Rest Without Guilt: Regulating Your Nervous System

living it on your terms. You ready to wake up and thrive? Let's go. Let's go. Welcome to another episode of A Wakeup Call, where we give you tips and tools to thrive. I'm Tess. And I'm Layne. And we've got a listener question to start our episode today.

stages of peri. Oh. Even though I've listened to your episodes and I understand the importance of prioritizing rest and slowing down, I still feel lazy and selfish when I attempt it. Oh my goodness. How do I overcome that guilt and actually allow myself to rest, fill up my own cup, and without like feeling like I'm letting other people down? Thanks for all that you share. It's honestly helping me see things in such a new way. Wow. Well, I'm glad to hear that our podcast is resonating with you, and I'm sad to hear that you feel a sense of guilt when it comes to self-care and prioritizing yourself because when we do, as we know, we get

get to convince ourselves that if I just keep putting everyone first, then they'll all respect me, love me, appreciate me, and I can just deal with that and fill my cup up with that. And ultimately, the more we give, the more we deplete ourselves. We have to learn to give ourselves a little bit. I know that. And look, I give a lot to, as you do, we give a lot to many, but if I don't take the time to give to myself, I become depleted, resentful, bitter, grumpy. Yeah. I do not show up as the best version of me. It does not serve me. Ultimately, it sabotages me. So, here's the thing. Find

phone off. Apart from your road rage, I still drive in silence. But finding moments of clarity, finding moments of silence, finding those moments of rejuvenation is what will actually enable you to elevate yourself and show up better for everyone around you. Then once you do find that moment, connect with how it makes you feel. If it makes you feel better about yourself, if it makes you feel a little bit more centered, connected, and confident in yourself, then you're on the right track. And then schedule that religiously and guard that time with your life. Yeah, that's my toolkit for you. What would you say, Tessy?

table selfless, that's more selfish because you're not showing up as the best version of yourself. You're tired. You're depleted. And the kids get the worst version of you. Or even you. You save the best of you for work and you leave the worst of you for you. Yes. Like you give everything else and then you're just scrolling on social media calling that self-care and being triggered by certain words around the dinner table. Yeah. Yeah. So, I would say let's do a quick energy audit. There's always time. I would check your how much time people I always hear this. I don't have enough time. We spend 52 minutes a day talking about other people's lives. That's a scientific fact now. Great. We also spend an average of 8 to 10 hours on our phones. 8 to 10 hours. Actually is a little bit more than that. But if you do an energy audit, how long are you spending on social media? And then I would start to suggest that you put some self-care boundaries. So for me, something I'm introducing into my life and has been really good is I am giving up on the word balance. Mhm. It is not work life balance for me anymore. It's work life boundaries. So I have a really beautiful job. I love what we do. I could help people all day every day if I could. I could work with you every day most days. You do. And there's that my to-do list is endless and it's really fulfilling. But when I'm blending it doesn't work, right? So, if I'm sitting on the couch like watching TV with my family or if I'm playing with Benji and I'm answering emails, I'm not fully present, right? So, I'm putting my phone in my room in my drawer locked away and I'm deciding I am going to be mom now. And that boundary really helps me show up. Same as I'm going to exercise right now. And if I can only get 20 minutes around the block, I am exercising and that's it. Or 10 minutes. I'm not trying to listen to a podcast or stack. Everyone's obsessed with habit stacking. I'm just about doing one thing really well and that is my work life boundary that I'm including. So that's what I'd encourage you to do on top of your ones as well. There's a massive tool kit. We hope that helps. Yeah. So please get in touch with us cuz I know a lot of people feel like this.

Yeah. But also I recognize that some of my menopause symptoms are stress related. Yeah. Yeah. So, my nervous system does get fried and I need to deactivate that sympathetic nervous system response. We have a code word in my house. It's called potato and it's when I'm like on the verge of a little bit burnt out or my nervous system is fried and Chris will ask me something and if I don't have the answer, which that's my number one like effect of burnout is I can't think. So, I'm like potato. So, we have a code word is like do not come at me with a question or something that needs to happen. So the parasympathetic nervous system is

get tasks done like cook dinner to the table of three kids that you've got. So life is a balance or a nervous system is a balance between parasympathetic and sympathetic. You know all about this because you've done a lot of breath work training. What is the quickest way that you get from your sympathetic? Like so your heart rate's going up, your blood pressure, your breathing. How do you quickly activate your parasympathetic rest and digest mode? If the sympathetic nervous system is activated through our thoughts, the parasympathetic nervous system is instantly activated through our breath. It's the breath. The breath connects the mind and the body. It literally says to every aspect of yourself, everything's okay. You're not under attack. You're not under a threat. Just chill. Decompress for just one moment. It's the intentional connection with the breath that activates the parasympathetic nervous system. However, it's the slow exhale. It's the intentional slowness of the exhale which activates the decompression. So, we have to be very intentional about our breathing. Can we take our listeners through a quick breath? Let's take them through three different ones. Okay, since we love offering toolkits, let's give them three different styles of breath techniques to activate because we can use them in different scenarios, different times of our lives.

a menopause symptom. The first thing I have to do is bring my thoughts back to the present moment. And the quickest way to do that is by engaging my thoughts through a tactical or intentional breathing pattern. Simple as inhaling through the nose for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, exhaling for 4 seconds, and holding for 4 seconds. Very simple. Takes one minute. Love it. You do that in the morning too, right? First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is just That was a nice breath break. Thank you.

first word you should ever speak is actually a breath. So, I'm constantly trying to catch myself because if a triggering email or a conversation or kids asking what's for dinner when I've had a really big day, I want to really react and when I do that quick breath. So, in in hold out, I just come back to myself. I'm like, "Come and help me in the kitchen or how was your day?" Yeah, maybe I didn't read that email correctly. That was different. So, I get to choose how I respond by regulating my nervous system. Nice.

the mind, center the soul and decompress the central nervous system. And it's a really simple, effective way to actually put us into a sleep state before we go to bed or even when we're lying in bed and our thoughts are racing, worrying about what we missed out or what we got to do tomorrow. Just breathe in for four, in and out through the nose. Once again, in for four, hold for seven, and then slowly out for eight. It's like the ujjayi breath in yogic term. So, it sounds like it's the ocean just But it's coming through the nose. And that's a really beautiful way just to calm everything down and put you in a sleep state. Yeah. I love it. I like to talk about breath. Like if you've got a balloon and you fill the balloon up with air and then if you just let it go and fly off Yeah. that that's your nervous system. But when you're controlling your breath and you slowly let it out, you can actually create like it's a really soft exhale of the balloon and that's what you're trying to do. So if you imagine that in your body when you're feeling stressed or out of control, just slowly breathe in. Imagine yourself as a balloon. Yeah, exactly. Blow yourself up and release yourself slowly cuz you don't want to be flying around the room. No, you don't. One of the things I've been very curious about in my own well-being journey is my

Well, you were literally paralyzed. Yeah, but this was different injury. Yeah, this is like this is old Tess. This is before Oh, before the injury. Yeah, before this. This is I can recognize so many times where I have just worked so hard at the cost of my own well-being. I never took the time to implement resets throughout the day. Right now, when I get busy, I can feel that energy coming back. I can feel the burnout striking. I can feel there's an edge to me where I'm grinding my teeth or I'm not eating properly. I don't take time to eat away from my desk. I want to eat at my desk and just push through. So for me like one of the best ways I regulate my nervous system now is at lunchtime. The bravest people ever are the people who eat lunch away from their desk without their phone. You see them sitting in park benches or even my husband and I we work from home and we've implemented outdoor lunches. They may even go for 5 minutes. It's all it takes. But it's all it takes. And I never had that. I always thought, oh well, why are they having lunch? I'm too busy to have lunch. Yeah. You know how people ask me, do you think you would have won six world titles if you didn't have that drive? Do you think you would have been able to implement these tools now had you not gone through that period where you were so in denial of the burnout that you're in? You know, you just had that push on push through kind of mentality. Do you think you would have had the realization now had you not been through that? Have you been listening to this episode and thought, "Mic drop. Maybe I'm ready to get coached or have some therapy, but you don't want to go all the way down and get a therapist." Welcome to the Awake Collective where we do monthly coaching to help people feel accountable, supported, and they keep on doing the work that you hear in this podcast. It is life transformative. Right, LB? It's a community of support and like-minded people who are willing to keep investing in themselves because what we do is we help people help themselves. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, then the Awake Collective is for you. So, come and join us at awakeacademy.com.au and join us for monthly coaching, a community that supports you and tools that you can use in your life to thrive. Let's go. See you there.

to tumble. They just don't know when. And that was my gift was that it forced me into it. I get very emotional about how many people I see, speak to, feel who are fried, tired, wired, undesired, which was me. And they just don't know how to get off the wheel. They have no idea how to get off until someone taps them on the shoulder and goes, "Wake up." All the wheels fall off. All the wheels fall off. Right. Well, the skis fall off. Life falls off. But it's interesting that you say you knew that you were in that state, yet you still chose to ignore it. Why did you ignore it? I had never felt that I was worthy of self-care. Right? Similar to our listener question, I didn't need that. The advice that I would give everyone else is, "Go and take a rest. Have a break. I'll pick it up. I'll handle it. I'm bulletproof. I'm the do it all machine." But we're not. And if I was coaching myself in that, I would have like I can just see her and I'm so sad for her cuz she felt like she had to hold it all and could not admit defeat. But I think about like what it cost me like relationships, friendships, not being in a loving relationship, attracting the wrong people around me, like needing alcohol to decompress me, relationships that didn't serve me because I just needed to be loved so desperately I'd take it from anyone or anything. So yeah, I feel like it's not would it have come? Yeah, it was coming. It was coming like thick and fast in every area of my life, including my wellbeing. Like to the point where I decided one day I was going to get fit and healthy. So I went to the gym morning and at night, sometimes at lunchtime, I just burnt myself out doing that as well. I had an all or nothing approach to life and everything that I had and nothing would stop me. Right. Exhausting. And then you went overseas with a whole new opportunity and messed that up too. But it was like the big bang came. Yeah. And like I know that there is plenty of people right now who are on the hamster wheel and they cannot afford to have what happened to me. No.

I'm projecting onto the person that's not getting off the the hamster wheel where we're wrapping an identity around where we are right now and convincing ourselves that where we are is where we're meant to be. Everything's happening for a reason. But what's happening right now is not just happening. It's what you're choosing. And asking ourselves, is what I'm choosing right now serving me or sabotaging me? There's going to be aspects of your life that it is serving and there's going to be aspects that it's sabotaging. How valuable are these bits to you? Is it sabotaging your wellbeing? Is it sabotaging your relationships with people who love you and you've lost that connection? Is it compromising your well-being and your connection to the people who are the most important people in your life? Is it costing you more than what it's giving you? Yeah. And you I could say yes yes yes yes to every single one of those and still not get off the wheel not get off the wheel or go on a completely different extreme which is doing everything. Yeah. Well then you're just going to be on a hiding to nothing and perhaps that wakeup call will come in the form of a severe neck injury or the loss of a loved one or the complete breakdown of your own body and mind. And then once again, you've got another choice to make. So I mean, our lives are a reflection of not only the beliefs that we have, but the choices that we make. And we have to ask ourselves sooner or later, are the choices that we're making supporting our happiness and our growth? And we don't always have the realization. We don't always have the capacity to stop because like you, you're on this relentless hamster wheel of just got to get done. The should, would manual, just got to keep going. Got to keep going. I feel like that this is the intent of this podcast and our message is don't wait for the wakeup call. Exactly. And well, allow us to be your wake up call. And it can happen now in the sense that like if you can't do it for yourself, picture the people around you. Yeah. And I had never considered that how I was showing up at home. And I would have been so selfless. Like I was just a shell who would like well everyone was dancing around you. Yeah, dancing. But I was fun. I was still like drink the wine, eat the food. Like but I'll work really tirelessly in all of that like and just thrash myself. But so I would look if I was talking to this lady and to myself in this moment is when you take one tiny foot off and you do one thing that you love just one thing. You have to identify what is that thing. Yes. That's a good place to start and that will be one of our tools. But when I realized, okay, I don't need to go to the beach and run in a carnival or do whatever it was I was trying to it was just being like going to the beach, watching the sunrise and just by myself.

done this? Yeah. Like why? Like when you're able-bodied. Yes. And you don't have any depend. I didn't have any dependence at that time. And I could just walk and stand with my feet in the sand and watch the ocean. And you know a hospital really changes you particularly when you've been in it for so long. Like I had been in it for 4 months and I knew the smells, the sounds, the routine and the rhythm of every day. And some of it still triggers me today. But just that sheer blessing of having my feet in the sand and watching that sun come up, I was like, "This is awe. This is beauty." And this reminded me that there's something greater out there than than the life that we're experiencing, right? So, that was the getting out of my own head and experiencing one moment of awe was like my number one tool to getting off the hamster wheel, reminding you what it's like to feel again. Beautiful. That's a great aha moment and a beautiful gift. So, if people can start to identify what puts them into a state of awe. Yeah. And then submitting or surrendering themselves to that environment, that moment, that space, and guarding that time and honoring that time and then connecting with how it makes them feel. That's what will inspire them to do it again and again. And when you see more awe, you see more beauty and the light in the world. And there's so much science around awe. We'll ask Sue to bring some in. And like when you see the world like there's all everywhere like this room creating the podcast. But as we know when you're in nothing but intensity and overwhelm it's hard to see anything other than intensity and overwhelm. So how can I see awe and beauty in intensity and overwhelm? What are you expecting me to do here? Tess. So schedule and then you'll see more awe. Funny how the brain works. Just kind of I'm thinking now if I'm in this intensity and overwhelmed storm, how do I see awe in this? Well, I don't actually see any awe in that. What I do do is ask myself, where do I experience or where do I see awe? And it's mostly in nature. And as we know, when you're feeling blue, touch green. So go and immerse yourselves in nature. Sunrises, sunsets, feet in the sand, barefoot, walk in the grass, just the bush, the snow somewhere watching the stars. Watching the stars, but just connecting with nature is what will have the instantaneous impact of decompression and relaxation and awe and beauty to disconnect from that sense of overwhelm. And isn't it crazy that nature is one of the best deregulators that we have? Absolutely. And we never tap into it. Well, we do a lot of people. I do daily. I'm very fortunate with that one. But once again, it still has to be intentional. Similar to the breath, that connection, that awe moment has to be intentional. It can't be faked. It can't be pushed. It has to be real. I drive Chris insane cuz we'll go outside and I'll be like, "Take your shoes off. Take your top off. Get sunshine. Get your clothes off. Put your feet in the grass." Okay. So, take a breath. Take a breath. Experience some awe in your life. Experience the awe.

that's one of the ways I decompress after a really busy week. I love getting into the kitchen and baking muffins and cookies. Keeps Kirk happy, too. Yeah. My husband's like, "Oh, you're baking today. Oh, here we go. It's a messy day." Got to clean up after you. But it makes me like if I've been in a real masculine feminine role, like presenting or whatever, and then I come home and bake, I just come back to like my real feminine energy, but it means the kitchen looks like a show. Your husband's the the muffins taste beautiful. I'm sure they Okay, so you write your love to-do list. And then what's one more thing that we can encourage people do to decompress their nervous system and thrive in life? Schedule the time and honor it. Cuz we have to you you were talking about work life boundaries. We to to show up as our best selves. We have to establish the boundaries around that. And these boundaries need to be guarded. But the time that you need to allocate can be as simple as one minute. It doesn't have to be a complete overhaul to change your life. It has to be an intentional commitment that you schedule, guard, and commit to showing up to each and every day. I love it. Well, this was a really impactful nervous system reset for me cuz we've been recording a lot of podcasts. We've been running at a pretty rapid rate. We have. There's t-shirt ranges and vitamins and podcasts and collective memberships and motivational speaking. And you know what I feel like in all of that? If I didn't have the tools now, like it's very easy for us to sit here and to preach. And I don't like listening to preachers that I know aren't doing the work. I can hand on heart say that I would have burnt out over and over and over again during that period if we weren't both holding each other accountable. Yep. And doing the work, taking those micro breaks and finding awe and having time away from work and disconnecting from a holiday. scheduling a holiday and it only needs to be a day. Yeah. Yeah. I got my screen time down because I put a boundary around my holiday to 30 minutes and that was just to put music on for Benji to go to sleep. Brilliant. Well played. Yeah. So the boundary there's a tech challenge for you all. Your screen time down to 30 minutes on every day you're on holiday. So that's our nervous system decompress decompression and reset episode. We trust that this has impacted you. Please share it with a loved one. We really want to spread this message that you internally have the tools so you can thrive yourself cuz when you help yourself, you show up as your best self to your loved ones. And yeah, be a little bit selfish. 100%. Yeah. Cuz when you know yourself, you grow yourself. Yeah. So, be a bit selfish so you show up selfful, not selfless. Any more selves in that? No. I think we just look after yourself. Have a lovely week. Toodles. Bye.