Chaos Into Calm

Your life can look fine on the outside while your nervous system is living like the siren is still on. I’m sharing a quieter Everyday Warrior Moments reflection on internal chaos. The racing thoughts, the tight chest, the shallow breathing, the snappy reactions and the exhaustion that can follow you even after you finally stop moving.

I talk about how this pattern showed up for me through policing and long-term hypervigilance and why “being busy” can quietly become a baseline. When your body learns to stay switched on, it’s hard to sleep, hard to think clearly and hard to respond with the version of you that you actually want to be. We explore what PTS symptoms can feel like day to day and why the shift towards calm usually doesn’t come from doing more, but from noticing what’s happening inside your body.

Then I share the simple, practical stress management tools that help me come back to myself. Grounding with feet on the earth, taking a few extra moments in the shower, sitting in morning sunshine and using breathwork and mindfulness to return to the present. I also speak to the heavy days, when insomnia hits and energy is low and how meeting yourself where you are, choosing lighter work and breaking tasks into smaller steps can turn overwhelm into forward motion.

If you’ve been asking yourself why you keep reacting, this is your gentle reset. Listen, share it with someone who needs a calmer moment and please subscribe and leave a review so more everyday warriors can feel seen and supported.

Thanks for listening in!

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Music Credit: Cody Martin - Sunrise (first 26 episodes) then custom made for me.

Disclaimer: The views, opinions, and stories shared on this podcast are personal to the host and guests and are not intended to serve as professional advice or guidance. They reflect individual experiences and perspectives. While we strive to provide valuable insights and support, listeners are encouraged to seek professional advice for their specific situations. The host and production team are not responsible for any actions taken based on the content of this podcast.

Transcript

A Quiet Pause To Breathe

Trudie Marie 0:00

This is Everyday Warrior Moments. Thank you, truly, for being here and for choosing to subscribe and support the podcast. It means more than you probably realise and it allows me to keep creating these conversations and this space. This is a quieter moment between our guest episodes, a place to slow things down, to reflect and to take a breath. These episodes are just me sharing thoughts, lessons, and gentle reminders as I continue to walk in my own journey too. So wherever you are right now, whether you're starting your day, ending it, or somewhere in between, let's take a few minutes together. Today I want to talk about something I know many of us experience. Chaos. And I'm not talking the loud, obvious kind, but the internal kind. The one where we have racing thoughts, overwhelm, and being constantly on. For a very long time I lived in that space and I didn't even realize it because honestly, it just felt normal. Especially in policing, because you are on high alert all the time. The situational awareness, the hypervigilance, and then the PTS symptoms are the anxiety, the depression, the mind is constantly racing. And then that leads to insomnia and an emotional overload, and again, the hyper vigilance that just continues to keep going, even though you're not at work anymore. Being a police officer, obviously, you are switched on all the time. It is part of the job. You're alert, you're aware, and you're ready to go. But what I didn't realize is that I didn't know how to switch it off. And when you live like that for long enough, your body starts to think that that's your baseline. That this idea of being busy and overwhelmed and on alert is just how life is. But that's not the way it's supposed to be. And for me, that shift didn't come from doing more. It came from noticing how I felt in my body. Is it the tight shoulders? Is it the shallow breathing? Is it the butterflies in the stomach? Is it that weight on your chest? Is it all those racing thoughts? I would constantly wake up exhausted without even having much sleep, but my thoughts would be racing as soon as I was alert and aware. I would find myself snapping at everybody. Not just my family, not just my partner, but almost everything around me would set me off and have me start yelling or swearing or getting uptight about. And this is the part I don't think many of us actually realize. Because you can't respond when your nervous system is in that constant chaos. So, what has helped me move from the chaos into the calm, and I say that in inverted commas, it's not big complicated things. In fact, it's actually more simple ones. It could be just standing in the shower that little bit longer, just acknowledging the water, washing away everything around you. It's sitting outside with my cacao in the morning sunshine with my feet on the ground, actually grounding. Which is why I always tie it in to my closing of these episodes, because it's so important to just acknowledge how you're actually breathing. Calm doesn't mean you have to have everything perfect. For me, calm is just having the ability to come back to myself, to be in the present as opposed to the racing thoughts, which often are all about the past or all about the future. Staying present really can adjust your focus. And these are things you can do on the hard days, when you're tired, and when everything else just feels really heavy, like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. And let's be real, there are still plenty of days like that for me. Days where I wake up from having really bad insomnia or broken sleep. Days where I just feel like my energy is really low. And let's be real, we can all feel that just from changes in the weather. Or those days that feel harder, maybe because you have a lot of stuff on the go, or there are important things you need to get done. Instead of pushing through, which is what I used to do, I met myself where I was. And sometimes that means choosing lighter work when tasks need to be done. Don't force the productivity, just give yourself permission to be in the moment and take things one step at a time. Just crossing off little things on your to-do list gives you a sense of accomplishment. And even sometimes breaking down those bigger tasks into smaller steps that you get to cross off a list makes it all seem more achievable and less overwhelming. This is not a weakness, it's actually more an awareness about who you are, how you feel, and how you can move forward. So maybe today you just gently ask yourself, am I reacting or am I responding? And what would it look like if you could just add a little bit more calm into every single day? Not perfection, but just that little small shift. So now I want you to take that deep breath in and let it go. Come back to yourself and remember that everyday warriors don't give up, they continue to rise. Thank you for being part of the Everyday Warrior community and for supporting the podcast. It really means a lot. If something in this episode stayed with you, I invite you to share it a message, a post, a simple recommendation. It helps more people feel seen and supported. And don't forget the Everyday Warriors podcast is always there for deeper conversations and real stories from around the world. Take care and I'll see you again in the next moment.