Alisha Leytem: Hello everyone! Welcome back to the show. I am so excited for our guests today. Her name is Meg Doll and she and I actually went back. Before Meg and I were running our businesses our beginnings were in blogging. This was when blogging was really cool in 2012. We initially connected through there and have stayed connected through various aspects of our circle and career ever since.
I am so excited and thrilled to have her on today because there are actually a million different topics that I want to go in on with her today, but I had to narrow it down to a couple. She is such a wealth of information and she has so many powerful things to share with us as we navigate this very exciting world.
She is just such a grounding presence in the work that she offers, so welcome to the show Meg I am so happy to have you.
Meg Doll: Thank you for having me. It’s crazy to think that it has been over a decade since you and I have known each other and been friends. Over a decade!
Alisha Leytem: I would love for you to introduce yourself to our audience and just share a little bit more about what you do and how you help people now.
Meg Doll: My name is Meg Doll and my background and the reason I got into blogging and how we connected was I was actually studying nutrition. I was going through a dietetics program at my university. I was doing that because I had grown up with eating disorders and when I was going through eating disorder recovery.
I was working with a really amazing dietitian and I had so many people on my recovery team, but it was my dietitian that really stood out and helped me. She played such an important role in my life and inspired me to go to university. Study dietetics and I had plans to become a registered dietitian. As I was going through the program and I got to my last and final year, I realized that I don’t actually want to be a dietitian.
I just have always been the type of person that if something isn’t aligned I am not going to tell someone to eat a certain way, for example, because I don’t eat that way myself. In dietician school it was very calorie focused and we were basically doing fake meal plans for fake clients. We would have to recommend things like low-fat cheese, for example, and egg-white.
I was making my own meals at home with whole eggs, butter, and full fat cheese. I had done so much healing work with my relationship with food that I was just really focused on nourishing myself in a full, abundant way that it didn’t feel right for me to be eating how knew was right and then other side work in a hospital setting or a clinic of some sort and having to recommend other things.
Anyways, I graduated from dietetics and that's when the whole blogging started. I was blogging my way through university and I ended up holistic nutrition and that led me into the whole holistic world of health and wellness. The journey has been long, but I do come from a background with a lot of information in nutrition since I’ve been studying that since 2009.
Now I am really finding my place and really I really feel like what I’ve been meant to do all along is support people on a very intimate and personal level. I’ve been studying somatic experiences for the past couple of years as well as internal family systems. I absolutely love it. It has been a huge part of my healing journey and recovery with food and body image.
With eating disorder recovery and if anyone is listening right now who has ever had an eating disorder or issues with eating or troubles with body image. It’s something that we can go through recovery and get to this place where you feel recovered, but there’s still these lingering bits.
I call them lingering bits because that’s what it feels like. You’re almost there, but there’s just these little things that are still staying with you. I felt like that for so many years. I thought that I didn’t have an eating disorder anymore, but there’s still this stuff that’s lingering.
It wasn’t until I started to dive into the somatic experience and parts work that I fully recovered from my lifelong eating disorder and body image issues recently. For the past few years, I’ve been at this place where I know I am fully recovered. I have been helping women all over the world since I do my work on zoom. It’s nice to be able to connect with women from anywhere and support them on their journey too.
Alisha Leytem: I will definitely say someone who is witnessing your journey and knows you as a person, you are absolutely doing what you are meant to be doing in this lifetime. You can just feel that you are in complete alignment with the people that you are helping. The best person to help someone going through recovery is to have someone who has overcome it themselves.
No one can relate to someone if they haven’t actually experienced it themselves. I’m sure your clients can trust you wholeheartedly because they know that you just get it.
With that I would love for you to share with our audience what somatic work is. For those who have never heard of it. Share with us more about what exactly it is and how it can help.
Meg Doll: A big name in the somatic experiencing world is Dr. Peter Levine. If you are familiar with his work, you’re probably familiar with basic somatic work. Really it’s the understanding of trauma as a whole new way.
When we think of trauma it is these big events. For example, war, abuse, a car accident, some type of big event. We tend to think of trauma as the event. Whereas what trauma actually is, it’s how the thing actually affects your nervous system. The actual definition of trauma is anything that is too much, too fast, or too soon.
It’s really helpful when we can think about it in that way and actually see that as humans going through life. We all have experienced trauma. What that does is it really affects our nervous system and we hold onto that.
That’s what somatic work is. We are working with the body with a bottom-up approach versus a top-down approach. We are not so much doing the mindset work, but we are more concerned about what the nervous system is telling us, and what the body is telling us.
So that story of what's being held within the body. Something that is so fascinating to me about somatic work is you can read about it, talk about it, and listen about it on these types of podcasts. It wasn’t until I experienced it myself and now also working with clients and leading them through these somatic sessions. It’s one of those things that you really have to experience in order to fully understand how incredible it is.
We don’t actually have to have a memory where we recall from the past because our body actually tells the story. A perfect example of this is that our body holds onto stories that we weren't even around for. We wouldn’t even have the memory for it.
For example, our grandparents could go through something extremely difficult that goes years and years back. You may not have an experience with an event like they have, but because your ancestors experience it it can still be held within your body.
What somatic experience offers us is that we don't have to be sitting in a session talking about the thing, but what we are most concerned about, but what our nervous system is holding onto. When you are working with an experienced somatic practitioner we can support you in this charge, that activation, and that trauma that your body holds onto.
It’s really incredible. It’s trauma informed work and like I said it’s just been an absolute game changer when it comes to my own healing journey.
Alisha Leytem: It’s really making me think of all the trauma we have experienced in the past couple of years. As you kept saying too much, too fast, too soon. I think that we are just now seeing the tip of the iceberg of all the repercussions of everything that has happened. Like you said, all of the events that all of our ancestors have gone through war, the depressions, racism, etc. that is still a part of us.
Michael and I were even talking about this with family patterns that are passed down. We can see some behavior from both of our families in things that they do with money, from what their ancestors did during the great depression. Literally store coins and cash in a safe in the home in case something happens like it did in the great depression.
So holding onto that it continues to live within us. Until you can release that that is still a part of you. What are some exercises you do, somatic wise, to work through what your body tells you.
Meg Doll: A big part of this is nervous system work. Also within session we are always tracing nervous systems because that’s telling us part of the story as well. We are paying attention if someone is in parasympathetic, which is that rest and digest stage. Some clues for when someone is in the parasynthetic nervous system is when they are in the “now.” They can feel their feet on the ground, they can notice their thoughts as well.
Being in the sympathetic state which is our “fight or flight” includes more of those anxious, and worry-like thinking. In a somatic session you’re tracking the clients nervous system. Are they in that parasympathetic, are they in the sympathetic, and then also noticing the free state.
Our nervous systems are always going to be using each of these states because they are self protection responses. I want to be clear, that it’s not that parasympathetic is good and sympathetic is bad and dorsal is bad. That’s not what I want anyone leaving this episode thinking.
Our bodies are brilliant. When we are in a situation when that sympathetic fight or flight needs to kick in, we want it to kick in. Also that dorsal vagal--that free state--there are going to be times in our life where something may happen and that is going to kick in because it is a self protection response.
I never want anyone thinking that some systems are bad and some systems are good, we need all of them. What we don’t want is to be stuck in one system all the time. We want to be able to be flexible within those states of the nervous system.
What causes issues is when someone is always stuck in that sympathetic state, which we see a lot. People are stuck in that sympathetic state. Not everyone, but we do see that when people are in that burnout with work often. They are fearing rest.
So back to your question, how do we get back to that level and support people? A really great, basic, first place to start is noticing what state of my nervous system am I in? That alone can be huge for people. So many people are actually in that sympathetic state so much of the time.
Once you actually start to understand the nervous systems and notice more about yourself. Something that I noticed about my clients is a lot of them have had hard relationships with food, or body image issues. I think in the world that we live in, especially as women, we have issues with our body and think we need to look a certain way.
What’s absolutely fascinating about our thoughts and the nervous system is that our thoughts will actually match the state of the nervous system we are in. Like I was saying some clues of how to know when we are parasympathetic.
You’re not going to be thinking that there is something wrong with your body when you are in the parasympathetic state because you are able to be here right now and know that there’s not a present threat around you. Verses when people are stressed, anxious, or nervous about something they’re caught in that sympathetic state.
Our thoughts are going to match that state that we are in. That is honestly the first step I would say is noticing. Getting to know how you feel in each nervous state is huge. When you do notice that you are going into that sympathetic state a huge tool is bringing yourself back into the “here” and “now.”
Going back to what I was saying before, if you are noticing you are in that sympathetic state what would happen if you noticed your feet on the ground? Take a moment just to notice those points of connection.
Alisha Leytem: I feel like your presence is really regulated. I think that’s really helpful especially when it comes to your thoughts matching your current state. Plus asking yourself what state you're in is also super helpful. I think it's beautiful that you said one isn’t right or wrong. It’s just when you’re in one state too long is where we run into those sticky situations. What would your advice be for someone who is stuck there and some daily habits they can take from this and go do?
Meg Doll: I love this question. Another thing I love about this work is that it’s so slow and gentle. What I am always concerned about or most curious about is what’s most tolerable for the license I am working with. If there is someone who is listening now that has been in a somatic session before they will know that it is very slow.
Nervous system work is slow work. Even the clients I work with usually are coming to me at the end of their work day. In our sessions, it’s finally time for them to sit down and just move slow with me.
The reason I bring that up is because if someone knows they are constantly in that fight or flight stage and they need to make a change, they need to understand somatic work is slow. It’s hard for me to suggest to a client that works like that to take the weekends off of work. What I would be curious about is what would be tolerable for this client? It might be something so incredibly small.
For example, I once was always in fight or flight. I could not sit down. I had to constantly be doing things. I was on all the time. Being scared of rest was a real thing for me and it’s a very real thing for so many people.
If we are constantly in this state where we always have to be on, resting is going to actually feel like a huge threat. It’s going to feel terrifying. You can’t just lay everything down and chill out. So I have to find what that would look like to allow a little bit of that parasympathetic state to feel like. I had to sit down and have slow mornings.
I started reading fiction novels during those slow mornings as well. That alone was a big change for me. I used to always be reading non-fiction because I felt like I always had to be learning. Even when I was sitting down to read, I wasn’t actually relaxing because I was always learning at the same time.
That is a good example. In my life something that I started with was I don’t really read non-fiction anymore and I read 80 fiction books last year. I didn't go from 0 to 80, it was this very slow process for me.
I think for anyone interested, what would be tolerable for you to make a shift in experiencing a little bit more parasympathetic? Also this is a helpful time too. If someone does feel as though their nervous system is communicating with them, resting is a real threat. That absolutely would be a time where working with a practitioner could be really helpful to hold this safe space for them.
Something that you mentioned before you asked me this question is a huge part of experiencing co-regulation. If I am sitting here and I am regulated with you then you’re going to hear that. Even on zoom, we do not have to be in the same room. You can feel that on zoom. That’s also why I love one on one sessions because I can offer that, or I can offer that to my clients who aren’t able to actually feel like they can do that on their own yet.
Alisha Leytem: I love that you said that and I want to mention that point before you say that this work in the corporate world is so powerful. LIke you said, being “on '' all the time is parasympathetic, constantly in fight or flight, constantly getting emails, etc.
Now there are these blurred lines of working at home, working in an office, you're never really allowed to turn it off. You have to know how to actively rest and that can be very scary for those who don’t know how to turn it off or those who are always on because like you just mentioned the thought of resting can be a threat.
One thing that I found in doing this work for the leaders and the HR leaders is as they learned to regulate themselves, now they are able to regulate their employees. This changes the culture at these companies.
I have one client in particular who’s been to a bunch of my programs and one of my retreats recently. She came to one of my first speaking gigs back in 2019 and then I had a retreat in Dubuque, Iowa for HR Leaders this past fall and she came and told me “since I came in 2019 and learned some of these tools from your speaking engagements, I am teaching other people how to use these tools. So they come into my office, and I can co-regulate with them.”
I wanted to mention that because I know a lot of our listeners. Me being a better leader relates to me in my professional life just like everything. I wanted to put that connection together for people before I forgot.
Meg Doll: I’m glad you shared that. Even people who share my somatic series program have to have some type of caregiving profession. A lot of them are moms with the specific intent to be more regulated for their children. I think that is so beautiful. Everyone can benefit, it's all related.
Alisha Leytem: Yes, it is. I keep thinking of her going to the holistic psychologist, Nicole Lepera. She tweeted recently, once people start regulating that’s what's going to change the world. You’re going to match the energy to someone you’re around. Not only are you doing it for yourself with that healing and trauma recovery, but knowing that doing so, it ripples and helps everyone else around you.
I am curious about what are some things that you see in your clients that when it comes to food, that keeps them stuck in sympathy or puts them into “fight or flight.”
Meg Doll: I think of two things. One is I am so happy I have my background in food in nutrition and now this somatic piece is coming in it’s become related. We live in this world where we are told we need to eat a certain way, and when we eat a certain way we are going to be healthy. Your healing can’t not include nervous system work.
People being able to regulate themselves and the world with their nervous system is what's going to change the world. You can't focus on teething else and work on the nervous system and then be undereating. That is one of those things that I see most often. It’s not just because most of my clients have eating issues. Most women in general are constantly fed messages that we need to eat a certain away, etc.
Most people that I work with come into contact with are undereating. When our body is under nourished that is a huge stressor on the body. The body perceives that as a threat. It does not feel safe when it is being undernourished. That is the most common thing that I see and how it impacts the nervous system.
Women need to learn that they cannot thrive and be in this really healthy regulated state while they’re constantly undernourished. We need way more food than we even realize as women.
The second thing that creates a lot of feeling of unsafety and things we can do to support the body to feel safe is blood sugar balance. When we’re not focusing on balancing our meals we need to track things for our blood sugar balance.
When we are able to do that the body is going to feel safe. If we are not focusing on our blood sugar balance that is creating this unsafe experience for the body. So again playing into that parasympathetic, fight or flight, something wrong, danger zone feeling.
Alisha Leytem: You had to learn and study the food portion because that’s what just makes you so unique and awesome at what you do. I see this all the time with women too. I don’t think they realize they are undereating. They say “I feel fine.” How do you recognize when you are undereating?
Meg Doll: I feel like we could do a whole additional podcast on this topic. I recently recorded an episode with 15 different health markers. They aren’t just telling us what we should look like or how much we should weigh. Those are not real health markers. The body actually communicates our health through other things like our pulse, body temp, or digestion.
If you’re constipated, that's a sign of not eating enough. If your pulse is super low that’s a sign of not eating enough. If you’re cold all the time, that’s another sign. So many people complain about sleep as well. That’s a huge sign of health.
You should be able to lie down and go to sleep at a decent time. Not wake up in the middle of the night, even if that’s to go pee. That’s another sign of not eating enough. Or even having no sign of hunger or being constantly hungry.
We live in this world where we are being told what to eat and how to eat. I think a part of that messaging is always to get rid of our hunger and hunger is this “bad” thing we need to minimize. Having these normal fluctuations of hunger throughout the day is actually a sign of health. You should be hungry.
If you are hungry all day, it’s likely that you are not eating enough. It’s probably because diet culture told you that the amount of food that you are eating is “enough”, but it’s not because you’re hungry.
If you don’t have any hunger throughout the day that’s another good sign that you’re not eating enough. I think that I listed 15 different things in my own podcast episode that are all health markers that we can look at and gain so much information from.
I have seen all of those not only in myself, but so many of my clients come back into that balance simply by increasing calories. Calories can be such a dirty or triggering word, but we should start to see calories as energy. Our body needs that. So many problems could be fixed or solved if people just started eating enough food.
Alisha Leytem: Tell them about your podcast. We haven’t mentioned that yet, but you have had one for a really long time.
Meg Doll: I actually started podcasting back in 2015. Before everyone had a podcast. I am just so grateful to be sitting down with you today. It’s called The Unbreakable Podcast. It’s so cool because I don’t really know where that came up from me, but now with the work that I am doing with somatics, I feel like I really came to this place and found my true alignment.
Recently, I was thinking about the name of my podcast. It hasn’t expired after all these years. It really makes more sense through all of these years. I was having a lot of guests on my show for the past several years, and then I decided I really wanted to make my show more solo episodes.
Alisha Leytem: She has a great podcast! We will definitely add that to show notes, especially the episode you listed with the 15 health markers you listed today. Which is interesting because that is closely related to my 6 gold keys to well-being.
One thing that I do during my workshops series is I go over each key. Almost every single time I do it people love the sleep one the most because they’re struggling the most with sleep. They realize making those shifts and changing priorities improves the quality of their sleep, which then leads them to be better at everything else.
For some reason it’s just this reality of “I’ll sleep when I am dead.” In my second key, the key of nutrition, I focus on gut health. We talk about the digestive system, we talk about how to have a healthy gut, and what to look for in the toilet.
A lot of clients that we see will eat something sugary in the morning with a lot of coffee and then crash, get lunch, then they are super tired and they will get more coffee at noon and try to push through the day. How can you tell when your blood sugar is crashing and what were the ratios that you mentioned that you want to stick with and maintain?
Meg Doll: The example I just gave is a perfect example of this. Having coffee maybe on an empty stomach or maybe waking up and having a sugary breakfast. You had mentioned a granola bar before. Maybe you are waking up and grabbing a granola bar quickly, rushing out the door, grabbing a coffee, and then crashing.
A whole episode I should record in the future is about cravings and what they mean. It’s telling us maybe we need more energy because we are tired. If we are tired our body isn’t asking for coffee, it’s asking for food.
I said before, calories are energy. Your body doesn't need more coffee, it needs more food. It’s probably not going to look like a sugary drink from starbucks. A place to start waking up in the first 30 minutes is eating a full breakfast. I prefer seeing people eating within the first 30 minutes of waking up, but for some people that’s not possible.
Really aiming for the food going in for the first 30-60 minutes of waking up. Your meals and snacks should all have protein and carbs within every single meal and snack. For example, my favorite breakfast is oats soaked in greek yogurt and then I mix cocoa powder. So they are chocolate soaked oats with a lot of protein. Then I pour a ton of honey all over and make a strawberry compote on the side.
The protein from the greek yogurt, the carbs from the oats, honey, and strawberries. So you have a nice mix of nutrients. That’s a really good example of a blood sugar balanced breakfast. THen every 2-4 hours after that you need to eat something.
You don’t want to fast any longer than that. Grabbing breakfast maybe a mid morning snack helps. One of my favorite snacks is a chunk of cheese and fruit. Before I got on this call I had a chunk of cheese and a couple oranges. Then again lunch and that also being a nice balance of protein and carbs plus an afternoon snack. Then dinner and a bedtime snack
This is the flow that I follow intuitively, and intentionally throughout the day because I know that's what my body needs. It works out to be every 2-3 hours for me. I feel great! I have never felt better. That’s just an example of nourishing yourself enough for that blood sugar balance.
Alisha Leytem: I think that this conversation to hear is really important. Even myself I have had to have that reminder.
My sleep is interrupted quite often with a 2 year old and it’s just temporary and I know that, but because of that I need more energy throughout the day. I find myself reaching for more caffeine, but really I am more hungry.
You’re going to go through different phases in life and I am in a phase right now with little babies. Having my body give me information as to how I am feeling and what’s going on. I use those somatic tools that you are sharing to help me stay in that relationship where I am at that moment.
I want to ask you the question that I ask all my guests that come on the show. How do you personally unlock your own well-being?
Meg Doll: I have thought about this question. I feel like you can interpret this question in so many different ways. For me a huge piece is really filling up my own cup before being able to pour into everyone else.
For me a huge part of taking care of myself is being really firm with myself-care boundaries. I am so intentional with having these really slow mornings. I don’t schedule my clients in the morning anymore. That’s the first thing that came up when I thought of this question.
Alisha Leytem: That’s so important to be able to pour into a full cup. What do you do to make sure that you are filled up and how do you give yourself permission to create space for that?
Meg Doll: There was a lot of healing work around that. It wasn’t just one thing. Now because I have done that, I wake up, go downstairs, eat within those 30 minutes of waking up and I curl up with my dog. I think it lasts about 2 hours usually. I have a gym downstairs in my house as well. It’s nice to be able to go downstairs and do some movement and take an entire morning to myself.
Then I get ready for my day. I am just so lucky to be doing what I am doing. I love to do work with my clients, but I am setting myself to be able to do that because I do care for myself in such an intentional way. I also have a really solid boundary. I think having boundaries is huge piece of that too.
Alisha Leytem: You also take very intentional breaks into between clients, right?
Meg Doll: Yes. If I saw my clients back to back to back I know I might not be giving the same amount of effort to my 5th client versus my 1st client of the day. To me that’s what's most important. If these people are investing their time, energy, and money into their practice I want to make sure each of my clients are getting exactly the same amount of me that I poured into the first client.
Alisha Leytem: It’s so important to keep yourself in that place. Everyone that’s working with you is getting your best at each session. I love that you do something to nourish yourself in between clients like read, go on a walk, or eat a snack.
For our listeners, if you have a full time job scheduling some time even if it;s 10-15 minutes to take meetings or before you have a big presentation. Can you put that time in your calendar knowing that it is going to be very productive because it will set you up to be in a better place when you go and do that next thing.
Meg Doll: I am so happy you brought that up too because it’s so easy to say I will schedule all these meetings, clients, or commitments back to back. I have had clients also who have to reschedule and they ask to see me at a different time and it’s easy to change it, but I will make sure to have time to resent my clients.
I want to acknowledge how easy it is to say we will be fine. Could you give yourself an extra 10 or 15 minutes? Is that possessive? My clients know I do this and they appreciate it. I do give myself those 15 minutes to reset.
Whoever is listening may not be dealing with clients, but it’s just a meeting or whatever commitment you have during your day. Can you give yourself a little bit more of a buffer in between rather than stacking them back to back?
Alisha Leytem: I think that’s a great place to start. Could you maybe start with 5 minutes maybe to create that space and boundary. Then maintain that boundary with not only your coworkers, but yourself. Getting into the habit of resetting, and regulating before stepping into the next day. The more you practicing what that feels like will be huge.
This has been so awesome. Tell us all about where our listeners can find you and connect with you.
Meg Doll: I mentioned my podcast, we will link that up. Then I basically am on instagram as far as social media goes. My handle is iammeg doll. My website is megdoll.com. I can send you all those links and we can put them in the show notes.
Alisha Leytem: She is super active on instagram and she has great stories that she does everyday. Check her out over there and on her website. Are you taking new clients right now?
Meg Doll: I am. Right now I primarily work one on one with license. You can always schedule a discovery call with me, I have that as an option.
Alisha Leytem: Perfect we will have that on the show notes for people to connect with as well. Thank you all so much for being here. We will see you in your next episode. Thanks so much Meg. Bye everyone.
