What Protecting Each Other’s Nervous Systems Really Looks Like

The moments that change a family rarely arrive on schedule. One day you’re recording ideas for a new format; the next you’re in the ER at 8:30 p.m., texting updates while your husband drives your 85-year-old mom for an ultrasound. That’s where What Happens When The Therapist Gets Real begins at the intersection of caregiving, marriage, and a nervous system stretched thin.

I share why I rebranded the show to make room for the messy middle and what happened when my body refused my long-standing heavy lifting routine. As a therapist who teaches nervous system work for intimacy shutdown, it stunned me to realize my sympathetic system was already maxed out from caregiver stress. Forcing more mobilization wasn’t discipline, it was dysregulation. So I swapped barbells for long walks and yoga to invite ventral vagal safety back into my day. That single change opened a bigger conversation about burnout, resilience, and how we honor the intelligence of a “no” from the body.

From there we get specific about marriage under pressure. We break the default script - no designated caregiver, no quiet resentment. Instead, we tag team, name grief while our loved one is still here and protect our daughter’s needs even when our attention is thin. We also treat survival-mode thoughts as what they are: temporary signals, not final truths. You’ll hear how we guard each other’s nervous systems in real ways a guilt-free football game for him, an early night for me and why co-regulation is not codependence but a skill that keeps couples connected during hard seasons.

If you’re balancing elder care, parenting a teen, running a business, or just feeling the weight of life stacking up, this conversation offers five practical anchors: tag team care, name the grief, track your nervous system, protect your kid’s needs, and schedule true respite. Stress can fracture a bond or forge it. The difference isn’t the absence of stress it’s how we move through it together. Listen, share with a partner who needs a lifeline, and if this resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: Which small shift will you try this week?

Thank you for listening to Marriage Motherhood & The Messy Middle; When the therapist gets real!

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Chapters

• 0:02 Rebranding The Podcast
• 2:26 Why Get Real Beyond Social Media
• 4:55 Therapist’s Background And Focus
• 6:47 The Caregiving Crisis Begins
• 10:45 Reading My Nervous System
• 13:22 Lifting Weights vs Walking
• 16:12 Choosing Ventral Vagal Practices
• 18:59 Marriage Under Heavy Stress
• 22:10 Tag Teaming Care And ER Nights