Regulate & Rewire: An Anxiety & Depression Podcast

When Self-Discipline Is Self-Care

• Amanda Armstrong • Season 1 • Episode 136

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Sometimes, the kindest thing you can do for your nervous system isn’t to rest—it’s to move. This episode is for the ones who don’t relate to overachieving or overfunctioning because they’re on the other end of the spectrum: the stuck, the shut down, the ones who can’t seem to get going no matter how much they want to.

If motivation feels impossible and even small tasks feel like climbing a mountain, this episode will help you understand why—and how to begin again with gentleness and devotion instead of shame.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Why low energy, lack of motivation, and “laziness” are actually physiological responses, not character flaws
  • The nervous system science behind shutdown and how it traps you in inaction
  • Why waiting for motivation doesn’t work—and what to do instead
  • How to reclaim the word discipline as an act of devotion, not punishment
  • The 5-Minute Win: a simple practice to help you break inertia and start rebuilding energy

3 Takeaways:

  1.  For a shut-down system, discipline is self-care. Gentle action—one small, consistent thing—is the medicine that restores motion and energy.
  2. Motivation is the result, not the prerequisite. Waiting to “feel like it” keeps you stuck. Taking one tiny action is the jumpstart that recharges your system.
  3. Reframe discipline as devotion. It’s not a drill sergeant yelling “get up,” it’s the loving inner parent or part saying, “Let’s do one small thing together because you deserve to feel better.”

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Amanda Armstrong  0:00  
Welcome to regulate and rewire an 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.

Unknown Speaker  0:27  
Hey friend, welcome back. Last week, I talked about and I talked to the overachievers, the go getters, the high functioning anxiety errs, whatever identity fit them best, the ones who use overwhelm as their barometer, and if you are nodding along like, yeah, that's me, go listen to the last episode first. But as I was recording that, I knew that I was only telling half the story. So today's conversation is more directed to those of you who had a different reaction to last week's conversation. Maybe you were listening and thinking, wow, like, must be nice to have the energy to over commit. I can barely get out of bed. Or I wish my problem was doing too much. My problem is I can't seem to do anything at all. 

Unknown Speaker  1:16  
You might have heard me at the end and thought doing less friend like I am already doing the bare minimum. I am feeling so stuck and low energy. Maybe your inner dialog isn't like, oh yeah, I can take on more. Maybe your internal dialog sounds more like, why even try? I'm probably gonna fail. Anyways, I don't have what it takes. Everyone else seems to manage what's wrong with me, just that that narrative, and I've lived there too. 

Unknown Speaker  1:50  
So last week's episode maybe made you feel worse about yourself, like you are feeling it both ends of the spectrum, you can't overachieve and you can't even get the basics done. Today's conversation holds a lot of compassion and hopefully some support for you, because here's the thing, sometimes self discipline is self care. Last week, we had a conversation around maybe it wasn't about self discipline, and today is going to be a really compassionate conversation around maybe for some of us it is sometimes the self discipline is self care. Sometimes the kindest thing that you can do for your nervous system is to gently, lovingly push it, push yourself to do the thing you don't feel like doing. 

Unknown Speaker  2:42  
Let's for a minute, talk about the if you will, like physics. Maybe we'll call this the physics of shutdown, or the physics of depression. There is a physics principle that I think can apply pretty well to our nervous system, and it is that objects in motion stay in motion and objects at rest. Stay at rest. When you are in a shutdown state, when you are frozen or collapsed, your physiology is literally working to keep you there. Low Energy begets low energy. Isolation reinforces isolation. Inactivity breeds more inactivity. And this is not some character flaw or laziness. This is rooted in our biology. When your nervous system is in a shutdown state, freeze or even a fun state, your body is conserving energy for survival. Your metabolism slows, your motivation centers go offline, your capacity for pleasure diminishes. Everything in your body is saying, Stay still, stay safe. Do less. Don't move. 

Unknown Speaker  3:50  
And I think the cruel irony is that the very things that would help movement, connection, sunlight, routine, feel impossible precisely when you need them the most. A friend of mine, who is also in the wellness and mental health space, often says something that I think about pretty frequently, and he says, exercise might not be an antidepressant, but not exercising is definitely a depressant. So sit with that for a moment. 

Unknown Speaker  4:19  
It's not that going for a run will cure your depression, although there is definitely some research supporting that, it might be helpful. But for the sake of argument today, let's play with the idea that maybe movement isn't the antidepressant, but for sure, staying sedentary, staying isolated, these things actively maintain and worsen this physiological state of shutdown of depression, and here's an example. So last week, we used the ankle brace analogy. You use it when you are acutely injured, and then you take it off when you're more healed. It was about removing support. Today I am going to try a car analogy. Much less my forte than sports analogies. But let's give it a shot. This is what I call the cold car battery analogy. I know not a very sexy packaging, but again, stay with me. 

Unknown Speaker  5:13  
I want you to think about a car on the coldest day of winter. The battery is not broken, the engine isn't gone broken, but it's so cold, it's so depleted, that when you turn the key, all you get is that, click, click, click, click, click, click. Of a system that doesn't have the energy to turn over. It doesn't matter how much you want the car to start. It doesn't matter if you yell at the car or shame the car for being lazy or worthless. It's simply in those conditions, doesn't have the activation energy. So what does it need? It needs a jumpstart. It needs an external, deliberate, active source of energy to get the engine to turn over just once, just once. And that initial jump is what I'll package for today's conversation as self discipline, not as a punishment, but as a necessary intervention, as a necessary deliberate source of activation to get your internal engine to turn over, to start just once. 

Unknown Speaker  6:19  
And here is the magic. Once the engine turns over, that car's own alternator kicks in and it starts to recharge its own battery. Do you see where I'm taking this yet? Maybe, maybe not. Let's keep walking down this analogy together. So what if we are the car when we are deep in that shutdown state, we are like a cold battery. We cannot wait for motivation to strike. Motivation is that alternator. It only kicks in after the engine is running. So discipline is the Jumpstart. It is the act of self care that provides that initial spark to get your system back online. 

Unknown Speaker  7:00  
Okay, if that analogy didn't land, let me kind of paint this with a picture that might feel a little bit more familiar. So let's say you wake up, you're already exhausted. The thought of your to do list makes you want to cry. So you turn on Netflix and you're like, just one episode, just one episode to ease into my Saturday. Six hours later, you're still on the couch. You have watched an entire season of something that you won't even remember next week, you feel worse than when you started, because now you're guilty, you're ashamed, you're more behind. You have less time to do just as much stuff, and somehow you actually even feel more exhausted despite doing literally nothing. 

Unknown Speaker  7:39  
Now remember last week when I said maybe there's no bad habits, only self protective strategies, self protective behaviors. I still believe that's true, that Netflix binge is protecting you from something, probably from the overwhelming feeling that you can't handle your life or your to do list. But here is the distinction, some protective strategies create energy and some deplete us further. When someone in my membership recently brought up that they were using TV to numb out during a really tough season in their life, we looked at this exact distinction. Was the TV giving her a needed break to restore? Because sometimes it's not TV is not a problem. But when I said, Hey, is the TV giving you needed energy back, or is it keeping you stuck in this collapsed state for her, maybe for you, it was the later. Most of the time, the TV wasn't restoration for her, it was dissociation. It was not helping her process or cope. It was simply helping her avoid, and the more she avoided, the bigger and scarier everything became. The less in motion she was. The more things piled up, the greater the overwhelm became. 

Unknown Speaker  8:57  
So what do you do? What do you do when everything feels impossible, when self care feels like another thing that you're failing at, when you can't imagine doing a morning routine or going to the gym or meal prepping or anything that like these well people seem to do. 

Unknown Speaker  9:12  
You pick one thing. Just one, not one big thing, one tiny thing. One thing that takes you less than five minutes, one thing that moves you even 1% up that nervous system ladder from shutdown towards regulation, gets you 1% into motion. 

Unknown Speaker  9:34  
So when I was working with this client to help her identify this one thing a small anchoring habit that would get her into motion or be more self regulated. I said, What is that one thing for you? And at first she said, breath work. And I was like, Okay, what kind of breath work? What does that look like? How does that fit into the reality of your life right now? And as we impacted a little bit further, she actually admitted that she'll often put on a long breath work session, and at the end of it, she doesn't feel restored. She put it together that she was just swapping out numbing with TV for numbing with breath work. And so while breathwork is something many of my members often use as a tool for regulation, for her, it wasn't the right fit for what she was trying to get out of some tiny, micro practice of self care that she could choose or opt into in a really tough season. 

Unknown Speaker  10:31  
There are no this is just a plug for just a reminder. There's no universal tools or suggestions. You've got to find what's right for you and what's right for you right now. So we pivoted. We had a couple other conversations, and she identified that actually, for right now, what felt manageable, what felt possible for her, was to go outside on a good day, that was going to be to go outside and go for a five minute walk on a not so great day, was just going to be to go outside and sit on her porch. And she's not doing these things necessarily to feel better or to process, but just to help shift her body from rest, from sedentary, from stuck, to putting her into motion. And let me let's just see what see what comes next again, because of the physics of shut down, stillness begets more stillness, motion begets more motion. 

Unknown Speaker  11:22  
So maybe for you, your one thing could be opening your curtains when you wake up, a three minute shower, go to your mailbox, 10 jumping jacks, text a friend, make your bed, drink a full glass of water. The specific thing matters less than the fact that it just needs to be something that creates even a tiny bit of energy rather than depleting it, and that it's something you can do consistently, especially if you don't feel like it. It is the one thing to get you into some measure of motion. 

Unknown Speaker  11:53  
So again, if you are feeling more in the stuck place, what could be your anchor habit, your one thing that is so small, so manageable, that even on your worst days, you still be like, Yeah, okay, fine. Like, I can do it. It's two minutes. I can do it, because doing this consistently proves to your nervous system that movement is possible, that there's choice, that you're still here, you're still fighting, even if it feels like the tiniest fight. And when choosing this one thing or starting to get into motion with healing habits or behaviors, so many of us, especially when we're in a low energy state, fall into what I sometimes call the motivation trap. We tell ourselves, Well, go for that walk when I feel less depressed, or I'll clean the kitchen when I have more energy. I'll start to journal when I feel more inspired. We are waiting to feel like doing the thing before we do the thing. But for a nervous system and shut down, that feeling is not coming. The very nature of that state, again, is to conserve energy to prevent action. It is your body's ancient protective mechanism to play dead and wait for the threat to pass. The problem is, in our modern world, the quote like threat is often chronic stress. It's often old trauma, overwhelming emotions, things that are not passing. They're there, and they're kind of staying there. So we sit on the couch and we wait for motivation. Meanwhile, the lack of action is making us feel worse. Scroll on our phones, which numbs us for a minute, but also drains our battery, our dopamine even more, and then we feel shame for wasting the day, which sends us deeper into freeze. So again, this loop of I'm stuck, I'm waiting for motivation. No motivation comes. Therefore there's inaction, then there's shame about the inaction, and then there's more stuckness. And the only way, the only way, to break that cycle is to accept that motivation will be the result, not the prerequisite. Motivation will be the result of you stepping into that tiny thing. It cannot be the prerequisite for you to step into that tiny thing, we have to gently and with as much self compassion as we can possibly muster provide that jumpstart to our system. 

Unknown Speaker  14:12  
And another thought that I had is, in general, I think some of us are resistant to the term self discipline. I think for a lot of us, discipline can feel like a really loaded word. It can bring up images of a drill sergeant, of punishment, of being forced to do things that we hate. It feels rigid and cold and critical. If you grew up with critical parents or in a punitive environment. Discipline might feel like the opposite of self care. It might feel more like a voice of your inner critic, and so I want to maybe offer a reclamation of that word or rebranding, if you will. What if we reframe discipline as devotion when you are in a state of shutdown, discipline is not a drill sergeant yelling. Saying, Get up, you lazy slab, you suck. What if discipline is actually this really loving internal part, internal parent, maybe, maybe one you didn't have, gently taking you by the hand and saying, I know, I know you're exhausted. I know it feels impossible. Your feelings are 100% valid, and we are still going to do one small thing together, because you deserve to feel better. 

Unknown Speaker  15:30  
Discipline as devotion is putting on your shoes. You don't even have to go for the walk. Just put on your shoes. Discipline as devotion is opening up the journal. Don't write a masterpiece. Simply write down. I don't know what to write, but I'm here. Discipline as devotion to yourself, to your healing, is putting one dish in the dishwasher and then just see what happens after that one dish. Discipline as devotion is sitting up on the couch some days instead of lying down. This is not about tough love. It is about tender, tender action. It is about sending a new message to your nervous system. Every time you stay on the couch, your nervous system gets the message of, see, we're not safe, we can't move. We're trapped. Look at us staying alive, not doing the things and every time you take one tiny devoted action, you send a new message. Look, we did a small thing, and we're okay, we're safe, we can move. And this is how we, quite literally, rewire the pattern we are proving to our bodies. One, one minute, one, five minute one five minute action at a time that it is safe to be mobilized, that it is safe to be present and engaged with our lives. And then, as you start to come out of freeze or shut down a little bit more, you can look for other ways to bring more motion in, again, giving yourself permission to start small. 

Unknown Speaker  17:00  
And I'll share one more client example. I had a client in the membership who was deep in depression, and they wanted to get back to the gym. They identified when I was moving my body, when I was going to the gym consistently. They also worked from home, so the gym was a place where they got human interaction and exercise. But in this season, they just couldn't. The idea of the gym was so overwhelming. So for a week, their only you know, quote discipline was that at 4pm they would shut the laptop and put on their gym clothes. They didn't have to go. They could sit on the couch in their gym clothes if they wanted. So for two days, that's all they did, put on their gym clothes, sat on the couch, and after about five minutes, opened their laptop back up again and kept working. Then I think it was on day three or four, they said, Well, I'm already dressed. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna get in my car. I'm gonna get in my car, and I'm gonna see how far I get. And they got to the parking lot, and then they sat in the parking lot for about 10 minutes, they listened to some music, and then they drove home. And for some of you might be like, I don't get it. Like, I don't get it. How come you didn't just get out of your car? You were already there. I'm not talking to you. Your system hasn't been in this place. Getting out of that car is a really big ask for a system that is shut down. And at some point, by the beginning of week, two of this, of permission to just put on the gym clothes and get a little bit further and a little bit further, he went inside, and he walked on the treadmill for 10 minutes, and then he left, and he used gentle, devoted discipline to provide the Jumpstart. He didn't wait until he felt like going to the gym. He took action so that he could eventually feel better, so that maybe eventually he would want to go to the gym again. And he did, and he's there, and those tiny steps were what was necessary to help pull him out of what often feels like this deep, dark hole that sometimes you just get comfortable sitting at the bottom of. 

Unknown Speaker  19:03  
so bringing together these two episodes, last week's talking to kind of the High Achiever system stuck on, and this week's talking to those of you whose system is a little bit more stuck, more stuck in an off position, self discipline or self devotion, it's going to look different for the overachievers. Discipline often means doing less. It means saying no. It means resting. When your body says, Oh, we could push through. We could take on more. And then for those of you stuck in shutdown, discipline might mean doing more. It means saying yes to the shower when your brain says, What's the point? It means putting on shoes when everything in you just wants to stay in your pajamas. This isn't about pushing through or bootstrapping any kind of toxic positivity nonsense. This is about understanding that when you are stuck at the bottom of your nervous system ladder, you need something different. Yeah, you need a different kind of physiological shift. The over activated person needs to learn to rest, and the shutdown person needs to learn to move. Both require discipline or devotion. Both are self care, and the work is to get honest and to ask yourself, Am I avoiding rest and calling it productivity last week's conversation, or am I avoiding life and calling it rest? Maybe for some of you today. 

Unknown Speaker  20:27  
So if you are in that cold, stuck, shut down place, here is your practice for the week. I don't want you to do less, like I said last week. I actually want you to do one, one more, one, one minute, five minute thing, and what resonated with a client recently was to call it their five minute win. What is the one thing, a self care habit, a household task, a connection that you've been avoiding. What could your five minute win be and on the days that feel slow and low, maybe you have that post it note sitting on your nightstand, sitting on your fridge, sitting where you can see it. What's my five minute win today? That's it. That's your only job. 

Unknown Speaker  21:10  
All right. Today's three takeaways. 

Unknown Speaker  21:12  
Number one, for a shutdown system, discipline is self care. Last week, I said discipline is the courage to do less. This week for an under functioning state, discipline is the self, loving, devoted act of gentle activation. 

Unknown Speaker  21:30  
And number two is that motivation is the result of this, not the prerequisite for it. We're never going to feel like it. You are the gold car battery. You need a jumpstart. Discipline is the loving act of providing that jumpstart, especially when you don't feel like it. 

Unknown Speaker  21:48  
And this third takeaway was this reframing of discipline as devotion, not as a drill sergeant, but as a loving parent, a loving part that says, Hey, I know, I know, and I'm going to take your hand and we're going to let it be hard, and we're going to do it anyways. 

Unknown Speaker  22:07  
And if you have a hard time being or doing that for yourself, that is the kind of community that you find inside regulated living, that is the heart centered support that you find in restore working one on one with our coaches, is that we get to be in the place of saying, I know it makes sense where you are and take my hand. We're going to take one step in a helpful direction, one step, one loving, self compassionate step towards more regulated living. And if that is something that you need, I would love. I would love to hear from you, ask me your questions, set up a discovery call. My promise is that it's always pressure free. I get to hear what you're struggling with. I get to offer some support in that moment. You get to ask all your questions about our coaching and see if it's the right fit. And I never asked you to give me an answer on that call. 

Unknown Speaker  23:02  
So if you're feeling at all resonant with this approach to healing anxiety or depression, I'd love to hear from you, and until next time, friends, I am sending so much hope and healing your way.

Amanda Armstrong  23:18  
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 rise 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 you

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