You’re Not Crazy, You’re Dysregulated: How to Reset Your Nervous System

Hi y'all! 

In this episode, I’m talking about something that completely changed the way I see myself: nervous system regulation. For so long, I thought I just had an anxiety problem. But the truth is, my body just didn’t feel safe. I

’m sharing what dysregulation actually looks like in real life, the simple ways I reset my nervous system, and what horses have taught me about safety. If you’ve been judging yourself for being reactive, overwhelmed, or “too much,” this conversation might reframe everything. 

You’re not crazy. You’re dysregulated. And that’s something you can work with! Thanks for being here!! 

Xx, 

Shy ♡ 

Transcript

0:00

Hi guys. Welcome back to Shy Space, where we talk about all things pertaining to mental health and manifestation. My name is Shy. I am the host of this podcast, and I'm so excited to be back here with you for another episode. Another week. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you for being here. Thank you for spending your time with me. If you're a returning or a new listener, I appreciate you so much, and I love you and I'm so excited to talk about today's episode. I hope everyone's having a great week. I'm wearing pink in honor of Valentine's Day, which I literally never do, so I hope someone appreciates that. I also am wearing my performative ass eye patches again, which by the way, if anyone was concerned, I still don't know if this is the correct direction that they're supposed to go on my face. Dunno, will I ever know? Probably not. But I did learn recently that they are performative from one of my favorite influencers in Austin. She said that she learned that they were performative or people like call them performative, and I was like, you know what? They are performative and I love them even more as a result of that. So here I am with my performative ass eye patches on the Performative podcast. Just kidding, clearly. Far from performative. If you just take a look at the state of me. So wish I could say honestly that I was trying it all, but we're not, because we're not here to talk about things that are sexy and glamorous and be sexy and glamorous. We're here to talk about real life shit and that's that. So we're doing it cozy. Quick, sidebar. I will say the gummy bear lip set from Trader Joe's. Was hashtag gifted for my parents and it's so fucking good. I have it on my lips right now. And dare I say, it's like a gummy bear Rode, dupe and road loves to do, or Hailey, Mrs. Bieber loves to do flavors that are food based because she loves food. Don't ask me why I know this. I saw it in an interview somewhere. Anyways, with that being said, I just feel like the gummy bear like totally falls in line with Rode and it's very Rode esque. So if you've ever wanted something that's like road and you can't afford it, this gummy bear set at Trader Joe's also has an overnight lip mask and it tastes so good. It is just a 10 outta 10. Okay. Anyways, away from performative stuff because like I said, we're not performative around here, but specifically, this episode is not performative, as you can tell by the title. You're not crazy. You're dysregulated. How to reset your nervous system. So I'm really excited because this is a very impactful tool that everyone needs to understand and learn at some point in their lives. And the fact that it's not taught in some education somewhere in terms of how to manage stress and regulate is crazy to me. So here's all the things that I've learned over the years of being insane and how I've helped myself be less insane in the face of severe stress, chaos, trials and tribulations. And so on. And I will say I kind of wanna start this episode with something that might feel a little bit confronting, but also relieving, because I feel like I've been in a season of realizing things. Sorry, I'm laughing because I'm thinking of, I'm so like pop culture, like I, I need to get a life. But I'm thinking of that Kylie Jenner interview where she's like. 2022 is the year of realizing things and realizing so much things. It's really funny. If you haven't seen it, you should go watch. Because I'm about to sound like that real quick. I have been in a season of realizing how much of your life shifts. Once your nervous system feels safe, real eyes, realize, real lies. Okay. I have realized that between personal drama, relationships, career pressure, all of these things that I've been experiencing, these huge anxiety waves has literally, like all of that combined, has been the underlying thread of my last year of my life. Also the same could be said to a degree about former years, for many years. You catch my drift. If you don't, what I'm alluding to is I've been dysregulated as fuck for a very long time, but I am just now coming to realize it and have the awareness and the skills to be able to untangle the dysregulation and reach a state of regulatory ness. Because I've struggled so much with anxiety my entire life, I've talked about this very openly. But that just doesn't come from nowhere, right? There's nature and there's nurture, but there is also, it's so complex is what I'm trying to say. So I've started to realize through therapy and through understanding myself and not gaslighting myself into thinking that I shouldn't feel things or respond to things in certain ways. So I just invite you to ask yourself these questions. What if you're not overly dramatic? What if you're not too sensitive? What if you're not self-sabotaging, unhealed, or bad at regulating your emotions? What if you are actually just dysregulated. Dramatic pause for dramatic effect because mic drop, honestly, like that was the key for me. There is no way that I will ever be able to heal my anxiety or work through my anxiety and conquer it if I do not heal my nervous system, because I have been literally stuck in fight or flight for so long, and if you're also stuck in fight or flight and you don't know it, this is so important. I feel like literally for my entire life, I have just been convinced that I have an anxiety problem, and I've thought that I've needed so many different things, right? Whether it's like therapy and medication, more exercise, more discipline, more mindset work, more journaling, more control over my life. But the truth is, no matter how much I invest into my personal development and my skills and bettering myself, my nervous system has not felt safe for a very long time, and you cannot mindset shift your way out of something that your body has anchored into and has fully learned. And just a body that doesn't feel safe, it's not possible. The mind body connection is so important, and this is so much of what I'm learning about in therapy because my therapist does a lot of somatic work in terms of the modalities that she focuses on, which is very much aligned with my belief systems and what I like, and you know, my yoga practice and all that. So it's perfect, but it's also so important when it comes to your nervous system. I didn't even realize how long I've spent of my life just like grinding my teeth. And in yoga they teach you to relax your face in ways during Shavasana and like, these were all things to me that were so foreign. And I've just so much has come to light over the past year that I've just been like, what the fuck? I know that there's so many other, I was about to say so many other assholes out there because I wanted to say so many other bad bitches out there. And then assholes came out. Not sure. I know there's so many other bad bitches out there who are dysregulated as fuck, and they may not know it or they may know it and they may not know how to solve it. I totally get it. It's a freaking journey. It's a mountain to climb, especially because it's years and years of wiring that you have to untangle and unwire. So there's a lot to be talked about here, but I just want people to understand that, like if you feel really anxious, if you feel overly sensitive, overly dramatic all the time, and like you're living in a state of just the technical term is fight or flight, but a state of constant fear, stress, anxiety, dread, anticipation, whatever it may be, you don't need more discipline, okay? You need to regulate your nervous system and get your mind body connection synced up so that your body can feel safe and plug into what your mind knows. This is the realization that truly changed everything for me. So what I wanna talk about is what nervous system regulation actually is in more detail. What dysregulation actually looks like in real life, not just on a therapy Instagram post, because I feel like that's where people get their information and it's like, no, we need to, I'm trying to compile like years of therapy and learning into a 30 minute episode. It's impossible. And then I wanna talk about how I regulate my nervous system, what I've learned, what's helped me, and also what horses have taught me about safety that no human being ever could. So first things first to understand is that your nervous system is essentially your body's internal alarm system. So if you're not aware of this, it has one primary job, which is to keep you safe, which is why the responses such as fight, flight, freeze, fawn. All of those nervous system responses to threats and perceived danger are really quite extreme. At least in terms of how they show up in today's world because we've adapted as humans, but that remains like a core response that we've always had, and so now it's just the response doesn't match the perceived threat. So to speak, like sending an email or going to the grocery store depending on where you fall on the spectrum of anxiety. So yeah, it's not meant to keep you happy. It's not meant to keep you successful, abundant. It's meant to keep you alive and aware and alert and safe. And it does that by constantly scanning for safety or the lack thereof. When you feel safe, your body feels safe. You're in what scientists call rest and digest. So the opposite of fight or flight is rest and digest. There's basically two states that your nervous system can be in, and you really want to stay on the bottom half of the rest and digest vibe because when you're in rest and digest, you can think very clearly. You're very grounded. You can be very creative. You have patience. You're open. You just feel that like calmness and like no urgency, no rush, no panic. And when you don't feel safe, you shift into survival mode, which is where you shift into fight or flight and have those types of responses. And this is also where you can have the freeze or the fawn response. Everybody's different in terms of how they respond to stress and trauma and things like that. But those are the four main ones. And fight or flight are the main two. But here's the important part. Being in survival mode doesn't require an actual danger. That's why I keep alluding to it or describing it as a perceived threat because it just has to be the brain or the body perceiving danger in some way. So again, you can be totally dysregulated to the point that you're me and, oh God, if you're anything like me I can't even begin to describe the things that used to send me into a spiral when I was younger, before I did therapy. It's still honestly embarrassing the things that I get anxious over and that I spiral over. I'm working on it, but if you get scared to send an email, if you get scared to have confrontation, if you get scared to disappoint somebody, if you get scared to talk to your boss about something or ask for time off or go to go. Did I say go to the grocery store? Like, I don't know. There's just so many random things that I've gotten anxious about that I know for a fact. It's just not like the response I'm having is not normal and it's not regulated by any means. But basically the reason that this happens is because at some point your body learns that chaos equals love or unpredictability equals safety or maybe achievement equals worth. Then that's when you'll typically keep repeating patterns like this. And I wanna emphasize this too, for my sensitive baddies. This is not indicative of you being broken. It's literally just your nervous system trying to protect you from things that it doesn't understand and things that it needs to process and regulate against. But dysregulation really can show up in so many ways. And if this resonates with you in any way and you feel like, you know, some of these are things that you struggle with, I would definitely recommend you like trying to dive into this more so that you can learn how to regulate and just live a happier life. Because some of the things that I also have on my list that I didn't touch on are overreacting to something small, spiraling over text. I mentioned people pleasing. I mentioned this is a huge one for me. I literally just got feedback about this at work and it was so like, it wasn't upsetting to hear because I know that I struggle with this, but it was just like, wow, this is actually a big issue. Like it's even showing up for me at work. I really need to work on this. And I do think just to at least advocate for myself for a second. Work is one of the places that challenges me the most, so it makes sense, but it's frustrating for me'cause it shows up with all my relationships in all areas of life. Overworking is another one. I literally work myself to the bone and it's such a problem. Procrastinating is another one that I also do. Trouble sleeping even though you're super exhausted. I struggle with this all the time. I'll get really stressed about work and I'll like check things in the middle of the night. Totally dysregulated. Doom scrolling, even when you just wanna relax. This is another huge one that I'm super guilty of. Like, why am I doom scrolling when I'm literally fucking exhausted? Let me know what mental illness that is because that's actually crazy. But anyways. Another one is craving chaos when things get calm. So this can be like, if you're in a relationship and you have a really dysregulated relationship with your partner and things calm down and then you like crave chaos, that's another sign of having a very dysregulated nervous system. But for me personally, one of the biggest shifts was realizing that all of these reactions were not personality flaws. I feel like for so long. I just painted them as that and I just was like, this is me and my problem list. Like, I'm too sensitive, I'm too anxious, I'm too much of a people pleaser. I'm too nice. Like, and then there's like the procrastinating side and like, grilling yourself for that. Like, it's, it's a lot. It's just like very confusing, but, all of it comes from dysregulation'cause again, this is like multiple sources, right? Like this can be because you grew up in a really chaotic household where, you know, maybe your parents' relationship was toxic, or maybe you had siblings that were abusive to you. Or maybe you grew up in a like overly performative ha ha, performative eye patch, wearing family. And if you didn't like go to Yale and become a doctor even though you hate medicine and you're afraid of needles, like you're the worst thing since non sliced bread and you're trash like, I don't know. Everybody has their own story and their own form of trauma and stress and dysregulation that has occurred in their life that then causes dysregulated nervous systems later in life. So whatever it is for you. There's nothing wrong with you. You don't have personality flaws. You just need to regulate your nervous system and, and figure out a way to get yourself in a place that feels safe and calm, so that you don't have to be literally ready to go to battle every second of every day because that drains the fuck outta your body like it just does. And again, they're not personality flaws, they're physiological responses. So if you're having a hard time with shaming yourself. When it comes to this, personally, I struggled with this for a long time, but once I started viewing myself through the lens of like, this is literally a physiological response period, that's it. I was able to stop attacking myself for being too much. Again, this took therapy and work and all of that, but it's possible and I was able to do it for myself. A big question also that I ask myself a lot in therapy and just on a day-to-day basis that I've learned in therapy is. Does my body feel safe right now? And if it doesn't, where does it feel unsafe? Because it's not an intellectual process. It's biological again, so you can logically know that you're fine. I talked about this in my last episode last week, and still feel incredibly anxious, incredibly unsettled, and just not good. Doesn't matter what the mind knows, it's not a weakness, it's wiring and it can be fixed. So how do we actually regulate? Not in a performative way, not in a do this hack, and you'll be healed automatically way. But in a real embodied day-to-day, what can I do and implement easily way? The first thing that I've learned is that regulation is about signaling safety to the body. So we have to make sure that we're sending that signal constantly. One of the fastest ways to do that is through your breath. So it's a little corny and a little bit cliche, but. Unfortunately, breath work is very helpful. So no, it's not gonna heal you, but it is gonna calm you down and it is gonna regulate you at least for that moment. And that's a step in the right direction because the more moments that you're regulated, the more it becomes a pattern, the more it becomes a habit, and then it becomes your flow state, your natural state, flowing it up, baby. So breathing. Longer exhales than inhales signal to your nervous system that the threat has passed. So oftentimes in yoga, after we do like a really quick flow or whatever and all of us are breathing really heavy and we're sweating a bunch the teachers will tell us to consciously focus on having longer exhales than inhales and just deepening our breath to calm it back down and regulate really quickly. And it's crazy how fast you can go from being like literally outta breath and dying to feeling really good and calm. So if I'm anxious, I like to do box breathing, which is basically counts of four for inhale hold exhale hold. I also like to do more lengthy exhales within box breathing. So like inhale for four. Hold for four, exhale for six, hold for six if I can, and kind of loop that way. Or even just the simple act of focusing on your breath or focusing on a very slow, heavy exhale is super, super helpful. Bringing attention to the breath already is a big step in the right direction. Some people don't do that ever. Some people do it maybe once a day. Some people do it all throughout the day. This is something for me that I have to be very conscious of because of how dysregulated I am and how stressed out I get, like super easily, which has again, gotten better, but the breathing is huge. And if I find myself not breathing, I know that I'm dysregulated.'cause I'm like literally holding my breath and I'm like, why am I doing that? I know it sounds really simple. It obviously is simple when you think about it and you look at it on paper. But the thing is, it works. This is why breath work is a thing. This is why it's included in yoga. And there's so much science you can look into Wim Hof breathing, like there's so much that we could talk about. We could do a whole episode on breath alone. I'd be happy to do that, but it's definitely I think your anchor on that daily basis and even hourly. The second thing is movement, but the key is not punishing movement. I know a lot of people have poor relationships with eating or exercising. You don't want it to be viewed as a punishment. You want it to be something that genuinely helps regulate your nervous system. So that would be things like walking, getting outside in nature at all. Slow strength training if you're into the gym, stretching, even just like shaking your arms and your body out because your body stores stress chemically and movement helps metabolize it. So it's a huge, huge thing in releasing the stored up emotions and energy and just being able to bring yourself back down to a regulated rest and digest state. Another huge one is cold exposure. So I know that like everybody talks about cold plunging and all that, but even something as small as just like splashing cold water on your face, or for me, I do the last like 30 seconds in the shower with cold water. I just turn it cold all the way down, dunk my whole body in it, and it genuinely makes me feel so good. But specifically because cold water stimulates your vagus nerve, and that can really help interrupt a stress response. So I've actually been taught to put my face in cold water when I'm having panic attacks, which is a huge, huge thing. Another one that people don't really talk about enough, I think, is co-regulation. We actually regulate through other nervous systems really well, and that's why being around someone that you love and that you care about and that makes you feel safe or someone that's just calm in general, can instantly soften you and help you feel safer. And also on the contrary, being around someone who's notoriously chaotic or high stress or high strung can make you feel on edge for no reason. And you might not even be cognizant of it, but your body is so, regulation truly is contagious, and who you surround yourself with is very important. Now, this is where I wanna talk about how horses have completely changed my understanding of all of this, because I have been drawn to horses my entire life. I have always been anxious my entire life as well, and I've never really thought about why I've been drawn to horses outside of the fact that I simply love animals. I always have. And I started riding and being exposed to the sport at a young age because my parents had horses when I was a child. So I thought part of it was that. But also part of it was the fact that I did start young and I did have a talent for it. I got really involved and I just truly loved it. So to me, it just kind of seemed like, oh, it was like my version of a sport because I'm not really into sports, but I love animals and this was my version of a sport because I was competitive and whatnot when I was younger. But as I've gotten older, I've started to want to learn more about the science behind horses and horsemanship, because for those who don't know, I went to school to be a therapist. That was my original journey, and I've always had the goal of wanting to work in equine assisted therapy. At least I did when I was going to school to be a therapist like that was always a goal of mine. I always knew I would go back to having horses in my life when I could, and I always knew that when I was older I wanted to have equine assisted facilities, on my own property, if possible, for like disabled people, veterans, those with you know, mental disabilities and things like that. Like, I mean, really anyone. It doesn't, you don't have to be disabled like it could be for anyone. But it's really, really interesting because again, now that I own my own horse and I'm just learning so much about them these days. It's life changing, the impact that my horse has on me and my wellbeing, not just because I love him so much, but genuinely because of the benefits that equines bring to humans and the connection between horse and human. It's very, very interesting. Horses are prey animals by nature, and their survival solely depends on reading energy. So they're herd animals and they read the energy of the rest of the herd to be able to determine whether or not they're safe. So for example, if there's like a giant herd of horses and one of them freaks out and starts running, most of the horses are gonna do the same thing, if not all of them. If they have a brain cell, they're gonna do that. They don't care what you say. They don't care if nothing's going on. They are just going to run. And that's again, survival energy. It's to keep them safe. And so the thing about them is like when you're riding them and they perceive threats on their own that are not threats like plastic bags rolling through the road or a bucket that is a different color than they're used to seeing like very silly things. They genuinely don't care what you say about it. They don't care how confident you sound about like it's not something to be scared of. Like they're still going to feel the way that they feel. And the same goes for if you try to show up to their energy space and fake something internally. So when I walk into the barn and I'm dysregulated as hell, Koda, my horse immediately responds to my nervous system, always. The cool thing about horses is they co-regulate, which means that they basically sync up with heartbeats that are within close proximity to them. So they'll do that with their herd mates and they'll also do that with humans. They can sync up their heart rates with humans from up to like, I wanna say it's like six or 12 feet away or something like that. But literally like the second that I get there, he knows before I do, if I'm not in a good head space, which i'm gonna be honest with you guys, like I struggle. A lot of the time i'm going to the barn at the end of the day after it's been a long, stressful day, and like I'm dysregulated, like I'm not in a good space, and when I'm tense, he's tense. When I'm distracted, he's distracted, and if I'm opposite, like I'm grounded, he softens and he's very, very calm. There's literally no faking calm around a horse. Like it's crazy. You cannot perform peace. You completely have to embody it, and that has been one of the most humbling and healing experiences for me because they literally just invite congruence naturally because they mirror what's underneath the surface of yourself. So being around them really forces you to regulate, not through control, but through presence and recognition and just awareness, which is why equine assisted anything is so powerful. It's literally just about your nervous systems interacting in real time and syncing up. And you learning what safety feels like in your body instead of just understanding it intellectually. So horses are a fantastic way to regulate, and I honestly truly believe that so much of the anxiety that I carry specifically isn't because I'm weak. It's because I've been surviving for so long, and I'd like to believe that about everyone else who struggles with anxiety as well, because it's tough out here. One last piece that really connects everything that we talked about today. Just a reminder that you cannot manifest safety. If your body doesn't feel safe. You cannot build a secure, loving relationship from a fight or flight state. So good luck with that'cause I've tried that. You cannot create sustainable success from survival mode. And your nervous system is the foundation of everything. Regulate your nervous system first and expand second. Also, if you've been judging yourself for being overly reactive, sensitive, anxious, or you feel like you're behind in life, you're probably just exhausted because your body's been in fight or flight for so long and you need rest because your body is protecting you. The only way it knows how. You are not crazy, you are not dramatic. You are simply dysregulated, and that is something we can very much easily work with and fix. So this week, if you get super stressed out, I want you to ask yourself, instead of saying what I would say, which is, how do I fix myself? Ask yourself, why do I feel unsafe right now? What makes me feel safe? When do I feel the most grounded? Because safety is not something that you just find and stumble upon. You have to build it within yourself and within your life, and be somebody that you can trust and lean on. So sometimes it just starts with a really long exhale. That's my corny line for the day, but truly it's a fact. Or a quiet moment in a pasture with a sweet horse. A giant animal that could crush you, but they're really sweet. Okay. Really quickly before I close this episode, I don't wanna just talk about regulation. I really want you to feel it with me. So if you're driving and listening to this, please keep your eyes open, obviously. But if you're somewhere safe, just sitting, maybe soften your gaze if it feels safe or close your eyes for a moment if you can. We're just gonna do a quick guided nervous system reset. So I want you to take a slow inhale through your nose. And a longer exhale through your mouth. One more time. Inhale, long exhale. Let your shoulders drop. Unclench your jaw. Relax the tongue from the roof of your mouth. This is a weird one for me that I always was like, what? And my tongue was always at the roof of my mouth. Take another inhale and then a very, very slow exhale. And then I want you to just notice the surface underneath you, whether it's a chair, the floor, a car seat. Just let your body feel supported. And let yourself realize that you don't have to hold yourself up right now in this moment. If you're sitting down, hopefully. You are allowed to be held. You are allowed to rest. Take one more slow breath in, and as you exhale, imagine your body just getting 1% softer, 1% safer, 1% better, healthier, whatever it is that you want. You don't have to be fully calm and in that state of regulation, but you can just be 1% better and 1% closer to that. That's perfection. That is enough. That is all you need. And on that note, regulation is not about perfection. It's about constantly providing yourself small signals that you are safe over and over again until you get to a point where you feel that way consistently. It is not a perfect path to get there. It is complex and sometimes, literally all you need to do is just pause and take a breath and be in the present moment when something is chaotic and feels unsteady. You literally can build peace and build that inner calmness that you can anchor into always and never have to worry that something outside of yourself is gonna like throw you off or send you into that fight or flight state. Repetition, all of that, everything we talked about today will get you there, I promise. I love you guys so much. Thank you for listening. Thank you for breathing with me and just being a part of this episode. I really appreciate it and I hope that it was helpful and that you all feel very regulated after some breath work. I'll see you guys next week and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day. Bye.