Latest / The Birth Lounge Podcast / Ep. 443: From overwhelm to calm: understanding your nervous system with Dr Brooke Weinstein

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Ep. 443: From overwhelm to calm: understanding your nervous system with Dr Brooke Weinstein · The Birth Lounge Podcast

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your brain has been patterned for years and years and years, especially if you're decades old and you've never done this work, right? So you have to become aware of your patterns.
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You have to be aware of how your engine runs, how you tick, and when the check engine light is on, and when you know you need an oil change or when you need gas in the tank.
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Like you have to become aware of what is going on in your brain and your body.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Birth Lounge podcast.
All right, you guys, today we're talking about the nervous system, and if you're anything like me, then you're not new to this journey, but I know from my dms on Instagram, from the emails that we receive and from the conversations that we have.
Inside of the birth lounge that many of you are new to this conversation and the idea of understanding your nervous system can be not only really complex, but it can feel really overwhelming, very daunting, because there is so much to understand.
Well, I'm really excited to have today's conversation because we're gonna start at a really.
Basic level so that we can start to lay the foundation for future episodes on how you as a mom can really start to replenish your nervous system.
We can start to put back into our bodies.
We can start to maybe unwind some of those learned patterns that are no longer serving us.
If you are like so many moms out there and you feel like you are constantly stressed out.
You're constantly carrying the weight of the world.
You are being that primary parent in your home.
You are constantly feeling like you're stuck in fight or flight.
Then today's episode is going to be for you.
I am so excited to be being joined by Dr.
Brooke Weinstein, who is the leading expert in neuroscience-based sensory and emotional regulation who empowers parents to be high performers with practical science-based strategies to create a happier, healthier life.
She's a doctor of occupational therapy and the creator of Thrive Like a parent podcast.
Dr.
Brooke brings a refreshing, real world approach to healing burnout.
I personally have learned so much from her Instagram, but deeper than that.
I've learned even more from listening to her podcast, which I started listening to in pregnancy as a way to prepare myself for parenthood.
As a widowed mother of two, and former clinical director, Dr.
Brooke combines raw honesty, neuroscience expertise, and humor to help parents lead from regulation not survival.
With 1 million plus followers and over half a million podcast downloads, she is a trusted source for everyday families and Fortune 500 leaders alike to translate emotional wellness into tangible life and business outcomes.
I'm so excited to dig our toes into this conversation because our nervous system is truly the center pole of every single thing that we do.
It helps you regulate when you first wake up in the morning.
It helps you to come back down after something stressful in your day.
Has happened.
It is the driver behind the ways that you react and respond to conversations with your children, with people you work with, with your partner, with your parents, with your neighbors, with really anybody that you come in contact with from day to day.
It also impacts the ways that you are able to relax, to sleep, to turn your brain off, or if your nervous system is dysregulated.
You may find that you can't sleep, you can't turn your brain off, and instead you're stuck in this looping pattern.
Well, Dr.
Brooke today is gonna guide us through exactly how we can start to unwind all of those patterns that are keeping us stuck so that we can move through that and live a healthier and happier life.
Without further ado, Dr.
Brooke, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to have you.
And obviously, you know, the nervous system has gotten a lot of light recently.
It has become you know, I don't wanna call it a buzzword 'cause it's real, it's not buzz word would.
Right.
I would totally call it a buzzword.
Really? You would.
Yes.
So I love the light that the nervous system has gotten because I do think that for a lot of us, I'm a nineties baby, I think for a lot of us.
It is the first time that we're learning.
We have a lot more control over ourselves and our feelings and our emotions and the way that we interact with the world around us, the way that we cope with things that happen to us for the first time in our life, right? I think a lot of us were just raised to kind of think like, life is hard.
You just pick yourself up by your bootstraps and this is how it happens and, and you just move through things.
You just move on with things.
And so for me, when I first learned about nervous system regulation, I was like, wow, this gives me a lot of control.
I have control over the way that I can respond and react the way that I can move through those things.
However, one of the things that I think a lot of people kind of get stuck on is understanding what does it mean to actually regulate your nervous system.
I feel like my audience has a really great idea about what the nervous system is, so I don't necessarily feel like we need to start there, but I think the idea of what does regulation really look like? Does it look like never getting stressed out? Because that feels impossible, right? And then if you, if you really understand stress, it's like there's good stress and bad stress.
So no, stress is not necessarily the goal, but what does regulation ideally look like for somebody? Yeah, that's a really great question.
Um, before I answer that, I wanna go to why I jumped in and said that the nervous system is for sure a buzzword.
And that's because everyone is saying it.
Everyone is basically saying that they know how to do it or they can teach you how to do it, or I am so happy that.
Everyone understands, or when you say, I'm dysregulated, right? People now know what that means.
When I first started doing this years and years and years ago, no one knew what that meant.
I had to use words like burnout and overwhelm and stress and to help my community and audience to understand what I was trying to convey.
And it is a buzzword at the moment, I would say.
And there's other words, like somatics and, you know, yeah, there's, there's a bunch of different buzzwords.
And for everyone listening, you have to be extremely careful in terms of what you're consuming or what you are trusting, if you will, because there's so many, there's just so much information out there that's like, if you stick your face in a bucket of ice water for 30 seconds, you'll be regulated.
And you know what? You may be regulated, right? But when your child is screaming in the bathtub and they don't have, you know, full capacity to be safe in the bathtub, 'cause there's so little, are you gonna go get a bucket of ice water? Maybe not.
And so we have to understand the difference between the nervous system like, this is how our, our brain stem works, and this is how our, our central nervous system works versus our peripheral nervous system, right? Versus the question you asked me, which is how do you regulate that nervous system? Now, one of the questions I get asked the most.
No matter what podcast I'm on or, or where I'm at I'll ask, I'll get asked if there are three big takeaways or if there's three things you could do to, to, to start implementing right now.
Well, we have to understand how your brain functions before we can ever decide how to regulate your nervous system.
That's one of the missing pieces that a lot of people are not discussing or talking about.
The language of your brain is not the words that are coming out of your mouth.
It is the behaviors of your brain and your body and the reactions or the idiosyncrasies or the patterns of your brain that is really the language of your brain and that stems from your, again, nervous system.
Right? There is different types of brains.
Not all brains are similar.
We all wanna kind of peg ourself into this, well, I, you know, am neurodivergent, or I am neurotypical, or I have ADHD, or I have sensory processing disorder.
I have autism, or I have this, or I have that.
And to me it's kind of like we're trying to, like, it's a dachshund and a chihuahua and it's like we're trying to like lump all these people together to be like, oh, you're like me.
No brain.
Like no brain is the same.
Yeah, no brain is the same.
As well as a hundred percent of the world is neurodivergent in their own way.
We all have sensory quirks or ticks or likes or dislikes.
That doesn't make you broken.
That doesn't make you disordered in any way.
And some do want a diagnosis because then they can kind of relate and that gives them identity.
I fully understand that.
But at the end of the day, it's about let me gather the information of how my brain functions and then how do I support that individual brain? And that's when you get to the place of figuring out, okay, now I understand my brain.
Now let me figure out what it looks like to regulate my particular brain.
And I don't wanna dive in quite yet of how do we regulate.
I guess what I wanna start with is.
What does regulation look like? So you open your eyes in the morning, you don't have a cortisol spike, you're not sweating.
You don't automatically think like, oh my God, I have this whole to-do list.
Right? You wake up, you're feeling calm, you kind of get your morning started.
When you come into a stressor, you're able to handle it, move through it.
You may have some activation in your body, but within X amount of minutes, you are back to normal.
It doesn't stay with you.
You're not frozen in fight or flight.
When we think about ideally of a, like a human nervous system that is regulated, what is the ideal? Like, what would that actually look like? Yeah, and I, I ask that because I think so many of us are like, is that achievable with the life that we live.
Yes.
Have an internet on our phone, having electronics all over, have an email constantly coming at us, not working nine to five, but instead having work, you know, have constant access to us.
Things like that.
Yes.
So regulation Yes.
Is doable and is achievable.
However, the way you just described it tells me that we can swap out the word regulation for calm.
Right.
You wake up, you're not overwhelmed by the day, you're not triggered by your kids.
You know, when they spill milk on the floor, they start screaming, or you're not so overwhelmed by the to-do list of the day.
Like, and then you can, you can come back down from it very easily.
You're not in fight or flight like that to me is like, I'm on vacation and I'm, I'm, I'm drinking a pina colada on the beach.
Right.
And that's not really life.
Right.
You mentioned to me before we started, this is your first day back, right? Since your own maternity leave.
I would assume that your brain has been in somewhat of a different space for a while, right? Five months.
And then now you're maybe getting back on the clothes.
You're doing your hair, you're doing your makeup, you're prepping, you're, you're reading through things, you're, you know, getting ready for the podcast.
Like whatever it is, that's a different energy.
Are you spying on me? Are, that's a different energy.
It requires different things.
Yeah.
What everyone needs to understand is that, you know, I know, I'm gonna go back to this again and again, but I saw something on, I saw a reel and it was like, we change these three things in our marriage and we never fought again.
And it was like we were regulated.
We just got regulated.
And I'm like, that's complete and utter bullshit because you cannot be regulated 24 7% of the time.
Yeah.
What it truly is about the nervous system, regulation, dysregulation, sensory system, what it's about is the knowledge and then being able, you mentioned having control.
I don't love the word control, but it is the best word in terms of we are able to support our brain and our body in whatever way needed in different moments.
So sometimes I want your audience to think of the nervous system as the accelerator of a car, right? I want you to step on the gas, right? Let's say you're about to go public speak, and you gotta like get, you know, you gotta find that fire.
Or maybe you're a musician and you're about to like, go sing it out on, you know, the stage.
Like you're gonna bounce around, you're gonna get that energy up and you're gonna, you're stepping on the gas.
You need it, you want it, and you're gonna use it, right? But there's also times when the gas isn't necessary, and so we need to understand how to step on the brake because the brake is really important for our brain and body as well, to be able to utilize when necessary or when needed.
The kicker and the biggest piece is that we have to understand and practice, right? Our brain is not used to this.
No one has given us a manual for this.
This is not something we learned in pre-K when we were learning our ABCs and 1, 2, 3s which is wild that none of us learn.
And it's like you get a driver's license and you go to driver's ed.
We didn't even get a, you know, an education on how our brain functions, right? Unless you went through schooling like I did, right? You have to understand how to throttle between the two.
You have to understand how to go from first gear to second gear to third gear to fourth gear, and then be able to shift up and shift down, and all that in between is more of a fluid nervous system and a fluid ability to live the human experience of life between the e experiences that you have, whether you're regulated or dysregulated or you have a little bit more cortisol and you can feel it pumping through your veins and it's not feeling really good or right.
Like you can ebb and flow between all of those.
I love the way you're talking about fluidity here, and I love it so much because I think that is where my nervous system work primarily focused, because when I first got into therapy about nervous system stuff, it was like.
I would get stuck in those patterns of fight or flight.
Right? And so something that we worked really heavily on is how do I not get so high? We called it the ceiling.
How do I not get so high to my ceiling? And then when I did get really activated, how did I learn to come back down? Like how do I not get stuck flying so high activated, angry, frustrated, stressed out, cortisol, losing sleep, not eating.
And it took me a very long time.
I'm talking like this, guys.
Yeah, absolutely.
This takes years and people want this like quick fix.
And that's why I'm like, yes, it's a buzzword, but be really careful because it's not a, yeah.
Oh, let me just do this and in three minutes I won't be activated.
And like I've patterned and like your brain has been patterned for years and years and years, especially if you're decades old and you've never done this work, right? So you have to become aware of your patterns.
You have to be aware of how your engine runs, how you tick, and when the check engine light is on, and when you know you need an oil change or when you need gas in the tank.
Like you have to become aware of what is going on in your brain and your body.
Otherwise, you'll never be able to have that fluidity.
Most people live in peaks and valleys, right? Hmm.
And an adult meltdown.
And an adult tantrum is, it happens, right? Yeah.
This is not just for like babies and toddlers, and my child has a, and there is a difference between a tantrum and a meltdown, right? But we can still have those, and that meltdown is a complete.
Overhaul of your nervous system and your body is basically saying, you didn't regulate for me, so I'm gonna do it for you because I have no other choice.
And that's when you're like laying on your bed and you're potentially PMSing or about to PM and you're like, oh, you're like hysterically crying and everything is wrong in your life no matter what.
Mm-hmm.
Like it's all the thing that is an an adult meltdown.
Like we still have those.
But to be able to not have the peaks and valleys and more live in the rolling hills, that's where we wanna get to.
Yeah.
I love that you point out too, that.
It does ebb and flow.
So one of the things that I also had to work really hard on, you know, I'm a perfectionist over here, you guys, um, you guys know this about me, but I didn't love that once I felt like I had really done a lot of the work that I would have these periods or, or these meltdowns, I call them hard system resets.
I would need a hard system reset every now and then.
Um, and I really had a lot of guilt around that and I was like, I've been doing this work.
I've been so good.
I've been, you know, in therapy, I've been following all this stuff.
I did the deep breaths and it still happened.
And I think that if you're on your own journey of regulating your nervous system, really realizing that having a meltdown or having a tantrum does not mean that you aren't good at regulating your nervous system.
And it doesn't mean that all the work that you've been doing for however long you've been doing it isn't worth it.
It just means that.
You just tripped up, you just made a mistake, or you just, it's all data.
Yeah.
It's, there's no good, there's no bad, there's no right, there's no wrong.
It's all data.
It's like, oh, okay.
I thought that I had enough energy for that, or I thought that I had the capacity for that.
Or, wow, I didn't recognize that I wasn't making eye contact and I'm really, you know, not doing so hot.
And sometimes, especially when you're in that fight or flight state, your brain and body is offline.
So it's not gonna know, it's not gonna tell you unless you have been doing this work for a really long time to feel the difference and to be able to catch it.
Right.
So there like shame is never good for the brain.
There's no positive, there's no benefits, there's no nothing that can come from that.
Right? So you have to look at every experience in your life, almost as like a science experiment of, okay, this is the hypothesis.
If I.
You know, pack three days before the trip, I won't feel stressed out, and I'll make sure to check and see what I have and, okay.
That's a hypothesis.
I'm not gonna get stressed out because I'm gonna pack way ahead of time.
Okay, well, you know, shit, hit the fan and then this happened and this, oh, okay.
Well that didn't go so well.
Maybe I could do it four days before.
Maybe I need one extra day.
Maybe I need this.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe I need that.
Okay.
So I had the experience and then I sat under a microscope.
I analyzed the data and I decided this is where I need to get to next time, and that's what I'll try next time.
There's no shaming.
There's no guilt, there's no, I can't believe I, I can't believe I freaked out.
I can't believe I snapped.
It's just like, okay, like this is the human experience of life.
Yeah.
And it is totally normal.
Oh my gosh.
I know that is so relieving and also validating for so many people to hear.
'cause I think especially as women and moms and the primary caregivers in a lot of our homes, we do try and do it all and be really perfect at it.
And so when we do, you know, slip up or make a mistake or have a meltdown or whatever it might look like for you, it is really easy to shame yourself and say like, I shouldn't have done that.
Or, you know, that was so stupid of me, or I should have known better.
Or, you know, whatever it is.
I always playing Monday morning quarterback is so much easier than being on the forefront of it, saying like, I actually should say no to this so that I have the capacity to do X, y and Z.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, a thousand percent.
And, um.
Even, I don't know how many of your listeners know my personal story.
I am widowed and um, my husband took his own life in 2021 and I had done this work on myself way before teaching it.
Even though I was in the sensory specialty, I would say I worked with pediatrics for a really long time before stepping into working with adults.
'cause I recognize that there's no way I can teach a child to do this if the parent doesn't understand this first.
And I kind of flipped everything in my career and I, I just did a new path.
But even me moving through grief and taking care of my own two children, there's things that take place in your life that you start to recognize.
I have no other choice than to just be human.
I can't be perfect anymore and good is good enough.
And that doesn't mean that I'm a bad parent.
That means that I'm doing the best that I can, and that means that I'm supporting myself and supporting my children and doing this and doing that.
But I'm also not gonna live up to these expectations that I have to look like every single person on their grids, and that I have to just be this picture perfect person with, you know, I don't know the workouts and the makeup and the clothing and like, I don't have to, like, I don't have the, I don't, I don't need those expectations on myself.
Those are external.
And the thing that we are talking about today is internal, which is your brain and your body and the nervous system.
So the more you can release the external, because you're never gonna get that validation like you're longing for it externally, ever.
The internal is where you're gonna get the most validation of being enough and accepting who you are and allowing yourself to be exactly what you've always been inside, but maybe never allow because you were so afraid to be accepted by the external world.
But that's just what, who your brain is.
That's just who you are.
And so there's nothing wrong with just being exactly who you've always been meant to be.
Hmm.
Okay.
Let's talk a little bit about our childhoods, because one of the things that was very beneficial to me through therapy is re-parenting my inner voice.
Um, and I think that I didn't realize how much my childhood had impacted my nervous system in a negative way, right? Because my self-talk was not always the greatest.
And I don't think I ever, until I was working on this, really stopped to think about, well, how do I talk to myself and what is that doing to my nervous system? And so one of the things that I worked really hard on was well re-parenting the way I speak to myself.
So when I do make mistakes, it's not the shame.
It's like, okay, cool, you made a mistake.
Now we know better for next time.
How are we gonna do it different next time? And that was a new concept because that's not how I was spoken to as a child.
Right? And so that inner voice is often created by how you're spoken to as a child.
And I think a lot of us don't realize just what it's doing to our nervous system.
If you have positive self speak, your nervous system is probably a lot better off than those of us who didn't always have that.
I think that, especially as a woman, we are our own worst self critic.
Right? Yes.
And I'm gonna tow the line here, but I, it may sound a little controversial, but I don't necessarily, I agree with everything you said, but I don't necessarily feel like, it is 100% the fault of our childhood.
And the reason I'm saying that is because our parents didn't understand this information.
Not to say they didn't like I had my own stuff, I had to work through with my mother and my father when I did this own work on myself, right? So it's very valid.
But if we can also have grace for knowing that this information just wasn't out there, right? Mm-hmm.
It's just accepting kind of, okay, this is where I'm at.
Right? If we acknowledge, I hear how I'm speaking to myself and that doesn't feel good, right? That's where we need to sit in it.
It's okay.
I just said, oh, you're so stupid that like, why didn't you catch that? How did that feel? Yeah.
Ooh, that didn't feel so good.
Okay, well, what would I like to do differently? How would I like to, you know, speak to myself or what would feel better? Okay.
Well, yeah, I messed up, but you know, I'm human, so that's okay.
And we're gonna figure it out.
Right.
But I do find that we are focusing so heavily on this, like our inner child wounds and our right, and they matter.
They very much matter.
But at the same time, focusing on where you're at now, recognizing the past, but then focusing on where you're at now and where you'd like to move forward is more beneficial in terms of patterning your brain.
Right.
Um, and being able to, what I like to do is I explain the nervous system in terms of a smoke detector, so it's always sniffing out threats.
Okay? Oh, and so when the smoke detector goes off, right, it's gonna make that really annoying.
Beep.
You all probably know it, especially in the middle of the night when the battery's low and you don't feel like climbing on the ladder in the middle of the night.
Trust me, I've done that many times.
Um, and it drives me up the wall.
But the smoke detector, what is happening when your nervous system is living in that heightened state on a regular basis is it is calibrated so sensitively that no matter what happens, your brain and your body is going to think that you need to stop, drop and roll and get out a burning building.
And so we need to be able to tell ourselves there is no burning building.
I am safe.
It is okay to make it through this, even if this feels wildly uncomfortable, right? Mm.
And to be able to look at the now and say, okay, that didn't feel good.
So I think we need to shift that and that is how we recalibrate our smoke detector.
Okay.
So that leads me to the question of how do you recognize whether your smoke detector is accurately picking up on true threats versus, uh oh, I'm living in this space of heightened, you know, sensitivity, but there's not actually any threats in my immediate environment.
Because I think so many times, again, as women, as moms, I mean, I know that having my baby, I was really vigilant about like, how much of a threat is this right now? I had the weird, so I think some people don't have that awareness and that's something that is.
Definitely a learn skill or it was, for me, I was not a process, it's a learn skill.
Thats, that's like literally what I teach my clients is, yeah, you have to learn when the alarm is sounding, you have to learn when it feels good, when it doesn't feel good, when you need it, when you don't need it, when it's not serving you, when you wanna change it, when you, it like it first starts with awareness.
And if I'm being completely brutally honest, it is not something that many individuals can do on their own.
Sure.
It requires most often a guide of some sort to be able to help you understand and navigate the process because again, of those patterns that have been built for decades and so.
How the brain works is that we want our brain to be automatic, right? Think about if you've ever gotten in the car driven somewhere and you're like, I don't really know how I got here, but like, I got here, but like my brain was kind of like somewhere else, and, and that's okay.
'cause I'm safe, right? You go on autopilot.
We want our brain to be on autopilot as much as possible because then we don't have to expend any more energy or thought, right? So in, in layman's terms, if you will think of it as, I can't stand time in my kids' shoes.
Like I'm like, like we have to teach our kids multiple thousands and thousands of things.
We don't even realize that when we're gonna be a parent, it means we're gonna be a teacher, right? But we have to teach our children all these things to become independent.
We want them to become automatic in.
Go upstairs, take a bath or take a shower, brush your teeth, comb your hair, put on your pajamas, put your dirty clothes away, get in bed, read a book, whatever.
It's right, like boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.
And so brush your teeth, brush your teeth, brush your teeth.
Or we need to teach you how to tie your shoes, tie your shoes, tie your shoes.
Once it becomes automatic, you are then giving your brain more space to learn the next thing, right? And so we want it to be more automatic.
And so that is what your brain has been patterned to do, and that is why you are continuing to react that way.
That is why you are continuing to show up in ways that maybe don't serve you anymore.
And that's maybe why you need some type of a support or a guide to help you along this journey because it is so automatic.
Your brain is like the motherboard of a computer, right? It's, or like ai, it's always coding.
Your brain is constantly coding because it wants to understand what should my either a perceived threat be? What should I do in this situation? What should my reaction be? How should my alleg amygdala function, right? Like, what should my hippocampus, like, how much hormone do I need to release in my prefrontal cortex of making decisions? And like, there's all these different pieces of, we're all moving at the same time.
Kind of like traffic, right? Like it's all, you know, cross go turn signals, all the different things.
But we need to be able to have the awareness of what is actually going on in my brain and what is serving me and what is no longer serving me in order to then take the steps to shift that pattern.
Yeah.
Are there certain patterns that you continuously see with women and moms that are just like so blatantly obvious that a lot of us are living in these places and maybe we don't even realize it? Oh, oh my gosh, yes.
I would say, I mean, I would say that 95% of the world does not know this information.
95% of the world doesn't function like on a regular basis with this information because it's never been taught to us or they don't have access to it, or they don't have the finances to get the support they need.
Right? Most individuals are, especially in today's world, with how much social media people consume and the screens and how much is expected of us.
Like in an instant, right? Mm-hmm.
If you text, I need a text back.
If you get an email, I'm gonna need a response back.
Like it's, we just expect there's no snail mail anymore, right? Like, and yes, there is, but you know what I mean, in terms of expectations, right? If you have a boss, that means you're always on, right? So we don't really recognize where we've gotten to as a society and how fast we're actually going on a hamster reel, and not even our parents or our parents', parents functioned this way.
Yeah.
And the thing you have to remember is when you're living in that state, your brain is functioning for survival, which means cortisol is pumping through your system that is not necessarily needed most oftentimes your brain is offline, and therefore you're unable to be present.
You're unable to even remember things.
Mm-hmm.
Because.
Let's say you got in a horrific car accident.
I'm sure everyone listening to this has either watched a show or had an event or known someone who has gone through something where they're like, I don't remember.
I just woke up.
Right? Like, I, the last thing I remember is I was driving down the road, and then the next thing I know I'm in the hospital and I don't really remember much of the hospital.
I maybe remember like two weeks of the hospital, right? That's because your brain is doing its job.
Your brain is supposed to protect you from trauma.
Your brain is supposed to protect you from unsafe environments.
So if your child drops, you know, a cup of milk all over the floor and your shoulders immediately spike up and you are like wanting to ring your child's neck, not physically, but just, you know, physiologically you're there, you're just like absolutely at your wit's ends or the sound of the TV and, and the boiling pot of water and the I used to have these annoying fire hydrant toys that were like, really? Like I will never forget.
Like, oh my God, we right now have a chicken that's like, you squeeze it and it sounds like the chicken's dying.
My dad gave these to my kids.
He was on a Mardi Gras float.
We're from New Orleans.
And I'm like, can't the dog eat the chicken? Like I can't, like I just, right.
So like we have to be able to recognize when we're in a state that we don't like, because usually in those states you are absolutely offline and it's, it's sad to think about, oh my gosh, I had these kids, but I'm not even gonna remember.
Like, I'm not even going to remember these years because I'm so offline.
It's devastating to think about.
And that's not how any of us wanna function on autopilot because then we're missing, we're missing our life and we only, as far as we know, we only get one shot at it.
Right? Yeah.
Yeah.
So what do you do to fix this? I mean, obviously therapy work with someone like you to, to regulate your nervous system, but like we have mentioned earlier, that takes years.
So what I don't want is people to say like, oh, well I don't have years.
I'm just not gonna do it at all.
Fair.
I'll give you, I'll give you an example of what has really worked for me in postpartum, you guys is I used to be somebody that had a podcast going all the time.
Well now we still have a dog and I have a baby and the baby has, you know, toys that make noise and I have to be very intentional about the noise in our home because I find that postpartum, I am much more overwhelmed and I'm constantly asking my husband, could you turn that off? Could you turn that down? Can we stop that music? And we used to have music going all in our home.
It used to just be like low key jazz music in the background.
No more for us right now.
Um, I hope that that comes back 'cause I used to love that part of our lifestyle, but I can't have any extra noise going around me.
It makes me feel like I want to just like, run out of my house and never return.
It is so overwhelming.
And so for me.
Part of that reflection was, why do I feel this way? Okay.
I think there's too much stimulus.
What stimulus can I control and take care of? And so we did, we limited Saggy's toys and he doesn't get a ton of toys that make a lot of noise, but at five months old, he does a lot of shrieking.
He just has turned into a little dactyl.
So, you know, he himself is making a lot of noise.
Yep.
And so, we've taken away a lot of toys that make, you know, like extraneous noise, but we still have the rattles and we still have the bells and the things that he kind of needs for development.
My dog is still a creature that makes noise.
We still have coffee makers that make noise, right? Our microwave beeping.
So you have things in your environment that you can control and things that you can't, but other things that kind of come to your mind where you're like, these are kind of quick and easy things that might help you.
Not feel as overwhelmed and, and dysregulated throughout your days for the people who are like, well, I don't have years Brooke and HeHe, so I'm just, I'm not gonna do it if you can't give me some quick wins.
Yeah.
I think that's really fair.
I also wanna point out that all the things that you have done for anyone listening and like, well, that doesn't sound like that's beneficial to the child.
Like it's, it's okay.
Like, oh yeah.
All the things, right? Like all the things, Saggy's thriving you guys.
Are so positive and beneficial.
Your child is not de deprived.
You know what I mean? Like, these are fantastic things that you have chosen because you know what you need in order to support your brain and your body so that you don't lose it on your husband or your partner or child.
Yeah.
Like, or your dog.
Like, you don't, you don't wanna lose it.
You don't wanna live that way.
And so you do have to get your needs met.
The most important thing for someone who is, is looking for the where to start.
Okay.
You, again, it goes back to understanding how your brain functions.
Okay.
So for us, what we do is we have a specific method that we teach our clients of what that process looks like.
It takes, I feel like the golden standard is an entire year because then you have an entire year of data collected, and that way you can compare and contrast not in a positive, negative way, but just to see, huh, this feels a little bit different, or, Ooh, that, that hasn't shifted yet.
And I have compared and contrast my own life for years and years and years at this point.
Right? I have my clients take a standardized assessment that only occupational therapists can offer to clients, if you will.
And it's really, most of the times it's used in a pediatric setting.
I used it when I owned my own clinic in a pediatric setting, and now that I use the adult version.
And that really gets us into figuring out how your brain is ticking, how your brain is functioning, and what is kind of your standard operating function, if you will.
Right? So then now we have the, the data of, okay, this is how your brain functions.
Are you craving input? Are you avoiding input? Are you missing input? Right? Are you registering the world around you? You know, those kiddos who you're like, Hey, hello, are you listening? Like that's, are you registering the world around you? Do you have bruises and bumps all over your body because you're not registering the world around you and you're bumping in the walls and things, right? Do you have sensory sensitivity in all different avenues and aspects of your stimuli, right? Like.
How does your brain tick? That is step number one.
Okay.
So once you have that, then you start figuring out, how do I feel? Right? Like, how do I feel on a daily basis? How do I feel when my kiddos are splashing in the water? How do I feel when they're a pterodactyl? How do I feel when, you know, the, they're drumming with, or, you know, there's a tambourine that, you know, grandpa Joe bought him for his birthday, right? Like how do we feel here? Right? And then we have to absolutely do brain body awareness.
It is not just about the feeling.
It is also about how is your body responding, right? Mm-hmm.
So sensory processing is basically, you have information come into your brain, your brain processes it, and then there's an.
External, like an output of something, whether your shoulders raise or you're touching a hot stove and you lift it off, right? So we need to check in with our brain and our body, okay? And then we need to ask ourself, how do I support that feeling? How do I support that body awareness? How do I support X, Y, Z? Do I need to lower the lights? Do I need to take away some really annoying toys? Do I need to get some earplugs or loops, or do I need to just not have music on for right now? Like, what do I need in order to support my brain and my body? Now, the most important piece that people are missing is that this is cumulative.
Okay? So if you just do it once, that doesn't mean that it's gonna happen again.
And we have different experiences, you know, winter, spring, summer, fall, if you're traveling or family time or this or that, or.
Or how does this work with your family? How does this work with your in-laws? How does this work with your friends? How does this work with your kids? There is such a vast array of different experiences that we have in life, and we never even know what's about to come up, right? The one thing I will say is that if you don't support it, even if you're like, I don't have years to do this, you are gonna wanna do this when all of that extra lactic acid builds up and you end up having thyroid issues or autoimmune issues, or the body hands down holds onto what you do not support and what you do not heal, and in my personal opinion, the number one most important knowledge every single human walking this earth should have is how does your brain function and how to support your brain.
That's like the top of the heap before financial literacy or, but before, like anything else, understanding that information can guide who you marry, the career that you have, the way that you parent, the way that you show up with your friends, the type of friends you have it, the color of your walls, the clothing, right? Like, it, it can absolutely change your existence, but you have to become aware of it in order to figure out, I mean, the most simple of is this a yes or is this a no, is this working for me or is this not hearing you say, all that reminds me to, to kind of like deconstruct what you just said in the way that once you start doing this work.
You may find, Ooh, I don't have the right friends.
Or like, absolutely, Ooh, this person is constantly triggering.
Absolutely.
Or like, oh my gosh, the way that I have my house set up actually stresses me out.
The color of these walls are not good for me.
So just be prepared for that too.
And it's not bad, you guys.
I'm not, I don't, I it's a beautiful thing.
Yeah.
I don't wanna discourage you guys from doing it.
I just want you to be aware that you're gonna learn yourself in a different way so that on the other end of it, you will be living a much better, and I wanna say easier life and not necessarily life is all cushy, but like, it's gonna, it's authentic feel.
Yes.
It's just, that is the difference.
You're not living for the external world of what everyone prescribed for you or what you feel it should look like when you finally decide to do the work of your nervous system and support your brain and your body in the way that you need.
You have no other choice than to hear it.
You don't ignore it anymore.
And it, your brain, like, like you said your life changes in the best way because you're finally simply allowing yourself to be exactly who you, you've always been deep down inside a thousand percent.
And how freeing is that? I mean, just think, think about it's all the places and all the times in life where you feel like you have to almost like put on Yes.
You, you, you can stop all of that.
Like you get to let go of that coat and say, you know what? I'm donating you.
I'm not even putting you back in my closet.
I never have to wear you again.
I love that so much.
Okay guys, do you have a budget? Like do you track your purchases and the money you're spending? In this economy, how can you not? And if you're anything like me, you probably have started to think about a few things, like where are you spending all your money and.
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This dress seriously carried me through the summer during pregnancy.
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I've also told you that their lounge wear is my official mom uniform, and if you visit my Instagram, you can see all the styles that I have.
I also gave my sister a cozy earth robe for Christmas, and she wears it every day.
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Okay, Dr.
Brooke, let's talk about the nervous system.
In terms of pregnancy.
What do we know about those two things interacting? For me personally, I felt like my pregnancy gave me.
Just a sense of calm.
And I know not a lot of people can relate to that.
I feel very blessed and lucky that I do do this work every day.
And so I felt very in control.
But for a lot of our listeners, it's the opposite, right? They find out they're pregnant, and it's a place you've never walked before.
It's a place you don't know a lot about.
It's a place of constant education.
And for a lot of people it carries a lot of fear around birth itself and, and the labor process and becoming a mom.
So what do we need to know about being pregnant and how that impacts our nervous system? So you're brain and body is the coolest, smartest, most miraculous organ in your body.
It's, it's just unbelievable.
Like if you actually think about what it's capable of.
There are many, many individuals who find that while they are pregnant, even individuals who prior to pregnancy have even been on antidepressants, feel okay without the antidepressants, right? And your body knows and is smart enough to know, and your brain is smart enough to know what it should be producing and pumping while you are pregnant.
Now, there is so much pressure on pregnancy in terms of what you eat, how you prepare, uh, stress on the body can cause stress on the baby's brain.
And then you're gonna have an anxious child.
Or like, there is so many things that is shared with us in the world today and there is so much information that we don't know where to turn.
We don't know where to look, and.
It can cause a lot of fear.
Hmm.
Now, I personally had really, really, really traumatic pregnancies, births.
I mean, that ship has sailed.
Like my children are nine and 12 and I tried it twice.
And the second time, what? It was not any better.
And so I was like, we're done.
I contracted from probably 14 weeks on, I had a cerclage for my second one.
I went into labor at 27 weeks with my older one.
I made it to 33 weeks.
I was on bedrest for six weeks.
I pushed for three and a half hours with my first one.
Like, you don't know any of this is gonna happen.
Both of them were in the NICU for three weeks.
Right.
I had an oversupply of breast milk, so my body did something.
Right.
Right.
So then I just kept pumping and it was, I produced a problem because it was hard to downgrade the milk, right? Like, and there's some people who are like, I can't get two ounces, right? So the point of me sharing all of that is no pregnancy is going to look the same on any one individual body.
But if you are able to, the same way when you're not pregnant, if you're able to listen into your brain, your body, if you're hungry, if you're not, if you're tired, if you're in pain, or like, you have to really listen in and understand what is going on to support your body, right during the pregnancy.
Now I find that postpartum is actually more important to understand the nervous system than actually pregnancy itself.
Postpartum.
Yes, there's a lot of hormones being, you know, flushed through our system and, and all the different things.
But especially if you're a first time parent, we don't understand that there is a grief process that happens the moment a child comes into our life, no matter what way they came into our life.
And that is not really discussed, that is not really honored.
That isn't really, I mean, any parenting class, any parenting book, like it's not okay.
We are prepping you for an overhaul of your entire life.
And just so you know it's never gonna go back to that life.
That's okay, that it doesn't go back.
But the awareness is what we do not talk about or prepare for.
And so we are left having to continue to smile.
When we just got ripped open via whatever way you had the child, right? You're supposed to still get up, you're supposed to still do the things, you know, you're, you're rushed out of the hospital in a day or two.
And if you think about it, like when my mom had my sister and I, the babies were kept in the nursery and the nurses took care of the babies unless they were hungry.
My mom said that they, like, before she had my sister and I, they filled out a menu of what their post birth dinner was like.
My dad and mom had a date night in the hospital with like, you know, a steak dinner or something like that.
And my parents aren't like, you know, that old, but it was just a different time.
And now we're just like in and out, you know, let's go home, let's, and yeah, we wanna get home, but we don't recognize how much has shifted and changed.
And so I think a lot of postpartum, even depression comes from the fact that we aren't aware or have the acceptance before, or that we are given the knowledge of, okay, your hands are no longer free.
You're going to have someone who can tell you what is wrong with them, but they're gonna cry a lot, and that's the language that they have.
And you have to start figuring out what all those crying different little quirks mean, right? Like what, what are they trying to explain to you? And you don't get to go lay back in bed on a Saturday after brunch and you've had a, you know, a bunch of drinks and you know, you know, doing whatever in your, you know, before child life.
Like it is just completely different.
You don't really have as much free time.
You don't understand how to get the free time because you then have that mom guilt and understanding like there's, there's so much you have to navigate once a child is born and you choose to parent that child.
And so it matters to, to me it matters more in postpartum than actually pregnancy because if you can still have a voice postpartum, you are far surpassing most individuals who had no indication or voice before they decided to have a child, that it's just, you just keep going in the way that you've always functioned, but you are probably overachieving before because women are completely crushing life and we, we just kick ass to be blunt.
We're gonna make shit happen.
Sorry about the cursing.
Hope at no one minds, but.
We're just gonna make it happen, right? Like we're just, we're just an awesome species, if you will, right? And so then a baby comes into our lives and we're gonna make it happen, right? We're gonna just get up, we're gonna keep going, we're gonna do, but we have to be able to say, oh, okay, got it.
I need to like pause here for a second.
And I need to figure out what I want motherhood to look like for me, what I am okay with, right? Getting some help or asking for help, or having the other parent, your partner, be involved.
I don't care if they put the diaper on backwards, at least the pee isn't on the floor, right? Like it doesn't matter.
But we have to have these conversations and communicate with our partner and set up ourself for success.
And if we aren't succeeding, then we have to take that data and we have to rearrange.
How can you tell if you are having nervous system regulation and dysregulation in postpartum versus just I'm learning life with a newborn? Because there were some times for me where I did question myself and I was like, all right, am I starting to teeter on the line of like being dysregulated or is this kind of just part of, I don't know, just part of the process? And I will, I will get through this.
I'm on the other end of those questions now, and I could tell like, all right, that was just a phase and I feel regulated again.
But in the moment it can be really hard to kind of reconcile the fact of like, is this my new normal or is this just an adjustment period? That is something that you have to sit in the discomfort of that, right? It doesn't matter if it's dysregulation or newness that I just have to figure out my new normal.
That part of like deciphering that doesn't really matter as long as the approach to supporting it is the same.
And I don't mean the same in terms of you have to go journal every day.
You have to go box breathe every day.
What I'm meaning is it's the same in terms of I am going to support whatever's going on in my brain, in my body, right? And it can be in a multitude of ways.
I'm gonna go walk, I'm gonna do yoga, I'm gonna get a sitter.
I'm gonna this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask my parent to come over and watch the child, or I'm gonna, you know, ask someone else to do my lunch, whatever it is.
But it doesn't really matter which one it is.
It just matters that you listen into it and support it in whatever way you need, right? The, the dysregulation is not a negative thing.
And, and this mostly comes up with new moms because you don't know how long each phase is gonna last.
You have no idea.
So you get into this and you're like, oh my gosh.
Like this is, this is gonna be my life.
Like this Is it? Like this is okay? Like this is it, like, didn't know it would be like this, right? What I like to tell people is it's a season, winter, spring, summer, fall.
It is a season.
So if you just had a baby, right, and it's spring, rest assured right by the end of summer or you know, middle summer life is gonna look a lot, like a lot different, right? So you have to give it time and energy, but it doesn't really matter which one, it's just as long as you support it when you're recognizing it.
How can partners recognize that their wife is maybe a little dysregulated, especially for new moms who are doing exactly what you said? We're just putting on the happy face.
We're making shit happen.
We are getting it done.
Because in our brain, in our reality, we don't have any other choice.
I can't just lay down and cry like I have a baby that needs to be fed.
I can't just escape to, you know, a vacation for the weekend.
I have a baby that needs to be fed.
I can't take a two hour shower and cry like I used to.
I have a baby that needs to stay on their nap schedule.
So, in, in terms of like partners trying to support this, what are they looking out for in, in terms of like, all right, this may be dysregulation.
That's a really good question.
This could be a whole nother podcast because it depends on the current partner that you have, right? Some are completely, especially if you have a male partner, right? Male brains function completely different than female brains.
Mm-hmm.
And you know, we have a larger portion as females in our brain of the emotion brain.
Our emotion brain is larger than the male's emotion brain, the male's portion of the brain.
That's the logic brain is larger than the female's portion of the brain.
That's the logic brain.
So if you have a partner and they are male and they're very black and white, and you are all up in that gray and you're a crying hot mess, and you enjoy those crying two hour showers, right? Like, it also is important whether, again, if you have a male partner, if they are open to this information, if they are aware, if they believe in it, or if they are really shut off and shut down to any type of emotional work, if you will.
There are plenty of, of women who feel like they don't have a partner, especially in new phases of motherhood because the partner does not know how to support the female, right? Let's say you're staying home from maternity leave, they're going to work and they keep going, but your life has completely changed, but theirs really hasn't changed that much.
We have to make sure that we have a true, true partnership before we can ever get down to the nitty gritty of how can I make sure that my partner notices when I am dysregulated or not doing well? If your partner knows you well enough, your partner should be able to visibly see it because a lot of shit has just changed in your life.
They should be able to see whether you are struggling or you are pushing through it.
Are you disconnected from your partner? Are you all able to have the time to communicate anymore? Are we asking, Hey, how can I support you? What do you need? Can I take this off your hands? There's a lot that goes into a partnership when you have a child, child, and again, I feel that it relates back to having tons of conversations prior to, and then keeping lines of communication open and working as a partnership in postpartum with a brand new infant.
So it's not gonna really happen with a partner if they have no awareness of how you function in that way prior, right? If they're kind of like, they don't see that part of you, they're not aware of that part of you, that's not part of your partnership, right? Now's the time to talk about it more than ever of like, Hey, I'm really struggling.
Hey, I'm not doing so well.
I need some support.
Hey, I feel, you know, stressed out alone, exhausted, depleted.
I like, I it's not, you are not helping with the baby.
And you put the diaper on backwards and you haven't fed the baby once and you're not waking up in the middle of the night and you just go off to work and you know, I have this whole to-do list and you just think I'm sitting home watching Bravo all day long.
Like, none of that's gonna get you guys anywhere.
Like none of it.
So you statements is not best.
It's, I feel statements, right? If, if your partner doesn't have the awareness to notice, then you have to advocate for yourself, which can be hard to do if you don't have that relationship already where you feel you can share, Hey, I feel X, Y, Z.
I feel like a lot of nervous system talk is, uh, kind of focused on females.
Do we see dads and male partners experiencing nervous system dysregulation after a baby? Oh my gosh, yes.
Yeah.
Their whole world is, is flipped upside down as well.
And in a way that's the, a lot of, okay, women are nurturers.
So a lot of relationships are set up to where we love giving to our partners.
We love nurturing our partners.
We love, you know, doing x, y, z, writing the little notes or whatever it is that floats your boat.
Right? We love being the nurturer and giving back to our partners, and I hope that you have a partner that does the same for you.
Some don't, some receive and don't know how to give back.
You have now got a baby to take care of.
You can no longer take care of and nurture your spouse the way that you prior did any longer.
All that energy is given to the baby.
And so oftentimes the spouse, especially a male, their needs might have been met, prior, and they're like, well, what about me? Like, like, and you're like, honey, like that ship is sailed.
Like I don't have time for that anymore.
Right? So we have to be able to have the communication, but it's also not our responsibility to take on our spouse's dysregulation.
Everyone is in charge of their own brain and their own body.
And for me in particular, I.
I took care of my spouse for years and years and years.
And then when I did have a kid, I had to take care of the kid, and then I had another one and I had to take care of that one, and I was still expected to take care of him as well.
And I mean, there were days where Jonathan couldn't get out of bed, so like I had to do it right.
And that's not always the case with everyone, right? My circumstance is completely different.
But your relationship, the biggest piece of advice I can give you is your relationship should be very strong and all communication should be in a really good place before ever deciding to step into a partnership of, of having a child, because it should be done as a team.
And unfortunately, that's not always gonna be the reality for everyone.
Right.
That's not, there are, there are accidents, there are people who get pregnant when they weren't even trying.
Right.
Or people who get pregnant and they don't really even know each other.
There are people who get pregnant and you're in a really bad place in your relationship.
Yep.
That's not always the reality.
I just wanna acknowledge that.
I know they can.
I know it can be really hard to hear that.
I mean, I agree with you.
I agree a hundred percent.
And, and I think that if you're in one of those places and you're like, oh my God, we have got so much work to do, you should do that in pregnancy.
You should do that.
You should try and you may work on the things.
It's never too, oh my God.
Never.
Not, it's never too late.
If you're like listening to this and you're like, our relationship is in the shitter and we have this child and I'm so unhappy and I cannot tell you how many individuals in our own community have been there and.
The worst thing you can do is stay quiet.
The worst thing you can do is just continue to feel alone.
Right? There.
You can get through it.
There are numerous places you can get support and it's okay to be there too.
Right? It's, it's not the end all, be all and Absolutely.
Dynamics can shift 1000%.
Yeah.
And if you're with the right partner, you will be able to make it out on the other side.
Absolutely.
Like you can work together to get through this.
Again, I wanna recognize that won't always be the reality either.
It's, you know, and it wasn't with me, so like, I'm, I'm right.
Like, I'm very willing to admit like, that wasn't the case for me.
Yeah.
And it's okay.
Right.
I've, Jonathan passed five years ago and I have a beautiful life and Yeah.
We didn't have a conversation today about grief and, and my whole journey, but.
It has taken me a while, but it's okay if your relationship doesn't work out or it's okay if things aren't perfect and doesn't mean also that your child's gonna be completely effed up.
Right? Like it's, it's all okay.
It, it just is what it is and it's the life experience that we just place so much perfection on it.
Yeah.
Well, you guys know that I, I say this a lot, but perfect doesn't exist, right? Like perfect is not a real thing.
Um, and it's not achievable.
And if you are setting yourself up to reach perfection, then you're always gonna be disappointed.
And I think that defining what perfect looks like for you, yes.
Outside of what anything else you know, is telling you social media or society or your mother, or your mother-in-law, or your best friend or your neighbor or the neighborhood that you live in, you should really define what perfect looks like for you, because I guarantee it doesn't look like perfect for anybody else.
What's perfect for you is as, as your fingerprint, I promise you it is.
So sit down and think about that.
And, and I also think that with that it's gonna come the confidence to admit that other people's lives can look different than you.
And that's okay, but you have to have some self-confidence to be able to get there.
You have to be able to say like, well, they.
They want to vacation in Aruba every single year.
That's not my perfect, my perfect is not having to work and being able to wake up with my children every day and not send them to daycare.
And we are one household, one income household.
Like that is perfect for some people.
Some people prefer to be a two income household so they can do extravagant vacations.
That is the perfect for them.
So you need to think what's perfect for you, and it doesn't have to match what other people necessarily have as perfect for them.
Dr.
Brooke, I have just one last question and it kind of circles us back to the beginning of our conversation.
Are there red flag things or gimmicky things that people can often buy into or purchase or succumb to that for a fact? These things are not going to regulate your nervous system, so pass over them and instead invest in something that is truly going to make a difference for your life.
If there are, what are those things? I really appreciate this question.
If you see anything on social media that says, I'm gonna help you learn how to regulate your nervous system in 30 seconds, or three things that'll help you regulate your nervous system in five minutes, or like if there's a timeline or a three things you can do, or none of that is, is great.
I'll tell you why.
We have heard box breathing, journaling, meditating.
Just do that and you, right.
I don't box breathe except for when I'm like working out and, you know, trying to make sure I'm, have my muscles engaged in doing the right breathing techniques.
I don't journal, never have, never will, and I don't meditate and I still own a business, have clients run a company with, you know, 20 plus employees.
I am, you know, taking care of my little monkey kids.
I have a dog, like I have a full, I have a partnership, like I have a full life and I am still able to regulate my nervous system in the way that works best for me.
So don't hear something and be like, oh my God.
Like I said earlier, the bucket of ice, like, or, or I gotta dance and shake my arms.
Like if you look on any of the content that I ever put out, I.
I give you symptoms, I give you awareness, awareness, awareness.
I'll tell you how I regulate and what has worked for me, but I'm not gonna go tell you what to do because I don't know you.
I don't know your brain.
So the most important piece is find individuals who want to teach you about your individual brain, not the brain in general, not just I can regulate your nervous system and you can make more money.
Business.
It like all of that stuff is just sales.
It's just, it just money doesn't go on trees and everyone is working so incredibly hard to have a great life and enjoy their life, that I am a big proponent for Honesty and making sure that you feel like you can trust the person that you're doing this work with, and that they have the credentials or that they know what they're doing or.
That it is their specialty or what, whatever it is, just make sure that you trust in whoever it is that you decide to go on this journey with.
It doesn't have to be me.
It like, just make sure that you feel like you're in good hands because no one has any extra time, extra money or anything to spend.
Like we need the right thing.
And it also has to be the long-term solution.
It can't just be this quick fix.
Mm.
Yeah.
I mean, your nervous system is with you for the rest of your life, you guys.
And so the more that you nourish it right now, the better long-term you will be.
Ugh.
Dr.
Brooke, this conversation was so well nourishing for my soul.
I feel so good after this and I, I hope that my audience really is able to lean into the discomfort that comes from navigating this.
'cause it is hard work.
I mean, we've said it multiple times, but it's hard work and it's something that you have to work at for kind of a long time.
I will.
The rest of your life.
Yeah.
Because you have to embody this and live this.
This is, this is a day to day, every day for the rest of your life thing.
And that doesn't mean that that's effort in the beginning.
It's effort.
Yeah.
Lot of effort.
Yeah.
But it gets easier.
It does get easier.
I can tell you that wholeheartedly.
And I can tell you that after doing this work for a number of years.
I do feel lighter.
It feels like life is easier.
I feel like I don't get activated nearly as much.
I feel like when I do get really stressed out and or activated, I am able to come down and recuperate a lot easier, a lot quicker.
It, it's worth it, you guys.
So if you're sitting there thinking like, oh my God, this just feels like a lot.
You don't have to take it all on on one day.
So make it work for you.
You can do it in little pieces.
I did, I didn't even know I was doing nervous system work when I first started out.
And now, now I'm like, oh, I have nervous system work to do.
Um, but you, you don't have to take it all on in, you know, one sitting, the best way to eat a whale is one bite at a time.
Dr.
Brooke, this has been so good.
Where can people find you if they were interested in learning more from you, following along, from you, working with you, any of that? Sure.
You can find me on all major platforms, if you will.
I would say my hub is Instagram and it's Brooke, and then half of my last name um, weinst you'll see my big curly hair.
But I'm on YouTube and TikTok and all the other places.
I also have a podcast called Thrive Like a parent.
I have multiple coaches on my team that I've trained for over five years.
We do group programs, we do one-on-ones.
I have on-demand courses.
So yeah, lots of different ways you can reach out to us.
I love it, you guys.
As I was preparing for the birth of Saggy, I listened to Dr.
Brooks podcast as a way to prepare myself for parenthood.
Mm.
Because I knew that once he got here, I probably wouldn't have the time to dedicate as much as I wanted to.
And so I took advantage of the time of being pregnant, and I really highly recommend reaching out and listenin' to that podcast if you.
If you feel like you just need a little bit of support or you're just interested a little bit and deepen your toes in and maybe exploring what this world is like.
Her podcast has so many gems and it is just filled with a lot of what I found very applicable and actionable steps that I could easily implement.
Like, kind of right then, um, maybe not like in that moment where I'm listening to the podcast, but like very easily actionable things.
Um, so again, if you, if you are feeling really overwhelmed in your parenthood journey and you want just a little support or you're ready to take this on a little bit at a time, that's a really, really great low key place to start.
All you guys, thanks so much for being here, Dr.
Brooke.
Thank you for being here.
I appreciate it.
You guys, be sure to follow Dr.
Brooke on social media and you can find me at Tranquility by HeHe and at the Birth lounge.
Until next time, head to your app store and download the Birth Lounge app for evidence-based childbirth education and postpartum support delivered straight to your phone.
Bye.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
I love hanging out with you, and it is an honor to be your go-to gal when it comes to preparing for your baby.
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I'm Hei and this is the Birth Launch podcast.