Rewiring My Nervous System: From Survival Mode to Safety

In today’s episode, I’m opening up about something I’ve been deeply realizing lately: how much of my life has been lived from survival mode.

After years of navigating trauma, hyper-independence, chaos, motherhood, mold illness, emotional stress, and constantly “holding it all together,” I’m beginning to understand what nervous system healing actually means — not just mentally, but physically and emotionally.

We talk about:

• hypervigilance vs intuition
• toxic positivity
• nervous system rewiring
• anger, control & accountability
• survival identity
• subconscious protection patterns
• learning how to feel safe without controlling everything
• healing beyond hustle culture

This episode is an honest reflection on what happens when strong women stop surviving long enough to finally feel what’s underneath it all.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted from always being “the strong one,” this conversation is for you.

Outside the Script Podcast
Freedom, Family & Life by Design

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back to Outside the Script, Family Freedom, and Life by Design. I'm your host, Amanda Kooker. And today's episode is, I feel like, a real honest one and a vulnerable one for me. Because lately I'm realizing that so much of my life has been lived in survival mode. Um, not because I'm weak, not because I'm broken, but because when you go through enough instability, trauma, chaos, mold illness, toxic dynamics, financial stress, young motherhood in life consistently throws things at you. I think that your nervous system just learns how to adapt. And like I said, in I think it was the previous previous episode, one of my episodes, like everyone be like, nervous system healing, the bubba. And I'd be like, uh, I don't need that. Like, I'm fine. But gosh, have I learned how much I have neglected my nervous system for so long, and how my nervous system needs a deep reset and healing and rewiring. Um, and just really learning about like what the nervous system actually means to me. So I feel like that's been really interesting. And you know, I think when your nervous system is in this state for so long, for me, it's like I had to become strong. I became hyper-aware, I became the person that figures everything out. And for a long time, it's like I almost wore that as a badge of honor. But I'm realizing it's something deeper, not just because I survived in this way, and it doesn't mean that I'm meant to live this way forever, because I honestly can't, and it's not sustainable long term. I mean, I've been, I feel like, in this state for a long time in so many ways, and it's, I think the mold was the catalyst for me in so many ways. And I think a lot of women here right now are still functioning, still showing up, still building, staking, still taking care of everyone, still achieving and doing all the things that they need to do in a day because they are the matriarch of their family. And women can hold a lot. Doesn't mean we should, but we can and we are capable. Um, men um can usually only focus on one task at a time, and that's what they're good at. Women can multitask um and do multiple things at a time because most of us are good at it. But underneath it all, there I feel like our bodies, their bodies like still feels the bracing impact of it. And that's what I want to talk about today, not healing in a trendy way on Instagram, because like every time I would just like see that nervous system, nervous system stuff. I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, because I feel like you just like have been inundated with like nervous system stuff. And I have, and yeah, I just didn't pay attention to it, but I'm paying attention to it now because I've learned how it's um impacting my health. Um, and this is kind of where the body learns, like you know, um, and I think that one of the hardest things to admit is that survival mode can become a part of your identity. Um, because you become the strong one, the capable one, the self-aware one, the psycho breaker, the one holding everything together. And honestly, that version of me has saved me, has literally saved me in so many ways. But survival mode also has trained my nervous system to constantly scan for danger, betrayal, dysfunction, instability, what's wrong, what could fall apart next in a lot of ways. So it's like my my nervous system is constantly scanning for something. And after what happened with the mold situation this winter, I realized that my nervous system got even more activated. And this is when I started taking like my nervous system a little bit more serious because mold is invisible in a lot of ways. And when something invisible harms you, your body starts searching for invisible danger everywhere. Interesting, right? And I realized I wasn't just looking for mold anymore. I was looking for the next collapse, the next disappointment, the next thing that could go wrong, the next betrayal, the next person not taking accountability. You name it. And that awareness, awareness changed everything for me. And one thing I've learned, realized about myself is that I get deeply activated when people lack accountability. It messes me up. I've seen it like in countless situations, in a handful of situations, even in like the last six months. And I fully understand why, like when I grew up around chaos, addiction, emotional instability, narcissistic behavior, and unpredictability, my nervous system learns when people are unconscious, people get hurt. So as an adult now, when I see manipulation, avoidance, selfishness, um, dishonesty, emotional immaturity, my body acts like it's danger. And for a long time, I thought that I was just highly discerning. And I am discerning, but I also realize that sometimes discernment and hypervigilance get tangled together. And that is hitting me hard because I can finally feel feel things deeply. I am intuitive, extremely intuitive, but also not every alarm in my body is intuition, and sometimes it's an old protective pattern. And learning the difference between these things, that's work, and I'm still entangled in that and don't even know exactly what it means to me, and just kind of unraveling that. And another thing is huge, huge realization for me this year is toxic positivity. I am wildly positive, and I've alluded to in like other episodes is like my obsession with the secret, um, Louise Hayes book Found Me When I Was 19. It's um You Can Heal Your Life. And basically, the premise of the book is you can heal your life through your thoughts. And so I really took this on and I used my thoughts to manifest and create miracles around me. And when I started doing it, I got a lot of results. So I mean, I held it as gospel, but in that unraveling, and now as I get older, what I have realized is that I've suppressed so much. I never allowed myself to feel all the quote unquote negative emotions, the negative things, the anger, the rage, the sadness, the grief, because I would try to positivity it away. You just can't do that. You can't wrap up these big emotions, especially like anger, wrap it up and tie a bow on it and be done. It just doesn't work that way. So at 41, I am like just now like starting to learn how to really deal with like really big emotions and processing them, processing them through my body and allowing them to work through me so they don't get lodged in my body. Because I use positivity to bypass emotions. And I will tell you that positivity and and thinking in the law of attraction and Louise Hey is still a foundation of my life. And it worked for many years, but it works until it doesn't work because there's many, many more layers to it. And I always wanted to rise above things and stay grateful and stay positive and keep going and keep building. And gosh, I still do that to an extent. Of course I do, because I am sunny by nature, but that helped me survive, but also has taught me to suppress a lot of my emotions. Um, I don't explode with anger, but like I have been having, I've had like low-lying anger for like three years now. And you know what? I still don't know how to fully appro like process that big emotion. And so lately I've been feeling like how much emotion has actually been sitting in my body, like grief, rage, anger, disappointment, exhaustion, resentment, sadness. Not because I'm a victim, but because I'm human. And I think a lot of women, especially strong women, don't actually know how to safely feel anger. Or I mean, that's what I'm thinking. I don't know. But that's what I'm experiencing anyway. We either suppress it, spiritualize it, shame it, or turn it into productivity. But at the end of the day, what I'm learning is the body keeps score because eventually it asks you to finally feel what you skipped over. Hear that again. Because the body keeps score, eventually it asks you to finally feel what you skipped over. That's a big one. That's huge for me. Just I feel like I skipped over a lot of things because I try to spire like spiritually, positively, positivity, positive it away. And it just doesn't work that way. Big ones, people, big ones, my friends, my humans. You know, healing isn't about becoming perfect, and healing is learning how to feel safe without controlling everything. And what I'm realizing is not, it's not like controlling everyone, protecting every outcome, scanning for danger, uh, overworking, trying to prove myself, consistently preparing for collapse, but actually teaching my body like you are safe now, and honestly, that's harder than hustling. It truly is. Like, I was even thinking to myself today, like, I don't fully know how to just relax and just really be and just really be present in my body. It's gonna be a big one for me. Um because survival mode almost feels more familiar to me. Softness doesn't, rest doesn't receive and doesn't joy without guilt doesn't in a lot of ways. And a lot of this I will say is definitely subconscious for me. Because I've like, no, I don't really feel that way. Like, I was just gonna say it, but like when I like analyze my patterns or like think about my patterning, these definitely ring true, but it's on a subconscious level. So much of like everything I'm learning is just on a subconscious level. And the next level for me is like not becoming stronger, but becoming safer inside myself. So, you know, I'm trying to focus on more grounding, more breath work. I'm not great at breath work, to be honest. Slowing down, I did slow down a ton this winter, but I had the opportunity because I didn't have um my work is seasonal. So I had that blessing in my life. I am back to work and things feel, you know, much more busier and much more faster again. And so, and you know, just trying to really feel my emotions instead of bypassing them and you know, when they are coming up, these big emotions, I'll I am allowing them to move through my body and and saying like hello, like hi, like I'm meeting it like it's a friend and saying like, you know, like it's like allowed to move through me. And notice, I'm trying to like start to notice like my body's actually scanning for danger and asking myself, is this protection or is this old? Is this old, is this protection, is this old patterning, or is this actually my intuition speaking to me? That question alone, I think, can probably change a lot for me. And I'm realizing I don't need to earn rest. I do not need to prove my worth through suffering, and I don't need chaos to justify my existence. And maybe you don't either. Um, and like I said, I think a lot of this is so just subconscious for us, and like that is a new web that I'm like untangling is, you know, really tapping into my subconscious and what that means and healing those aspects of myself and working on my nervous system and healing my nervous system and what my nervous system means to me and rewiring my nervous system. Yeah, so those are just kind of things that I'm like untangling and processing right now. And it's just, yeah, that's what I wanted to share for today. And if you're listening to this and you've been in survival mode for a long time, I just want to say your nervous system is not your enemy, it's just been adapted to keep you alive. But now maybe the work is teaching it. We don't have to live in survival forever. Maybe healing isn't becoming someone new, but maybe finally becoming safe enough to feel fully become yourself. And maybe that's it. I don't know. You know, like I said, I'm just showing up, I'm sharing what I'm going through. I'm so in this beautiful liminal space of just in between. And yeah, just I'm just here for the ride. And I appreciate each and every one of you. Um, thank you for listening. And, you know, if what I'm sharing resonates with you, I would love for you to follow along and thank you for being with here with me. I so love you, and I'll see you in the next episode of Outside the Script. Bye now.