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38. You Don't Need to Calm Your Nervous System Down · HEY, AMBITIOUS

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to calm your nervous system down.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Ambitious.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Hey Ambitious Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is the space for ambitious women where we don't apologize at people, wanting more, creating more, and experiencing more.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, more is your expansion.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of ambitious women perceive that expansion requires more from them.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what if it doesn't?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: What if it requires more of them?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: More of you.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna have a talk about the nervous system.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you probably hear this a lot.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Calm your nervous system down.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: What if you don't need to calm your nervous system down?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: What if vitality is what you actually need?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to start this episode with today.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little controversial.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to calm your nervous system.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: At least not in the way we've started talking about nervous system regulation.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Come down, ground yourself, get regulated, don't get activated, get back to safety.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I teach nervous system work.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I believe deeply in learning how to work with your body and understanding your nervous system states.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: But somewhere along the way, I think we accidentally turned nervous system regulation into another achievement, another thing to get right, another way to evaluate ourselves.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Am I regulated enough?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: For an ambitious woman who already knows how to turn practically anything into a performance review.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now we can fail at relaxing too.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want to propose today.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the goal of nervous system work was never to make you calm.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to help you become more alive, more adaptable, more connected, more capable of experiencing uncertainty without immediately needing to control it, more willing to explore, more available for joy, creativity, relationships, ambition, desire, and possibility.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's vitality.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about it this way.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Vitality is the biological expression of possibility.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let me explain this.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was very good at doing.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: For many years, I owned a large franchise restaurant business, and I've had many entrepreneurial adventures since.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: I knew how to work, I knew how to solve problems, I knew how to keep moving, I knew how to accomplish something, and immediately ask, okay, what's next?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you know this feeling.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can have a productivity day, an objectively productive day, and climb into bed thinking, I did not do enough.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: You accomplish the thing you'd been working toward, and within about five minutes, your brain has already moved the finish line.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: There was always something else.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Another problem, another responsibility, another goal, another level.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not realize at the time that my system had become incredibly familiar with this way of living.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Doing felt familiar.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Pressure felt familiar.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Movement felt familiar.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Urgency felt familiar.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So even when I went on vacation, I couldn't simply arrive at the beach, put my feet up and go, ha no.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: It would take me days to unwind.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: My body had left work, but work had never left my body.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And here is what I've come to understand: that was not evidence that something was wrong with me.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: My nervous system had simply gotten very good at practicing what I had repeatedly asked it to practice.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our brains are extraordinary learning machines.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain is constantly predicting.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: One useful way modern neuroscience understands the brain is through predictive processing.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain does not simply wait for life to happen and then respond.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's constantly anticipating.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Based on everything I've experienced before, it's kind of like going into that Rolodex of my experiences, if you remember what Rolodex is.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: What is likely to happen next?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that prediction helps your brain decide what deserves attention, what might be dangerous, what can be ignored, and how your body should prepare.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your previous experiences become part of the information your brain uses to interpret the present.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Which means, and this is very important, familiar does not automatically mean good.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Familiar simply means I know this.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if pressure has been practiced thousands of times, your system knows pressure.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: If overworking has been practiced thousands of times, your system knows overworking.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: If achieving and immediately moving the goalpost has been practiced thousands of times, your system knows that too.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then one Saturday morning you say, Today I'm doing absolutely nothing.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And ten minutes later, maybe I'll just answer this one email.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty minutes later, you are reorganizing your entire business.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow by noon, you've created a spreadsheet.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ambitious women, you know exactly what I'm talking about here.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can turn REST into a project.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's involved in arousal and attention.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Although the popular idea that the RAS alone magically filters reality for your goals is an oversimplification.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the broader neuroscience point is very real.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain selectively attends to what it has learned is important.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let me repeat this.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Your brain selectively attends to what it has learned is important.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is far more information around you at this moment that your conscious mind could possibly process.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So attention has to prioritize.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not with positive thinking, with curiosity.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And curiosity is incredibly important for vitality.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: This brings us to the nervous system.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your autonomic nervous system is constantly adjusting your physiology according to what your body needs.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need activation, like when you get excited, sometimes you need rest, sometimes you need focused attention, sometimes you need social connection, sometimes you need to run, sometimes you need to dance.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need to stand on a stage with your heart beating faster and say the thing you came here to say, even though it's scary.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: A perfectly calm nervous system is not the goal.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Think about your heart.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: A healthy heart does not beat like a metronome at precisely the same interval every single time.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is natural variation between heartbeats that we call heart rate variability.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Adaptability is built into healthy physiology.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is where polyvegal theory has also contributed an important idea to the conversation.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Our autonomic state influences our capacity for social engagement, connection, and how we respond to challenge.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I like to translate that very simply.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Can I stay connected to myself while life is happening?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not can I prevent myself from ever becoming activated?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: But can I get excited?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Can I experience uncertainty?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can I walk into a room where I don't know anyone?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can I launch something without knowing whether people will buy it?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can I hear no?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Can I receive yes?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can I make more money?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Can I rest without earning it?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Can I want something bigger without making who I am today is an insufficient?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And through all of that, can I remain connected to myself?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's a very different definition of regulation.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is where ambition changes.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because ambition is not the problem.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love ambition.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Wanting more is not the problem.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, what is fueling it?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: For years, my ambition was very often fueled by pressure.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do more, prove more, achieve more, get there.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps then I'll finally experience the feeling I'm looking for.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Except there kept moving.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because you cannot satisfy an identity organized around not enough by giving it another achievement.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: It simply incorporates the achievement and says, Great, what's next?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's the roller coaster.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: But possibility introduces another way of creating.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's completely different energy, don't you feel?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now creation is not an escape from yourself, it's an expression of yourself.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And isn't that what we're here for?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: To express ourselves in this physical form.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is basically where this sentence came to me.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Vitality is the biological expression of possibility.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because think about what happens when you feel truly alive.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're curious, you're engaged, you're interested, you notice things, you play, you connect, you experiment, you move towards something, you allow yourself to be surprised.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Those are also the conditions in which creation happens.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Possibility does not mean sitting on your couch saying anything is possible.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Possibility requires participation.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And participation requires enough nervous system capacity to encounter something you haven't experienced before.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's why uncertainty is so important.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Creation, by definition, contains uncertainty.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you already know exactly what will happen, you're repeating.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're not creating.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Every business, every book, every relationship, every piece of art, every reinvention of yourself, every dream you've ever made real, at some point required you to step into something that did not exist yet.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's possibility.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I created the possibility experiments.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I did not create the possibility experiments because I want you to sit around thinking happy thoughts.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I created them because I want us to practice possibility, to interrupt prediction, to notice when the mind says, I already know how this goes, and become curious enough to ask, do I?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: What if I'm willing to be wrong about what's possible?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: What if today surprises me?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: What if there is something here I haven't noticed?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: What if I make one choice differently?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every experiment gives your brain and body a tiny experience of stepping outside the familiar prediction.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how learning happens.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Through experience, through attention, through repetition, through new evidence.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to eliminate uncertainty.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: We are increasing our capacity to meet uncertainty without abandoning ourselves.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that's one of the most important capacities an ambitious woman can develop.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because your next level is not familiar.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: By definition, you've never lived there.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So here's your experiment.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Today, notice when you're trying to regulate yourself back into being okay, and instead of immediately asking, how do I calm myself down?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Try asking, what would help me feel more alive and connected right now?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's three slow breaths.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's walking outside.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's calling someone you love.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's music, maybe it's movement, maybe it's finally sending the email, maybe it's resting, maybe it's doing this slightly scary thing your body is energized by.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're not chasing activation either.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are practicing responsiveness, movement, adaptability, connection, vitality.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because perhaps your nervous system is not something you need to constantly manage.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it's something you can learn to live with.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the goal is not to become calmer, maybe it's to become more alive.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because vitality is the biological expression of possibility.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And possibility that's where creation begins.