Latest / (re)Parenting Radio / 36: Sometimes “I Want to Give Up” Is a Nervous System Alarm - Healing Is Knowing What to Do When the Spiral Starts

Transcript

36: Sometimes “I Want to Give Up” Is a Nervous System Alarm - Healing Is Knowing What to Do When the Spiral Starts · (re)Parenting Radio

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reparenting Radio.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Lisa Watson, architect of human transformation.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is a space for leaders, parents, and anyone ready to break old patterns, regulate their nervous system, and show up in their life with clarity and self-trust.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to change the way you lead, love, and live, you're in the right place.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, and welcome back to Reparenting Radio.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I am so excited to talk about this today because I know how much it's impacted me.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about something that's fairly personal and transparent, and something that I think a lot more people are experiencing than we realize, especially entrepreneurs, parents, healers, leaders, and basically anyone who's trying to consciously change their life right now.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, I almost didn't record this episode this week, not because I didn't have anything to say, but because this past week I got hit with one of the strongest waves of nervous system dysregulation that I've had in quite a while.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It only lasted about 24 hours, but it was really intense, and it was quite the learning experience, and I'm really excited to share it with you today.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: But while I was in it, my mind was fully convinced that my life was falling apart.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was questioning absolutely everything.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And mind you, this was less than 24 hours ago.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was questioning my career, my purpose, my future, my work, my relationship, my ability to make money, whether I was delusional or not, or whether I've wasted years trying to build something that maybe people don't even want, or that I'm not capable of building.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm spiraling, I have to tell you.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And what's fascinating is that today I feel back in my body, back to my old self, and almost nothing external has changed from the last in the last 12 hours, last 24 hours, nothing has changed.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: But my nervous system has.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And because my nervous system changed, my perception changed, my thoughts have changed, and that is what we're going to talk about today.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes we make permanent conclusions about ourselves from very temporary nervous system states.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that is very dangerous.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people right now who may think that they are failing are not actually failing.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're simply overloaded, they're disoriented, disconnected, undersupported, emotionally flooded, and environmentally dysregulated as well as physically dysregulated.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're in these states, the mind creates stories to explain that feeling because you are a vibrational, your thoughts are a vibrational match to your nervous system.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if your nervous system's completely out of whack, the quantum field is going to feed you thoughts that are in alignment with wherever your nervous system is.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is why I stress regulating the nervous system so much.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It has so much more to do with thoughts than we actually realize.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So this week had been layered with many, many, many dysregulators for me.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't really one giant dramatic event or anything, it was just stacking of things.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the nervous system, it doesn't separate stress neatly at all.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: It stacks everything.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that really threw me off this week was that I had to quit my core power yoga studio.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I know some of you may be thinking that, okay, that's that's not really a big deal, especially because I live here in Southern California and there's yoga studios absolutely everywhere.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not a huge deal.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a really big deal to me and to my body because I had finally gotten into a groove there.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was feeling stronger, I had been going there about two months, I was regulating, I was building consistency, I was seeing changes in my body, I was reconnecting with movement, routine, structure, and I was in a place where I was also building community, being new to where I'm living.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality was that the classes, especially the sculpt classes, had become just way too loud for my nervous system.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: The music was just really overwhelming, physically overwhelming, to the point where I was ended up leaving classes early several times, and I finally came to the conclusion that I was leaving more dysregulated than I was regulated, even with my earplugs in.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept trying prior to quitting, I kept trying to push through it because I really wanted it to work so badly because there were parts of it that I liked.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like being in a toxic relationship.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're like looking at, but I like this about them and this and that, and this is all great.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But meanwhile, you're actually in a toxic relationship.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in a toxic relationship with core power, and I finally woke up to it and I and I broke up with them.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So at the same time, during this in you know, in my life, this personal story that I'm telling you, I'm living in a situation right now where there's a fair amount of dysregulation around me in my home with parenting and children, and and I've realized something important that just because you understand the nervous system doesn't mean everyone around you does or even wants to.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be hard.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: That can be hard to the person who does understand, especially when you care deeply and when you can see patterns, and especially when you know that support is available, but someone isn't ready to receive it.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I started realizing that I was becoming activated daily by the environment itself.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And more from, you know, just from a nervous system point of view, not from a conscious thought point of view.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And not because anyone is bad or wrong or anything like that, but because nervous systems affect each other.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Your nervous system is not private.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're living with someone who's dysregulated, that can severely impact you.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes the emotional environment.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I started noticing that when evening time rolls around and dinner time, bathtime, bedtime's coming, my body started bracing.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I could feel myself becoming tense before anything even happened.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized, oh my gosh, my body no longer feels safe here during these hours.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like we know dysregulation's about to happen and we need to get out of here.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really important to have that level of awareness.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the added entrepreneurial pressure on top of all that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a trifecta here.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: I got my yoga studio, I got nervous system dysregulation at home, and then I got this entrepreneurial path that I'm on, you know, financial uncertainty, building something unconventional.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to create work that people don't even fully understand yet.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm doing here isn't like opening a coffee shop where people immediately understand what you do.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: The work I do requires people to first recognize that they even have subconscious programming running their lives.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And most people don't even realize their nervous system is shaping their relationships, their leadership, their parenting, their health, their identity, their money patterns, that their beliefs create, every aspect of their reality.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Most people clearly do not know that, and that's why I'm here.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So there are moments where I look around and I think, you know, what am I even doing?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this week, those thoughts got really, really loud.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be honest, the other night, last night, I got into a really dark emotional place, and I and I just wanted to quit everything, absolutely everything, including this life.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I wanted to die or was going to do anything drastic, but because it really felt so awful and my nervous system was so overwhelmed that my mind just kept generating these escape thoughts as a safety mechanism.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a difference, and I think that we need to talk about this more openly because when people become severely dysregulated, the brain starts searching for exits, escape, relief, disappearance, shutdown.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what was happening to me.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting in my car, I called my husband, um, I'm talking to him on the phone.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's still in Mexico right now, which is also number four.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: My significant other spouse isn't even living in the same country with me right now.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just so overwhelmed.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave me some really good advice.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: He told me to call my son or to call a girlfriend or to go be around someone that could ground me and help me feel safe.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it was the evening and everyone was at work or they had, you know, worked all day, had to go to work the next day, or they're just, you know, live too far away.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just sitting there staring, listening to my husband talk, and I was just staring at my hand, just staring at it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I started wiggling my fingers, kind of like you do when you're pretending to be like a puppet, you know, like talking to a child, like your hand is talking to you.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I just kept saying to myself, Lisa, just stay right here.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa, just stay right here.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my hand was talking to me, keeping me grounded.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it was saying, Don't follow that thought.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't follow that thought, stay right here.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the moment that really helped to change, change it for me because I realized I don't need to follow every thought that my nervous system is generating right now.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the biggest realizations I had through through this was that nothing catastrophic had actually happened.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't nothing in my life, it was really different yesterday than it was the day before.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing had had suddenly collapsed overnight.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: But my nervous system state had changed.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And because my nervous system had changed, my thoughts changed.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that was such an important awareness for me because I kept asking myself prior to having that little epiphany talking to my aunt, you know, why am I choosing these thoughts right now?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why do these stories suddenly feel so true?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it so hard for me to access trust and possibility and gratitude right now?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why can't I reach for a better thought?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized this is not a mindset issue.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is a nervous system issue.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And once I was able to switch my focus from this isn't a problem with your life, this isn't even a problem with your thoughts, this is a problem with your nervous system.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because when the body feels unsafe, the brain starts scanning for evidence that something's wrong.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's trying to feed you a match to why you feel the way you do.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: It starts selecting thoughts that are going to match the state of the nervous system.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it's a it's an energetic match.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thoughts aren't housed in your brain, they're housed out in the field.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the thoughts are attracted to whatever state your nervous system is in.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think many of us don't realize how often we're interpreting our entire lives through the lens of a temporary dysregulated nervous system.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the same life can feel beautiful one day and absolutely impossible the next day, depending on the state of the body.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to think of this when it comes to things like ADHD or bipolar, you know, depression, anxiety, think nervous system.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you get into a place like this, it doesn't mean that your intuition is wrong or your emotions are wrong.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that we need to become more aware of the state that we're in before we build an identity or a future around the thoughts that we're thinking and the stories that we're telling ourselves.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So this, you know, that realization that I had last night, it it allowed me to switch my thinking into what tools do I need right now?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I need to use some tools to get my nervous system back regulated.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I hung up my husband and I knew I wasn't gonna go home, and I thought, okay, what can I do?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I used my tools.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't use them perfectly, not necessarily spiritual tools, or they weren't, you know, it's not it's not pretty.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just say that.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always pretty.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: But what I decided to do was I sat in my car, I returned a couple emails, I responded to a few texts because they were things that were weighing on me, and I wanted to get back to people.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that that pressure of not getting back to people was impacting my nervous system.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I do value being responsible.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we have to go back to our values and look at what's really important to us.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start there.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I value communication, I revalue value responding in a timely manner and being professional.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I went ahead and I took care of those few things emails, texts.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next thing on my list was exercise.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I got out and I walked.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I decided to just go for a really long walk.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I got myself uh a nice drink, a nice um tea, and I started walking.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly but surely my body started returning to itself.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was getting to be late, like eight, nine o'clock at night.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um I started I started feeling better.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I actually also got myself something to eat.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I did end up going home, got listened to some nice music.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, when I was walking around, I was also listening to my favorites' playlist, which was really, really helping helping me.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what regulation looks like.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not some, you know, perfect meditation posture, necessarily needing to get out your yoga mat.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's just movement, music, nature, connection, getting a few tasks completed that are gonna make you feel good.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like maybe you want to fold the laundry that's all over your bed or pick up your room and clear out some of the clutter just to make your immediate space feel a little more clean and grounded.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's about sensory grounding.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, that's what I really want people to understand.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: That healing is not becoming someone who never spirals.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Healing is becoming someone who knows what to do when they start to spiral.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that is completely different when we're talking about a level of self-trust.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what's fascinating is this morning I didn't feel the same as I did last night at all.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: My life had not magically changed overnight.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I still have the same circumstances that I had yesterday.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: But my nervous system changed, which changed my perspective, which changed my perception of my reality, which changed the stories I was telling myself.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I teach this work, because most people they trust the thoughts that they think while they're dysregulated.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: They give them too much credence and weight.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of our biggest traps.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: We start building identities from temporary nervous system states, like I'm a failure, I'll never make it, I'm behind, or my life is ruined, I should just quit, I'm not cut out for this.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what if you're not seeing reality clearly right now?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: What if your body just feels unsafe?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very different conversation.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this reminded me of something beautiful that happened with me and my son just last weekend.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: We'd spent an entire evening together.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking and connecting and laughing.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: We just had a really great day, great night.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and the previous day, I had accidentally triggered him around something.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and at the time that it happened, I could feel him becoming dysregulated.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then I noticed something really important, which was that as he was becoming dysregulated, I noticed, oh no, I feel it coming.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm starting to get dysregulated.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the old version of me may have stayed right there with him in the conversation, maybe defended myself, tried to explain, try to calm him down.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: But this time, I recognized what was happening in real time.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And before I said something reactive to him, I looked at him and I said, Listen, I'm gonna go sit in my car for a minute.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: You go take a shower, go get cleaned up, text me when you're ready.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I walked away.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a tool.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's healing.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's not perfection, it's space, it's creating space, enough space to interrupt the pattern before it becomes destruction.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And later we talked about it.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: He actually called me and he's like, Did you leave?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he heard me explain because he was dysregulated.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, No, no, I'm just sitting in my car.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was just giving you a chance to, you know, get settled.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Oh, okay, I'm all, you know, I'm all settled, and and I was able to go back and back into his space.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And later we talked about how healing doesn't mean that life stops affecting you.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Healing means that you develop an arsenal of tools.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some things that used to trigger you may maybe they won't anymore, but other things they still will.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But now, what I reach for, and this is the difference, is that I reach for tools now instead of dysregulation, because the tools are always there.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I think that this is one of the biggest misconceptions in the healing world right now is that people think that healing means I no longer get triggered, I no longer feel pain, I no longer spiral, I no longer have dark thoughts.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm healed.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Healing means I recognize what's happening faster.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to support myself through this.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know when to pause.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I know when not to engage.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to come back.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is nervous system leadership.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to say something specifically to entrepreneurs and people building unconventional paths right now, because I know there are a lot of us out here doing this, creating a new world, paving the way.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: This work is hard, especially when you're creating something that people don't fully understand yet.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this week I met with someone, just today, actually, today, this morning, I met with someone, um, his name's Jeremy, and he works in the consulting world, and he's building work around belief systems and human behavior inside organizations and corporations, just like I am.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And talking with him helped me tremendously because he reminded me that this kind of work takes time, that people don't always immediately understand the value of subconscious work, nervous system work, emotional patterning work.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean it isn't valuable.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're simply early, and sometimes your nervous system interprets early as failure.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important to anyone launching a new app or a new product or a new idea.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a huge difference between it's not working.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it just fully hasn't landed yet.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we haven't got to the part where it's adopted by more than 37% of the people, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in one of those places right now, one of those seasons in your life where your nervous system feels overloaded for whatever reason, it doesn't have to be anything dramatic.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: It could be your yoga studio.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if your identity is feeling shaky or your future's feeling uncertain, I want to remind you, do not build your identity from a dysregulated state.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Never make a decision in a dysregulated state.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do not make permanent decisions from a temporary nervous system overwhelm.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And please remember, you do not need to become someone who never struggles.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: You need to become someone who knows how to return to themselves.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's the work.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not perfection, it's return over and over and over again.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe today, instead of asking, what's wrong with me?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ask, what does my nervous system need right now?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: That question alone can change everything.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here with me today, and thank you for allowing me to be human while I teach this work.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think that matters too.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next week, friends.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Reparenting Radio.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: If today's conversation supported you, take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who knows they were made for more than the patterns that they inherited.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're ready for serious inner work and real transformation, personally or professionally, you can explore my leadership pathways at Lisa-Watson.com.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're raising little ones alongside your own healing, you'll find my children's books at awakintheone.org.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay grounded, stay open, and keep reparenting the parts of you that are ready to come home to their authenticity.