7 Habits for Successful Nervous System Regulation

[00:00:00] People who make progress actually believe
[00:00:02] that they deserve to heal.
[00:00:04] This one gets me every time,
[00:00:05] because I can't tell you how many people I've worked with
[00:00:07] who have done everything,
[00:00:09] the practices, the programs, the therapy,
[00:00:11] the somatic work, and still weren't getting better.
[00:00:13] And when we dug into it,
[00:00:15] what we found was a quiet, deep-seated belief
[00:00:18] that healing wasn't actually for them,
[00:00:19] that they didn't deserve to heal.
[00:00:21] They weren't worthy of a healthy, loving, happy life.
[00:00:24] Now, they're not consciously thinking
[00:00:26] that maybe some people are.
[00:00:27] They're not going around saying that
[00:00:29] to themselves all the time,
[00:00:30] but there is an unconscious belief there.
[00:00:32] And that comes from years, probably very young,
[00:00:38] that maybe you were exaggerating,
[00:00:40] or you learned to minimize your own suffering,
[00:00:43] or to not take up too much space,
[00:00:45] or you learned not to ask for too much.
[00:00:47] You learned that it's too much
[00:00:49] to want something that you don't need.
[00:00:52] Hey there, and welcome to Heal with Grace.
[00:00:54] I'm your host, Grace Secker,
[00:00:56] and I'm a holistic life and therapist
[00:00:59] and nervous system coach who believes
[00:01:01] that the chronic and often unseen symptoms
[00:01:03] you're living with are a sign
[00:01:05] of something deeper going on.
[00:01:07] A sign that your nervous system needs attention.
[00:01:09] In each episode, I'll share the science
[00:01:12] behind the most common chronic health disorders,
[00:01:15] cause holistic health tips
[00:01:16] using mental, physical, and spiritual practices.
[00:01:19] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey
[00:01:21] and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:01:23] so you can feel less alone in your experience
[00:01:26] and give yourself grace, no matter what you're going through.
[00:01:29] So without further ado, settle in and get cozy.
[00:01:33] It's time to Heal with Grace.
[00:01:35] Hey y'all and welcome back to the Heal with Grace podcast.
[00:01:38] I am Grace, your host.
[00:01:39] And if you're new here,
[00:01:40] I'm really glad that you found this.
[00:01:43] This is the place where we talk about chronic pain,
[00:01:46] chronic symptoms, and nervous system healing.
[00:01:48] The real stuff, not just the reduce your stress
[00:01:51] or shake it out, which is very, is part of it for sure.
[00:01:56] But we talk about the actual lived it myself,
[00:02:01] science-backed, this is really what changes things,
[00:02:05] nervous system regulation.
[00:02:06] Specifically with chronic pain and illness,
[00:02:08] we talk a lot about what to do for nervous system healing,
[00:02:12] the practices, the techniques, the modalities.
[00:02:14] But today I wanna talk to you
[00:02:17] about how people do this work,
[00:02:19] the habits and the mindset patterns
[00:02:21] and the ways of approaching this
[00:02:23] that I consistently see in people
[00:02:26] who actually get better versus people who stay stuck.
[00:02:30] Because what I know after working in this space
[00:02:33] for many years now is that the practices matter,
[00:02:36] who you show up as, who you are when you're doing
[00:02:40] these practices, this work in general, really matters.
[00:02:43] How you're approaching it is honestly
[00:02:46] sometimes more important than anything.
[00:02:48] So today we're going into the seven habits
[00:02:51] that I see for successful nervous system regulation.
[00:02:55] And it's not a protocol necessarily,
[00:02:57] it's not like a checklist of what you need to do,
[00:03:00] it's seven ways of being
[00:03:02] that when they become how you operate changes everything.
[00:03:07] So before we get end though,
[00:03:09] I wanna acknowledge something
[00:03:11] that if you're listening to this
[00:03:12] and you've been struggling for a long time,
[00:03:14] if you felt like you've been doing all these things,
[00:03:18] you've tried the seven things
[00:03:19] to regulate your nervous system
[00:03:21] and you've done some mind-body work
[00:03:22] but you're still not getting better
[00:03:24] or maybe you're just kinda like tipping your toes
[00:03:26] and you recognize nervous system has something to do
[00:03:30] with your body or your illness or your health
[00:03:32] or the fact that you can't stop crying
[00:03:36] or emotionally regulate.
[00:03:38] And if some days healing feels genuinely impossible,
[00:03:41] this really is for you
[00:03:42] and I want you to go easy on yourself as you listen
[00:03:45] because this isn't about what you should have been doing
[00:03:49] all along or what you're doing wrong,
[00:03:52] it's about what's available to you now.
[00:03:55] Please don't take this as you're doing something wrong
[00:03:57] if you're not doing these things
[00:03:58] or if you're recognizing
[00:03:59] that you're doing the opposite of these things,
[00:04:02] you're like, oh my gosh,
[00:04:02] I'm making it harder on myself.
[00:04:04] I'm self sabotaging.
[00:04:06] No, that's not what this is about.
[00:04:09] This is to help you.
[00:04:10] So I invite you to listen with a curious lens,
[00:04:14] take it in and start to see what could help you.
[00:04:18] That's all this is about.
[00:04:20] Okay, so we're gonna set up a little bit first
[00:04:23] in terms of what I talk about
[00:04:25] in terms of nervous system regulation.
[00:04:26] So I'm talking about the capacity of your nervous system
[00:04:31] to move through different states,
[00:04:33] activation, rest, mobilization and connection
[00:04:37] and to come back to a place of relative ease,
[00:04:40] not permanent calm, not zen down,
[00:04:42] I'm great all the time,
[00:04:44] not the absence of sensation,
[00:04:46] meaning not the absence of pain or health issues.
[00:04:51] We can decrease those and very much shall recover,
[00:04:54] but it's not that you never experienced
[00:04:56] something difficult in your life again
[00:04:57] or after you do this, you're great,
[00:05:00] you're healed, you're perfect.
[00:05:02] No, it's the ability to not get stuck
[00:05:05] in those difficult times in your body.
[00:05:09] And for most people dealing with chronic symptoms,
[00:05:11] whether it is pain, fatigue,
[00:05:13] IBS, migraines, POTS, long COVID, brain fog, anxiety,
[00:05:17] the list goes on that won't quit.
[00:05:19] The nervous system has gotten very good
[00:05:21] at staying in survival mode,
[00:05:23] high alert, scanning, bracing, protecting.
[00:05:26] And the thing about the state is it makes sense.
[00:05:30] Your nervous system learned to do this.
[00:05:32] It had good reason.
[00:05:34] It was trying to keep you safe,
[00:05:36] but it's working with outdated information
[00:05:40] and our job in this healing and recovery space
[00:05:43] is to give it new information, new evidence
[00:05:47] and a different experience of what's possible.
[00:05:49] So that's the expansion where we can expand
[00:05:51] your nervous system's capacity
[00:05:53] to be with some of these sensations
[00:05:55] and really retrain the brain to recognize
[00:05:57] you don't need these symptoms anymore.
[00:06:00] That's nervous system regulation.
[00:06:02] You're not trying to get to a perfect regulated state,
[00:06:05] it's an ebb and flow.
[00:06:07] But right now, if you're listening to this,
[00:06:09] you might be stuck more often in the stress response
[00:06:12] than you are in the flow of it.
[00:06:15] Okay.
[00:06:16] And so what I'm talking about today
[00:06:18] is that these habits are how you do the work,
[00:06:21] not just the actual practices,
[00:06:23] but it's through how you show up to the whole process.
[00:06:27] And if you've been listening to this podcast,
[00:06:29] if you've been watching the YouTube videos here
[00:06:31] and you're like, yeah, okay, this is resonating,
[00:06:34] this is helping, I'm still a little confused
[00:06:37] or I would like some more structure.
[00:06:39] I'd really like to have a community
[00:06:42] just to, you know, someone to walk me through this.
[00:06:45] I invite you to find the link below
[00:06:47] to the Mind Body Healing Method.
[00:06:48] It is my signature nervous system regulation,
[00:06:52] brain training, somatically focused program
[00:06:55] to help you get unstuck
[00:06:57] and understand the deeper layers.
[00:06:59] We talk about everything that I talk about in the podcast,
[00:07:01] but we go way deeper
[00:07:03] to really help you understand
[00:07:05] how to get out of the stuck patterns
[00:07:07] that your body and your mind are in.
[00:07:09] Right now, it is a self-paced program
[00:07:12] and you can go through it on your own time
[00:07:16] at your own pace.
[00:07:17] If you want to go deeper
[00:07:19] and you want more individual support,
[00:07:21] you can book private sessions,
[00:07:23] private coaching sessions
[00:07:24] with our Mind Body Healing Specialist,
[00:07:26] EMDR therapist and coach, Liana.
[00:07:29] She is amazing.
[00:07:31] I'm really excited to have her back with me
[00:07:33] in doing this work.
[00:07:34] She knows the Mind Body Healing Method in and out
[00:07:36] and she has the therapist and coach lens
[00:07:38] to help guide you through it.
[00:07:40] So find the link below.
[00:07:41] If you have any questions, just let me know
[00:07:43] and I will speak with you.
[00:07:46] Okay, let's go ahead and get in.
[00:07:48] So have it on, start right now
[00:07:51] without waiting until you feel ready.
[00:07:55] This sounds really simple
[00:07:56] that honestly could almost be annoying like I roll, right?
[00:08:00] Yeah, I know, I get it.
[00:08:01] I need to do it.
[00:08:02] I need to do it.
[00:08:04] But it really is one of the most significant patterns I see
[00:08:07] separate people who heal from people who stay stuck.
[00:08:10] So people who do well with nervous system work
[00:08:12] don't wait until they understand everything perfectly.
[00:08:15] They don't wait until they get all those other test results
[00:08:18] in before they start using Mind Body Work
[00:08:21] to help themselves.
[00:08:22] They don't wait until they've found
[00:08:24] the quote unquote right approach.
[00:08:27] They don't wait until they have a guarantee
[00:08:29] that it's going to work.
[00:08:30] They start messy and perfect, uncertain.
[00:08:33] They start anyway,
[00:08:35] because no matter what is going on in your body,
[00:08:37] whether you actually have a structural issue or not,
[00:08:40] nervous system affects everything.
[00:08:43] I was just talking to a client about this the other day
[00:08:45] who has endometriosis, PCOS and EDS,
[00:08:49] Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.
[00:08:51] Those are real structural findings in the body.
[00:08:53] I am not telling her that,
[00:08:55] oh, all those symptoms are just made up
[00:08:57] and you can heal those and recover from them.
[00:08:59] You don't have to have them anymore.
[00:09:01] I'm not saying that.
[00:09:02] And also, we very much don't know,
[00:09:04] because we've been working together for a while,
[00:09:06] she knows that her stuck nervous system response,
[00:09:09] her high anxiety, definitely impacts
[00:09:12] how her body experiences these things.
[00:09:15] So when she's ovulating
[00:09:17] and when she's around her cycle,
[00:09:19] when she's around her bleed,
[00:09:20] she knows that her symptoms increase,
[00:09:22] but as we've been working with the nervous system,
[00:09:24] the symptoms decrease.
[00:09:25] It doesn't mean that her body
[00:09:26] has completely healed that structural cause.
[00:09:29] But our nervous system and brain
[00:09:31] can send high alert to symptoms
[00:09:34] or to structural findings in the body and make it worse.
[00:09:37] And then there are also things
[00:09:39] that very much so don't have structural findings.
[00:09:41] Maybe you've done all the tests
[00:09:43] and they don't really show much.
[00:09:45] Definitely nervous system.
[00:09:46] And we can get you out of that pattern
[00:09:47] of your body going on high alert
[00:09:49] and sending you symptoms
[00:09:51] even when there's nothing wrong.
[00:09:52] And so when someone doesn't wait to get started,
[00:09:55] they understand this concept.
[00:09:57] They know that no matter what is going on,
[00:10:00] working with their nervous system
[00:10:01] and their emotions and their brain
[00:10:03] is always going to help you.
[00:10:04] I was just talking to my partner about this.
[00:10:06] I was like, man, I'm starting to teach therapists this work,
[00:10:09] but like if we could get just the basics understanding
[00:10:13] of our mental and emotional health
[00:10:14] that is around our nervous system
[00:10:17] and to schools, right?
[00:10:18] Like elementary, middle school, high school,
[00:10:20] however it is, like developmentally appropriate
[00:10:22] for each level.
[00:10:24] Man, we'd be a different society.
[00:10:25] And that is another tangent
[00:10:27] that was not meant for this episode.
[00:10:29] But I guess what I'm saying is no matter what's going on
[00:10:32] in your body, this work is going to help you.
[00:10:34] It will never hurt you.
[00:10:35] It will always help you.
[00:10:37] Okay, let's get back to number one.
[00:10:39] I get that why starting feels hard, right?
[00:10:42] You've been sick for a long time.
[00:10:43] You've been in pain.
[00:10:45] You've tried things that haven't worked.
[00:10:46] And when you've had hope and had it taken away,
[00:10:49] meaning the prospect of starting something,
[00:10:51] you bought into a specific protocol,
[00:10:53] a certain specialist,
[00:10:55] and you feel like you put everything on the line
[00:10:58] and it didn't work.
[00:10:59] That sucks.
[00:11:01] And you've probably done it time and time again.
[00:11:02] So you're like, why would I invest in myself and this
[00:11:05] and come out the other side exactly where I started?
[00:11:08] I hear that, totally lived it.
[00:11:10] But here's also what I know, like I just said,
[00:11:13] your nervous system cannot learn anything
[00:11:15] from information that's sitting on your shelf.
[00:11:17] And also it will always help you
[00:11:19] and it will never hurt you.
[00:11:21] So don't look for a perfect start.
[00:11:24] Don't look for all or nothing.
[00:11:26] Don't look for, well, I need to clear my schedule to start.
[00:11:28] No.
[00:11:30] Yes, it takes some time and effort and energy,
[00:11:33] but you can do it.
[00:11:34] And to be honest, like your body needs you to,
[00:11:38] your livelihood, your mental, emotional, physical health
[00:11:41] really needs you to.
[00:11:44] So start before you're ready
[00:11:45] because ready is feeling the nervous system and threat mode
[00:11:48] will never actually give you.
[00:11:49] Say the last sentence again.
[00:11:52] Because ready is a feeling the nervous system and threat mode
[00:11:56] will never actually give you.
[00:12:00] Number two, stop identifying with being sick.
[00:12:03] So people that are successful in this work
[00:12:07] and they find relief and they're the ones
[00:12:09] that have been on my podcast and they're like,
[00:12:11] oh my gosh, I'm, wow, this work is working, right?
[00:12:15] They have recognized that they probably took on the
[00:12:17] identity of being someone who is sick or in pain
[00:12:21] and it's become a big part of their life.
[00:12:22] And that's not something you're doing
[00:12:25] on purpose consciously, but it does happen.
[00:12:27] Stay with me here because I'm not saying
[00:12:29] you're doing something wrong,
[00:12:30] but I am not saying your symptoms aren't real.
[00:12:33] They are completely entirely undeniably real
[00:12:35] and I'm not saying you're making them up.
[00:12:38] I am not saying you don't have a legitimate condition,
[00:12:41] but I am saying is that there's a difference
[00:12:42] between having symptoms and making symptoms
[00:12:45] the core of who you are.
[00:12:46] When you've been sick for a long time
[00:12:48] and especially when you've been through a medical system
[00:12:51] that hasn't helped you, that's gas let you,
[00:12:53] that's dismissed you, it is completely understandable
[00:12:57] to build your identity around being sick.
[00:13:00] You start organizing your life around your symptoms.
[00:13:03] You start defining yourself by your limitations
[00:13:05] and the illness, the pain becomes the lens
[00:13:08] through which you see everything.
[00:13:11] The problem with that from a nervous system perspective
[00:13:14] is that the brain is always listening
[00:13:16] and is always looking for confirmation
[00:13:18] of its current model of reality.
[00:13:20] So when the model is I'm sick,
[00:13:24] I am someone who doesn't get better,
[00:13:26] I always have something wrong,
[00:13:27] my body's always broken, my body's always the problem,
[00:13:31] the nervous system stays on high alert
[00:13:33] and your body encodes that, it takes that on
[00:13:36] and says, yeah, that's me, that's us.
[00:13:38] All right, well, here's this pain, here's this illness,
[00:13:40] you're gonna get sick if you go on a plane,
[00:13:41] you're gonna have X, Y, and Z.
[00:13:42] The story is a threat story
[00:13:44] and the brain responds to threat stories
[00:13:46] by generating more protective symptoms
[00:13:48] and I'm not saying that this means toxic positivity,
[00:13:52] it doesn't mean pretending you're fine when you're not,
[00:13:55] it doesn't mean lying to yourself about how hard this is.
[00:13:59] It means starting to practice a different story
[00:14:02] alongside the one you're telling.
[00:14:05] For example, I am someone who is healing
[00:14:08] instead of I'm always sick and I'm working on it.
[00:14:10] You go to I am someone whose nervous system
[00:14:14] is learning to feel safe.
[00:14:15] I am a person who sometimes has symptoms
[00:14:17] but I am not my symptoms, right?
[00:14:19] We're not trying to force your way into like,
[00:14:21] I'm fine, I'm good, everything's perfect.
[00:14:24] It's a real grounded way of shifting your attachment
[00:14:28] to your symptoms, to your health.
[00:14:29] You are not your diagnosis or diagnoses,
[00:14:33] you are a nervous system that's been through a lot
[00:14:35] and is learning to feel safe.
[00:14:37] That's a completely different story
[00:14:39] and it opens completely different doors.
[00:14:41] Number three, people who make progress
[00:14:43] actually believe that they deserve to heal.
[00:14:47] This one gets me every time
[00:14:48] because I can't tell you how many people I've worked with
[00:14:51] who have done everything,
[00:14:52] the practices, the programs, the therapy,
[00:14:54] the somatic work and still weren't getting better.
[00:14:57] And when we dug into it,
[00:14:58] what we found was a quiet, deep-seated belief
[00:15:01] that healing wasn't actually for them,
[00:15:03] that they didn't deserve to heal.
[00:15:05] They weren't worthy of a healthy, loving, happy life.
[00:15:09] Now they're not consciously thinking
[00:15:11] that maybe some people are,
[00:15:12] they're not going around saying that
[00:15:13] to themselves all the time
[00:15:14] but there is an unconscious belief there.
[00:15:17] And that comes from years,
[00:15:20] probably very young,
[00:15:23] that maybe you were exaggerating
[00:15:26] or you learned to minimize your own suffering
[00:15:30] or to not take up too much space
[00:15:32] or you learned not to ask for too much.
[00:15:33] You learned that it's too much
[00:15:36] to want something that you don't need.
[00:15:41] Maybe you've been in caretaker mode your whole life
[00:15:44] and putting yourself first feels selfish or wrong.
[00:15:48] Maybe you've internalized some story from your family,
[00:15:51] from religion, from culture,
[00:15:53] that suffering is your purpose in a way.
[00:15:57] Suffering is part of life,
[00:15:59] which pain is a part of life.
[00:16:01] Suffering doesn't necessarily have to be.
[00:16:02] Maybe you've thought that you just have to endure.
[00:16:04] This is just you.
[00:16:06] Or maybe after years of not getting better,
[00:16:08] you started to wonder,
[00:16:09] what if I'm the kind of person who just doesn't heal?
[00:16:11] I want to sit with you in that for a second
[00:16:14] because the belief that you don't deserve healing
[00:16:17] or that healing recovery health isn't for you
[00:16:20] is one of the most painful things
[00:16:22] you can tell yourself that I really encounter in this work.
[00:16:26] And it's also one of the most treatable
[00:16:29] because your nervous system will not heal beyond
[00:16:32] what you believe is available to you.
[00:16:34] The work has to be coupled with genuine permission,
[00:16:38] permission to get better, permission to have your life back
[00:16:41] and permission to want things for yourself
[00:16:43] and go after them.
[00:16:44] And the permission has to come from you.
[00:16:46] And sometimes it's the hardest part of the process.
[00:16:51] I think it's taken me many years to get to that place.
[00:16:55] Yes, I've consciously wanted it.
[00:16:57] Like if someone told me this, I would have been like,
[00:16:59] that's bullshit, I want to be healthy, I want to be happy.
[00:17:01] I'm like, yeah, totally.
[00:17:04] But there were really unconscious mechanisms
[00:17:08] living in the background
[00:17:09] because there were secondary gains
[00:17:11] from me being sick.
[00:17:13] I gained connection, attention.
[00:17:16] I got out of things when I was sick and didn't feel good.
[00:17:19] I wasn't able to put myself out there
[00:17:22] in the ways that maybe I wanted to grow
[00:17:24] in my personal and professional life
[00:17:27] so that it didn't fail, right?
[00:17:29] Like if you don't put yourself out there, you can't fail.
[00:17:31] So symptoms protect you from that.
[00:17:33] So if you're someone who actually really,
[00:17:37] and this is something that takes time, right?
[00:17:39] But like, if you can really believe
[00:17:41] that you deserve to heal,
[00:17:42] you are worthy of being happy and healthy.
[00:17:45] That goes such a long way that then encodes
[00:17:47] in your nervous system
[00:17:48] that it can release some of the patterns protecting you.
[00:17:50] Okay, number four.
[00:17:52] The people who make more progress actively, intentionally
[00:17:56] build safety in their lives to the best of their ability.
[00:17:59] Nothing's perfect.
[00:18:00] But here's the essential mechanism
[00:18:02] of all nervous system healing
[00:18:03] is your brain needs evidence that you're safe
[00:18:05] and it gets that evidence through experience,
[00:18:08] not through being told.
[00:18:09] There is a balance of that, right?
[00:18:11] So for example, one of the most important things you can do
[00:18:14] is actively create conditions in your life
[00:18:16] to whatever degree you're able to
[00:18:18] that generate real signals of safety
[00:18:20] to your nervous system.
[00:18:22] So it looks different for everyone,
[00:18:23] but here are a few things I see that matter the most.
[00:18:28] The people and environments you are around.
[00:18:31] Are there people in your life who feel regulating,
[00:18:34] who helped your nervous system settle?
[00:18:36] Are there people who constantly activate you,
[00:18:39] who keep you in a state of high alert?
[00:18:41] Who make you feel small or unseen
[00:18:43] or you're constantly comparing yourself to
[00:18:45] and feeling like crap about?
[00:18:47] I know you can't always change shoes around you,
[00:18:49] but becoming aware of your relational environment
[00:18:52] is one of the biggest steps
[00:18:53] because how we relate to other people
[00:18:55] and how we relate to ourselves
[00:18:56] are some of the biggest parts of understanding
[00:18:59] and regulating our nervous system.
[00:19:02] So the next example would be your basic physiology, right?
[00:19:05] Sleep, food, time outside.
[00:19:07] These are not just nice to have.
[00:19:09] They are the literal substrate of nervous system function.
[00:19:12] So I know when you're deep in chronic symptoms,
[00:19:15] even basic self-care can feel impossible,
[00:19:18] but this is not about some 10-step wellness routine
[00:19:21] that you're trying to put on.
[00:19:24] Supporting yourself from a place of love
[00:19:26] and intention and purpose
[00:19:28] because you want to do that for your body, for you.
[00:19:32] So yeah, sleep, nourishment, sun,
[00:19:36] outside nature, space, time to breathe
[00:19:40] and sit with yourself for five minutes
[00:19:42] in the morning and the evening.
[00:19:44] Whatever degree you can support your body's basic needs,
[00:19:46] it truly, truly matters
[00:19:48] because then you're sending the signal to yourself
[00:19:50] that you deserve this,
[00:19:51] that you're worthy of giving yourself
[00:19:53] these foundational practices.
[00:19:56] You can bring yourself into safety
[00:19:57] by orienting to anything, right?
[00:20:00] Looking around the room
[00:20:01] and letting your eyes and nervous system register,
[00:20:03] I'm here.
[00:20:04] This is my environment.
[00:20:05] I am not in danger right now.
[00:20:07] And that might sound a little silly,
[00:20:09] but your nervous system is not logical.
[00:20:11] Remember, your nervous system is acting like a little child
[00:20:14] and we need to treat it like one.
[00:20:16] So orienting yourself to the present moment,
[00:20:20] reminding your brain and your nervous system,
[00:20:22] I'm safe right now.
[00:20:23] I'm not in danger by slow, extended exhales,
[00:20:28] gentle movement, time and nature.
[00:20:30] They are literally how you teach your nervous system
[00:20:32] that right now in this moment, you are okay.
[00:20:35] And that builds up over time.
[00:20:36] You do this to the best of your ability.
[00:20:38] You give your actual circumstances a chance,
[00:20:41] not the ideal circumstances you wish you had,
[00:20:43] the ones you have right now.
[00:20:45] And this isn't, again,
[00:20:46] creating a perfect healing environment.
[00:20:48] This is about consistent daily practice.
[00:20:51] Number five, how you show up
[00:20:54] and approach your healing matters.
[00:20:56] So using the same mechanisms
[00:20:58] that kind of got you stressed in the first place
[00:21:01] to your healing
[00:21:03] is something everyone usually ends up having to learn.
[00:21:06] So for example,
[00:21:08] are you approaching it from an all or nothing standpoint?
[00:21:11] My gosh, I dropped off one day or I didn't do it,
[00:21:14] do what I was told I was supposed to do
[00:21:16] or what I've learned feels good.
[00:21:18] My gosh, all is lost.
[00:21:19] I'm a failure.
[00:21:21] I'm not gonna get better, right?
[00:21:23] Or are you kind of dipping your toes
[00:21:27] into the mind-body work,
[00:21:28] nervous system regulation?
[00:21:30] Maybe you're working with therapists
[00:21:32] and you're kind of like, okay, I'll give this a try.
[00:21:37] And then you run the other way
[00:21:40] and go find another specialist to get another test
[00:21:43] because you're afraid that they missed something
[00:21:46] in your body, like a tumor or a cyst
[00:21:49] or inflammation or something.
[00:21:50] And then you feel like a failure
[00:21:52] because you didn't do nervous system healing correctly.
[00:21:54] The way that you can approach your body
[00:21:57] and your healing from a place of flexibility
[00:22:01] and a place of I am learning, right?
[00:22:04] This curious lens of, okay,
[00:22:06] what would it look like to lean into this a little bit more?
[00:22:08] Learn more about myself.
[00:22:10] Approach my life in a different way
[00:22:12] than I've been approaching it so far.
[00:22:13] That's what's going to help you in the long run.
[00:22:17] And really in the day to day
[00:22:19] is when you're healing from a state of curiosity
[00:22:23] and flexibility and consistency,
[00:22:27] does it mean all or nothing?
[00:22:29] But it does mean that you are continuing to do the work.
[00:22:34] Yes, you can recover.
[00:22:36] Yes, you can get out of the stuck place that you're in.
[00:22:39] Does that mean you never do self development work again
[00:22:43] or you never have any other symptoms?
[00:22:44] My stance is I don't think so.
[00:22:46] No, that's not my lived experience.
[00:22:48] That's not a lot of my clients' lived experiences.
[00:22:51] This work will catapult your life.
[00:22:53] This work will make you see things so differently.
[00:22:56] I was a therapist for five, six years
[00:22:59] before doing this professionally
[00:23:00] and really honing it in myself personally.
[00:23:03] And I learned so much more doing this
[00:23:06] than I ever did in school
[00:23:08] or those first five years of therapy.
[00:23:10] It just takes you to so many different levels.
[00:23:13] And so my point being is like, this is a new way of life.
[00:23:16] It's a new way of seeing things.
[00:23:18] It's not like, okay, I do nervous system work
[00:23:20] for three months, I'm good,
[00:23:21] don't have to look at it again.
[00:23:22] No, it's an evolution.
[00:23:24] So take it on that way.
[00:23:25] Take it on as like, oh, I'm learning these new things
[00:23:27] about me, these new ways of taking care of myself.
[00:23:31] So it can be a lifestyle shift, if you will.
[00:23:35] I kind of hesitate on that word, but it kind of is.
[00:23:38] It's a different way of looking at yourself and your health.
[00:23:40] So please take it with flexibility.
[00:23:42] Take it with a sense of curiosity.
[00:23:45] Number six, integrate and apply consistently.
[00:23:49] Number five was talking about
[00:23:51] how to approach it with flexibility and curiosity.
[00:23:54] And I mentioned some consistency there,
[00:23:56] but when I see people get stuck
[00:23:58] is when they are not fully understanding this
[00:24:03] or continuing to learn about it in a different way.
[00:24:07] So your nervous system learns through experience,
[00:24:11] not just understanding, not through just knowing,
[00:24:14] not through having the information.
[00:24:17] That is a big part of it.
[00:24:18] I will say like educating yourself on this
[00:24:21] and what's happening is a very big part of this process,
[00:24:24] but it's not the only piece.
[00:24:25] I talked to people time and time again,
[00:24:27] who's like, I've read the books,
[00:24:28] I've listened to the podcasts, I get it,
[00:24:31] but nothing's changing.
[00:24:32] And that's because they're not actually embodying
[00:24:35] and learning experientially how to expand
[00:24:38] and shift their nervous system.
[00:24:40] They're not doing it through living repeatedly
[00:24:42] in a way that teaches your brain new things are possible.
[00:24:45] So here's the pattern I see constantly.
[00:24:48] People take in information about nervous system healing.
[00:24:50] They read the books, they listen to the podcast,
[00:24:52] they buy the courses and they're gathering
[00:24:54] and gathering and gathering,
[00:24:55] but they're not actually practicing.
[00:24:57] They're not integrating, they're not applying.
[00:25:00] And then they wonder why they're not getting better.
[00:25:02] And this is not a character flaw.
[00:25:04] I wanna be really clear about that.
[00:25:06] Your nervous system, your brain actually will stop you
[00:25:09] from going into the experience of changing
[00:25:12] because it doesn't want to change.
[00:25:13] So there's a real protective mechanism here
[00:25:15] that we have to work with.
[00:25:18] There's real understandable reasons, right?
[00:25:21] There's the perfectionism,
[00:25:22] the sense that you need to understand it completely
[00:25:24] before you try or you might get it wrong
[00:25:26] or that search for the magic bullet.
[00:25:29] And honestly, research can be a coping mechanism.
[00:25:32] So when everything feels out of control,
[00:25:34] gathering information feels like doing something, right?
[00:25:37] It gives you a sense of agency when you feel powerless.
[00:25:40] And that's great, that's not a bad thing.
[00:25:43] We just also need the experiential part of learning.
[00:25:46] The shift matters.
[00:25:47] It's from consumption to practice.
[00:25:49] It means picking one thing and actually doing it.
[00:25:52] Every day consistently, not perfectly.
[00:25:55] So maybe that's five minutes of paying attention
[00:25:58] to your nervous system and somatically being aware
[00:26:01] by tuning to your body from a sense of curiosity,
[00:26:04] neutrality, instead of hypervigilance,
[00:26:07] what's wrong, what's happening,
[00:26:08] what am I experiencing, what's going on?
[00:26:11] Maybe that means learning how to express your emotions.
[00:26:13] It's just starting by paying attention
[00:26:15] to the emotions wheel, looking at an emotions wheel
[00:26:18] and feeling like, what am I feeling?
[00:26:21] How do I start to name my emotions
[00:26:22] and then learning how to express it?
[00:26:24] You do it consistently, not when you feel like it,
[00:26:28] not when you feel motivated by it,
[00:26:30] not when the conditions are right,
[00:26:32] but as a commitment to your own healing
[00:26:34] because you've decided to show up for yourself,
[00:26:37] matters more than getting it right.
[00:26:39] Last but not least, number seven is
[00:26:43] don't let little setbacks set you back.
[00:26:46] This is a big one.
[00:26:47] When I see people be resilient in their healing,
[00:26:51] it matters so much because what's happened
[00:26:53] in your nervous system is that it has created
[00:26:56] this state of no, I can't, I don't want to do that,
[00:26:59] I don't know how, it's too much.
[00:27:01] So whenever there's a sense of failure,
[00:27:04] whenever there's a symptom,
[00:27:06] whenever there's an overwhelmed feeling,
[00:27:09] your nervous system might collapse or say nope
[00:27:12] and send you symptoms.
[00:27:14] That's an automatic pattern that you've been in.
[00:27:17] So when you start to heal, it isn't gonna be linear.
[00:27:20] You're gonna go up and down.
[00:27:22] You're not gonna have some straightforward line of,
[00:27:25] one day I started not having symptoms
[00:27:26] and it just went from there.
[00:27:28] You're gonna have setbacks.
[00:27:29] But to be honest, okay,
[00:27:31] I don't even wanna say the word setback.
[00:27:32] I don't like that term.
[00:27:34] I just say that it's part of healing, right?
[00:27:37] So you experience symptoms, you make progress,
[00:27:39] it's that forward movement, that settling.
[00:27:43] So when you feel like there's this place
[00:27:46] of why am I not getting better
[00:27:49] or why am I in this flare right now?
[00:27:51] What you don't wanna do is collapse into that
[00:27:53] and catastrophize about what's happening
[00:27:55] and what's going wrong.
[00:27:56] Instead, you wanna recognize that this is totally normal.
[00:28:00] This is a very normal part of the process.
[00:28:03] You orient yourself to that
[00:28:05] and then you be with what's happening
[00:28:07] in your nervous system.
[00:28:09] You tell those parts of you that are really activated
[00:28:11] that are afraid, hey, yeah,
[00:28:14] it makes so much sense that you're afraid
[00:28:15] and I've got you.
[00:28:16] Yeah, we're doing this.
[00:28:17] We are making progress, even if it's really hard today.
[00:28:20] Because nervous system work is not linear,
[00:28:22] when you do that, you teach your nervous system,
[00:28:25] it's okay, we got this.
[00:28:26] Like, okay, maybe we got a little overwhelmed,
[00:28:30] but hey, we can, we're here, we're safe.
[00:28:33] I've never seen healing work be linear,
[00:28:36] meaning someone does it, they recover
[00:28:38] and never have some symptoms again.
[00:28:39] I have not seen that.
[00:28:41] Some symptoms, yes, but in overall, not necessarily.
[00:28:45] There will be good weeks and hard weeks.
[00:28:47] There will be days where you feel genuinely better
[00:28:49] and days where you feel exactly like you did
[00:28:51] at the beginning.
[00:28:52] There will be flares, there will be moments
[00:28:54] where you're convinced nothing is working.
[00:28:57] That is not failure, that is the process.
[00:28:59] It really means being really intentional
[00:29:02] about how you talk to yourself when things get hard,
[00:29:05] because your nervous system is listening, right?
[00:29:08] So you say this has been a hard week.
[00:29:10] Hard weeks are part of this.
[00:29:12] I'm not where I was six months ago,
[00:29:14] I'm still in it, I'm still showing up.
[00:29:16] The non-linear path is the path.
[00:29:18] There isn't another one.
[00:29:19] So the habit is learning to stay in the process,
[00:29:22] even when the process is uncomfortable.
[00:29:24] Okay, so remember that none of these seven habits
[00:29:29] have to be complicated.
[00:29:32] All of them are a learning process
[00:29:35] and they're available to you right now,
[00:29:37] exactly as you are.
[00:29:38] So here's what I want you to take from today.
[00:29:41] Healing isn't just about finding the right technique.
[00:29:44] Recovery is not just about the tools
[00:29:48] or the education you learn,
[00:29:49] it's about who you are in relationship to the process.
[00:29:54] It's about whether you believe
[00:29:55] you're someone who gets to heal.
[00:29:57] It's about showing up consistently
[00:29:59] even when it's not working.
[00:30:02] It's about building a life, not just a practice
[00:30:06] that gives your nervous system evidence.
[00:30:08] You already know more than you think,
[00:30:10] you don't need more pieces of information
[00:30:12] if you've been on this journey.
[00:30:14] Be consistent for yourself.
[00:30:17] And again, if you're ready to put all of this
[00:30:19] into a structured program,
[00:30:21] if you want the actual step-by-step practice
[00:30:23] for somatic awareness, brain training,
[00:30:25] and emotional regulation built
[00:30:27] around these exact principles,
[00:30:28] the mind-body healing method
[00:30:30] is exactly what it's been designed for.
[00:30:33] So you can find the links below
[00:30:35] for the self-study program
[00:30:36] or to book and one-to-one calls with myself or Liana.
[00:30:41] Thank you so much for being here today.
[00:30:43] I mean that every single time.
[00:30:45] Choosing to invest your time in your own healing,
[00:30:47] especially on the days when it feels like a lot to ask
[00:30:51] is not nothing.
[00:30:52] It really, really matters.
[00:30:55] So keep healing with grace y'all
[00:30:56] and I'll see you in the next episode.
[00:30:59] If this podcast means something to you,
[00:31:01] it would mean so much to me
[00:31:02] if you could do these couple things.
[00:31:04] One, go to the heal with grace show page
[00:31:06] wherever you listen
[00:31:07] and tap the plus sign or click on the follow button
[00:31:10] so you don't miss an episode.
[00:31:12] It helps both of us out.
[00:31:13] While you're there,
[00:31:14] if you could give a five-star review
[00:31:16] so that this podcast can reach more people,
[00:31:19] it would mean so much to me
[00:31:20] so I can continue sharing episodes
[00:31:22] that help you as well as others.
[00:31:25] Thanks for listening
[00:31:26] and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.