing it wrong.

You don't know the right things, it's, we get into this conflict and we're in this cyclone of defensiveness, and we're in this state of urgency, of we're behind, of everything's broken, of the world is not safe. And it's, it is, it's actually scary. It's scary for everyone involved. Again, whether you're willing to acknowledge that in yourself or not, that's one thing. But what's happening under [00:36:00] the hood is everyone's revved up. Everyone's going 150, 200 miles per hour not in a not healthy way. So the, the actual key is, and this is where it's hard because we go, but we only have an hour. But the irony is that when my state changes, my story changes. And so this is what happens in B three when we, and you've experienced this many times doing body labs with us in the B three sessions.

It's ironically, I come into a B three session, and again, B three is just one tool. But I come into a B three session with a headline, with a question, with something that's very activating for my nervous system, and that by moving and breathing, and in B three we do very simple light movement gentle, you know, stretches and things, but it could be to go for a walk. And that, ironically, by the end of that walk, by the end of that B three session, my system has settled a little bit and I actually feel [00:37:00] differently or I think differently about that situation that I walked in very anxious about or very scared about or nervous or fearful or whatever it might be. So I've shifted my state. Therefore I have a different story. Again, this, all this all comes from Deb Dane's ideas around state over story.

So that's, that's gotta be the focus for teams is we have to stop spinning around the story and being in the cyclone. And we need to go, okay, y'all, we're pretty dysregulated. Time out. Let's all go take, let's just go take a 10 minute walk separately and then we can come back together.

And the irony is by wasting those 10 minutes, you actually save potentially hours of spinning on the damn thing.

So that's the key. Again, it could just like, to me, a walk is a good one. Another one Sarah can be like listening to music that I know we all have that song or that playlist that just has you go, [00:38:00] okay. And that's what we

need. We're looking for that big exhale. I mean metaphorically, but sometimes literally is that big sigh, that big exhale, that big, okay, everything is gonna be okay. We will survive. What's hard is a lot of us are in very high stakes situations, so it's actually more imperative that we focus on settling our nervous systems.

If we're up here all the dang time, that's where burnout happens. That's where crash happens. One of my teachers, again, I mentioned him earlier, Steve Hoskinson, he says that we have an addiction to intensity,

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Matthew: which I might have even said on the last po. I don't remember. But we have an addiction to intensity,

and so for some of us, we need to look at that, which is

like, I'm actually addicted to the high energy feeling of cocaine in my veins

Sarah: It makes us feel important and alive 

Matthew: Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, I wonder if I can do that, if I can find that excitement in other areas of my

life. And for some people, for some people, they [00:39:00] actually do a really good job. They like go do like their daredevil you know, skydiving or whatever. And then the cool part is by getting that outta my system, by like letting my system do that, I can then actually come into a boardroom with more curiosity,

with more joy, with more connection,

and I can come to, to real answers.

Sarah: I think it's no surprise that sometimes it's not always the case, but sometimes many of the most regulated effective leaders I know are also people who are athletes. Like they have a thing on the side and they get it out there, and like that, that is their time to engage. I'm really curious.

I think what you're saying is really interesting. So just in a practical sense, a simple thing, if you are a leader and you notice a group. Becoming dysregulated. Maybe you find yourself dysregulated. You can call like a five minute time out and it might even be like a bathroom break. Like, hey, like we need a bio break.

If that, if it feels too weird to say, like [00:40:00] in the culture that you find yourself in, like, let's just go take a a 10 minute walk to clear our minds. It could just be bathroom, like a bio break, food break, et cetera. But to build in breaks, which also has me thinking anything around, like many of us are in back to back meetings

Matthew: Mm-hmm. 

Sarah: where possible.

Make sure you have a moment. Also, I mean, here we are virtually recording this. It can be very easy to be on back to back calls, making sure that there's space to even go on a five minute walk outside, even if people are working from home or in a really urban setting. I, I'm really curious. Oh, what were you gonna say?

Yeah. 

Matthew: I just wanna connect that to the science 'cause it's

exactly what you just said. It's brilliant. It's, it's what we call titration. Also this idea of pendulation, but we talked about the nervous system doing these waves of up and down.

And that is actually, we're going up, up, up, up, up break, oh, settle up, up, up, up, up.

When we come back from the break and then settle. So building in these little micro breaks, they're just micro breaks. It doesn't, [00:41:00] I'm not asking or advocating that everybody needs to go to an hour and a half yoga class or you have to go do some crazy meditation technique. It's literally just to go to the restroom for five minutes or like turn on a song and go dance in your car. It can literally be anything that is, is tiny. But again, it's, most of us avoid this stuff because we're addicted to the intensity

and we've lost that rhythm. Of life. That

pulse, that natural pulsation that is craving to come out to be a part of our daily life. Our

body is, is like, please give me that. But the computer consciousness, the industrial Revolution philosophy and, and way of being is, is like very, is very entrenched in our

work lives, especially in western culture, I'd say way, way more so than European culture and other parts of the world.

Sarah: Yeah. I, I, I've lived in New York for 11 years and you, you know, it's a badge. It's a badge of honor to the to be in an intense, [00:42:00] busy state with no breaks.

I also, I wanna dig deeper on this just to give, give people, including myself included, really practical tools on this. So, for leaders who may find themselves agitated and dysregulated and they maybe have one minute or two minutes.

Like between meetings for instance, like, and say it's people that are working in an open floor plan or like they're walking around a city before, like, before going into their next meeting. Like, and feel free to add to this scenario based on the work that you do and you see like what is a practical thing that someone can do and like, and like and how little and how short of a time period possible basically.

Matthew: Yeah. It could be 45 seconds. It doesn't matter. There's a couple things. First one is orientation, which you and I have talked about many times is, is me a scanning my environment actually for safety is like, [00:43:00] what are the cues of safety Here again, this is, if it's this, it gives me this. So it's a moment for me to look at the plants and go, oh, that's a lovely color green.

And not that I say that out loud,

right, but that I might like notice that for a moment and my system goes. Hmm. Or I see a, a a, I might even, just like, as I'm looking around, I might even see my favorite colleague, like you said,

open four floor pan, and there's a moment to just go like, Hmm. Yeah, but it's when I keep going up is the problem.

So I don't, yeah. I don't actually advocate for you. You need to close your eyes and you need to do a four, four breath and, right. We've

heard a lot of these like little thi, these little hacks for our nervous system that or whatever it might be that help calm you. I'm not so much concerned about a cookie cutter approach as much as this is the key word. What are your resources? So what are the things that authentically for you, not for me, not for Sarah, not for anybody else, but for you. Allow your system to settle. So it's just intelligent and [00:44:00] strategic to have those things. This is why since office jobs started, we brought photos of our children. And of our husbands and our wives, because

we all unconsciously knew that the work life is not the most exciting, joyous, fulfilling thing at all times.

And at some moments, I might need to look over at that photo of my love one and go, okay, yeah, I'm doing this for them and I love them and that feels good. And so just in that moment, I get to settle.

So that's actually, for me, that's the micro some people, it's like, you know, I got my favorite water bottle and I get to drink from my water

bottle for a moment.

And so it's that, it, you know what it is, Sarah, is it's, it is

actually the awareness to go, I'm to this. I need this.

That's literally all it is, is that moment of like, okay, wait, I need to take a moment.

Sarah: Yeah.

Matthew: this is why people teach all the four, [00:45:00] four breaths and all the different fancy yoga techniques.

But at the end of the day, it's just what actually makes me go, oh, ugh.

Sarah: Yeah, two things come up for me. One is just thinking about, I have, you know, a year and a half year old son who's just gotten really into his teddy bear and is obsessed with the multiple teddy bears anyway. But it's funny how, to me, like our the family photos or like child's artwork that sits at the desk at your office is basically your professional teddy bear.

Like

in a way it's 

Matthew: teddy 

Sarah: yeah. 

Matthew: It's your blankie.

Sarah: Yeah, you're playing here, you're Teddy, that you kind of drag around with you. It's a resource. And also for some reason this visual image of being for anyone who's from North Carolina, I was a huge car fan growing up. It's in the border of North Carolina and South Carolina, and we would go and get summer passes, but there's tons of roller coasters.

But I can hear like the click, click, click, click, click of a 

rollercoaster, and it's kind of when you can see when you're going up and it's time, it's time to woo go down. 

Like even that, for [00:46:00] some reason, that just

resonates with me in case it's helpful for anyone else. I'm, I also am curious as we kind of like round out, I know we don't have tons of time, but at a, at a team level.

So if we are sitting like how do we as leaders, whether we the, are the official leader or just leaders and being nervous system aware, and even for a person who might be listening to this who. Is pretty on board with this approach and can see that a team that they're operating within is suffering from some of these issues.

How do we step into leadership and help make a team more aware of this dynamic in a way that doesn't seem like woo woo or we are, and that also helps a team like that doesn't maybe know anything about the nervous system other than that it's a thing like what could someone do to change the dynamic?

And again, I don't, I don't know if y'all could hear [00:47:00] that beep. Okay, 

Okay, good. What's a thing we could do to change that dynamic and, and to help us get into the right state to change the story and to then change the action and the results from that team?

Matthew: Yeah. That's brilliant. Well, I think there's a piece of accountability of us holding each other accountable around our nervous system states and

making it a fun game of like, how can we all be the most regulated that we can possibly be? And, and doing that as a team. And, and it can be playful and it's like, Hey, do you need to go?

Should we go take a walk? Should we go take a walk, Sarah, should we go take a walk? Let's go take a walk. You know? And it can be a fun thing that we get to do together. But also I think first and foremost it is education. I mean, this is where I'm actually, and I was talking to you about this before we started recording what's important for me is building a movement of nervous system literacy across the world.

And that it's not for me, but that it's that we create a [00:48:00] collective and it's really the nervous system literacy project, and it's about us all coming together to better understand and to share these ideas. And so I'm so grateful that you're excited about sharing these ideas on the podcast. And I think it's, it's just a broader conversation that we all have known is coming and that we all are excited, I think, in some ways to learn about, because most of us, like you said, just don't know.

And that's okay. And that's where we all get to learn these

things and to take some self responsibility for my nervous system. It's not your job to take care of five-year-old Matthew.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Matthew: It's just not right. And I think that that's part of maturing, I think that's part of growing up as a, as a society, as a culture, as a workplace, is to recognize that, yeah, I have a five-year-old little me inside that sometimes just needs to throw a temper tantrum, but it's not my job to put that on you or for you to focus on that or for you to help. Emotionally labor for me that's on me to take care of that. [00:49:00] So I think it requires us having education to understand. How the nervous system works, the literal science of the window of tolerance, which we talked about I think on the last

one, in the wave of the nervous system. And to recognize the moments when I am depleted and then it's on me.

And again, we can also work with each other as a team, as a, as a, as a org, as support in that effort and to make not only the resources available. 'cause I know a lot of tech, tech companies have meditation rooms and things like that, but to bring an actual culture of that. And so it's gotta start from the top.

It's gotta trickle down is that, Hey guys, we don't make decisions here when we are incredibly activated and we all hold each other accountable, that we do need to take a pause to go outside, take a 10 minute walk, or fi like you said, a bio break and we need to build that into our cultures. Nothing crazy.

I'm literally, these can be 45 second breaks. They can be 45 minute breaks, but I think it's really important that we [00:50:00] focus on state overstory in our organizations. 'cause again, we're gonna ultimately be more effective.

Sarah: Yeah, I'm thinking.

Matthew: that's the craziest part.

Sarah: Yeah, I think, I think it's really helpful. And also, you know, I, I sit here in London typically speaking, it is more conservative, more traditional in terms of the way people operate in a business setting versus my East Coast and even California kind of professional environments I've been in.

So I think what you just said that's really helpful, especially for someone who has influence, but maybe lesser power in a room, is just this language of state and story and being able to talk about with someone who doesn't have all the education yet about nervous system, but being able to talk about how it would obviously be better if we made decisions in a not activated state, in a really measured, regulated state.

And to even get a group to think what do we need order to be regulated? Like, you know, we need to have had a break before this meeting. Whatever the things that we [00:51:00] need to be prepped in advance of the meeting, on these topics so that people don't feel fearful.

But it just might allow people the space to say, Hey, I'm noticing this seems very intense or very activated. Do we just need a moment? Is it helpful for people to just simply name that in a 

Matthew: What's the script? Yeah.

it's, you know what it is, is it's actually when we're in a good place. Bringing it up for the first time.

So when we're all in a pretty, like things are moving, all right, it's like, Hey, so you can, everybody feel free to literally steal this is, I notice when we're rushed and stressed, we end up rehashing the same issues. And I would love to try something that might make our conversations more efficient. Literally can be that.

Sarah: That is gold. You are, we're clipping that and putting that on social media. If there's one thing people take from this

that would be very helpful as an actionable thing. And that [00:52:00] is something that frankly the least powerful person in a room

in an organization can say. And I know you and I are both interested in getting people from the top down, but I really want people to be aware of how much power they have in newer systems as well to be like stewards of

nervous system literacy.

I am conscious of our time. I know that you have to probably meet with a client soon. I'm really, I'm curious about a few things, but I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to pick my questions with a limited time. I'm wondering particularly when we think about families, 'cause I do do a lot of work within family enterprise systems.

Is there anything that's specific to nervous system literacy that might help families break longstanding or even generation, sorry, I'm gonna repeat that. Is there something specific to nervous system literacy that might help families [00:53:00] break longstanding or even generational patterns of conflict in the present tense or for future generations?

And I'll, I'm gonna, I, I'll keep, I'll keep it general.

Matthew: Yeah. No, I love that. What's, what's coming to my mind is Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication.

Sarah: Hmm.

Matthew: I mean, I think nonviolent communica, and there are, there are other ways of doing this, but at the end of the day, what, what is happening, especially in family office or family enterprise stuff, there's old patterns, there's literal family childhood dynamics at play. And so what's happening, number one is recognizing that, that we have old patterns from our childhood that we're playing out in the dynamic. The thing is, everybody thinks they want to be right, but what we actually all want, every human on [00:54:00] earth is to be seen, to be understood, to be heard. I was gonna say cared for, but I actually don't, I don't even know that that's always true.

But I think it's that we want to be seen, understood, and heard.

Sarah: Hmm.

Matthew: And so the way that people's defenses are gonna come down and be willing to have an actual conversation is if they feel those things, if they feel seen, understood, and heard. And so the reason why I love nonviolent communication is that it's actually me saying, Hey Sarah, can I actually repeat back what I heard you just say? And so then as I say that thing, it clicks in deeper what you said for me. And then you actually get to hear it reflected back so you know that I actually did hear you correctly. And then if, if I don't say it correctly, you can say, no, no. Well, you mostly got it, but actually you missed this one piece. And I say, okay, great. So it does require [00:55:00] us to sort of let the shield come down for a second. It requires us to like take down a little bit of the armor to go, okay, let me reflect back what I heard and is there anything else, Sarah? And Yeah, yeah, well, this, this, this. Okay, cool. I'll reflect that back. And then I go, is that it?

Did I get everything? Yeah, you got everything. And then we can go. And then my request is X, Y, Z. , And then we flip it, and that's the most important part, obviously, is then we flip it. So then it's like, okay, cool. I set my shield down so the other person then goes and gets to share their experience of what's occurring here or what they're seeing. But it is, it's this weird thing where sometimes if our shields just come up and we're, it is, it's like going into battle. It's like we have our armor on and all we're doing is just going.

Sarah: I am right. I'm right. You're wrong. 

Matthew: yeah.

And so the thing is like, what we need to separate out is 

it's not the content, it's not the actual decision, the money or the logistics.

It's the state, what each person's nervous system is doing. And if we start from that foundation, then the, the content, the actual [00:56:00] decision, the money, the logistics, the things that we think are the important thing, those things get figured out actually relatively quickly, uh, when we're all seen, understood, and heard. That's it. And I don't mean this in like some fluffy kind of way. I

mean literally that I really know that you're actually hearing what I'm

Sarah: Yeah, I, I mean, I see this, I see this all the time when I am working within systems and because I'm not part of it, I'm able to see that people are talking at cross purposes. Like someone may say something about like engagement or, um, something about inclusion. What does that actually mean? So people are making massive assumptions, and especially when it's families, because they assume that they mean the same thing because they're from the same system, and that is not the case.

So I just think being, making sure if you are in a group or that you are leading a group is making sure that people feel that they're being seen, understood, and heard is interesting. And nonviolent communication is something that everybody can Google and there's great books and all of that.

Um, my one last question [00:57:00] is just for, for anyone who feels inspired, by what you're doing around nervous system literacy and who wants to be a torch bearer, in the world, what is one practical thing that if everybody started doing would make a big difference, and could happen today?

Matthew: educated. learn your nervous system. So, so learn didactically, like learn the, the mechanics of how the nervous system works, and then experientially get good at regulating yourself. First and foremost. If you can regulate yourself and you can have a calm, cool, collected, connected conversation, uh, you're so much better for the world. Uh, so signaling safety in the relationship to other people, but again, you can't fake signaling safety. You have to just actually be a safe person. You

have to just be regulated and then as you're [00:58:00] regulated, use signal safety to others. And then we can return to the content. 

Sarah: Thank you so much, Matthew. I know you have to go. We're so grateful for your time for part two. Um, and I know there'll be more, even more to discuss after this, so 

Matthew: Yeah. Thanks Sarah. I really appreciate it. 

Sarah: Thanks for being here. If this resonated, follow the show and please leave a rating.

It helps more people like you find it. And if you wanna stay in touch with me or keep exploring, I share more in Field Notes, a monthly ish newsletter that offers observations, questions, and tools for navigating leadership, work, and life with more clarity and intention. You can sign up through the link in the show notes. Just a quick note before you go. If you found this episode interesting, and especially if anything we touched on around the nervous system resonated, I'm hosting a small [00:59:00] in-person working weekend this July in Somerset with Matthew Cook. It's designed to give you a much more practical understanding of how your nervous system shapes how you think, lead, and respond under pressure, and how to actually work with it.

It runs from July 9th through 12th, and it's intentionally small. You can find more details in the episode notes or at thorpe-scott.com/nervoussystem [01:00:00]