I Wrote a Book! - Let's Talk About It!

Episode 53

This conversation is a shameless celebration with you all that I wrote a book and a sneak peak as to what's held within its pages. Healing Through the Vagus Nerve is a guide to understanding and healing anxiety, depression, stress, and trauma through nervous system regulation.

It still feels quite surreal to say I wrote a book but I’m so stinking proud of it and I wholeheartedly believe it's pages hold hope and healing for thousands and thousands of people & you can pre-order your copy TODAY!⁠

📚 Pre-order my new book, Healing Through the Vagus Nerve today! (& get a bonus book course for FREE)

3 take aways:

1.  The vagus nerve plays a crucial role in mental and physical health, if you want to learn more click here to listen to episode 15
2. Nervous system regulation is about elasticity, it’s about increasing your capacity for the hard, not about avoiding it, and vagal tone plays a big role in this.
3.  One final shameless ask to preorder the book! Pre-orders are really important first time author. I promise this book will not only be a beautiful addition to your library but a tangible and powerful part of your healing journey!

Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast

Email: amanda@riseaswe.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaontherise/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaontherise

Transcript

0:00  
Welcome to regulate, and rewire and anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong. And I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in. 

0:27  
Hi, Friends, welcome back. I am so so so excited for today's conversation, because I am finally going to pull the curtain back and share with you more details about my book. So I have a book that will be published early May titled: Healing Through The Vagus Nerve. And I'm going to put many, many plugs into today's episode to remind you that my book is available for pre order. But it still feels so surreal to be talking about a book that I authored to be able to say that I'm going to be a published author in just a couple of months is wild. And not something I really ever aspired to be. I did not wake up one day and think I you know what, I want to be an author, I want to write a book, this opportunity came honestly at a really inconvenient time that we made work, which I'll tell you more about in a minute. But I am really, really proud. I'm proud of myself, I'm proud of the book. And I wholeheartedly believe that its pages hold so much hope and healing for the 1000s and 1000s of people who will read it. 

1:47  
And for today's conversation, I just want to talk to you like your friend sitting on my couch, who just asked like, how did you come to write a book? What was it like to write your book very, very pregnant with your baby's due date as a looming deadline for the manuscript? What did you expect? Or what can I expect to get from the pages of the book. And before we get into the fun storytelling, I, like it just mentioned, have an ask for all of you listening. And my ask is that you preorder my book, and I am going to drop a link to order on Amazon in the show notes to make that as easy as possible for you. 

2:35  
There is a past version of me that would be so embarrassed to ask for support in any way. And this more healed part of me is giving myself permission to be proud permission to share this accomplishment and permission to ask for support in this. Because pre orders are something that are really, really important for first time authors, which I am, and according to my publisher, March pre orders are going to be extra extra important. So you can order this book most places that you order books. But like I said, I will drop the Amazon link, because this really fun thing happens on Amazon where if you preorder the book, and it goes on sale at any point before pub date, which is at the beginning of May, then when your book ships to you, you will only be charged the lowest price that that book ever was. And to further gamify this, the more books that are pre ordered, the more likely it is to go on sale. But regardless, regardless, regardless, this book is $22.99. And my ask is that if you have found value out of this podcast, at any point, the best thank you in the world, for the literal hundreds of hours that I've put into this podcast unpaid would be to go preorder my book. 

4:11  
And I am almost done with a follow along video course that you will get as or anybody will get as a bonus for pre ordering. And this is a really beautiful course where I walk you through chapter by chapter of the book. There's a whole chapter in the book that has written instructions and these beautiful illustrations for different vagal toning practices, different nervous system regulation practices. And for that chapter, you'll get a whole library of video guided practices to just hit play and follow along in case maybe reading those instructions doesn't make sense. It's going to be a really high value course to go along with the book. And my publisher has given me the goal of getting 1000 pre orders before May 1, and at least 300 of those need to happen in March, for algorithm reasons that I don't understand. So I'm kind of a competitive person, I have a long history in competitive athletics. And I would love to hit 300 before the end of March, and I know that today, there are over 1000 of you who are going to listen to this podcast, what would be bananas wild? If all of you actually pre ordered my book today, I could hit my preorder by the end of March instead of May, which would be wild. 

5:43  
Okay. Okay. I'll get off this whole preorder thing now, because now it sounds like I'm begging, I would just be really, really stoked. But I know that you came to my podcast today to hear about more than the importance of pre ordering my book. 

5:57  
So where to start? I went back and forth a bunch mentally on whether to start with sharing the why like, why write a book on the vagus nerve or the story about how I came to write a book that I never planned on writing in the first place? And I think let's start with the why. So why a book on the vagus nerve. And the best place to start for a quick minute might be on what what is the vagus nerve for any of you who may be newer to the podcast newer to nervous system based conversations. Your vagus nerve is your longest and most complex cranial nerve, it exits your brainstem and then weaves its way through almost every single major organ in your body all the way down through your colon. And when we use terminology, when we're talking about things like mind body connection, we are primarily talking about the conversation that happens in your vagus nerve. This is like the information superhighway of your body. And when this nerve when your vagus nerve is healthy, we say that it has high vagal tone. And when it is not healthy, it has low vagal tone. And low vagal tone has been very, very closely linked to things like anxiety, depression, stress, trauma, feeling really emotionally reactive. So many other mental and physical health conditions as well can be linked and correlate with low vagal tone. And knowing this can be really helpful because there are tangible and research supported habits and practices that improve your vagal tone. 

7:46  
And we know that when you have higher vagal tone, one of the things that we experience is greater resiliency towards stress, so we don't get stressed out as often. But what I think is even more valuable than that is higher vagal tone is associated with greater capacity to reset from stress. Stress is an inevitable part of the human experience. But with higher vagal tone, we know that your body resets from stressful experiences back to your baseline this is something that we call elasticity. Right think about elasticity, it is the ability of something to be stretched and then to return to its original shape. So elasticity in the context of nervous system regulation is your ability to return back to a healthy, relaxed, yet engaged and present baseline as your consistent normal after stressful life events happen. 

8:49  
And when it comes to overall nervous system regulation, your vagus nerve is the star of the show because it makes up about 75% of your overall parasympathetic nervous system. So your parasympathetic nervous system is that green zone it is your rest and digest. And this means that when your vagus nerve is functioning optimally, you have greater access to this regulated state. And I won't go into too too much detail about what the vagus nerve is, how to improve vagal tone, etc. Here today, because I did that in a previous episode. And I'll link that in the show notes. But the bottom line here is that the vagus nerve matters. It's really, really important and it's often the common denominator between a lot of what feel like separate symptoms seems like they just have issues or mental health. And so many of our clients after learning about the vagus nerve feel really frustrated that doctors or therapists or anybody that they'd worked with in the past hadn't brought it up. So again, if you want to learn more about the vagus nerve after you finish today's conversation, head to the show notes where I'll link episode 15 titled What is your vagus nerve? nerve. And that conversation was really about helping you build an understanding of and relationship with your vagus nerve as part of your entire nervous system in a way that felt really tangible and applicable to your healing journey. So I give you a lot of tangible tools. And in that episode, you'll also even hear at the beginning, it is about a really, really exciting announcement about the vagus nerve coming soon. And, ta-da, that announcement was that I had spent the last six months writing that book. 

10:35  
So let's maybe jump into that story. Now. How in the world did I come to a place where I wrote a whole book, it all started on September 9 2022. I got an email from an editor and part of that email read:

10:55  
"Hey, Amanda, I'm writing as I'm interested in pursuing a general interest book in parentheses, not a textbook, exclamation point, a general interest book on the vagus nerve. And as luck would have it, a coworker recently passed on your Tiktok. I clicked through and went over to browse your races we website, I really liked what I saw the post themselves, your philosophy, credentials, and even the aesthetic. I know you have a lot going on. But I would be excited to brainstorm whenever you have the bandwidth, if a book along these lines is something you might be interested in, or if you have any other ideas." 

11:29  
So a little more backstory, I am reading this email exactly one week after finding out that I was pregnant from a successful IVF transfer. So when he said, I know you've got a lot going on, he didn't even have a clue that I had just found out I was pregnant. And reading this email, I felt so many things, I felt flattered that I was even considered, I felt so unqualified to write an entire book about anything. I was really nervous, because let's say this, I wasn't even sure if this was something I wanted to do. But if this is something I want to do, I know the next three months of my life are going to be plagued with morning sickness and puking because first trimesters of pregnancy is always kick my trash. But what I felt most was just a general curiosity and excitement to to learn more. 

12:25  
So needless to say, I scheduled that call with my editor, we chatted. And one thing that I shared with him on that call was like, Look, if I'm going to write a book on the vagus nerve, it cannot just be about the vagus nerve. Because if you just pull out one piece of healing through this nervous system lens, we leave gaping holes. And I expressed to him that I can write a book with the vagus nerve as the star of the show. But I have to zoom out, it has to be this greater education on the role that the nervous system as a whole plays in things like stress and anxiety, depression and trauma. And I only want to write a book that not just teaches, but also provides practical application, an opportunity for the readers and the individuals to actually take action on what they're learning in their life in a realistic way. And he was in line with all of this, I cannot, I cannot I cannot say enough good things about my editor. He has been such an incredible anchor, every step of the way, especially what I needed extra support in navigating how to get a book fully outlined, and the entire original manuscript written before I had my son in May, by the time contracts were written. And we were in the outlining and writing process, I think I had six months, six months to outline and write an entire book that I had never planned on writing. Because once you write a book and the manuscript, the original manuscript is written, the way that it works is that then goes to your publisher, and it's their job for a little while. It's their job to work with the illustrator to figure out. 

14:13  
Oh, by the way, it is an illustrated book, which makes it so fun, and personable. It's something that you want on your bookshelf, but also something that is going to play such a practical and intentional role in your healing. It could be a beautiful gift to a friend that you know that struggling if you're a therapist, this is something that you want in your office. I just also cannot rave enough about the illustrator who worked on my book and like beautifully brought it to life. And I think that's also what makes this book so unique is that if you go and you look up any other books on like the nervous system or the vagus nerve, they are very very academic research dense books, they're hard sometimes even for me to get through and my vision and luckily, my editors vision for this book as well was a human talking to other humans and some thing that I think I am if I can kind of toot my horn a little bit, which I think this whole conversation, it's me tooting my horn a little bit and inviting you into this process is a gift that I have is taking incredibly complicated and complex subjects being able to sift through dense, dense medical jargon and research papers and to take all that information and present it in a way that is accessible, that's tangible, that's actionable. In fact, that's what I do every single week here on the podcast is I'm behind the scenes in mountains of really tough reads. And I do my best to present them here in an accessible way sharing client experiences, personal experiences, teaching through analogies so that it's accessible. 

16:07  
And the vision for this book was the same, that it was a comprehensive journey through understanding the role of your nervous system in specifically anxiety and depression. And then understanding your your vagus nerve at the heart of it all. 

16:26  
So one of the little marketing blurbs that has been written about the book is that my book: Healing Through The Vagus Nerve is a comprehensive guide to understanding and improving your mental health by working with your vagus nerve, the nerve that connects your brain and body and regulates your nervous system. Inside these pages, you'll find practical, immediate and research based tools to help you go beyond the pages and take action in your own life in healing. Healing Through the vagus nerve features relatable client stories, key details of my own healing journey, and opportunities for personal exploration and application for the readers. 

17:05  
And in this process, one of the cool things that I have been able to do is to have a handful of people read my book ahead of time to write the foreword and the endorsements and I want to share two of those with you right now. So the first comes from Alex Korb. He is a neuroscientist and an author himself have a book titled The Upward Spiral, which I highly recommend, especially if you struggle with depression, and his endorsement of my book reads: "Thoroughly researched, clearly explained and beautifully illustrated. Healing Through The Vagus Nerve provides a ton of powerful insights and actionable steps for regulating the nervous system to overcome anxiety, depression and trauma. The path forward starts with understanding your nervous system and Amanda serves as a capable and compassionate guide." 

17:53  
And then the incredible Dr. Monique Andrews, she goes by Dr. Mo, who is an embodied neuroscientist, and chiropractor. She wrote the foreword to my book, and part of that reads, "healing through the vagus nerve is a guiding light on the journey to healing, providing holistic trauma informed approach to self regulation that empowers those struggling with anxiety and depression. While reading this book, you'll find yourself stepping onto a path that is not a quick fix, but a long lasting transformation." 

18:27  
And friends, if you've made it this far, in today's conversation, I know this episode may feel a little bit like a book promo. And honestly, it is. So thank you for continuing to listen. But this is also a big milestone for me because it really it wasn't that long ago that I had therapists and other practitioners writing me novels about how I wasn't qualified to talk about the things that I was talking about to do the work that I was doing, because I wasn't them because I didn't walk the same path to licensure, or whatever. And while I understood what was at the heart of what they were saying, there's absolutely merit to be wary of mental health, you know, quote coaches, because the coaching industry is unregulated, and there are many, many individuals operating outside of scope. But there are also incredibly qualified practitioners, trauma informed and trained practitioners and I consider myself and my team among them. But there is an element of settling that has happened in the past year with this podcast and this book, that the very same group of people who used to angrily beat down my door are the same group of professionals who are now reaching out to learn more, who are now Writing endorsements for a book that I have written at least once a week right now, for the last couple months, I have had a therapist, a chiropractor, and even a doctor just last week. Reach out curious to learn more about how I work with clients, how they might be able to incorporate more of a nervous system lens into the work that they do the way that they work with their patients or their clients. 

20:23  
And again, to know that in just a couple of months, I will be a published author, with endorsements by neuroscientists, doctors and therapists, as part of my book in print feels really, really exciting for me. Now, I want this conversation to be as much about this me celebrating this accomplishment with all of you, as it is about me actually sharing with you what is inside the pages of this book and how it can support your healing journey. Why is this worth investing not only, you know, your $22.99 into but also the time that you would give to its pages. 

21:05  
So this book is about 150 pages. And it's broken into seven chapters, like I said, it's also illustrated, so it is a beautifully accessible book, chapter one starts with an overview of the autonomic nervous system, you get a little bit of the science. But my goal with this was really to give you a functional understanding of the nervous system. So you'll hear that lighthouse analogy that I've shared with you here on the podcast, you'll get introduced to the polyvagal theory and hear about the nervous system ladder. And then in chapter two, we zoom in on the vagus nerve, and this chapter, talks about and takes you on a journey of the vagus nerve from where it exits your brainstem, all the way through the different organs and the ways that it influences your body's functioning in your thorax in the respiratory system. And so this is a place where you gain the context for the chapter later on where I talk about the different tools that stimulate the vagus nerve, how to regulate your nervous system. Because it's not enough for my clients, or for the people who read these pages to just identify, oh, this tool works cool. I want you to have a basic understanding of your physiology, how it works to know why that tool matters, why that tool feels regulating when you're activated, why a different tool might feel more supported when you are in more of that shutdown state. Because it's that context, that understanding of why that number one gives you buy in for engaging in those practices. And then number two, it also helps you clue into other tools, other practices in the future that might be really supportive for your healing journey. Then chapter three is all about exploring your unique nervous system. So I guide you through how to map your nervous system, different questions to really gauge, not just how the nervous system works, but to get a more accurate pulse on how you uniquely experience these different nervous system states. 

23:11  
Then we go back into a conversation around vagal tone, I talked to you about how you can actually measure your vagal tone. I love the idea of measuring and seeing tangible change. And there's so much research around when we can actually see something improving, we're so much more motivated to engage in the behaviors and in the habits that help it to improve. We talked about what hurts vagal tone, and then what helps it heal. And then chapter six is that chapter I mentioned before, that is a whole guided library of various vagal toning practices. And not just a laundry list of practices. But at the end I also help you learn which tools tend to be best for activated states what tools tend to be most helpful for more shutdown states. And then chapter seven brings it all together by supporting you in creating a personalized vagus nerve routine how you can step more towards more regulated living. 

24:14  
So in this book, you are not only going to learn how your vagus nerve and nervous system functions, you're also going to learn how to assess your vagus nerve, your nervous system health and to identify the root cause of your mental health challenges. You're going to learn how to use the somatic approach to healing. You'll learn how to restore your vagus nerve and your nervous system with oftentimes really simple and effective exercises things like breath and touch and movement. You'll also get, like I said, practical, immediate and research based tools and practices that can support your healing. And throughout this whole book, I weave in In just relatable clients stories and key details about my own healing journey, there's a whole section here that discusses my journey with ADHD as well. And some thoughts I have on the role of the vagus nerve and nervous system regulation and that. 

25:14  
This is so much more than a book. It is a journey of self discovery of transformation, a peek into the science of hope. It gives you the tools to work with your mind and your body towards healing instead of feeling like you are always against them. And again, when you preorder, and only if you preorder, you get that bonus course, totally free. I walk you through chapter by chapter. So if you're somebody who's ever been a little bit curious about what it looks like to work with me behind the scenes inside the Rise Membership, or inside one on one coaching, this is a really, really great taste of what that could look like, for just $23. This is by far the most support, you can get at the most accessible price point when it comes to learning how to heal through a nervous system lens. 

26:16  
Now, before we wrap up, I just for personal reasons, want to share with you what I feel like is the most intimate part of this book. And it is the part of a book that readers most often skip, which is maybe why I want to share it with you here. But at the very very end of my book, the last thing you could read is the acknowledgments. And I want to read that for you here. They read: 

26:48  
"To my editor, Tom, the incredible team at Quarto and my illustrator, Eleanor, thank you for bringing this book to life in such an impactful and beautiful way. And I want to put an emphasis on my editor Tom, who has really been the MVP of this whole experience. My second acknowledgement is to my Rise As We team, family, friends and fellow practitioners who cheered me on and supported me every step of the way. Writing a book with my pregnancy, providing a strict deadline was no easy feat. And to my clients, I've learned so much from and with each of you that have helped shaped this book, it's an absolute honor to be invited into your healing journey. And my last acknowledgement reads, to my husband, Christopher, and our three sons, the one earthside, the one we lost, and the one on the way, you are the loves of my life and my deepest inspiration. You have been the catalyst for so much of my own healing, and are my most dedicated and enthusiastic fans. Thanks for your unwavering support, the reminders of just how capable I am, and a shared enthusiasm for how important the work I do is in the world." 

28:06  
And my promise to those of you still listening is that this book is not just a practical healing tool. But it also holds parts of my heart. And you will feel that in its pages and your support by pre ordering would mean the absolute world to me.

28:27  
Now, as always, let's boil our conversation today into three takeaways. Number one is that the vagus nerve plays a crucial role in mental and physical health. And if you want to learn a little bit more about the vagus nerve today, then just a reminder that I am going to link episode 15 in the show notes for you to go listen to next. 

28:51  
Number two is a reminder that nervous system regulation is not about getting calm. It is about creating this elasticity in your system and resetting your baseline and being able to return to a regulated baseline after you've engaged and experienced a stressful event. nervous system regulation is about increasing your capacity for heart, not avoiding it. And vagal tone plays a really, really big role in in that in that stress resiliency and in your ability to reset from stress more quickly. 

29:28  
And number three, you probably guessed it is one final invitation and asked to preorder and a reminder that the link is in the show notes that you're going to get that beautiful course as a thank you when pub date happens. So please, please please, as a first time author, these are big deal. Please appease that competitive part of me that just wants to hit those numbers set out by my publisher. And not only will this be a beautiful addition to your bookshelf, but a really tangible and powerful part of your healing journey as well. 

30:03  
And enclosing friends just thank you. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening to an entire episode where I got to celebrate this accomplishment and for letting me invite you into this journey and to be a part of bringing this book out into the world. Healing can feel so messy, it can feel messy, and with each page of my book, I authentically invite you into parts of my own healing journey. And it is not lost on me that with each episode that you choose to listen to here on the podcast is you inviting me into yours. And that means the world to me. So thanks for being here, and I'll see you next week. 

30:47  
Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside Rhys, my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here. And I'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai