Habits that rewire your nervous system, heal trauma & improve your stress response 🧘🏽‍♀️

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast episode. My name is Alicia Gogan, the host of the Glow Up Secrets podcast, where I help you expand your mind and become more self-aware so that you can glow up into the best version of yourself. Hello, and happy Sunday if you are listening on a Sunday. Today, I want to talk about rewiring your nervous system as an adult. Essentially, most likely all of us are adults, but rewiring your nervous system, healing trauma, and improving your stress response. And why do I want to talk about this? Mainly because this topic is something that I'm always so interested in. It's something that I've lived by. It's something that I've learned a lot about and applied in my own life. I have come from a line of trauma, chronic stress, illness, things like that. So I have gone on a lengthy journey of trying to figure out how to, quote unquote, heal my nervous system and heal trauma and all this stuff. A lot of you guys know this is the core of my work on my podcast anyways. And recently, I was just thinking how sometimes when you hear the words nervous system and regulating your nervous system, it can be kind of confusing. There's a lot of information out there. And I feel like sometimes people think that you need to do the most or you need to do these things that are just inaccessible when it comes to regulating your nervous system, or you just genuinely don't know what that even means. And it kind of makes us feel like we don't know where to start and that we can't do it type of thing. So I kind of just want to have a discussion on the things that I have learned when it comes to rewiring my own nervous system to feel better, to be able to handle stress better, to live a better life, because that's genuinely the goal. We all want to live and feel better in our days. And I think for the most part, a lot of us know that trauma, whether it's big or small, has impacted us in many different ways. And even if you don't want to look at it as trauma, just like stress, like everyday stress, and how that can make us feel like crap, it can make us feel low in our lives, like we're not on purpose, like we are sick, chronic illness, things like that. So I just kind of want to talk about it. And I think the way that I want to first bring light to what it really means to regulate and rewire nervous system is just thinking about how your nervous system is really all about your stress response. So rewiring and regulating your nervous system, it's all about improving your ability to deal with stressors in your life, but also reducing the current stress that you have, whether that's like in your body, the way that it's holding it, and or in your mind. I found this Pinterest quote that says, what does regulate your nervous system actually mean? And it says, it means being able to return to a sense of calm after stress. You're not avoiding stress. You're learning how to move through it and come back to baseline without staying in fight, flight, or freeze mode. It feels like emotional steadiness, not constant calm. You can still feel anxious, frustrated, or sad, but those feelings don't completely hijack you. You feel more grounded, present, less like you're spinning out, which we've been talking about stopping the spiral and regulating your emotions more on the podcast in previous episodes. So this will tie in perfectly. The next one says, it looks like being able to pause before reacting. Instead of snapping, shutting down, or people pleasing, you start to respond instead of react. It shows up as more connection to yourself and to others. When your nervous system is regulated, you can access curiosity, empathy, creativity, and even joy. You feel safe being in your body and safer with other people as well. And the last one says, it speaks compassionately. It sounds like this in your mind, I am safe right now, or I can handle this. And the way I know that I'm being more kind and supportive to myself is not looking at myself like I have this problem that I have to fix and like I'm broken, but instead asking myself when I feel triggered, when I feel certain emotions, when things aren't good in my life, asking myself the question of, what do you need right now? And that just feels so much better in your nervous system. If you were to really like sit here and ask yourself the question, what do I need right now? Instead of braiding yourself and being upset with yourself or saying, what is wrong with you? You're broken. Those are two different energies. And I want you to think about how the way you speak to yourself is going to fire on your nervous system or essentially rewire and make you feel more calm. And that's what we are trying to do when we're going on a journey of rewiring our nervous systems is to really feel into the way we're speaking to ourselves, but also the things that we do in our day to day life that will either make us feel like we're more triggered and activated or more calm. Like this person was saying, being on a journey of rewiring your nervous system and healing from trauma and things like that, it's not about never getting triggered. It's not about never feeling certain things. I think that that's what we get wrong as well, is we're trying to search for this perfect state of being where we never feel anything. And that is absolutely the opposite of what it means to be and live in a healthy nervous system. Life is always going to be stressful. There's going to be things that are unpredictable. There's going to be things that are unknown and out of our control, but it's really about how we show up and respond to those things. Now, before I talk about some of the things that you can think of and that I've done in my life that have really helped me lower my stress and help me heal, I want to talk for a second about why we would even be in a state of stress in the first place. Now, I'm not going to dive too deep in this, mainly because I've talked extensively on my podcast throughout the years of my own childhood upbringing and how it shaped me, but also in general, how your childhood is going to shape you into being somebody who believes and feels resilient in life, that can handle stress well, that is in a more healthy body state, things like that or not. But essentially, we do kind of want to become aware of how our childhood does set us up to be somebody who can be potentially in a chronic state of stress. But also, even if you technically had a very supportive, loving home and you had parents in the household that were responding to your needs and told you that your emotions were okay and you had consistency and predictability in your life, it could just be in your more adulthood life. You are stressed with the daily occurrence of life, whether that is going on constant commutes to work or you're in a stressful, hostile work environment or you didn't really learn maybe the best way to eat or be on routine and support your health, because what we put in our bodies and how we move in terms of our wellness is also very important in terms of our stress response and rewiring our nervous systems. But I do want to kind of talk about this like trauma piece and I love the work from Dr. Gabor Mate. I definitely butchered his name, Gabor Mate. I think that that's how you say it. Anyways, I would highly suggest all of his books. And if you don't want to even spend money or time on books, just go on YouTube and find all of his interviews. He's done so many. He talks about trauma. He talks about addiction. He talks about authenticity. He has amazing work. A really good book from him is called Waking the Tiger Healing Trauma. I don't remember exactly how the title goes. A lot of my books that I previously had in my old apartment and now that I moved to my boyfriend's place are downstairs in storage right now, so I can't even pull it out. But that is such a good book for you to really understand what happens when it comes to thinking about trauma. But essentially what he says, and I'm just looking down here because it's like a quote, he says how trauma is not what happened to you. It is what's happened inside of you. And it's not to say the traumatic thing, whether it was a big thing that happened or a small thing over time is not important or that you shouldn't acknowledge it, but it's more so how your body responded to that thing. That is what we need to really work on and that is what we will see show up in our lives. Whether we are reactive, whether we feel unsafe, we have anxiety, we have chronic illnesses based off of consistent stressors and things like that. For instance, in my childhood, for one, I was taught a lot from my father that my emotions were not safe to be expressed. And that is also linked with my own authenticity. So I was very shy. I suppressed and I shut off my emotions, but I'm human and I have them. So that is not going to lead for a healthy life when you're constantly suppressing or telling yourself you're bad or wrong for having human emotions. I wasn't really taught how to regulate my emotions when they came up other than just suppressing them and like learning that they are bad and wrong. Another thing that was really stressful in my life was inconsistency and unpredictability, essentially. And that was due to my parents and their lifestyle and our financial insecurities and just the way that I was brought up. I'm not saying that we should go and blame our parents for everything. I think they did what they could with what they had. Realistically, I think that we've come a far way with understanding what it takes to really help someone grow up into a person who feels safe and expressive in their lives. At least that's what we're learning now on this journey. But I digress. There was a lot of unpredictability in my life. And as I grew up, I lost my father at 16 and my mom went through a really lengthy journey with addictions. And that alone will really affect a child and the entire family, obviously, and even the person themselves. But that created a lot of anxiety and stress. It put me in this hyper-independent mode because I had to now become the parent because I didn't really have parents that were playing that role the way that they should have been. And I was on constant alert, essentially. So being in that state of stress constantly, it creates my nervous system to be on alert and bracing for impact. And that doesn't make me feel very good. And also when it comes to the more like health side of things, when your body is constantly in a state of stress, it is producing cortisol and adrenaline. It is not utilizing its resources for proper digestion or proper sleep and rest. All of those things can get disrupted when you're in constant states of fight or flight. So it doesn't necessarily matter what happened. It's just a fact that your body in some sense of the matter has been in that state. So I've gone on a journey of, yes, understanding my story, going through a lot of forgiveness and even therapy. I've done somatic therapy. I've done health therapy. I've done so many different types of therapy. But I've had to learn how to create a life that signals to my nervous system that things outside of me and even inside of me are more safe. And so I want to talk about some of those things that have really helped me on this journey that you can probably implement in your life as well. But actually, before we go on to it, I have two more quotes that I found really good. So I just want to quickly share them. One says, a traumatized nervous system needs to experience what it didn't experience early on to be held, accepted, nurtured, touched, and unconditionally supported. If our nervous system didn't feel supported and safe to regulate somatic and emotional discomfort, connection, and vulnerability, now as adults, these human experiences become a source of dysregulation, reactivity, and defensiveness, which was, I think, back to my early, late teens and then a lot of my 20s, I was definitely dysregulated, reactive, defensive, all of those things. And when it talks about basically giving yourself what you didn't experience back then, that's what that's all about, right? I didn't really get the experience of being held, accepted, nurtured, touched, unconditionally supported from my father in certain ways. And again, this is not to fully blame him. And also, my mom did a great job at giving me some of those things as well. But this is why it's so important to have a healthy environment for a child and even community and connection as you get older, healthy forms of consistency and even, of course, financial security and things like that. Now, you don't have to have all the money in the world to be somebody who grows up to be healthy and happy, but some of those things we need to think about. If we haven't gotten those, we need to reincorporate in our lives. And I also like this one that said, the opposite of trauma isn't healed, it's aliveness. The opposite of trauma isn't healed, it's connection. The opposite of trauma isn't healed, it's curiosity. The opposite of trauma isn't healed, it's play. The opposite of trauma isn't healed, it's presence. The opposite of trauma isn't to find perfection, to become a contained or even calm version of ourselves, but rather it's where we begin to experience what couldn't exist when all our body could do is survive. And that's another thing that I think back in my childhood, I definitely didn't feel safe to have a lot of play and connection and presence in my life based off of the environment that I was living in. So I genuinely think the goal when we are trying to regulate, rewire our nervous systems, heal trauma and improve stress responses is trying to bring ourselves closer to feeling safe to play and feel connected and want to connect because that's the thing that's going to keep us alive, guys. It's not going to be isolating. It's not going to be learning to be the most calm and composed person who never has any emotions and who doesn't connect with anyone. That's not the way that our nervous systems are supposed to be built when it comes to survival and to thrive in our lives. So going on a journey of regulating your nervous system or rewiring yourself and improving your stress response, I want you to think about how the nervous system really thrives off of predictability, routine, rhythm, consistency, repetition. And you don't have to be perfect with this. In fact, you again, don't want to try and train yourself to only be okay when you're on perfect routine. Having a healthy nervous system means that you are able to adapt when life is unpredictable for you to be able to get a little bit triggered or into that fight or flight response, but you're able to come back up. It's not about never going up and never getting activated. Sometimes being activated is helpful and very healthy for us, but it's all about how can we regulate back down, but also understanding that you are resilient. So when things do come up in your life and things do stress you out, you're not afraid that you can't handle it essentially. So let's talk about habits that rewire your nervous system. And the first thing I want to talk about is somatic work, essentially body work, and really understanding that we can think good thoughts and we can also do certain habits like routines, wellness, and whatever, but there needs to be a sense of release in our bodies when we are heightened, when we go into that fight flight mode, even when we go into freeze mode, this can be really impactful. And there's another little quote that I want to read from Gabor Mate. Guys, I'm sorry if I've butchered his name. So he talks a lot about how trauma lives in the body and how animals naturally shake and release after stress to move cortisol and adrenaline through the body because that's what happens when you get into that heightened state, but how as humans we are taught to suppress. So I always think about when I am in a state of a little bit of dysregulation, stress, overwhelm, anything, I want to try my best to complete the stress response. So this could look like literally standing up, shaking your body and like jumping up and down and like breathing out heavily. It could be doing box breaths and you can like find a YouTube video for that. It could be doing a quick five to 10 guided meditation or again like some sort of breath work on YouTube. It could be genuinely letting yourself cry it out or even like yell out in a pillow. It could be you actually moving your body physically. I'll talk about movement as well, but moving your body as well, like you don't have to do these things that might not feel like good to your body. It all really comes back down to what you'd be comfortable with, right? Because if you're not comfortable with crying or if you're not comfortable with screaming into the pillow, then you're just not going to do it and that's not going to allow your body to regulate and get things out. So finding something that allows you to kind of de-stress and move your energy essentially and that can be, okay, I'm going to go for a nature walk and just walk and not listen to anything and kind of like come to my breath and let things go. Or you're just going to have a few deep breaths. Like I used to serve and bartend and I just knew that my nervous system was activated a lot. And this comes back to sometimes it's not like an actual traumatic thing that can happen in your life that's going to turn on your stress response. It could just be the fact that I'm working, I'm hustling, I have a million tables, I have to make drinks over here, I got this over here, this guy's yelling at me because he wants a dip that he didn't get, whatever the case is. That's going heighten me. Whether I am really resilient with it and I have good self-talk and I know that like I'm safe, my body is still responding to that. So I try to do my best to kind of give my nervous system little signals throughout the day or when I know that I'm in that heightened state that it's okay, we're okay. And how you can do that is simply coming to the breath. I would go into the on my chest, heart, whatever, and I would breathe in and out. And even right now, that just brought me down a few notches. Even talking on the podcast is going to heighten me a little bit. And that's okay because that's what this podcast requires of me. Well, at least that's just my natural state of when I'm talking and I'm passionate about something. See, that is okay and that's healthy. But it's also just to bring ourselves back down for a second, especially when we've been in chronic states of stress. Something else that I like to do, and this might not be for everyone because you might not have one, but I used to have like this small little trampoline. I forget what it's called. Oh, it's called like rebounding, getting a small little trampoline. I got one from Walmart for like $45 and I would jump on it in the mornings. I would jump on it if I was like in my head and I was like writing a lot. I was doing my emotional release practice for my journal series. And I still like, I felt the remainder of the stress that I was still feeling like in my head. So I went and jumped for like two minutes. I actually have one in my gym, so I do that as well. But even like skipping, but honestly just jumping in place and shaking can be so good. And I know it does feel weird, but this is what animals do. This is what we are supposed to do. We kind of have the same type of nervous systems, not always, but as animals like that. And when they go through traumatic times, experiences, whether being chased by an animal or whatever the case is, you will see if you like go on National Geographic and you like watch the way the animals are, they will shake, they will like run around and they're just getting out that cortisol and adrenaline. And that is perfect. We can do that kind of stuff in our own daily lives. The next thing I want to talk about is your mindset and self-talk. And here is another quote from Gabor Mate. He says, the wisdom of trauma. We don't respond to what happens. We respond to our perception of what happens. We don't respond to the present moment. We respond to the past. And the whole perception of what happens and also responding to the past is linked to what we are thinking, right? I am witnessing a challenging situation like driving for the first time, and I haven't in a really long time, and I don't know where I'm going to find parking. Well, if I am looking at that situation and saying, it's going to be super hard to find parking. I'm not going to know how to, I'm going to be late. It's going to all crash and burn. If I am late, all of the scenarios, if that's like the things that I'm telling myself, that's keeping me in a heightened state. And I'm stressed when I'm in that state and nothing really good comes out of that state versus, okay, I see a stressful situation. How am I going to try and change my mind and not to deny that this is a thing. And this might be a little bit overwhelming, but you know what, Alicia, you're going to find parking eventually. Somewhere, somehow, you're going to find it. It is okay. Even if you are late, is it going to be the end of the world in the sense that are you actually going to die? No, you will not. You will figure it out. We can do it. We are resilient. That is going to help me stay a little bit more calm, as well as going in the past, right? Replaying things in the past. Oh, I made a mistake. I didn't do this right or whatever. Or if you're feeling certain emotions, I'm feeling anger. I'm feeling like, oh my gosh, I can't get this thing out of my head because I'm upset. I'm upset at this person for doing this thing. If you try and suppress that, it's not really going to go anywhere. So I think the work of supporting your nervous system is also about reframing your mindset, speaking to yourself kindly and compassionately, changing your self-talk, essentially that's what that is. And also creating a safe space for your emotions, bringing it back to childhood. I was taught that emotions were not okay to express or to have. And if I want to feel very safe, regulated, and confident to go out in my life and take on the world, I must create that safe space within my own self, no matter what. Now, if you're new to and you want to learn how to get better at releasing your emotions, changing your self-talk, also learning why you do the things that you do and learning to forgive yourself, because that's very important, then my guided journal series, A Journey Back Home, will be perfect for you. So many of you guys have already been taking it and been loving it, so many transformations, but all the details will be down in the description if you are interested. It is guided, it is digital, so you'll get instant access. You have four mini masterclasses, essentially, where I am teaching you the how and why behind each practice. I use these in my daily life. I always go through them. I use the emotional release practice on the weekend. I also did the self-forgiveness thing on the weekend as well. I'm using it all the time. And the second part of each practice is the actual guided part. It's technically like a guided meditation, visualization, but also you're going to be getting prompts that I'm going to be giving you, and you're going to be writing and exploring your own inner world and coming home to yourself. So if you're interested in it, please, all the details will be down below. Check it out and let me know if you've already taken it. I would love to hear your insights, all the things that you have learned about yourself in that series. And lastly, when it comes to self-talk, the way I like to think about it is my self-talk is either going to be firing up my nervous system or rewiring it and helping me stay calm, cool, collected, and also resilient during times of stress. So it's very important that you are thinking about the things that you tell yourself based off of what's happening and how you're moving through life and change that dialogue if you need to. Next, I want to talk about rhythms, routines, and cycles, essentially. Like I said, the nervous system thrives off of that predictability, routine, consistency, things like that, especially thinking about the things that you didn't get in childhood. That's really going to be important that you give yourself that now. But of course, we don't need to be perfect. That's why I'm saying rhythms. I think rhythms has been very helpful for when it comes to healing, whether that's cycle syncing and moving in the actual rhythm of my flow. Some weeks, I have more energy. Some weeks, I don't. Some weeks, I need more food. Some weeks, not so much. I have more energy and productivity, and some I don't, and that's okay. And moving in that way really helps my body recalibrate. It helps my body stay in a good stress response, which will also affect my hormones, my weight, my mood, my energy for life, essentially. But one thing that's really helped me regulate my nervous system is having a consistent sleep-wake cycle. Now, this does not need to be perfect, but I try to get into bed around the same time every night, and I try to wake up around the same time every morning. Now, in the mornings, I like to have things like journaling, eating, having my coffee, going for a walk, knowing that I'm going to be doing some exercise, stuff like that. It doesn't have to be the same every day for me, but I know on a day-to-day basis that I am going to be having some sort of routine in the morning. Same thing with at night. At night, I try my best to stop work around, well, there's no real time, but let's say like around five, six-ish, and that's when I'm making some dinner or I'm having dinner. I am connecting with my boyfriend. I'm watching my show. And then again, I'm getting into bed around the same time every day. That really helps my body stay regulated and lower the stress response in my life. The reason why having routines and consistency for your nervous system can be helpful is, again, we don't want to constantly be throwing fire at our nervous systems all day randomly every day, and there's so much unpredictability because we're just going to keep going up into that fight or flight. And if we do that consistently, we're going to stay there, and that's not going to be healthy for our health, our mood, our life in general. So trying our best, and life is not perfect, by the way, if you're watching on YouTube. Theo is up from his nap, and I'm having to stop like every three seconds to watch him, but it's fine. We're getting through this. But having some sort of thing you do consistently to, again, kind of like throw a little bit of water on your fiery nervous system is going to help it come down regularly, and you're going to feel better overall. Now another thing that really affects our nervous systems that I don't think that we really think about is the way that we eat, and specifically our blood sugar levels. When you have foods that consistently spike your insulin, essentially just bring up your blood sugar, you are going to feel not really stable. So it's really important to make sure that your blood sugar is regulated. How you do that is essentially having balanced meals. You want to have meals that have protein, carbs, and fats, essentially. If you have lots of carbs with no protein or healthy fat and even fiber, things like that, I mean, this is a whole another topic. I don't want to go too much into it. Then that is when you will be spiking your blood sugar super high, and that's when you can start to feel very scattered. You can feel high anxiety, things like that. So it's very important that you're having nutrient-dense whole foods. You're cooking foods, of course, as much as you can from home, but even if you're having foods out, thinking about balanced meals will go a long way. It'll also affect your hormones, which, I mean, your nervous system and your hormones are kind of intertwined. Everything is connected, essentially, and that is going to really help you feel more stable. When you are depleted, when you have a lot of sugar spikes throughout the day, it is signaling to your nervous system that we are not safe. We do not have a safe body, and to stay on alert, and that is not going to make us feel any better. Next, let's talk about movement and nature. I think that if you can incorporate different types of movement, whether it's just walking, walking outside in nature, or even indoors if it's winter, I know it can be hard to do that in the winter, but also doing strength training, even stretching. Of course, you want to do movement that you like and that you crave to do, but doing things that also push yourself, like doing some strength training sessions, whether it's in the gym, you're doing a workout app, or on YouTube, or you're going into a class, that builds resilience. That helps your nervous system learn how to get into that fight or flight and really turn on, which again, you want to wake yourself up. Some people have really stagnant energy. People are very shut off and frozen. That can happen a lot. I definitely had many periods in my life where I was just very in freeze mode. There's actually a really good book by, I think her name is Diana, but I'll have the link in the description. It's called Anchored, and it teaches you about the stages of your nervous system and how there's a shutdown mode, and that's where you're literally in freeze mode. You're doing a lot of things like procrastinating, scrolling, but not doing anything like that kind of stuff. Movement is so helpful for you to get out of that, and different from you trying to shake out, or cry, or really move that stress from your body, but doing movement, going outside, connecting with nature is super helpful to regulate the nervous system. Also going outside and watching the sunrise if you can. Also the sunset is super huge. It helps regulate your circadian rhythm as well, which is your natural ability, your body's natural ability to have a normal cortisol spike in the morning. That's when you're alert, when you're awake, and then melatonin production at night. So you're getting tired again, and you're ready to fall asleep. That's really important as well. We are supposed to be more in tune and connected with nature. Cycle syncing is also super helpful when it comes to regulating your nervous system. I kind of already talked about that. So this might not be applicable to everyone because cycle syncing is really only, well, not only for, I hate saying it like that. I think everyone should learn about it, but you're really only going to be able to get the most out of supporting your cycle when you're off hormonal birth control as a woman. Because if you're on hormonal birth control, then you're really suppressing your body's ability to go through these phases in a way that is more natural, essentially. No shade to people who are on birth control. I understand that there's many reasons why. I personally haven't been on it for probably over 10 years, and I know my body so much better, and I can support it in so many different ways based off of which phase that I am in much better that I feel like I've learned how to navigate life and heal from just doing that. But that's just a side note. You honestly can't deny going outside on a walk, a nature walk, and feeling so good and calm. Yesterday, I went out and took Theo to the water because it was a pretty mild day. I think I'm going to do that today. I have to do that today, guys. He is going crazy, like up and down. But he's a puppy, so obviously he wants to play and stuff. But yesterday, I went to the water, and it fixed me. It healed me. It genuinely did just by going outside and hearing the trees and just feeling the wind on my body, my face, seeing a little bit of that sun. There wasn't much sun that was coming out, but there was a little bit, and it just really made me feel good. So please, sometimes regulating your nervous system, it's not about how much money that you can spend on somatic therapies or breathwork classes or retreats or whatever. It's simply about just going outside in nature and getting off that damn phone and speaking to yourself in a way that is loving and compassionate and saying, you know what, you're allowed to feel your feelings. You are valid, but we can also do this. Seriously, that's what it really comes down to, guys. The next thing that I think is absolutely huge, this is something we all need to work on. It is something that I am working on as well, is co-regulation. What do I mean by that? That means having healthy connections in your life because you could do all the things, the breathwork, guided meditations, shaking off your stress, going to the gym, eating foods that are not going to spike your blood sugar, doing all the things, journaling. But if you do not have healthy connections in your life, there's still going to be a missing piece. Your nervous system learns to be regulated through other people. And that is why also when we have parents who are stressed in and out, unpredictable, that's where we can learn how to be in that stressed state as well. But regardless of our upbringing, the people that we were around, not just parents, it could just be toxic people in our lives. We got to go on that journey of removing those people or having healthy boundaries and communicate. Sometimes you can't remove your family and things like that, and that's okay. Understanding that some people are not going to be the healthiest and it's not really about othering because I think that's important to not do as well when you're on a healing journey is to be like, oh, well, I'm just better than you because you're just not regulated. I just can't be in and like, Theo, I don't even know if you guys heard that, but he wants attention. Anyways, it's not all about looking at yourself like you are better than everyone else and you can't be around somebody who is dysregulated. Essentially, the goal would be for you to be able to be resilient, to be around people, places, and things that kind of heighten you in a way. And we can talk about how to have more of a regulated nervous system when it comes to social situations. I was thinking about talking about that next episode. But anyways, it's really just about, okay, maybe I do need to have boundaries with people because why would you want to be constantly triggered by people all the time, but then also just being really resilient. But anyways, being around people who are healthy, of course, is going to be helpful. And this can start if you don't know where and you don't really have a lot of friends and whatever. It's just like those small things like going outside and looking people in the eyes and saying hi to them. Or if you live in a condo, you get into that elevator and you say, have a nice day when you leave the elevator, or you say hi to someone, or you smile, or you say like, how's your day going? Something, those small little interactions are going to signal to your nervous system that you are safe, things are okay, I am supported. Even if these people are not going to be your friends, even if you're never going to see someone again, it's really about showing yourself, your nervous system that there's people around, that you are safe, that community is here. Because of course, we're going to feel in a state of stress when we either perceive or there's actually like no support around us. Of course, we're going to stay in fight or flight because I don't know anyone around me. I'm here on a desert and I'm scared and I don't know where anyone is and I have no support. Like that, of course, it's going to make us feel, whether we know it or not, very stressed. So something that I really like to do is go to workout classes for this reason. There's something about first getting out of my routine because I love to switch up what I'm doing for workouts and things like that. But going to a Pilates class, I use ClassPass to help me get into those Pilates classes because girl, I know they can be expensive. And if you don't have ClassPass, just even trying to do one or two classes, even a month at a Pilates studio, whether it's Matt or Reformer or any sort of workout studio, obviously it doesn't have to be Pilates, where you do like a little day pass or whatever, like they have some rates. And I think that you do that and treat yourself. He's trying to get on me now. This is what he used to do when he was a baby. Theo, come here. Doing things like classes can be a very easy way for you to feel that sense of community. And you don't even need to talk to anyone in a class. It's just really about saying hi to the instructor, hi to the person beside you type of thing. And then you go on with your day. But doing something collectively is very, very important. Even things like doing group projects or working with people, whether you're at like a corporate job or even in a school setting, like at the library or doing something like that, like co-working, whether you're actually working on something together or not, that's super big. And I think that we overlook those things. And I think that we think, oh, well, in order to have a community or friendships or like I'm co-regulating, like I need to be with like these healed elite people, you know, like I need to have all my friends be people who are like regulated or have to have deep connections. Of course that would be great, but you don't need to do that or have that to create a sense of safety amongst others. Obviously things like animals, like I got Theo cause I knew like it's important for me to have an animal with me. Obviously do not get an animal if you are not ready for an animal. But I think that's important. Outside of just listening to podcasts and YouTubers and things like that, like obviously that can help. And I think that that's a great start, but going out and signaling to your nervous system that there are people, places and things that are safe is very important as well. And the last thing, and this is just going to be a brief touch on it, is authenticity and or like creativity and play. I think that's very, very big for rewiring your nervous system, healing trauma, all that kind of stuff. And this to me links back to when you have learned how to shut off your feelings, suppress your emotions and not be your authentic self. You move through life in a very frozen and or suppressed or stressed state. Of course we know that's not good for us physically, but also mentally. And I think the opposite of trauma essentially would be, okay, learning and going on a journey of letting myself be my most authentic self, right? Speaking and talking. It's so crazy to me and I think it was pretty crazy for, not crazy, but it was very beautiful for my mom to see when I had my podcast because I was the shy kid. I was so shy. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I just hid behind my mom and I never like put up my hand in school and I doubted myself and I was so nervous, all those things. And to now like have a podcast and to be somebody who, when I go into social situations, I'm not saying that I'm like the most social person and I'm just like all over everyone, but I know how to have a conversation. I have conversations with people like I am my authentic self as much as I can be. I'm not saying that I'm perfect, but I am definitely more my authentic self. And even going in the direction of having a podcast, I had that desire within my heart and I went for it. Things like that, that is helping me heal. Healing is not all about, again, doing the breath work and doing a retreat or going to therapy. Healing is about allowing yourself to be real and authentic and going for your dreams. You want to become a YouTuber, you want to be a podcaster, you want to have a product, you want to write a book, you want to start dance, you want to go into the community and change the community that you live in, whatever it is, you got to go do that. That's healing in itself. I found another quote from Gabor and it says, the essence of trauma is a disconnection from the self. Therefore, the essence of healing is not just uncovering one's past, but reconnecting with oneself in the present. That's really all that it is, guys. It is coming home to yourself. Okay? And when you come home to yourself, you learn the things that you suppress, you learn the things that you really want, and you go more in the direction of letting yourself be that by first coming home to yourself and understanding yourself and allowing yourself to feel your feelings and talking to yourself in a more compassionate and loving way, letting go of that trauma, letting it through your body when you need to, you will start to see a change in your life. And what happens when you start doing that more consistently, not perfectly, consistently in your life is you're going to start to open your capacity to be able to do more. Trust me. If you're wanting to be somebody who is more creative, who is more engaged in life and connects with others and has the capacity to show up in life, you will start to feel that the more you regulate your nervous system and the more you remind yourself that you are safe, even in the unsafe circumstances. That's what's happened for me. The more I create that stability, routine, predictability, and joy for life and follow what feels good, it's like a domino effect. I start having new insights. I start having more capacity to show up and see friends and connect with others and want to go live my life. But of course you're not going to want to go live your life when you're waking up every single day, your mindset is negative. You're perceiving everything as a threat. You're not eating right. You're not moving. You're not moving your stuck energy, your stress. You don't even understand what is going on within you. Of course, you're not going to feel creative. You're not going to want to go play. You're not going to want to just do things for the fun of it. You're not going to want to go and live out your dream life. Your nervous system is going to be the thing that dictates whether you're going to have confidence with yourself to go for your dream life as well. That is another big thing because if you don't feel safe, you're not going to do it. So it all really comes down to your nervous system and how you do that is through the things I talked about in this episode is yes, moving your stuck energy, speaking to yourself in a kind way, a loving way, understanding your past, and doing it consistently essentially. So I hope this episode helped in some way. I could talk about this topic for ages. Essentially, I do all the time. Anyways, I'll have all the links to the resources and like the things I talked about down below. Of course, my journal series will be down below as well. And with that said, I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.