EP 154: Running a business when life feels heavy – Part 1: Regulating Your Energy & Emotional Capacity

You can’t out-strategise your nervous system.

No amount of mindset work, productivity hacks, or forcing yourself to “push through” will override the fact that your body is always speaking to you.

So what happens when life happens—when stress, illness, or emotional upheaval collide with the reality that you still have a business to run?

In this episode, Jessica Read goes beyond resilience and dives deep into understanding your nervous system, recognizing what state you’re in, and learning how to work with your body—not against it—so you can keep moving forward without burning out.

Inside, we’ll cover:
✨ The three states of the nervous system (ventral, sympathetic, dorsal) and how they impact your ability to show up.
✨ How to recognize which state you’re in so you can regulate accordingly.
✨ Practical, body-led ways to shift your state—without force, guilt, or bypassing what you truly need.

By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why you’re not lazy, unmotivated, or inconsistent—your nervous system is simply responding to what it perceives as safe.

Key Takeaways:

🔥 Your Business Feels Harder Than It Should—Here’s Why

• It’s not about motivation—it’s about capacity.
• Your nervous system decides how much you can hold, and when stress dysregulates it, everything feels harder.
• Your body is not the enemy—it’s the messenger.

🔥 The Three States of Your Nervous System & How They Affect Your Business

• Ventral (Regulated, Connected): You feel clear, grounded, and in flow.
• Sympathetic (Fight/Flight, Overdrive): You feel urgent, overwhelmed, and reactive.
• Dorsal (Shutdown, Freeze): You feel fatigued, foggy, or emotionally disconnected.

🔥 Regulation Isn’t About Forcing Yourself to Feel Better—It’s About Giving Your Body What It Needs

• Dorsal Shutdown: You need gentle activation—breathwork, light movement, grounding in nature.
• Sympathetic Overdrive: You need to slow your system down—deep exhales, tapping, co-regulation through connection.
• Ventral Regulation: You need to nourish what’s already working—play, joy, and moments of ease.

💡 The goal isn’t to never dysregulate—it’s to learn how to return to safety, over and over again.

Reflection Questions (from the Episode):

💡 What state does my nervous system tend to default to when I’m under pressure?
💡 What regulation practices actually work for me, and which ones feel forced?
💡 What is one small shift I can make today to support my capacity?

P.S. If you’re ready to bridge the gap between where you are and the version of you who moves with certainty, join me inside The Expansion Code. This is an energetic activation, not just another workshop—where you’ll feel the shift in your body, not just in your mind.

🔗 Save your spot here

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Resourced with Jessica Raid. This is the podcast for visionary entrepreneurs who are here to build a thriving business and a luminous life, fully resourced from the inside out. Here, we unlock the magic of inner alignment. emotional mastery and energetic strategies so you can lead with clarity, confidence and ease. This is your space to shed what no longer serves you, embody your highest potential and expand into the next evolution of your business and soul's work. You are meant for more and it all starts here.

squadcaster-23hg_1_02-18-2025_124521: 0:47

You can not out strategize your nervous system. There is no amount of mindset work, of productivity hacks, of force, that will override the fact that your body is always speaking to you. So what happens then when life happens? When stress, when illness, when emotional upheaval collides with the fact that you still have a business to run? Today, we are not only going to talk about resilience, we're also going to talk about how to attune to your nervous system, how to understand what state you are in. And learn how to move forward in a way that feels nourishing, not depleting for you. Now, this is a two part series. Today, we are focusing on our internal strategies so that we can build a nurturing body led business. And then next week, we are focusing on our external strategies so we can build a business that holds us through these times too. Welcome to Resource with Jessica Read. This is a space where sole led entrepreneurs learn to build businesses that honor who they are, where they are, and what they need. And today, I'm sharing this information with you for a pretty personal reason. I have guided countless clients. Through exactly what I'm going to talk to you about today, because a part of what I do is help clients to navigate their internal world and still run their business when their internal world is struggling. But right now for me, my body has also been speaking louder than my mind. I have been experiencing cortisol dysregulation. My body has been struggling to metabolize the excess cortisol that I have in my body. My nervous system has been chronically stuck between fight or flight and shutdown. And this has impacted not only how I feel, But it has also impacted how I show up. It's impacted how I hold my business. And it's just so interesting that I get this challenge because this is at the core of what I teach. And so I want to share with you today these tools, not just because they have helped so many people, but also because they are something that I know that for me, if I didn't understand this, if I wasn't able to attune to my body. Then my business wouldn't still be running. I wouldn't be able to continue to show up and serve people despite the things that I'm going through within my body and within my emotions. And if I cough today, oh my goodness, I'll try and edit it out. I am just recovering from Covid as well. So here is what I know. I know that you don't have to push through to be successful. I know that you don't have to ignore your body's signals to grow. And I also know that resilience is not just about forcing yourself into action, but it's about working with your body, not against it. So I am not the person who is going to stand here and say these are the things that you need to know. And this is how you set your business up to support you and how you, you build a business with with your nervous system at the forefront of your mind. As someone who has not been down deep in the trenches of how do I even get up today, let alone be visible, let alone have a thriving business. That is holding me and allowing me to go through and heal what I need to heal to go through and be present in the areas of my life that I need to be present in so that I can begin to deal with these external circumstances without an end to the internal impact that it's had on my body without losing the business that I've been building for all these years. So this episode is for you if you struggle with energy crashes, with brain fog with a nervous system that feels unpredictable. If you feel like your business demands more than you have to give and you don't know how to keep going without burning out. And if you want to understand what state your nervous system is in, so that you can regulate in a way that actually works for you. So here's what we'll cover today. We'll cover the three main states of nervous system going by the polyvagal theory. Now, there are more, there is more to this. We are just going to go with keep it really simple today. So we're going to talk about eventual sympathetic and dorsal state and what that might look like within your body and how that will show up in terms of your behaviors and your actions and how it's going to impact your ability to show up. Because once you recognize what state you're in, you can regulate accordingly. Because you don't regulate your nervous system if you are in a sympathetic state in the same way that you would if you are in a dorsal state. We're also going to talk about practices to help you shift these states as well so that you can begin to feel safe in your body. Teach your nervous system that you are not actually being chased by a tiger. It is just a very large email list and how to do this without fear. force and without bypassing what your body needs as well, because that is where we lead to burnout. And that is why I am so passionate about this, as I said before, I know that if I didn't have this information, if I wasn't every day checking in, what state am I in? What does my body need right now? If I was there going, okay, I'm being lazy, I'm feeling unmotivated and, just labeling these as, lazy, unmotivated, inconsistent. that I would be in burnout because I have the tests to prove what is going on in my body to show what is happening with my hormones and tests to show that there are physical things at play here and that physicality is something that I cannot just push through or I'm going to end up completely burnt out. So your nervous system is simply just responding to what it perceives as safe. Now, if we have not met yet, my name is Jessica Read. I am an intuitive business mentor. I'm also an alternative therapist and I help sole led entrepreneurs just like you build emotional resilience, regulate their nervous systems and create sustainable success without self sacrificing because as we have just covered before, life happens. And that is something that as a woman, as a human, you're not going to escape. You're not going to escape life happening to you. So how you learn to navigate it is in so many people's experiences, and what I have witnessed over all of these years of working with women just like you, who life takes them out and then takes out their businesses as well. No one's immune to it, but it's how you deal with it is going to make or break. Now, I have lived through burnout, and I'm navigating a very physical burnout at the moment, and I'm still running a successful business while I do that, because I'm building a business, which we'll talk about in part two, that can hold me as well, as me being able to create a really body led experience. I have lived through stress related illnesses. Oh my gosh, you can go back and listen to my story. You probably relate. If you've had chronic stress, relate with a lot of it. And I have felt what it is like when your body says no. Even when your mind is screaming at you to push through. And I am so grateful that I now stop and listen to this. So today I'm going to help you understand why your nervous system is responding the way that it is and how you can start working with it instead of feeling like you're constantly fighting yourself. So your business is feeling harder than it should and here's why. If you have ever felt like you are doing all things right but you're still struggling to keep up, it's not about motivation. It's not about capacity. Your business requires you to hold space for yourself, for your clients, for your vision and the unknowns of entrepreneurship. They can be huge, right? But your nervous system decides how much you can tolerate and how much you can hold. And it's something that, that needs to expand safely. It needs to expand safely. The vagus nerve runs through your entire body, and it sends signals about whether you are safe or not, whether you need to protect yourself. It determines what kind of state you are operating from. I'm going to share the states now. As I said, there are blended states as well, but we're just going to stick with our three main states for today. Today, we're going to talk about ventral state, which is where we are regulated and connected. And as I say these, I want you to think about what this actually looks like for you. What are you doing? How are you making different decisions? How different does your business look? Depending on what state you're in. So when you're in Ventral state, you are feeling clear, grounded, creative, social. You are open to opportunity. We have our sympathetic state. Now sympathetic state is where our fight or flight, our stress response is on, okay? It is the opposite to our rest and digest. It is where we feel maybe urgent, reactive, scattered and overwhelmed in our business. And you likely feel that in your body too with physical symptoms like a racing heart or a really scattered mind or maybe you're feeling a little bit shaky or this is where anxiety is coming in as well. Maybe you're feeling like you just need to escape something that feeling with your muscles, you're like, oh, sympathetic state is designed for you to fight or flee danger. And that's why we become so urgent, so reactive. Your mood as well in this moment would be quite reactive. Likely quite emotional or quite, just imbalanced. Snappy, irritated. And then we have our dorsal state and this is where, as I said to you earlier, I have been coming between a blend of fight or flight and shut down. So I'm coming in a blend recently of sympathetic and dorsal. And that dorsal state, that is like shut down, that is collapse, that is where you feel disconnected. You're fatigued, you're foggy, like you just can't show up. Now, I hear a lot of people who have depression describe a dorsal state. Okay. I choose to look at it as a ladder, as something I can move through. I am not in dorsal every day. I am not in sympathetic every day. I am constantly moving between those states. And in ventral, as you see me here, saying hello through this podcast. But, you can see that as you think about your own nervous system and your own experiences, what might it look and feel like for you when you are in these states? And what if when you are, say, in the dorsal state and you're feeling fatigued and foggy, you stop telling yourself that you're lazy? You stop telling yourself that you're unmotivated? What if you're in the sympathetic state? You stop telling yourself that you're losing your mind and that everything is an urgent rush that you need to move through. Your body is purely responding to your perceived safety, or your lack of it. And that could be, obviously, a very holistic picture, depending on what is going on in your mind and in your life. What you're holding in your body emotionally. But before you try and fix your energy, Before you try and just go straight for regulation, I want you to pause and ask yourself, what state is my nervous system actually in right now? Because for you to be able to meet yourself in a way that actually meets that sympathetic state, that dorsal state, you're going to have a very different experience. So for example, if I wake up And I am in a dorsal state and I'm frozen. If I wake up and I try and force myself into the gym in those moments to do a hardcore workout, my body is just simply going to collapse. In that, and we're going to talk about more, techniques and strategies as we keep moving on. But that is because I recognize what state I'm in and then I choose the appropriate response. I'm looking for something more slow, more rhythmic, more gentle, something that's more touch based, things that, that are not necessarily going to work and again, vice versa, if I wake up in a sympathetic state and anxiety is high and I'm going, all right, we've we, all these things are going through my head and my body's like ready to flee from something, coming in slow, coming in with the touch, all of that's not what I need in that space. So being able to recognize where you are at, because regulation is not about forcing yourself to feel better, it's about giving your body what it actually needs. So to go a little deeper into what I just started speaking about, regulating a dorsal shutdown, this is when you feel frozen, you're exhausted, you're disconnected. This is happening because your body is shutting down to conserve energy. Okay. If you think about the animal who is who has fought enough and then it just goes, okay I'm just going to lay here and play dead until the threat passes. It feels like too much to get out of. You are conserving energy in this state. So again, if I was to just go straight into a hard workout it's not necessarily going to shift me out of my, dysregulation. So dorsal also, then if you think about business, If it's feeling impossible, if you're feeling like you can't take action, if you're feeling like you're just completely frozen, you sit and you stare at your computer like this, I don't even know what I'm thinking or what I what I'm supposed to write today or what I'm supposed to do, if you've zoned out on social media and then all of a sudden two hours have passed, then you are likely in a dorsal state. So what is going to help this state, as I mentioned before, is slow, gentle activation. This is breath work. This is light movement. Think Tai Chi. Think gentle stretching. Think just swaying. Rhythmic swaying. This state lacks rhythm. And grounding in nature as well. I know for me, feet in the grass. It's one of the feet in the grass and sort of the touch of where you would use your hands in a havening technique. So from your shoulders down to your elbows up and down, that for me is really soothing in that dorsal state. Some other things that really helped me as well is being able to keep my head. Straight and my eyes, just my eyeballs looking over to one side, holding that for about 60 seconds until I get a yawn or sometimes tears. And then I come back and I come back to the other side as well. So that really gentle bilateral stimulation, but also showing your body where you are in terms of the world. In terms of your place in, this earth and showing your body that there is no fight. Sorry, threat, because we are able to see out past that tunnel vision that comes when we're in a stress response. So then if we think about regulating our sympathetic system, so this is when we're in overdrive. This is when we are feeling anxious, when we're on edge, when we're feeling overwhelmed. I've talked a lot about sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system states in the past on this podcast. Sympathetic mode happens when your body is flooded with cortisol and it is running on urgency. So if you are If you're overcommitting, if you're doing too much, if you're just spinning around and you're overthinking, then you are likely in this state. So what can help here is slowing down your breath, activating your parasympathetic symptom through breath, through EFT tapping, through really long exhales. What can also help here in this sympathetic state is to move. Okay, so this is where that movement, you're stomping, you're shaking, your gym weights you're, running on the treadmill, like all of this movement, pushing so going up to a wall and pushing all your pressure against that wall. This is your body using up that excess cortisol, that excess adrenaline that is saying, hey, we are under attack. And then you physically show it. Actually, now we've used it. It served a purpose. Thank you for giving me this flood, and now we've, released it. We've served a purpose. Now, I mentioned at the beginning, it's really interesting for me because, obviously, I use a lot of these techniques when I need to. It's been really interesting for me over the last few months to witness my body staying in this state of dysregulation up and down through the day. Regardless. Of what I was doing and that is where the benefit for me of having the hormone testing that I've had done of getting that picture of actually what's going on in my body because my intuition was saying this is more than just a stress response. This is more than you just having anxiety. There is a reason why it is feeling so hard to move through this. There is a reason why your body is resisting it. And as it turns out, there is work to be done in my liver. There is work to be done in my liver so that it can metabolize the excess cortisol that is not actually leaving my body when I am doing these things. There is work to be done then releasing that, the cortisol, so that then my estrogen production can return to normal, because all of those things have been impacted. I just thought I would mention that because And that is, through all of this, if you are running a business, like I am, I'm also a mum, we have two businesses, I also have two young children. If you are navigating all of this, and you are pushing yourself through your business, Because you're scared, and I don't know what your financial situations are, but you're pushing yourself through because you're scared that you, your business will collapse, that you won't make any money, that people will think less of you if you are not showing up in the same capacity, or whatever your fears are. I share this with you because if you continue to keep going, Then your body is going to end up in a place where you do need medical assistance because it will be pushed too far. And listen to your intuition. Listen to your body. My body was telling me that I needed deeper testing, that it was more than something that I could just regulate with regular techniques. And I'm so glad that I've done this testing, and I'm so glad that I have this information. Because again, if I was trying to show up and, force my body into things, I know where I'd be headed. And I know that because I've been there before. And I also know that it is a really hard place to get back from as well. When we think about regulating We think about then our ventral state. This is where you feel clear, you feel grounded, you feel present. So in terms of business, this might be where it feels easeful, where your creativity is flowing, where decisions feel natural, where you feel capable as well. Where you feel like you could go out and be social, and be seen. The goal isn't to stay here in this ventral state all the time. Okay we can't stay up in this window of tolerance all the time. The goal, and again the whole reason why I'm sharing this today, is to know how to come back to it. So what helps us in this state? This is where we play, this is where we have connection, this is where we have intuitive movement, this is where we can help with our beautiful deep exhales signaling to our body that we are safe. So what I would love for you to do is think about these three states and ask yourself, what does my body need right now to feel even just 5 percent safer? And even ask yourself too, how are these states showing up in my business? What is happening for me? Am I freezing? Am I primarily in a sympathetic state? Am I primarily in an interventional state? How do I deal with, dysregulation? Do I treat it like something that has to be fixed? Or do I understand that I'm going to move up and down depending on my environment, depending on my internal state, depending on my health, depending on so many things. So when you think about this, I'm going to leave you with some reflection questions. What state does my nervous system tend to default to when I'm under pressure? That's a really important one to know because again, the way that you deal with that, the way that you help yourself through that is going to look different depending on what state that is. What regulation practices actually work for you? And which ones feel forced? So what have a play with what feels good for you. There are thousands. There is not one way to regulate. There are thousands of ways to regulate a nervous system. Ways to regulate a nervous system. What is one small shift that you can also make right now, today, to support the capacity Of where you're at right now, that you know where you're at, now that you understand that your body wants to hide and freeze right now, that you understand that your body is in a sympathetic fight or flight response, now that you understand that you're in a ventral state and you're ready to go out and be social, what capacity can you make today to, I'm sorry, what change can you make today to support that capacity? Because if you are dealing with life, and maybe everybody doesn't agree with this as business advice, but as someone who has, as I said, been down in the very, very depths of nervous system breakdown and then come back up and then come down and up again, and someone who has also worked with countless entrepreneurs who have been in the same situation, if you can create a business, which we're going to talk about next week, that can help to actually give you flexibility to be human. And I know, yes, we need discipline, but we also need a business that's going to support us through our systems, through our structure. Because in my experience, the ability to go, okay, today I am in a dorsal state, today my body is conserving its energy. And yet I'm supposed to do 30, 000 things on my to do list and I know that if I do that, that I'm going to end up falling in a big heap at the end of the day and probably not turning up tomorrow. What can I shift? What flexibility can I create within my calendar? What flexibility can I create within the way that I structure my week? Maybe you're not structuring day to day, but you have a structure in your week, and we're going to talk about more of this next week. So I, I really hope that by sharing this today, and by me sharing a little bit about what I have been going through as well, and how I use this information to ensure that I am not, out in my business and that my business does not fall into a big heap as well. And I can still show up and I can still help people. I really hope that this information helps you to understand why I believe that a body led business is so crucial and why your understanding of how to meet yourself, where you're at. will have a huge impact on your business. So much of the urgency that I used to experience was made up in my head. My business has survived with me scaling back and cutting back so many tasks, so many things that I thought that I had to be doing, so many programs I thought I had to be a part of. So many calls. I thought I had to turn up to. I need to learn to, I needed to learn to honor my capacity even more than I already had. It's a growing process and so do you. Do you know, I can give you an example of a dorsal state. For me, Facebook groups, Facebook group chats were The most overwhelming thing in either, actually in dorsal and sympathetic. In dorsal, I couldn't even look at it. The thought of even being in there just overwhelmed me so much. And then in sympathetic, I'd go in and I'd look and I'd be like, Oh my god, and I'd feel so scattered, so anxious. There was just too much going on. They are really small things that you might notice in your own world. That are little signals to you that you're not regulated. Little signals to you that your body needs something from you and you are actively pushing against it. So I would love to talk more about supporting you to build a business that actually supports your nervous system, that supports your capacity. I have a free event coming up. You might like to check out in the show notes. It is called The expansion code. I nearly forgot for a second. Where we are going to work on your internal capacity, but if you are someone who really wants to build a body led business, then let's chat about the mastermind because the transcendence mastermind is all about that. It is all about you building a strategy and building a aligned business. Running your day, your mindset, everything, your whole big picture in a way that actually supports your nervous system and supports your capacity. What I want you to remember as I wrap up for today and we get ready for part two next week, which again is all about how to build your business in a way that is going to hold you. I want you to remember that you are not a machine. You are not. And I know I'm going to contradict so many successful people out there who are going to say just discipline, keep going, push through. You're not meant to push through. You're not meant to override your body. Ignore the signals that it is giving you. The business owners that I know that are the most successful And I don't just mean, I don't just look at success through numbers, like I am talking about these ladies having six, seven figure businesses, but they also have a healthy mind and a healthy body, and they also have their choice of balance, and yes, they work hard, but they're not necessarily hustling harder to get more. They're the ones who learn to hold more by honoring their capacity so that their growth is sustainable. Okay, that is the important piece here. Because people can tell you that you can go, and you've got to go in and you've got to do all the things to build your business. And yes, it can be longer hours and it can be more work and I'm not saying that we sit around and do nothing. But what I am saying. Is that I can guarantee you that there came a point in those people's lives where they went, Oh my gosh, my health is not good. My mindset, not so good. My family life could be better. So they are the ladies building businesses at all costs. And then they get to that success and then they've got to turn around and do that inner work. You can choose. If you would like to do the inner work first and gradually build and grow and hold that success in a way that actually honours your capacity. And then it becomes sustainable. That's a choice. So I will see you guys next week. And I cannot wait to share all the things that I'm doing in my business, but that also you can start implementing too if it feels good. So that your business can hold and support you. When life happens.

32:33

Thank you for tuning into Resource with Jessica Reid. If today's episode spoke to you, I'd love for you to share it with another soul led entrepreneur who is also ready to rise. Make sure to subscribe, leave a review and stay connected because when you are deeply resourced, you become unstoppable. Until next time, my friend, stay resourced, stay radiant, and trust in the magic that is you.