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10 Tools to Reset Your Nervous System When Sh*t Hits the Fan


3 Things We Dive Into In This Episode:

  1. Tools you can use to reset your energy and nervous system when difficult things are happening in your life.

  2. Specific things to include in your morning and nighttime routine to improve your mental health.

  3. The impact that music, breathwork, and enjoyable movement have on regulating your nervous system.

📘Resources

📌Episode Highlights

[02:30] Taking Care of Herself & Her Nervous System

  • Life can be hard and unexpected. Situations come up and we have to move through them.

  • I was reminded of this when I was home for the holidays.

  • In this episode, I share 10 tools to use when you need to heal your nervous system.

[05:43] Cultivating a Morning & Nighttime Routine

  • Morning routines can be very simple and do not have to take hours. Pick something you already do and slow it down.

  • Give your routines a soundtrack with music that matches the energy you want to bring.

  • Avoid checking your phone first thing when you wake up.

  • Evening routines can be simple as well, just one or two things to shift into that time.

  • I share the two non-negotiables of my nighttime routine in the full episode!

Caitie: “Avoid forcing your brain into working right away, forcing your brain into the drama of social media right away, forcing your brain into the news right away, or into whatever situation is going on in your life.”


[12:32] The Power of Music

  • Music is a magical pattern interrupt.

  • In the episode, I share some of my favorite songs that help shift my energy.

  • Dance around your kitchen!

[14:37] Audio Notes

  • Listen to the full episode to learn why I prefer to use audio notes to communicate with my friends.

  • It is life-giving for me to vent in this way and/or express that I need support.

[16:12] Breathing Techniques & Scents

  • Breathwork practice helps you to slow down and go inward.

  • Tune into the full episode to learn about an easy breathing technique - you can use it anytime and anywhere you feel triggered and want to regulate your nervous system.

  • Scents are also a helpful way of regulating and nourishing your system.

  • Whether you prefer essential oils, candles, or room sprays, scent is a good way to reset the energy around you.

Caitie: “Making the exhale extra long is what really helps you regulate your system.”


[22:41] Nourish Yourself With Food & Water

  • Do not neglect your nourishing your body and ensuring you have adequate hydration.

  • When your system is dysregulated, it won’t share the usual signs that your body and brain need fuel.

  • Follow gentle nutritional guidelines that include a combination of carbs, protein, and fat every four to five waking hours.

  • Let others feed and nourish you.

Caitie: “When your nervous system is dysregulated, your brain and your gut are not connecting or communicating in the same way.”


[25:07] Movement

  • My advice: do movement practices that feel intrinsically enjoyable for you at the moment.

  • Movement will help cause a shift in energy and help bring you back to your body.

Caitie: "These are all tools to help us feel shifts in our energy so that we can feel more present and navigate the thing that we're going through with a little bit more ease."


[27:47] Grounding & Self-Compassion

  • I’ll share two ways to ground and center yourself in this episode - one has to do with using your voice, the other with nature.

  • Self-compassion is remembering that you are a human being, not a robot. Give yourself permission to be human.

  • Trauma, change, stress, and big changes all take a toll on your nervous system. Give your body and nervous system time to recover from that.

Caitie: "You're not gonna find safety in being hard on yourself."

Caitie: “We are all gonna have times in life that feel destabilizing and we need to use these tools to heal, to rest, to soothe, to nourish ourselves, to come back to our biological baseline.”


[53:34] This Week’s Processing Prompt & Actionable Experiment

  • Ask yourself: Which of these tools resonates with me the most? And which one do I wanna use the next time sh*t hits the fan or if sh*t is hitting the fan right now, which one do I wanna use?

  • Processing and journaling can also help in those moments when sh*t hits the fan. Get it out and on paper.

  • Actionable Experiment: try using the power of music.


Enjoyed the Podcast?

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Transcript

Caitie Corradino: There isn't one thing that's going to work for everybody, right? For everything I share on this podcast, all the tools I share on this podcast, it's so important to not substitute it for individualized medical or mental health advice.


Welcome to Whole, Full, & Alive, a podcast exploring the art and science of falling in love with your life, with your story, and with who you truly are underneath your titles, your resume, your relationship status, and your bank account. I'm Caitie Corradino, a registered dietician nutritionist, certified fitness and yoga instructor, eating disorder recovery coach, Reiki healer, and founder of Full Soul Nutrition. But underneath my titles and resume, I'm a big fan of kitchen dance breaks, early mornings, all things topped with truffles, world traveling, and serendipity. I'm here to share no bullsh*t stories and actionable tools to help you feel unshakably worthy. You have everything you need within you to feel whole, full, and alive right here, right now. Let's get into it.


Hi, welcome back to another episode of Whole, Full, & Alive. This will be the third episode, I believe, of the new year. So we're still pretty fresh into 2023 and if you're feeling like I'm feeling right now, 2023 has had a little bit of a bumpy start and if you're not feeling like I'm feeling right now, 2023 has had a smooth start for you. And to that, I say I'm so happy for you. I am coming to you in the midst of just a lot of different things going on right now, which actually is what inspired me to get on the microphone. I'm feeling a little bit like sh*t has hit the fan in my life, so to speak, and a little bit of a difficult time when I went home to the uh, New York, New Jersey area for the holidays and I'm okay. Nothing like incredibly tragic.


Well, I guess I don't wanna judge myself. I had a pretty difficult thing happen to me while I was there. And this podcast is not gonna be about what happened exactly. This podcast is gonna be about how I took care of myself and my nervous system while I was navigating that because the situation reminded me how difficult it can be to come back to yourself to care for yourself, to nourish yourself when you have a really triggering thing happen in your life. So today's episode is gonna be pretty short and sweet, but hopefully pretty value packed for you. I wanna share with you today some concrete tools for when life feels a little bit on fire. When you're kind of smooth sailing and then you've got, let's say a family situation come up or a breakup happens or you're in financial stress suddenly, or all of these very human things that we all experience from time to time.


How do we tap into our wholeness, our fullness, and our aliveness when it feels like we can't feel the ground beneath our feet? There isn't one thing that's going to work for everybody, right? For everything I share on this podcast, all the tools I share on this podcast, it's so important to not substitute it for individualized medical or mental health advice. And also I hope that a few of these 10 tools that I'm gonna share with you today help you next time you feel like you've lost the ground beneath your feet for logistical, emotional, familial, financial reasons. All right, so let's get into it. And before I do, I wanna remind you that I currently have a few spaces open for one-on-one counseling and coaching at my practice, Full Soul Nutrition. I offer an immersive three-month one-on-one coaching program that includes a very unique combination of nutrition, counseling, meal planning, body image healing, somatic breath work, and more.


I take a super holistic approach to my three-month program and it really does help you feed yourself and feel yourself slow down and live your life fully. So I have a few spaces open for that. I also have an online toolkit available at my website, https://www.fullsoulnutrition.com/. You can purchase that at any time for $99. It has a bunch of mini-workshops, journal prompts, actionable experiments in there that you can start implementing in your life today if one-on-one counseling's feeling inaccessible for you. And pretty soon I am gonna open up, um, enrollment for group coaching. So kind of covering a lot of the same principles that I cover in one-on-one counseling but group coaching is a great fit for you if you're someone who benefits from being in a little bit more of a community or if you're feeling like you can't make the investment in one-on-one support at this time.


So let's get into it. Let's get into today's episode 10 Tools for When sh*t Hits the Fan. Tool number one is cultivating a very, very simple morning routine. Now, I hope I didn't lose you when I said that because I think when people, people think morning routines nowadays, they tend to think about like the TikTok influencer who wakes up at 5:00 AM, sees the beautiful sunrise, fills her cup of green juice and has avocado toast and does a yoga flow. And that is not the morning routine I am talking about that's gonna ground you when hits the fan. I'm not even sure that that morning routine is gonna ground you at any point in your life because if we focus on making things too bougie and extravagant, they become unsustainable very quickly and it's just not realistic for everyone to wake up hours before work and have this fully, elaborate tiktokable morning routine.


So what I'm talking about when I say cultivating a sustainable morning routine, I mean slow down a few things that you already do in the morning. So for example, do you brush your teeth and wash your face in the morning? Can you take some deep breaths while you do it? Can you slow down while you do it? Can you play some music, either a calming kind of acoustic vibe in the morning or maybe you need some happier vibes in the morning. Can you slow down what you're already doing and maybe give it a soundtrack? I think that is the simplest and best morning routine. Pick a few things that you already wanna do anyway and slow them down. So when I don't have time for absolutely anything else in the morning, I just try to slow down what I'm already doing. So I try to wash my face slowly put on music while I'm doing it.


I try to make my bed with a little bit of extra care and I try to slowly drink a cup of coffee. I hold the mug with two hands and drink it slowly and that's like bare minimum morning routine that just helps me feel a little bit grounded. Maybe if you feel like you can expand it a little bit, you just add one simple thing just tack on one simple thing to the stuff that you're already doing. So maybe you just do a brain dump in a journal for five to 10 minutes, or maybe you roll out your yoga mat and do a few cats and cows and child's pose. Maybe you add in a little bit more of a fancy breakfast, you take some time to make oatmeal with extra toppings and fruits and proteins and things like that. So slow down what you're already doing and if you have a little bit of extra time, maybe you just tack on one extra thing.


And I would say the only other non-negotiable thing in the morning is trying not to check your phone first thing. So your phone just can completely take your brain to a different place before it needs to be taken to a different place. I don't know the exact science to communicate this, but I do know that our brains are in some certain relaxed state when we wake up and when we look at our phones first thing, it forces our brain immediately out of that relaxed state rather than having it gradually shift into more of like an executive functioning place. And that can actually be really, really bad for your brain. And I imagine it's especially bad for your brain when sh*t is hitting the fan. So slow down what you're already doing, maybe tack on one additional thing, and then do not look at your phone first thing in the morning.


Whatever you can do to avoid opening Instagram immediately. Maybe you open like some sort of like calm meditation app and start having that play. Maybe you open up Spotify, like I said, and play some sort of music first thing in the morning. If you've gotta pick up the phone, try to open up something like that. Whatever you can do to avoid forcing your brain into working right away, forcing your brain into the drama of social media right away, forcing your brain into the news right away or into whatever situation is going on in your life. Can you give yourself some peace in the morning? And all of this doesn't even need to take more than 15 minutes. So that is number one tool for when hits the fan. Number two tool is kind of obvious, cultivating also a nighttime routine. Now this definitely doesn't need to be complicated at all.


Can you just choose one to two things to tack on before you try to force yourself into bed? Two non-negotiable things for me in my nighttime routine are changing the lighting in my room. So turning off the lights and putting on, I have this like galaxy light that like projects stars on the ceiling of my bedroom. It's like maybe a little childish, but that's like exactly what we need in our lives, right, childlike vibes. I also have a salt lamp in my room and I light candles sometimes. Shifting the lighting is really important to me. And then doing some sort of stretch either in my bed or on the floor next to my bed. Super, super important to just feel like I'm releasing my lower back before I go to sleep. I love to read before I go to sleep. It barely ever happens though, honestly for me, especially when sh*t’s hitting the fan and I'm exhausted after whatever ensued that day.


So choosing just one to two things that you non-negotiable do to help yourself feel grounded before you go to sleep. And ideally those things involve like getting into your body in some way. So that's why stretching can be so powerful cause it really connects you kind of to your five senses, to your sense of touch, to your sense of just getting more regulated. So thinking of really simple things that you can do. So morning routines and evening routines. You know that I love them and you know that I don't like the way they've been like over glamorized on social media and overcomplicated on social media. They get to be simple and sustainable. And when you let them be simple and sustainable, they can be so, so nourishing, especially in hard times. You really deserve those morning and evening routines. Okay, so we've got the book ends to our day.


We've got what we can do in the morning and we've got what we can do in the evening, but what the heck are we gonna do with all that space in between on a hard day, how do we navigate the ups and downs of a difficult situation going on in our lives? So number three, which is the first tool for the in between is the power of music. Music is f*cking awesome. I mean, Spotify is a great thing to subscribe to. I don't know, I don't know that I would've survived my last breakup if I didn't have a few particular songs that really, really helped me heal a few of them. No Time for Tears by Little Mix. So good, such a good song. I Am Here by Pink, love that song. Ah, Camilla Cabello song. Oh, what's it called with Ed Sheeran? It's so good.


Bam Bam I, oh my gosh, amazing song. Putting on music is a pattern interrupter. Watch how you shift from feeling so lost and dysregulated to feeling completely new and different when you put on a song that resonates with you or a song that taps into the kind of mood that you are trying to cultivate in that moment that taps into the energy that you are trying to cultivate in that moment. Let yourself come alive through music, let music be a pattern interrupter. And if you're open to it and you're feeling free and you're alone, especially, let yourself dance to the happy kinds of songs. If you, if you're putting on like, oh Lizzo my favorite person ever, like let yourself dance around in your kitchen to Lizzo. Remember that being hard on yourself and beating yourself up for all of the things that you think you should be doing in a certain moment is never going to make you love yourself more.


And listening to the song I Love You B!tch by Lizzo and dancing to it in your kitchen is going to make you love yourself more. It is going to give you the boost of energy that you need to make it through a really difficult day. So let music and even dance and just moving your body freely be a pattern interrupter. That is my third tool for these really hard days. Fourth tool is audio notes. Now you might not know what I mean by that. So, leaving a voice memo, a voice message on iMessage or WhatsApp to a friend is life-saving for me? I really don't like texting very much. I really don't like taking time to type out messages, especially because I spend so much time on a computer. Sometimes I just wanna hold down a button and be able to like look at the room around me while I communicate something to a friend.


And communicating with my best friends via audio message is life-giving to me. And it always has been. And it's especially life-giving in moments when I feel ungrounded, unsafe, uncertain, triggered, I know I've got a few people that I can kind of just leave an audio note for and vent to them in a meaningful way or ask for their support. And I really would recommend using this method of communication with your friends if you don't already. I know some people, especially millennials and Gen Zers don't like talking very much, but I happen to be very comfortable talking, maybe it's cuz I talk into a podcast microphone all the time, but I think that once you get used to it, it's just such a good way to communicate with people and there's no, there's no room for misinterpretation when people can hear the tone of your voice.


So there's that too. Okay, so that's tool number four is audio notes. Tool number five is predictably breathing, really, really breathing and maybe doing a quick breathwork practice if you can. I actually have a bunch of free breathwork practices that I constantly send out to my newsletter subscribers. If you're not subscribed to my weekly Wednesday newsletter called Back to You, I definitely recommend subscribing to that because I send out re somatic breath work practices all the time that are super quick. If you don't feel like doing a formal practice led by me or another facilitator, what I recommend is taking a deep breath in for four counts, holding it at the top for four counts and then exhaling for five to six counts. Deep breath in for four, hold for four and out for six or five to six. Making the exhale extra long is what really helps you regulate your system.


So deep breath in hold and then long exhale out. The power of breathing is just so amazing. I did a whole episode on somatic breath work and I will continue to talk about breathing and breath work cause it's been truly life-changing for me personally. And I love all the science that's coming out about it. And the book Breathe by James Nester, or maybe it's called Breath, either one, James Nester. Look it up. And it's just such a cool thing because it has the power to really help you release unprocessed emotions, really connect with yourself and it's not a substance like mushrooms and like all these other things that are currently being explored to help us release suppressed emotions and things like that. And there I don't have anything against using plant medicine as people are calling it nowadays. I think it can be plant medicine.


And I think that that's beautiful and I hope that we do get more research on that. And what I love about breathwork is that you don't have to let something else take you for a ride. It's like you've got your foot on the gas the whole time. You're taking yourself for a ride, you're going inward, you have agency the entire time and you can uncover what's kind of living in your body and sort of in your unconscious mind sometimes through breathing. And then you can regulate and re-pattern also through breathing. It's such a beautiful and powerful practice. The simplest one is what I just said, breathe in hold and exhale for a few rounds. And there's so many other types of breathing. So there's somatic release breath work, which is what I'm certified in, and then there's like whim, huff, and all these different types of breath work that you can do to go much, much deeper and it really helps you unlock what's stuck, what's stored in your body.


So breathing is tool number five. So so far we've got our morning routine, we've got our evening routine, we've got music, we've got audio notes, and we've got breathing. Tool number six is scent. So I'm not an essential oils salesperson or an affiliate of doTERRA or anything like that. I'm not trying to sell you stuff. I love essential oils and I love candles, I travel with candles and essential oils absolutely wherever I go. And it is amazing how much sense can help you. I actually had a client session one time where my client was really starting to recover from her eating disorder and it was so, so beautiful. So we were talking about, you know, like what, what are you interested in? Like what are your hobbies? Like what lights you up and how can we help you get more involved in those things now that you're recovering and you can live life like a little more fully and deeply?


She goes, I think one of my hobbies is like scents. Like I really, really like scents. Why am I really drawn to this is like a teenager, why am I drawn to scents? And we're talking about how that's so natural to be drawn towards things that smell good and to have an interest in things that smell good because they can just be so regulating and nourishing for your system. So lavender is a great scent for calming down, but you also can use things like lemon and orange and peppermint to kind of wake yourself up a little bit more. Just a candle that smells like anything that feels good and yummy to you. I love candles that are like ocean scents. I don't think they really actually smell like the ocean, but they have like beachy vibes to them. I love a good coconut scent, using scent, your scent of sense of smell to also feel more cozy, more comfortable, more grounded.


I also love room sprays. I feel like that's also a way to kind of just like reset the energy in your, in your space, like spraying any sort of oil, spraying any sort of scent. And of course there are very deep and cultural roots that go way back for using sage and Palo Santo and things like that. And there are a lot of traditions that talk about the energetics of using things like sage and Palo Santo and they're all beautiful. And I encourage you to research that and utilize that if it feels aligned for you and it doesn't feel appropriate or misaligned for you. And one thing to think about when you're using those things is simply just the power of how they smell, how incense and Palo Santo and sage and things like that can reset the energy of a room and of your nervous system just because it feels rounding to smell something good.


Like when I was in the midst of this thing that I was going through during the holidays, I just went into my room and lit a few nag champa incense and just laid in my bed and stretched and did some breathing and put on music that made me feel good and that was so nourishing and it really helped me tap into an intangible sense of inspiration. And I promise you that if you do that you will feel a shift. I guarantee it. Tool number seven is, I should have put this way higher on the list, but not neglecting to nourish yourself with food and water. When sh*t hits the fan, it is so easy to become disconnected from your hunger cues. That is one of the primary symptoms of stress is like, or you like feel really, really hungry, and then all of a sudden you start eating and you don't feel as hungry anymore.


Like all kinds of messy things like that can happen because when your nervous system is dysregulated, your brain and your gut are not connecting or communicating in the same way. But what you need to do when your body cues, your hunger cues are buried by stress is to really just follow structured gentle nutrition guidelines. Remember that your body needs some combination of carbs, protein, and fat every four to five waking hours, even when your nervous system is too overwhelmed to send hunger cues to your brain, you still need fuel. Lack of hunger cues does not equal lack of hunger. Just because you cannot feel your hunger does not mean that you aren't hungry. Just because your brain isn't getting the message from your gut that you're hungry doesn't mean that your body doesn't need food. And water is also very, very important. Make sure that you are hydrating, that you are giving yourself adequate hydration, not just pounding coffee, especially if you're not getting sleep for any reason during your stressful period of life.


Food and water are so, so, so important. And if you can let yourself be fed by other people, and I don't necessarily mean force someone to cook you a meal, if you have like a roommate or something or like your spouse or whatever, you don't have to force them to cook you a meal, but go out and get food. This is the time when you go to Chipotle to get a meal. This is a time when you order Seamless to get a meal. This is a time when you let yourself be nurtured and nourished by another human to the extent that you can afford it, right? But also knowing that making that investment in yourself, letting yourself get a meal ordered in takeout is important. It's gonna be an important way to kind of regulate your system and recover from the time of crisis. Number eight is movement.


Now, this is going to look really different for every single human being. First of all, you need to make sure that you're getting adequate sleep, adequate rest, adequate food, and nourishment in order to incorporate more intense movement into your stress-relieving practices. But truly movement can feel like a relief as long as your body has the nourishment to do it. It is important though in times when sh*t is hitting the fan that you do movement practices that feel intrinsically enjoyable for you in the moment. Don't do the hard-hitting training, the kind of training that you feel like you need to get through the kind of training that you know you truly in your heart of hearts don't actually enjoy. This is the time when you take the dance fitness class. If you like dancing, this is the time when you go to the yoga flow, if you like yoga, this is the time when you go to the kickboxing class.

If you like kickboxing or boxing in general. This is the time when you maybe don't play sports because if your nervous system is like dysregulated, your response time might be slow and you don't want to get injured or something like that. But this is the time to do a form of movement that feels intrinsically enjoyable for you and helps you really get in your body. Get grounded, get into the present moment. And remember not to take an all-or-nothing approach here. Especially if your stress is logistical or financial or something like that. You're not gonna wanna go to like a full-on class or pay a personal trainer or something like that. All movement counts, all movement, any movement at any length can cause a shift. And that's what all of these tools are.


All of these tools are tools to cause a shift to cause some sort of shift in your energy to help you feel a little bit more grounded amidst a storm. So none of these tools are supposed to solve the problem, right? None of these tools are gonna take away our stress about our family or our money or our home or whatever breakup, whatever it is that's happening. These are all tools to help us feel shifts in our energy so that we can feel more present and navigate the thing that we're going through with a little bit more ease. So none of these tools are solving problems. Most of these tools are soothing us through a problem or helping us cultivate a little bit more nourishment, groundedness, present and energy while we are navigating the sticky, tricky, messy, hard thing. Tool number nine is grounding. So grounding actually encompasses two different things.


So I think of grounding, like centering yourself in two different ways. So number one way you can ground is to simply ground yourself in the present moment by kind of speaking out loud or in your head where you are in life, in space right now. Like you can actually say your name for example, like “My name is Caitie, I am 28 years old, I'm in Denver, Colorado, it's January, 2023. I'm an adult. I can take care of myself.” It is important to practice this to center yourself when you find yourself spinning and getting caught up in what ifs in the past, in the present, in the future, ground yourself by saying your name sounds silly. And also next time you're in a chaotic situation, put your hand on your heart. This is my name, this is my age. I am an adult and I can take care of myself.


This is my name, this is my age. I am here if this is the date, this is the time. Because how many days get away from us where we don't even remember like what the date is on the calendar or what day of the week it is, or what time of day it is. There are so many things that we get caught up in when we're having a stressful moment in our lives. Can you ground yourself by reminding yourself out loud where you are right now? And then the other part of grounding is actually grounding in nature. And as a New York City girl, I have to tell you that I never thought I would be on a microphone telling you to do this, but I have found a lot of peace by stepping out into nature lately. I kind of intuitively moved to Denver. I talk a little bit more about that on a different episode of the podcast because I just like had a really good feeling about Denver for the most part.


Had a like intangible, just like, I really like it here sort of thing. And I think I've come to realize that one of the reasons why I really like Denver is because I have access to nature that I honestly have never had before living in New York City for so long. And I've recognized that when I'm starting to feel disintegrated or when I'm starting to feel scattered all over the place, I can go outside and like be near grass and a tree and birds. And here in my case, I can actually literally see the mountains when I go outside and I realize like I'm okay. I feel especially when it's cold outside, sometimes the feeling of just like cold air hitting your face can just be so refreshing and that can feel so grounding to just like ground yourself in nature. Some people also go so far as say like take your shoes and your socks off and put your feet in dirt, sand, grass or the ocean if you're lucky enough to have access to that because they say the earth is like this ginormous battery that has natural subtle electrical charge.


And it's like you feel a sense of safety and stability when you get connected to like the electrical power plant in the earth. That's what the term grounded actually means. So thinking about that, so thinking about grounding yourself in the present, what's the date? What's your age? Who are you? What time of day it is? Saying it out loud, it's January 4th, 2023, it is Wednesday. And maybe going outside in nature if you have access to it coming from New York City, I know all too well that not all of us have access to nature. And so you can also access nature in other ways if you have a pet, that is another way to access nature. Spending time with your pet, petting your, you guys are gonna laugh at the way I say dog, petting, petting your dog, petting your cat, spending time with your animals if you have them, if you get plants in your apartment, that can also be kind of a grounding thing.


And like dark chocolate is also kind of like a grounding sort of like earthy food. So think about that. Think about different ways you can get connected to different elements of nature and earth and feel grounded in that sense. So that's tool number nine for when hits the fan. And tool number 10. Last but not least is self-compassion. Don't turn off the podcast. I'm not gonna say treat yourself the way you would treat a friend. Self-compassion, I'm finding it's something I explore all the time because it has to be a major crux of what I do as a nutrition counselor, an eating disorder recovery coach, a body image coach like I, I need to work with people on self-compassion all the freaking time. So I'm always thinking about it, I'm always researching it. And something I've realized is that self-compassion can be so simplified.


It can be simplified to you are a human. That is what self-compassion is. It's remembering that you are a human f*cking being. You are not a robot. I saw a meme one time that was like it said, doing my affirmations, and then it was like a screenshot of that little cash thing that says like, check the box to confirm you're not a robot. Where it says like, I am not a robot. You know when you're going through like a security check on a website and you have to confirm that you're not a robot. So the meme was like doing my affirmations for the day and it was like checking the box that says I am not a robot. But that's what it is. That's really, really, really what it is. It's reminding yourself, I am not a robot. I am not this thing where you just plug in inputs and you get certain outputs.


I'm a human being, I need sleep, I need rest, I need to recover from trauma. My brain doesn't like change. Your brain doesn't like change as a human being. You have a certain biology and a certain set of limits and you have a biological natural resistance to big changes. So when something big happens in your life, something traumatic like a breakup, something scary like financial stress, something going on, you need to give yourself grace and patience because it's going to take your body and your nervous system some time to recover from that. Truly. And I'm speaking to you as someone who also struggles with this from time to time. I mean, last week I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to continue running my business. Like I always run my business showing up for my clients the way I always show up for my clients like and some.


And then I was like, oh gosh, I can't believe I only did this, this, and this today. Like how dare I, I was creating like crazy to-do lists for myself. And I think it was because I was just trying to source some semblance of control, admit something difficult that was going on. And if I had just taken a step back, I could have seen that what I really needed in order to source a semblance of certainty and safety would be to just let myself rest. And so if you're feeling that drive to be hard on yourself during a difficult time, remember that you're not gonna find safety in being hard on yourself. You're just not. And you don't have to speak to yourself the way a friend would speak to you. Let let a friend speak to you the way a friend would speak to you.


Leave your friend an audio note. Reach out for support. Reach out to a therapist if you have one. Reach out to people in your life who can speak to you a way a friend would speak to you and to yourself at the very least, just remind yourself that you're a human and that you biologically, literally biologically need the time to recover from big changes, from big life shifts, from traumatizing events biologically, you can't expect yourself to keep outputting, to keep moving, to keep functioning as normal when you have a stressful situation. So you have to acknowledge your limits and do what you can to recharge with morning routines, with evening routines, with music, with movement, with nourishment, with water, with a lot of these things. Grounding, like I just said with breathing, with breath work. Can you let yourself be a human? Please let yourself be a human.


That is like the bare minimum, most important foundation of self-compassion is reminding yourself that you're a human being and giving yourself permission to be a human being. I think we all think that we're the exception. Oh, well yeah, that person gets to be a human, that person gets to rest. But, but I don't get to rest cuz I, I need to do this or I don't get to rest because I I'm having financial stress right now or I don't get to rest because I, I need to, you know, we all think we're the exception I get, I get myself in that place pretty often where I think I'm the exception to the rule of needing rest and recharge and recovery time as a human being. None of us get out of this like, you know, being biological creatures thing. We are all gonna have times in life that feel destabilizing and we need to use these tools to heal, to rest, to soothe, to nourish ourselves, to come back to our biological baseline.


And so give yourself that grace and compassion of being a human being. So that's what I've got for you today. Just kind of straight from the heart. I actually didn't write this list in advance, I just made it off, up off the top of my head. So, I hope that these tools serve you. I basically was giving actionable experiments and processing prompts throughout this entire episode today. But for the sake of consistency with structure of my episodes, let me leave you with one final processing prompt and an actionable experiment. So if you're new to the pod, a processing prompt is a prompt that you can use to write in a journal or to process out loud with a friend or your therapist, or just kind of think about yourself. Today's processing prompt is, which of these tools resonates with me the most? And which one do I wanna use the next time sh*t hits the fan?


Or is sh*t hitting the fan right now and I wanna use it. If you just use one tool on this list, I swear you will feel better. So even if you just use music, even if you just use Lizzo to regulate your mood, even if you just use Spotify to give yourself a little boost and have a mini dance party in the kitchen to kind of just interrupt the pattern of stress in your life, that can do a lot for you. Even if you just implement a simple morning routine and don't look at your phone first thing in the morning, that can do a lot for you. Even if you just, what's another tool on the list? Even if you just do a gentle and enjoyable movement practice that can do a lot for you. Eating does quite a lot for you. Hydrating adequately does a lot for you.


Keep that in mind. And also, I didn't really put journaling on this list, but I think it's implied that this process of processing and journaling can also do quite a lot for you in those moments when sh*t hits the fan. For sure, for sure, for sure. Getting it all down on paper, brain dumping it, doing this processing prompt. And an actionable experiment for you today is to just try the music one. Just try it. I mean, I know so many people who don't use the power of music to regulate their mood. Like, can you make yourself a few playlists for a few different moods? Like when you know you need to feel grounded, what songs feel really grounding for you? What songs give you that kind of palpable, grounding, calming, but inspiring energy. I really like Trevor Hall's music for that kind of stuff. I also like Noah Cyrus's music for that stuff.


And what kind of songs give you a boost? Some songs I named before for like my breakup recovery like Camilla Cabello and like Lizzo and things like that also. But like immediate boost. Immediate boost. What songs just make you dance? Do you like, are you a dancer? Do you know choreography? Do you wanna make a playlist of songs that you have choreography to? And what songs have beautiful lyrics that you can listen to and, and feel inspired by? What songs are good for a walk? What songs are good for like a sound meditation? There's a lot of sound meditations on Spotify that are just like pure sound. I love Beautiful Chorus’s stuff. Also really wonderful Faith’s Hymn by Beautiful Chorus is just ugh, amazing, amazing grounding, inspiring meditation song. So yeah, work with that. Let me know what you think. And thanks for being here with me today while I talk off the cuff. I hope that something on this podcast resonated with you and you can take it away for I said sh*t hits the fans so many times on this episode. Can you use these tools for the next time life feels a little bit on fire? I can't thank you enough for being here, for supporting Whole, Full, & Alive. Don't forget that you have what you need within you to feel Whole, Full, & Alive. And I'll see you back here next week.

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