How to Slow Down with Kayla Nettleton

In a world that glorifies busyness and productivity, when was the last time you truly slowed down and allowed yourself to simply be? Have we become so consumed by the pursuit of the next goal, the next achievement, that we've forgotten the profound joy of stillness and the quiet moments that nourish our souls?

In this episode, I sit down with Kayla Nettleton to explore the art of slowing down in our fast-paced world. Kayla Nettleton is a licensed therapist, business owner, and mom of 3 kids. She specializes in helping deep-feeling women overcome anxiety, perfectionism and people-pleasing tendencies.

In this insightful conversation, Kayla highlights the profound link between slowing down and mental health, emphasizing the importance of listening to our bodies and recognizing our needs. We delve into practical strategies for creating space for nothingness in our busy lives, exploring nervous system regulation techniques to manage anxiety and stress. This episode is packed with valuable takeaways to help you reclaim those moments, find balance, and rediscover the beauty of a slower pace.

In this Episode:

• Why is it important to listen to our bodies and recognize our needs
• What is the link between slowing down and mental health
• Discover the power of creating space for nothingness
• The nervous system regulation techniques for managing anxiety and stress
• What is the role of the nervous system in slowing down
• How to promote slowness in your family and relationships

Connect with Kayla:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/kaylanettleton_lcsw/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/KaylaNettletonLCSW

Resources:

Couples Goal Setting Workbook
Complimentary Relationship Assessment

Couples Goal Setting Workbook

Level 10 Relationship Assessment

Follow Katie Rössler on Instagram

Check out the podcast website

Transcript

Katie Rossler: Welcome back to the podcast. If you're like me, you have a hard time slowing down. So today, I've brought Kayla Nettleton for a discussion on how we start slowing down, because it doesn't feel good and I don't want to. But Kayla, you're gonna tell us why we need to. Welcome to the Balance Code Podcast, a place for high achievers to step outside the hamster wheel of day-to-day life and start learning tools for more balance. I'm your host, Katie Rossler, and I will be guiding you on this journey of discovering your balance code. So, welcome to the podcast, Kayla. Thank you for being here. Do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself, where you are, what you do, and who you serve?

Kayla Nettleton: Yeah, thank you for having me. And yes, of course. So, again, I'm Kayla Nettleton. I'm actually a licensed therapist based in Texas, in a small town called Del Rio, Texas, right on the border of Mexico. My practice, because I'm in a rural area, is actually completely virtual. So, if you are in the state of Texas, feel free to reach out if you think we'd be a good match. I also work with therapists to create a community of therapists where they are able to collaborate and network in a safe environment, connecting with other counselors and therapists. And yeah, so that's a little bit about me. I consider myself a recovering perfectionist and people pleaser, so when I stumbled upon your podcast, I was like, "Oh, this is right up my alley." I feel like we should do like a little dance together, like, "Yeah, girl, we're better; we're not people-pleasing anymore." That, not yeah, you know, right? Recovery doesn’t mean it’s gone; recovery means things are working on it. So, okay, like, I’m excited to talk with a fellow therapist and to really diamond, but I love that you’re multi-passionate and not only helping your clients but fellow therapists and connecting. So, um, let’s start with not how do we slow down, but why do we need to slow down? Start with that.

Katie Rossler: Yeah, I think that’s great. Like, the start, I was even gonna make the suggestion if we couldn’t get there. So, why slow down? When we slow down, we allow ourselves to listen to the messages that our bodies are trying to send us. And the reason that’s important is for many of us who are high achievers and used to just going, going, and going—going on to the next goal, going on to the next achievement—we’ve never or hardly ever allowed ourselves to slow down and think about what we need as people to be able to continue making those goals. Instead, a lot of the time, we have just pushed everything aside, like, “No, I can’t think about it; no, I can’t slow down because I don’t have time.” And so...

Katie Rossler: When we finally reach those goals or achievements, we kind of forget maybe why we even did that in the first place. We don't find that fulfillment that we thought would be there at the end. A lot of that is because we didn't allow ourselves to slow down and think about what it was that we needed, and gave ourselves space to experience any of those good feelings in the moment of the journey to the achievements, to the goals that we're trying to make.

Kayla Nettleton: I agree. Do you? Have you ever hit a goal and then realized you didn't feel as good as you thought you would once you got there? Because in your mind, you’d hit that goal and it would be, “Oh, I’ll feel this way,” then you get there and you’re like, “What’s next?” and you’re not able to actually sit and celebrate. I feel like that is the high achiever's dilemma. I mean, it’s just all of our Crocs; we really struggle with that.

Katie Rossler: Yes, yeah. That actually happened to me when I graduated from undergrad. I was the first in my family to graduate from college; I was the first in my family to go to grad school and graduate from grad school. When I graduated from college, it just kind of felt strange because it didn’t feel like I thought it would. I literally felt like this was it. This is the feeling—it was almost like nothing. I think part of it was because I was already thinking, “Okay, well, now I did this, I’m gonna go to grad school now and achieve that, then I could go to my career.” I didn’t even allow myself to celebrate graduating from undergrad because I told myself, well, or I told my family—not even just myself—I told my family, “Well, there’s no need to celebrate now. Why celebrate now and then celebrate again? That’s silly. Why is it that silly? Why are we gonna do two celebrations when we could just do one?” When I finished graduate school, yeah, so when you were sharing with us why we need to slow down, one of the things that just came to me was like that moment of, “Because you can actually enjoy the progress and the achievement,” to actually feel it. But that is even uncomfortable. You said it; it’s like, “No, no, let’s put that off to a bigger celebration. Let me get through the next two to three years of this, and then we’ll celebrate.” And I bet even when you got to that point, it was like, “Celebrate now. Let’s start getting our licensing hours,” like, “Yeah, yeah, going.”

Kayla Nettleton: The why, I think, also comes back to the mental health piece of why we need to slow down as well. The helpful part in slowing down goes back to being able to identify what it is that we need to stay healthy during all of those transitions. Because, at least a lot of the things that I’ve experienced in what I’ve seen in my own clients, is that because they have just continued to push, push, push, they get to some of these major accomplishments and they are burnt out. They are not happy with where they are in their life; they are not happy with their career, and they’re even second-guessing, “Did I make the right career choice?” A lot of that second-guessing comes from not allowing yourself to slow down and pay attention to what those needs were, so that you could take care of yourself, you could stay healthy while you’re working through that journey of making those accomplishments or achievements, if that’s even what you want to do. A lot of the time, I see that we believe this is what we want, but it’s because that has been placed on us, pressured...

Katie Rossler: And it might not be like pressure in the moment, but pressure to go in a certain direction, go in a certain career path, and you end up getting there and you're like, “Oh, I don’t know if that was the right choice for me. Was it even my choice?” It’s like when you reach that goal and you’re thinking, “Is this what I really wanted? All that work—did I really want this?” I can’t tell you how many clients I've worked with where even career choices, they’re like, “Well, I got to where I wanted to be, at least I thought, and here I am, and it’s just not what I wanted.”

Kayla Nettleton: Yeah, so slowing down helps us to see and prevent that, because sometimes it's a life lesson, right? But it helps us to really sit with what our why is and whether we are caring for ourselves to get to that end goal. I love that you shared that. So let’s go into now, how do we slow down, especially for those of us addicted to the adrenaline and who love the next thing? How do we slow down?

Kayla Nettleton: Yeah, so one way that I like to suggest to a lot of my clients is to just start creating space of nothing. Even if it’s starting with 5 minutes, and if 5 minutes feels like too long, start with 3 minutes. Set a timer and just notice what is coming up for you within your body. Notice any feelings, thoughts, or images. Notice any sensations. Giving yourself that space to slowly learn to sit in that nothingness and focusing purely on yourself is one simple—I’m not gonna say easy—one simple way that you can do this and add it to the schedule that you're currently in. Because I bet for a lot of people listening, y'all are very busy, and there's probably a lot going on in your life, and you might not feel like you have the flexibility to be able to add this slowness into your life. But if you look at it as three minutes or five minutes, you do have that time; I promise you, you do. And that's gonna feel a lot easier on your body than trying to do a 15, 30-minute, or hour-long meditation.

Katie Rossler: Yes, you know. I find that when I wake up in the morning, if I don’t grab my cell phone first and I kind of allow myself to get up and do some things, I move much slower in a good way. Right? Because I’m not wasting time on something where I’m like, “Oh, crap. Now it's this time, I gotta get up and go.” I’m like, “Oh, wow, I feel like I’ve created more time in my life by just not picking up one thing.” Sometimes creating that slowness is also just changing our habits to the things that create time pressure, because we procrastinated or waited, or like, you know, we’ve lost time and then we're like, “Oh, God, I’ve got 10 minutes to get there.” It can create that time for us. So I love that you mentioned, like, “Hey, two to three minutes, but maybe start the day that way with those two minutes.”

Kayla Nettleton: Yeah, just starting with quiet, right? I feel like it’s less uncomfortable first thing in the morning than it is midday when you’re like, “Oh, I don’t want to think about all the things or feel all the things.”

Katie Rossler: Yes, you make a great point, and especially because I like to talk a lot about the nervous system in the work that I do. When our nervous system looks at things that are familiar to us, it labels that as okay, that’s safe because I know it, whether that is actually safe and healthy for you. So, when we introduce something that is new, that's considered unfamiliar, it can bring up some anxiety because that is not the norm for you, you’re not used to that. So, starting in the morning is a really great place, and it might help you to feel a little bit more regulated than trying to put this new thing in the middle of your day.

Kayla Nettleton: Yeah, definitely.

Katie Rossler: I love the analogy. I always have my clients cross their hands the way they naturally do, like putting your fingers together. If you’re not watching this, see which thumb is first, and then do it the opposite way. It feels uncomfortable, but that means it's unfamiliar. It’s the same, you know? It’s just a different way of doing the same thing. Yeah, it’s good you pointed that out. Like your nervous system might be like, “Ah, this is all weird and wrong,” but it’s not necessarily bad; it’s just something new to get adjusted to.

Katie Rossler: Hey there! I just wanted to take a moment to interrupt this interview and ask you a question. Are you ready to take your relationship to the next level? If so, I have a free and unique assessment that I've created to help you pinpoint the areas of your relationship that need a little TLC. Whether it’s improving communication, building your trust, enhancing intimacy, or aligning on your future goals, this assessment covers it all. It’s called the Level 10 Relationship Assessment, and it’s like a roadmap to your dream relationship. So why wait? Go book it! It’s free, easy, and can make a world of difference in your relationship. Click the link in our show notes below to get started on booking your Level 10 Relationship Assessment. Now, back to the interview.

Katie Rossler: Talk to us a little bit more about how our nervous system is gonna come into play and how we slow down.

Kayla Nettleton: Yeah, so your nervous system comes into play and how you slow down because it’s something to pay attention to. Like I said, our nervous system is really trying to talk to us. Our body, through our nervous system, is trying to give us messages of things to pay attention to. But are we giving ourselves the space to listen to those messages, to hear those messages that we need? So when you’re first doing this work, you might start to feel a little bit anxious again because this is new. But as you start incorporating this and making it a daily practice or, you know, three times a week—we don’t wanna jump the gun and try and do it every day because that’s not realistic when starting something new—but as you add this, and then maybe eventually make it into a daily practice, it’s going to be easier to notice, “Oh, I feel some tension in my neck when I am thinking about this deadline,” or, “I have some twists in my stomach when I’m working on this project that I’m not 100% clear on what the objective is.” And that’s important to notice because it’s signaling, “Oh, maybe I need to ask more questions about that. There’s something wrong or something not right.”

Kayla Nettleton: Our nervous system is giving signals to our body from our brain. The wild thing about it is it is trying to protect us from imminent physical harm to our bodies, right? Even if we think something scary, like I’ve been talking a lot about financial anxiety. If you’re thinking about or worried about your bank account, like, “Oh my gosh, what if I miss this payment?” or, “What if I overdraft?” that can send your nervous system into a spiral, into a dysregulated state because it’s thinking that harm is gonna come to your physical body—literally death. That just shows the power of our mind and what can happen when we’re just thinking these things. But it’s not just about changing our thoughts; it’s about being able to sit with some of that uncomfortableness and learning to sit with, “Oh, I am a little bit sad here,” or, “Oh, I’m a little bit nervous and scared,” and being okay with that instead of pushing those feelings down.

Katie Rossler: You’ve just uncovered why it’s hard to slow down. It truly is because there is this little voice, whether you hear it or not, that’s like, “Ah, if I slow down, I could die; bad things could happen.” And it doesn’t have to be that you’ve had heavy trauma. A lot of people think, “Oh, that’s only a trauma response.” No, I mean, some people are anxious from birth; that’s just a temperament. What you described was so good about the awareness we need to have and the fact that our nervous system is speaking to us. If you’re not listening because you’re not slowing down, then you’re gonna hear it when it’s like bells and whistles blowing and smoke signals going off, like the Titanic. So I love that you’re just saying, “Hey, it can be small ways.” And you made me laugh inside when you said, “You know, it’s not about doing it every day.” I’m like, “High achievers are like, ‘I’m starting a new habit every day!’” Yeah, like, just try it Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Keep it simple. But we’re all about mastering it the first time around. We even get our tracker out and set reminders on our phones. Oh, love us, right?

Katie Rossler: But it is so important to listen to your nervous system. I love how you described that, you know, it is trying to keep us alive and safe, but it’s kind of wonky—maybe that’s a better word?—it’s wobbly, and it’s like, “This looks bad too; you should watch out.” Just being quiet and slowing down, and feeling your feelings, as you know as a therapist, can be some of the hardest things we do. Just to sit with how we actually feel. And when it comes to reaching that goal and then being like, “Well, I don’t know how I feel. Did I even want this? Is this what I wanted? I wanted to achieve this, but what’s next?” Those are uncomfortable feelings. So why not play in the next educational track and the next thing we need to do? You have such great points. Any other thoughts?

Katie Rossler: Last tips on helping us understand how we can better slow down in our lives? Or let’s actually bring in—let’s say you’re in a family or in a relationship where you have other people around. How do you start to promote that in your home?

Kayla Nettleton: Yes, I’m glad that you brought that up because I was just thinking about, “Oh, we didn’t necessarily talk about ways to incorporate slowing down into our lives.” So, the benefits of learning different nervous system regulating techniques—there are so many of them! There are deep breathing exercises, techniques like the Havening technique where you slowly rub your skin or have skin-to-skin contact with yourself. You can rub your hands like you’re putting on lotion, just very slowly and focusing on that. You can even look this up and see videos on it. There are so many different nervous system regulating techniques, and it’s just about finding the ones that work best for you. What we want is to signal safety to our nervous system so that we can then change some of those thoughts and help us see, “Okay, we are safe; this is just very uncomfortable for me right now.”

Kayla Nettleton: When we’re talking about that with family members or even our children, being able to learn some regulating techniques for yourself so you can then teach them how to do that is crucial. If you are also someone who’s in a regulated state when others are dysregulated, you can help them co-regulate with you. That’s digging into your partner, your kid, your coworker, or even your mom—whomever. If you can be in that regulated state, you’ll see more clearly when other people are dysregulated and realize how much you might have depended on that drama. Sometimes we love that drama feed.

Katie Rossler: You mentioned researching some techniques and things. Do you have any particular ones you like to refer people to? Is there anything you love, like tapping (EFT tapping)? You can find a million and one videos on YouTube. What are your go-to recommendations?

Kayla Nettleton: For myself, Gabby Bernstein has a lot of different regulating techniques on her YouTube channel. If you search “Kayla Nettleton” on YouTube, I have 4 or 5 videos that guide you through some nervous system regulating techniques. The Havening technique is one I talked about. There is a “Have Your Back” exercise, a relaxed jaw exercise, and one more I’m missing. Even just searching for mindful meditations on YouTube can be really great for whatever specific thing you’re struggling with in that moment. I used to search for “guided meditation for anxiety,” and there was one from, I believe, Goodful, that would pop up. That was one of the first ones I started with years ago as I was on my own journey through this.

Katie Rossler: Oh, that’s awesome! Thank you for those recommendations. YouTube is a wonderful resource. Of course, always discern if it’s right for you or not. I was just thinking as you were bringing it up—like, some breathwork can be a little more advanced. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes taught without warning that if your nervous system can’t handle it, don’t do it. People might end up freaking out, so be discerning. Do a little research on whatever methodology you decide. Maybe talk to friends, a coach, or a therapist and ask what they would recommend given your stress level or your nervous system’s baseline right now. It’s totally fine.

Kayla Nettleton: Yes, be smart about listening to your body and not just the tools. Most of the tools you gave were excellent. I think there’s just one or two where it’s like, just check it out and see. I love that you have videos—we’ll make sure the links are below because I want them in the show notes to be able to click on. For example, I was like, “Let me start doing a hand massage!” And if you don’t have sleeves, even just slowly bringing down your arms and noticing that sensation, or just lining your lips, as you have so many nerve endings on your lips. Really slow and just focusing your attention on how that feels for you. I’m gonna start doing that now.

Katie Rossler: Okay, guys, when you see videos of me doing this, you’ll know it’s definitely from Kayla. Kayla, thank you so much for being here and letting me interview you. If people do want to connect with you, where can they find you? Are you on social media? Of course, we’ll have your YouTube videos, but what else?

Kayla Nettleton: Yes, I am most active on Instagram. You can find me at @kaylaNettleton_lcsw. My website is also kaylanettleton.com, and my email address is kayla@kaylanettleton.com.

Katie Rossler: Great! We’ll make sure those links are hyperlinked below for easy access. Again, Kayla, thank you so much for your thoughts and the analogies and examples you gave. They were really helpful in helping us understand how we can start to slow down and why it’s important. I really appreciate that.

Kayla Nettleton: Yes, and thank you for having me.

Katie Rossler: And dear listener, here’s to finding our balance code. Thank you for listening to today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Take a moment to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. That helps other listeners, just like you, find this podcast too. Want to connect and learn how we can work together? Check out the links in the show notes below. Discovering your balance code doesn’t have to be a one-person journey. You can have a team, and I’d love to support you. So here’s to finding our balance code!