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Heal Your Nervous System By Doing Nothing · Bye Bye Panic

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was that healing isn't something you force.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's something you stop interfering with.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just learning to sit with it.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know this sounds incredibly difficult because when we're dealing with a high-per-sensitive nervous system where we're experiencing dizziness, digestive issues, anxiety, panic, we are convinced that our body is broken.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when we feel like our body is broken, we develop this reflex, like we need to do something to make the symptoms go away.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if we don't do something, well, the symptoms will get worse.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they will never go away.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what if I was to tell you that that impulse, that reflex of fighting it, resisting it, is actually what's keeping your symptoms alive?
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And how the way out of this is actually the most difficult thing to do, which is just learning to sit with it.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in this video, I want to share with you how you can get better at sitting with the emotion, the discomfort, the sensation, and why sitting with this leads to freedom.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into it.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the first part is just understanding why allowing and sitting with the sensation even works.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: In order to understand that, you want to know how the nervous system operates.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system simply put, is designed to protect you from threats.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are other functions of it, but for the sake of understanding it in this context, your nervous system is designed to protect you from sabre-tube tigers, from tribal warfare,
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, when you're dealing with these physical sensations, these physical symptoms, or the intrusive thoughts or the anxiety and panic, what's happened is that your nervous system has misunderstood these sensations as dangerous.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So your nervous system is assuming the dizziness is like a saber tooth tiger.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And anytime you feel the dizziness, you might notice that you want to avoid the sensation.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just feels too uncomfortable.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might resist it, you might hold onto a table, you might react in a certain way.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what happens is that your nervous system gets the message that this feeling of dizziness is dangerous.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: because look at the way Sean is reacting.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when we try to feel better in the moment, whenever we try to find relief, what we're doing is teaching our nervous system that this symptom is dangerous, that there is something wrong, that there is something to look out for.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now you might be thinking, Sean, I feel sensations even before this.
• 2:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So why am I feeling these symptoms and sensations now?
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And why is this reinforcing the cycle?
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a really important piece to understand because what's happened is that your nervous system has become sensitized.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's become very sensitive to the stressors.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you're dealing with this for a long time, your nervous system becomes more sensitive as a consequence.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So whenever you're in a stressful situation, your nervous system doesn't develop resiliency.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It actually gets more sensitive to stress.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it's saying, hey, there's something dangerous, there's something out there.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's become more primed for that danger.
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So anytime you feel the dizziness,
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll notice your nervous system focuses more on the dizziness.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's saying, hey, the dizziness is here.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: What do you do?
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's very important to understand this mechanism, which is you experience the sensation.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You begin resisting it in some capacity.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that resistance reinforces the nervous system to stay on protection mode, which leads to more symptoms.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is why the symptoms are alive.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now allowing the sensations to be there and just learning to sit with it is not easy, but the first principle I want you to understand is that there is no substitute to allowing the sensation to be there.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oftentimes we will use things like coal plunges or supplements or breathing exercises or some sort of coping strategy to try to feel better in the moment.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're really looking into what's happening, you're trying to circumvent the feeling.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're saying I'm feeling intense panic, I'm feeling intense dizziness or digestive issues or nausea or whatever it is.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so let me try this one thing so that I don't feel that.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: and so you circumvent that, but every time you circumvent it, you're teaching your nervous system that this is dangerous.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the answer to this is just learning to sit with it to feel the sensation.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, once you recognize that all you need to do is learn to sit with the sensation, the question is, well, do I need to do these breathy exercises?
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do I need to do these coal plunges?
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do I need to do
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: and the answer becomes really clear.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: These things are tools to help you feel it better.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're not there to help you circumvent the emotion, the sensation, the symptom.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's really important to ask yourself,
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why are you using these tools?
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you using these tools to better feel the emotion or the symptom or are you using it to circumvent it?
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might hear this quote very often and it is very true which is you need to feel it to heal it.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now there's a couple of reasons why people aren't willing to sit with the feeling.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The first is that they have a narrative or they have a story around the symptom.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, for example, they don't want to feel the heart palpitations because they're afraid that it's an onset of a heart attack.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even though they've gone to their doctor several times and their doctor says everything is fine.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason why people are not willing to feel this sensation is because they have a story attached to it.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so this is a very important piece, which is separating the story from the signal.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's just asking yourself, what sensations are you feeling?
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so if that's the dizziness, if that's the exhaustion, if that's the brain fog, if that's the anxiety, if that's the panic.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you afraid of this sensation?
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you afraid of what this sensation might mean?
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the first piece is learning to separate that and recognizing that there is a narrative that's created around these sensations and that that narrative is not true.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is why I always talk about understanding what I call the mechanics of a hypersensitive nervous system, learning why your nervous system creates such bizarre symptoms.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once you understand that, it will demystify a lot of the fears.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: It separates the story from the signal.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you want to know more about that, there's a bunch of resources in the description box.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that is the first type, which is understanding why you're experiencing these sensations.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And not knowing why can create a lot of fear around it.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The second is, is that you just don't want to feel the discomfort.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: because the feeling sucks.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And we often think that if I'm going to have this feeling, what if it just gets to intense where I can't bear it?
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Or what if this sensation doesn't seem to go away?
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if I allow it?
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it just doesn't seem to go away.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It actually gets worse.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the second piece is just learning to get comfortable with the discomfort, feeling the discomfort, and recognize that all the fears you have around it, the only way to mitigate that is by going through it.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's through experience.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you're experiencing a panic attack and you let it pass without trying to fight it without creating a story and the panic attack passes, what you're going to find
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: that the panic attack was just adrenaline burning itself off and what was keeping the panic attack alive was you avoiding it and that was creating more adrenaline in the body and when that adrenaline hits a peak the body just releases it so the panic attack hits you all at once but whenever you're resisting that peak what your body has a harder time burning off that adrenaline but if you can just let the adrenaline burn itself off.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll notice, the panic attack goes away faster, and more importantly, you show yourself that you don't need to do anything.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: All you need to do is just learn to sit with it.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you can apply that to every symptom you're dealing with, you will see every symptom begins to pass on their own.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you start developing confidence in your nervous system, in your body that you don't need to do anything about it.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: This reflex of trying to fix it
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, something important that I've seen after helping thousands of people on this healing journey is that they will use these coping crutches and they will still use it with the hope that the sensation goes away.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's important to understand that if you want to use these tools or techniques, that's fine, but don't use them as a way to avoid feeling the feeling.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once you understand that you can just feel the feeling without resisting it, you'll often notice that you don't need to use these tools.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now you might be thinking, okay, if do I have to sit with this emotion all the time, the feeling, do I have to just close myself in a dark room and just feel this way through?
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: This leads me to point two, which is you can live your life while still experiencing everything.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Healing from a hypersensitive nervous system doesn't happen from going to live in a cave and isolating yourself and just feeling everything out.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Healing is about learning to live your life and focusing on the things that matter to you, while you let the healing happen in the background.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if that means spending time with your kids, going back to work, doing that vacation you've been wanting to do, you can do all those things while healing at the same time.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's very simple.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: All you do is you live your life and any time you feel the discomfort, the uncomfortable emotion, you just feel it and move forward.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can do everything you want to do while you let the sensation be there.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not an either or strategy where you need to dedicate time feeling the motion or feeling the physical symptom and then you go back to living and then you go back into panic mode.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't work that way.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about doing both things.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can live your life.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can focus on your obligations, your responsibilities.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And whenever you feel that intense disownness or that breathlessness or the brain fog, recognize it, feel it, and move forward without attaching any stories to it.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why you will find people that talk about meditation for the healing journey and you'll also find people that talk about meditation and say, didn't work.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: it's all about the intention.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you're using meditation as a way to avoid the feeling, well, it's not going to work.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But meditation can be a practice to letting things be, to becoming the observer.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when you're the observer, you're not trying to fix things.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not creating stories around it.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're feeling the sensation.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're feeling the emotion.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're letting it pass through you.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you get used to that, as you develop that skill, when you go back to living and things don't go your way, or you feel a sensation, or you get frustrated, you get better at responding to it.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So think of meditation as the practice, but think of life as the game.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You want to be living life, you want to be playing the game, and anytime you feel that intense symptom, you just let it be.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the third point is probably the most important point because you might be thinking, okay, if I let it be, will this go away?
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Will the symptom finally disappear, Sean?
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to talk about this because what I found is that when people learn about how to heal their nervous system, they develop this expectation that if I do this, this should come back to me.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they, and they develop almost like healing is like a transaction.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I told
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to share with you on my healing journey.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever I was dealing with these symptoms and sensations and I felt like I was the only person on earth going through this, I wasn't sure that the methodology that I'm showing to you right now was going to work.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just didn't know and I hadn't seen people recover and this was the only thing I hadn't tried.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so whenever I began applying these principles, I didn't do this with the expectation that this should work.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: My main focus was, I'm just going to do this, and whatever happens, whatever outcome it's there, I have no control over that.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: All I can focus on is how I respond in the moment.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason why I'm sharing the stories because once I started helping people, once people started understanding what was happening, their experience is a little bit different, because they came with the expectation that if I do this, this will work.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: My expectation is this is the only thing I haven't tried.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I was on the healing journey, I remember reading this line in the Bhagavad-gita which says, you have a right to your actions, but never the fruits of your action.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: The fuller version reads something like, you're entitled to the work itself, but not to its results.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So never act for the sake of the reward and never be attached to an action either.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is people develop this expectation that if I just respond, well, I should heal.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: and the truth is, is that healing comes to you.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But anytime you're doing things with the expectation of, okay, I'm just going to let this be.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now I should feel better.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it didn't happen.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you know, I'm frustrated.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is not how healing works.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's the same way of how you're responding to your symptoms.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Insomnia is a great example.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people that are struggling with insomnia, they are trying to force themselves to sleep.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're focusing on sleep hygiene.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're trying to focus on sleeping at the exact time.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're saying, I'm tired.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let me go to sleep.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Am I at my sleep?
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Am I tired?
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Am I going to sleep?
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to sleep.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're developing a transaction with sleep.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But ask anybody that sleeps, they will tell you, you don't just grab sleep, sleep comes to you.
• 14:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You get in your bed, you get relaxed, and sleep comes to you.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: But anytime you're checking in, have I slept yet?
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Am I asleep?
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh God, what if I don't sleep?
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're preventing it.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're preventing sleep coming to you.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: healing is the same way.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you're letting it be and you have this expectation that, okay, I'm putting in the work, so I expect the outcome too.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you end up delaying it.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not doing this to make this go away.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're delaying it and worse of all, you're fundamentally only responding because you're still trying to feel better.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you're still making feelings the most important part of your journey.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so this might seem really small and it might just seem like a couple of degrees of separation, but it makes the difference between someone that heals and someone that doesn't, which is they are focusing on the response because they know everything else they've tried hasn't worked.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: and they are responding for the sake of the response, not responding with the intention of making the school away.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to understand that you can have two people that respond to the exact same way, but their intentions are radically different, and hence their recovery is totally flipped.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what you want to do is recognize that there is no substitute for letting it be there.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And recognize you can let it be there while living your life fully.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while you're living your life fully, you can do this without this expectation of a transaction if I do this will this work.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You will see through experience as you do this that healing comes to you.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It comes on its own timeline.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And whenever we're trying to map out the healing journey without fully understanding how it works, that's where we get frustrated.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I hope this video helps.
• 16:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope it lets you sit with it better.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to know more about the principles of healing, like I said, check the resources down below.
• 16:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can also apply to the mentorship program.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope this video helped.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you in the next one.