Ep 3: Returning Home to Yourself: Regulating the Nervous System in Midlife

In this episode of Midlife Audacity, Celeste DiDona guides you on a journey back home to yourself — out of your head and into your body.

If you’ve been living in overdrive - overthinking, overdoing, overcontrolling this conversation will help you find peace in the pause. Celeste unpacks what nervous system dysregulation really means and how it keeps us looping in fear, ego, and old survival patterns. Then, she shares four grounding tools to help you reconnect with your inner calm: conscious breathing, butterfly tapping, grounding visualization, and meditation for release.

Through her signature blend of spiritual depth and practical guidance, Celeste invites you to take a sacred pause, to soften, breathe, and remember that peace isn’t something you chase; it’s something you return to.

✨ In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What nervous system dysregulation looks like in midlife (and why awareness is the first step)
• How to regulate your energy using simple, accessible daily practices
• Why the pause is not weakness, it’s preparation
• How to ground yourself when life feels uncertain or heavy

This is your reminder that the most powerful thing you can do is come home to yourself - boldly, soulfully, and unapologetically.  

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Transcript

In episode, it's all about coming home to yourself, learning to calm, your nervous system quietly overthinking and release, the need to control it all. If you've living in your head, trying figure everything out or Running on Empty. This conversation is your permission slip to pause and breathe again. So, take a deep breath, settle in and let's get started. 

Hey hey and welcome back to midlife audacity. Today, we are diving into something that every one of us experiences. Especially in midlife those moments. When we feel like we are doing all the things, thinking all the thoughts and yet somehow were completely disconnected from ourselves. This my friends is called dysregulation. It's when our nervous system, the control center for our entire emotional, physical and energetic state gets thrown off balance. And we start living from what I like to call the lizard brain. The part that runs on fear ego and control It's that inner voice that says, if I don't figure this out, everything will fall apart. Or I have to keep going, even though I'm exhausted. Some you might recognize those two phrases, all too often and that is fight or that is survival. And the truth is most of us have lived there so long that we forget what president Actually, even feels like. But today, I want to help you come home. Home to body. Home to breath. Home to yourself. 

When you are mind, is spinning. Your breath is the quickest way back to presence. I want to guide you through the four seven, eight breath. It's simple, but it's powerful. So here's what you do. You'll inhale for four counts. Hold for seven. And then, exhale for eight. now, what I notice is that, when I teach some breathing techniques, a women actually don't breathe in and out correctly, and I'm not sure if you know this, but when you are inhaling, your abdomen is pushing out, it's extending. And when you exhale, your abdomen is pulling in as you release the breath. So, we're going to try this together, okay? So I want you to inhale. Through your nose. For four. Inhale one. Two. Three. Four and then hold at the top. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. And slowly. Exhale out. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. 

And we would do that for at least three rounds. Inhaling. And exhaling. This breath work. Because it slows the heartbeat. Signal safety to our nervous system. And gently turns off that internal alarm. That's been ringing in your body old day. It tells your brain, you are safe now. It's not about being perfectly calm. It's about being present enough to witness your own breath. That reminder. That life is happening through you. Not to you. And just recently, I was on the phone with my daughter who was in the middle of midterms at school. And she was having a full blown panic attack. and before we could move into any kind of Remedy. Or action steps. I first had to regularly her breathing. She was so worked up and maybe you've been here once or twice before yourself? She was so worked up that she was actually hyperventilating. so, before we could do anything in terms of, Problem solving, or moving forward. We first had to address this. So, he a deep breath in. And I did this with her on the phone. Holding it and exhaling out. And we did that for about five or six rounds, we had to do it multiple times in 

a row to really help her get her breathing back into sink. And once her breathing got back on track, then she was able to start speaking and sharing what was going on. And then we were able to work through some of the things that were causing her. This panic and this anxiety. So, I used this a it's extremely helpful. I think all too often we get so wrapped up in everything that we're doing. That we actually forget to breathe. And last week, when I was talking about, Just being, right? We are human beings not human doing. And so part being, is really taking time to notice your breath. Because Your Mind Body Connection is super powerful. And the first step. Into breaking any kind of habit. Or shifting in identity. Or doing something bold and audacious. 

Is to First acknowledge. And be aware. What is happening in your body? A of times we start to go into flight fight or freeze. We become almost paralyzed. Because our body has a pre-conditioned response. Right that we've built up and stored in bodies over time. And so it's like an automatic response when something comes at that's unexpected or challenging, or uncomfortable, we immediately go into that fight flight or freeze response and are cortisol levels Skyrocket up and down and irregular and we even start to notice this dysregulation in our breathing. We can feel this in our body. So, it's important as we enter this new stage and if we really want to step into this Awakening and be a witness to everything that's here for us. The first step is to be aware. And to listen, and pay to our body. and breathing is one the very first things that you will notice change.

When our mind is in control, when our ego is running the show, our mind will Spin and our breath will Quicken And so this technique of slowing the breath down and getting your self back into a regulated rhythm. Is extremely important. 

Then other tool that I absolutely love. Is called Butterfly, tapping. And I'm not sure if you've ever heard of this before, but I'm going to teach you exactly what this is. You're going to take your arms and going to cross them in of your chest. And you're going to link your thumbs together. So that it forms almost like a butterfly. Type formation, your thumbs are linked, and your fingers are sort of out stretched out. And you're going begin gently, tapping onto your collarbone. Left right, left. Right. As you're breathing slowly and I like to also include affirmation as I'm doing this. I am safe to feel. I am safe to soften. As I tap left, right, left right with my fingertips. And I found that this actually works best when its skin to skin. So, when my fingertips are actually touching the bareness of my skin, I find that I get the most out this self-help hog that it's designed to do. It's often used in trauma therapy because it helps balance the left and sides of your brain, The 

Logical, and the emotional. And it brings your nervous system back into regulation. And for me, I think the reason why I like it so much doing the butterfly tapping is because I have lived most of my life. either in logic or an emotion, like it's been very challenging for me to kind of Combine the two or live both of those sides of my brain. So this really helps me to like bring a rhythm. To both my left and right side of my brain. I'm a lefty For. A fine motor skills. So I am left-handed when it comes to writing, when it comes to brushing my teeth, when it comes to eating, But I am a righty when it comes to everything else. Show my programming is such that it's I I'm both left and right brained. A of the time. And so that's why I think I find this butterfly tapping to so powerful for me because it, it brings those sides together in a beautiful way, it Bridges them together and for me, it's really bridging my mind and body. And it's helping me to really come home to myself to Center myself, into come to myself. And what I also love about this is that you can literally do this anywhere. You can do this before bed, you can do this in your car, you can even do it in your bathroom in the bathroom like between meetings, or I like to do it actually in my bathroom because I have like a wrapped around. And so my collar bones and my My like neck is all exposed. So, the tapping is very powerful. And it does definitely Center myself a specially. If I'm worked around something and I'm overthinking this has proven to be a very good tool for me. 

Another tool that I use all time. Is grounding visualization. and, For this one that I'm going to share with you. It's it's very specific but I use visualization techniques in a of my coaching. It's very, very powerful and the brain doesn't really recognize what is real and what is imagined. So when you start to build a clear, Visualization of what you want to see happening, or what you want to manifest for yourself. The brain starts to go to work to make that a reality. How cool is that? There's an entire science around this very thing. And not going to get into the science in today's episode but maybe on another episode I will talk more about the science behind this actual technique. Maybe I'll even be able to bring a guest on that can really speak to the power of visualization. But there are so many well-known, well documented. Circumstances and situations where this has really proven to so successful. So in this particular grounding visualization, I have myself. Imagine that I a palm tree. Okay, so think about a palm tree. Right. Visualize yourself and I like to close my eyes. When do any kind of visualization, visualize yourself standing on a soft, warm ground Feel your feet, anchored deeply into the ground. Solid steady and safe. 

Now, imagine the trunk of this palm tree. 
You are Roots, reach down. grounding, you In truth. And strength. 
And your trunk. That's your core. That's your Center. And the trunk is strong and flexible. And resilient. And your stretch up and out. Gently moving in the breeze. Picture yourself. Swaying. As the wind blows. 

Life is always going to bring movement. Sometimes you can anticipate it. Other times. It's blindsiding, you But it will always be there. And you. You can be like the palm tree. You bend. But you never break. And this is nervous system regulation in motion. You are grounded and free at same time, you are secure yet, soft. And that's really midlife power. The ability to stay rooted even as everything around, you starts to shift and change. And I love this visualization. The first time I heard it. So someone had shared it with me and she shared the story of where she learned it. And she shared how she was in an airport. And her professor had said to the group that she was traveling with, When there was like all these different flight delays, he said we're going to be like the palm tree. None of this will affect. The way that we move. And it's none of this will ruin our trip. And she shared it and I have I have gone back to that because it resonated so deeply with me and so I wanted to be able to share that with all of you. So, thank you, Gail. If you're listening, I loved that story and I always think of that story when I feel like life is coming at me in a lot of different directions. I I step into this visualization of me, being the palm And I have shared this with my children, in just today, my son was crashing out. I think that's what they call it now, right? Crashing out over something that had happened with his cell phone. and, I had him. Take a moment. And close his eyes. and, Be the palm tree. And sure enough. It actually worked. I wasn't sure if was gonna work. It's a 16 year old boy, but sure enough it worked and he was able to calm himself down. And it was powerful, it was powerful. 

So, another tool that I use a lot and I think is super powerful is the fact that Stillness can your power. And you can breathe and move. And Stillness. Can also be a type medicine. Sometimes we only think that we have to do something. And sometimes it's being in this Stillness. That is going to be the most valuable. And when I'm in my Stillness, it's usually during a meditative practice either a guided meditation or just a silent meditation. I put on some high frequent sea. Music background music and at this point, because I've been doing meditation for so long that I'm able to really slip quite easily into a meditative state. But the beginning, My mind would wander quite a bit during meditation and so I would always pull my mind back to the breath but your mind wandering is normal. That's what Minds do Minds wander and the whole point of meditation is to not control. So, When your is wandering during that Stillness, you can simply just redirect it back to breath. And what I love about Stillness, especially in a meditative state is that it is my time. To answer. And also to talk, I used to think that the meditation was just a to to listen. And I got a lot value out of that. I usually feel like my intuition speaking to me, which is really God's voice speaking to me, and I got a lot of value out of the Stillness, but I also heard recently, and this was shared to us in my mentorship group that I'm a of that. This is also. Or this can also be your time to talk to God. And I found that to be really powerful because it really isn't just a one-way street, right? And so my meditations now have changed a bit, so that in the Stillness, I am having this like Back and conversation almost but there are points in my meditation where I am simply listening. and, being still in that moment is so valuable because I'm able to hear things that I otherwise would not hear. Because when we are in the day-to-day hustle and bustle, and moving and going and doing, we are not present often, and we are not in a being state. And so it's when we are in the Stillness that we can really drop in to being present, and it's in this presents. That we often hear what we need to hear. And so if you are overwhelmed or overthinking or noticing that you're sliding into a state of fear or a state of scarcity, then I often will recommend dropping into this Stillness. And we will do a more about meditation. We'll talk a lot more about meditation on this podcast because I find it to be, probably the most powerful tool that I've incorporated into my daily routine in the last 11 years. It has by far been my number one tool. For. Stepping into presence. 

Refocusing re-centering dysregulated or regulating my dysregulated body and, I find that through that meditative state, I'm really able to move the energy. 

From the body through the heart and, It's amazing. What I end up discovering. In those moments, I often come out of those States. Feeling renewed. Refreshed restored, in fact, I was away last weekend. And um I was with my sister and she was in the shower and I put on that high frequency music that I was talking about and I was just sitting on the bed and I was able to move into a meditation and it was about nine and a half minutes. It was almost 10 minutes of Simply being still. and, I opened my eyes and stopped the music and it was like, you can literally the more that you do it. You can literally feel the weight like lifting from you. And it's funny because my sister said to me and she seen me In meditations before and she said to me, my God, I can literally like almost see the change in energy. from you and she said, the music was so Relaxing. And I explained that was this high frequency music that really does change. You energetically like, on a different frequency and it was just so powerful because she was like witnessed to it. Normally no one's in the room when I'm meditating. So she was a witness to it and It was just interesting for her to share that she could literally see. Like a shift in energy in the room just from me being in that meditative state. So we're definitely going to talk a more about the power of meditation because I believe that it's one the most powerful Tools in really tapping in to your most audacious self and really coming home to yourself. 

And regulating your body regulating your system. So as we close today, I want you to take a deep breath with me. Inhale presents. 

Hold it up at the top. 

Exhale control. 

Ladies, midlife isn't about holding it all together anymore. It's about remembering you are never meant to control, everything you are meant to connect with yourself. when you regulate your nervous system, You return home. You stop chasing piece and you start embodying it. And from that place, everything else begins to align. Are.