Ep. 16 When Life Interrupts Your Routine (And Becomes the Practice)

We start the year with the best intentions — morning routines, less scrolling, more presence. And then life happens. A family member in the hospital. Unexpected stress. Emotional weight that doesn't fit neatly into any wellness plan.

In this episode, Chelsea shares what unfolded in the middle of her 30-day media fast when her mom was suddenly hospitalized — and what it revealed about the difference between a practice that looks good on paper and one that actually holds you when things get hard.

This is an honest conversation about what nervous system regulation really means when life gets tender. Not calm, not perfect, not on schedule — but present. Adaptable. Still breathing.

You'll hear why routines fall away during stressful seasons — and why it has nothing to do with discipline or willpower. What it actually feels like to stay present in uncertainty without numbing out. Why a regulated nervous system doesn't remove difficulty, but changes how you meet it. And how to find the one simple thing that keeps you tethered when the container of your routine dissolves.

If you've felt behind this year, like nothing has gone right or you've already fallen off — this episode is a reminder that nothing has gone wrong. You're just being asked to listen, adapt, and notice.

Download the free Hidden Stress Reset Guide — five 60-second daily practices to support your nervous system right now. Link in the show notes.

Chelsea Johnson Ayurveda

Transcript

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Welcome to the Body Rhythm Podcast. I'm your host, Chelsea Johnson, talking all things diet, lifestyle, health, and healing with a dose of heart and soul. I am talking today about when life interrupts the practice, but becomes the practice. So we are out of New Year's already. Probably some of you may have stopped your New Year's resolutions and routines already. But um, I know for many of us at the beginning of the year, we commit or recommit to wellness routines and morning practices and less scrolling, more intention, a sense of getting back on track. And for me, at the beginning of this year, I decided to do a 30-day media fast. And so that was 30 days of not looking at social media, of not looking at news, at not looking uh at anything on YouTube. And it actually also evolved into not really um watching any shows on any streaming platform, particularly Netflix. I was about midway through mid-January, and then life happened, right? My mom ended up going to the hospital, and we didn't know what was happening, and it was a very stressful time. And I had experiences with my dad over the last uh couple of years where he's had cancer and he's been in and out of ERs, multiple hospital visits. And so, as a way of coping, of dealing with the stress, with the boredom, I really started looking at uh YouTube videos, scrolling, Instagram, TikTok, looking at Netflix, that became my coping strategy. And that was one of the reasons why I decided to do the fast in January was to stop that, not to cope with stressors like that anymore, and then to reconnect with God. And so when this happened with my mom during the middle of my media fast, it really became um instructive because illness, caregiving, unexpected stress, emotional weight doesn't fit neatly into a routine. And so when this happens, when life happens, it's easy to think that our practices fail or that we have, but often something else is happening. Sometimes our life becomes the practice, and we imagine, right, what the practice is going to look like. It's gonna look like a clean routine, that we have the same consistency day to day, that nothing is ever gonna change, that we're gonna have quiet mornings, quiet evenings, and we're gonna have the same availability and emotional capacity and stress nervous system capacity every day. But really, that's not how life shows up. It's not how life works. And so when life begins to interrupt our practice, we need to adapt. And this can be hard because in our culture, I think there's this underlying belief that if we can't keep up, then there must be something wrong. Then I must be doing it wrong. And wellness routines are usually designed for stable seasons, right? They're designed for consistent energy, for predictable days, for emotional bandwidth. But life isn't always stable. And so when we're dealing with uncertainty, when we're dealing with illness in ourselves, family members, friends, when we're dealing with chronic stress, the nervous system unconsciously shifts into protection mode. And our energy and bodily resources are redirected towards safety, towards decision making and emotional processing. Energy is redirected towards safety and decision making. For me, give me a crisis and I can make decisions like this. And I used to have a very stressful job as very fast-paced. And people come to me to make decisions, problems always happening. And I was in my zone when that happened because I could think and process the information very, very fast. And then after the event was over, sometimes it was a week event, a weekend event, then I would just crash at the end. Right. And so that's what happens when we're in this more activated stress response. And this can happen when our unexpected life experience happens too, right? It's not a lack of discipline that causes the routines to fall away, it's a change in our capacity. It's a physiological change. And so when my mom was in the hospital and I went to go visit her, and I was in the middle of this digital detox, I actually was surprised that I was able to be present with her without scrolling. I didn't have the urge to scroll. And I was able to sit with the uncertainty. The uncertainty of not knowing what was happening, of doctors or nurses not responding in what I thought was a timely manner. I was able to give myself the room to respond instead of react. And I have to admit that some days I did scroll for maybe five minutes, maybe 10 minutes, but then you know what? I realized what I was doing and I put it away. And I had already been doing this fast, so I kind of um had the preceding 15 days to get me into a new rhythm. But I have to say that if this had happened at the beginning, I probably would have just reverted back to my old way, which was coping with stressful situations in life uncertainty by consuming media. In Ayurveda, we say like loves like. So anxious thoughts, racing thoughts, uh, the ability not to be able to calm down, not to be able to soften a little bit, loves all of the scrolling, loves all of the looking at other people, loves all of the visual and external stimulation, and they kind of feed off of each other, but that's really not the medicine, right? The medicine is actually the opposite. It is quiet, it is more space, it is giving yourself a bit more capacity, it is slowing down. When we are regulated, it doesn't mean that we're calm, right? We can be regulated and not calm. But we really want to be create that elasticity to be able to move with fluidity between a nervous system response that requires quick decision making and all of our attention into a more rest and digest response, into a response that has more softness and relief. And presence does not always mean feeling good, right? We can be present in a situation as I was in that hospital room, and it doesn't feel good in there, but I could recognize that I can know that something is happening, but I can also stay with what's happening. And then after it's over, I can begin to release that experience and transition into rest and digest mode. What was actually surprising this digital detox is I had all of this happening with my mom at the hospital, but I had no difficulty falling asleep at night. That was one thing that surprised me. And when our nervous system is a bit more regulated, we can still be tired, we can still be worried, things can still be uncertain, but that doesn't have to spiral into that stress spiral, that burnout spiral, the spiral of doom. We can begin to take a pause and respond instead of react to a situation. It means staying present instead of numbing out. And this is often when the real integration of a practice shows up. Not in ideal conditions with predictability, but in real life situations. It happens in the waiting, in the uncertainty, in the moments where there's nothing to fix or you're not able to fix it, and you can only stay with it. A regulated nervous system doesn't remove difficulty, but it changes how we meet that difficulty. And when we're in the real life practice, right, when we're in environments that test our regulation, that that test our notion of what we should be doing, environments like hospital rooms or work environments, we might just start with beginning to notice the urge to distract and then choosing not to be distracted. That's something similar to what I did during my digital fast. Maybe it's being tired, but also being present. It's okay to be tired, but not wired on caffeine. That's something I also learned during my mom's hospitalization, is I wasn't reaching for the coffee. I was able to allow myself to be tired without being wired. And that feeling allowed me to be more present in the room, to be more present in the situation. It's also about letting the moments pass without filling them with constant inputs. Sometimes we don't want to experience what's happening in the moment. And so we decide to engage with external inputs, something else to focus on, so that we don't have to focus on what's happening within ourselves. And this kind of presence does not come from willpower. No, it actually comes from a nervous system that feels safe enough and supported enough to stay. And that safety is built slowly through repeated moments of listening rather than overriding. If life feels heavy, then the nervous system often needs less, not more. And support can look like reducing stimulation, simplifying choices, creating very, very simple routines, allowing rest without having to justify yourself, creating small moments of warmth and steadiness. Maybe it's a hot bath, maybe it's soft music at the same time, without guilt that you should be doing more. These are not shortcuts, these are foundational supports that allow the nervous system to return to balance. And when our nervous system returns to balance, then our digestion is supported, sleep, immunity, reproduction, emotional regulation, clarity, all of that becomes supported. And if you already feel behind this year, it could be because your capacity has changed. You could be in a season of contraction. Maybe you didn't realize or didn't expect it. And so the practice isn't over because the container dissolved. Maybe the practice just has to become more adaptable to where you are now. Maybe it has to become simpler. Maybe that wellness routine that you said you were gonna do that has 10 things that need to be done every day, just becomes a wellness routine with one thing that's manageable every day. The key is to begin to listen and not fix. Listening to the body then becomes the work. I have the hidden stress reset guide is support. It is five daily practices, choose one and maybe incorporate that into your routine. The practices are about 60 seconds or left. And so if your life feels tender right now and you feel that nothing has gone right or you've fallen off, download the hidden stress reset in the show notes and know that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Nothing has gone wrong. You're just being asked to listen, adapt, and notice. Thank you for joining me on this episode of The Body Rhythm. Be well and nourished.