Ep 30 | The Nervous System Reset: Practical Tools to Regain Peace & Calm with Michelle Grosser

In this week's episode of The ROCKSTAR Mom we talk with Michelle Grosser about why burnout is often a nervous system issue, not a motivation problem, and how stress shows up in the body long before we hit the wall. We share simple, body-based ways to shift out of anxiety, overwhelm, and shutdown so we can show up with more ease at work and at home. 

We dive into : 

• Michelle’s story from trial attorney to nervous system work after her burnout symptoms escalated 
• Burnout as dorsal vagal collapse and what dysregulation really means 
• Daily movement as the fastest way to complete the stress cycle without more intensity 
• Stillness through removing input, reducing noise, and setting phone boundaries 
• Play as a powerful safety signal that restores joy and connection 
• In-the-moment resets including shaking and using cold temperature to calm the system 

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----

The ROCKSTAR Mom Summit (Season 3) is now LIVE! 

25+ expert interviews on a variety of topics I know you are going to love, thousands of dollars of amazing gifts, extended listening time – all for FREE! You’re going to love it! 

🎸 Grab your FREE ticket at www.megancaldwellpdx.com/summit 🤘

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Transcript

Welcome To Rockstar Mom

SPEAKER_00 1:56

You are listening to the Rockstar Mom, a podcast for high achievers who are ready to get off of autopilot and live a life with more intention, peace of mind, and happiness. This is a space to expand, dig deep, get clear, and take action towards living your most authentic, aligned life. I'm Megan Caldwell. As a mom of three, two-time burnout survivor, and empowerment coach and speaker, I've cracked the code on what it actually takes to thrive at work and home, ditch perfectionism and people pleasing, get your schedule under control, and live with more ease. So you've got more time and energy to do the things you love without the mom guilt. It's time to get out of your head and into action. Now is the time to live your most rock star life. Let's go. Hi, friend. I am really excited to share the following conversation with you. This is a throwback to season one of the Rockstar Mom Summit. And I interview an amazing human by the name of Michelle Grosser. And in this upcoming episode, we talk about burnout and why burnout is actually a nervous system issue, not just about being tired or doing too much. We really dive into this whole concept that your body, not your mind, is driving most of the stress response and how to work through and deal with this. We talk through common signs of dysregulation that are overlooked. And one of my favorite parts about this episode is that Michelle shares in-the-moment tools that can help you reset quickly. I hope you enjoy this really powerful conversation. All right, let's get back to it. Today I am so very excited to introduce Michelle Grosser. Michelle is an attorney, pastor, nervous system expert, certified master life coach, and host of the Calm Mom podcast. Through somatic and neuroscience-based modalities, she coaches women through discovering what's beneath their triggers and emotions so they can begin their healing journey and find peace in the present. She deeply believes that the most profound thing that we can offer our children is our own healing. She and her husband Jeff have two daughters and live in Houston, Texas. Michelle, welcome to the Rockstar Mom. I am so thrilled to have you here today. Oh my goodness, it's so good to be here. Thanks for having me. Yes, I'm so excited to dive into our conversation today. I know it's gonna be a focus a lot on like what do high-achieving stressed-out moms really need? We're gonna get into nervous system dysregulation, how we move kind of beyond that, what it actually takes. Before we get there, I would love for you to share with our listeners a little bit about what brought you into this work. I know this isn't your first career. How did you get here? And why are you so passionate about supporting women in this space?

What Nervous System Dysregulation Means

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah. I spent the better part of the last 15 years as a trial attorney. And when my so I guess just even that being said, I am one of those people, probably like a lot of you listening, who's so comfortable in my head. Type A, like organized, give me all the tasks and the checklists and like the plans, and like, I'm your girl. I can get stuff done. That's just kind of been my MO, you know, forever. And that continued obviously through law school. And then I had my own law practice. And I had been experiencing symptoms of burnout probably for longer than I can remember. But for so long, they were just kind of mental and emotional things that I was like, you know, I have young kids. Like, this is just kind of how life is when you're, you know, trying to run after work-life balance, whatever that looks like. And you're just tired or you're just kind of irritable or edgy, or you're you just what what have you? And it wasn't until I had my second, my girls are 16 months apart. So it felt very much back to back that my body was just, I mean, it was basically like, listen, you're not gonna pay attention to all the signs I'm giving you that you have to slow down. I'm gonna shut you down. And the physical manifestations of burnout really started to come to the forefront until I was just not really functioning. Like I was just so depleted. I was just miserable. I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin. I was experiencing anxiety and all these different gut issues, and my hair and my skin were starting to be affected. And, you know, those are some of the physical signs, but I stopped sleeping well. And I think like any good type A overachieving attorney, I was like, I'm gonna investigate and figure out what's going on here. Right. And I try to figure it out yourself. Yeah, I'm gonna figure it out. And I I did. And I and I started working with a functional medicine practitioner and I hired my own coach. And ultimately, long story short, the through line through everything I was experiencing was the severe dysregulated state of my nervous system. And it was so, it wasn't easy, but it was so simple, right? I was like, wait, that like this is impacting everything. And as I learned how to regulate my nervous system and ultimately create a lifestyle that supports a healthy and resilient nervous system, all my symptoms healed and faded and and were gone. And I couldn't believe it. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not one, I'm not going back. And two, like there were so many people just in my inner circle who were experiencing similar things, right? Through the pandemic afterward. And I just got really passionate about teaching women what I had just learned and experienced myself. And then that led to what became a career transition and now helping other high achievers learn what it takes, right? The different priorities, I think ultimately, a new awareness to regulate your nervous system and how that impacts everything, our careers, our motherhood, our marriages, our relationships, our friendships, our day-to-day joy, like everything is rooted in the state of our nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Oh, thank you so much for sharing just a piece of your story. And I'm sure so many listeners can relate to this. Just one thing I wanted to pull out was just I think that as high achievers, as women who have been conditioned to really think that we need to do it all by ourselves, we just come to a state where we think, quote unquote, this is just how life is. I am meant to just continue to push through. I'm meant to do this on my own. This is the season of motherhood where I have young kids and it's gonna be hard and I'm gonna be feeling like I'm quote unquote going crazy. And I think as you've shown, I've shown from my own journey as well, going through two rounds of burnout, that it doesn't have to be that way. And so whether it leads to, like in your case, a career transition, or whether it be learning some of these skills and tactics, again, it's not easy, but oftentimes it is simple. I use that phrase often.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

We can just live more enjoyable, fulfilled lives, not being so high strung, not getting those physical symptoms. And so, yeah, so I think so much of this is gonna resonate. I'd love to just kind of dive right into this whole concept of nervous system regulation or dysregulation. I know a lot of the work that I do with women falls into this space. A lot of of what I talk about, though, are building sustainable healthy habits and shifting our mindset, which we know is definitely a piece of it. Yes. Let's go a little bit deeper in terms of the nervous system. What it what do we do? Like, what are some of these symptoms? How do we work to start to shift them when it when we talk about nervous system dysregulation? Can you start maybe sharing like what does that even mean to somebody that maybe that's a new term to them?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Yeah, that's a good starting point. And I think even if you've heard it before, it's kind of become this coin that gets tossed around. But I think it's good to like take a look at it again because I don't think it's what most people think. They think regulated means I'm calm and dysregulated means I'm not calm. And that's over an oversimplification, right? So when we talk about our nervous system, our nervous system is like our body's command center, right? Under the surface, it is constantly gathering information and assessing everything that's happening around us and storing it away in order ultimately to keep us safe, right? That's its ultimate goal always. And it's like a little library. It's just storing away information, encounters we have uh with other people, conversations, risks we've taken, everything that we do. And it's constantly protecting us. And the thing with our nervous system, and I love that you brought up the mindset work and kind of top-down approaches, as we call them, right? Habits is that as we study the nervous system, the research is showing that actually only 20% of the nerves in our body originate in our brain and send messages down to our body, right? So if we're focusing on mindset work or habits or all this other stuff or paradigms, like these are really important things. But ultimately, it's only 20% of the messaging that's going on in our body.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Right. Fascinating. I want to put out there, I am a nerd for all the details. So give give us all the research that backs this up. That's fascinating though, because I think there is such an emphasis on shifting the mindset. And we do know that as we shift mindset, it's going to shift emotions and shift patterns of behavior. Yeah. And what I'm hearing is, and I can't wait to hear more about this, is our body holds on to so much more. So that is one space to kind of tackle this, this overwhelm, the exhaustion, the fatigue. Yeah. But okay, yes, go on.

Why Mindset Alone Falls Short

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Yeah. So yeah, and it's fascinating. And I love learning the science behind it too, because then I'm like, oh, that well, it makes so much sense. So we know that 80% of our nerves then are what we call afferent, part of our afferent nervous system that are sending signals from our body up to our brain. So that's why you guys can probably all think of a time or situation where you felt really nervous about something, right? Maybe you had to this big pitch or meeting at work, or maybe you had this public speaking, right? And like you start to feel it. The butterflies and the flutter in your chest, and your voice maybe sounds different, or your palms are sweaty. You can tell yourself all day long, right? I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm prepared, I've got this. Is that helpful? Yes. But ultimately, that's not particularly effective in slowing your heart rate or calming your body or allowing your voice to express in the way that you want it to, with the confidence that you want it to show up in. Because here's the thing our nervous system doesn't speak a verbal language. Language is not the language, words are not the language of our body and of our nervous system. So we have to actually learn tools, and that's what we can talk about, to signal to our body, hey, this is okay. We've got this that aren't words, right? And our body communicates movement, breath, sound, touch, temperature changes, nature, social engagement. So the language, yeah, of our nervous system.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Yeah, before we dive into some more like specifical tactical techniques that I think our listeners can take away, you mentioned our nervous system doesn't have a language, if you will, to express what it needs. Instead, it often comes out in some of these other signs, signs and symptoms, surprising emotional, mental, physical symptoms. What are I know you've mentioned some of them in terms of your own story? What some that maybe listeners aren't even associating with it being signs of burnout or true exhaustion or nervous system dysregulation. What are other signs can we be looking for that maybe are a little bit not at the forefront?

Subtle Signs You’re Overloaded

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yep. This is so good. So burnout ultimately is a dysregulated state of our nervous system. We call it a dorsal vagal collapse, right? Or basically our nervous system is like overload, too much, I'm shutting her down. And that's when we find ourselves in a state of burnout. So before it gets to that point, our nervous system, our body's always communicating with us through these various symptoms, right? And I think, you know, for a lot of us, these symptoms are things that we've either taken on as we're like, oh, that's just part of my personality. That's just how I am, right? I've been that way forever. No, that's actually a coping mechanism that your nervous system has adapted to help you survive, thrive, feel safe, show up, all of those things. Um, and a lot of them are really subtle. So when we talk about mental and emotional symptoms of dysregulation or burnout, how about this? Staying busy all the time. If you are busy all the time and you have a really hard time slowing down, or you feel really uncomfortable taking the afternoon off, or you sit down and you're like, I know I need rest, but it almost feels like torture to not be doing something while you're sitting there, that's a symptom that your nervous system is dysregulated.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Um I was gonna say we get so conditioned to that that that then becomes the norm. I remember on my own kind of personal healing journey when I was working with a therapist about seven or eight years ago. She shared with me, Megan, think about it. If your nervous system, if your body is constantly up here, the hand is up high now, you get conditioned to that. And so what we need to do, and I think this is what you're gonna get into, is like, how do we start to bring down that baseline to a place where that is then not what we're expecting? Because this busyness and this whole hustle culture is so real and it feels so hard to fight against it. And we know again, not easy, but simple. So, okay, so staying busy all the time, what are maybe a couple others that that our listeners maybe aren't identifying with being again signs of nervous system dysregulation?

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah, I think a couple are maybe like hypervigilance, maybe, and I think that can show up a lot in parenting and we don't really realize it. But if you're constantly on alert, you're at the playground with your kids, and you can't really sit and talk to the mom next to you because you're constantly watching. Are they falling? Are they washing their hands? Are they putting like right? Obviously, we have a responsibility to keep our kids safe, but there's a threshold that beyond that is actually a mechanism of our nervous system not feeling safe and driving us into hypervigilance. If you're someone who needs to know all the details, right? You can't just like show up somewhere or be given something without every single thing lined up for you. If you're an excessive like WebMD deep diver or a Googler or someone who just worries a lot or needs to know all the details about things, those are a lot of symptoms. Anxiety, we talk about irritability and edginess. I think a lot of times, especially in that postpartum period. And, you know, when we're trying to figure out how to do all of this stuff with kids, it's really easy and understandable. And I was definitely there where I was just like annoyed for like all the time for no reason. And that's not a fun place to be. And then it wasn't fun for my kids, my poor husband. But like just waking up frustrated, irritable, edgy, that's a sign of burnout and dysregulation, wanting to withdraw, not feeling as social. So those are some of the, I think, mental and emotional signs that we see quite frequently.

Hypervigilance And Control Patterns

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Thank you for sharing those and just bringing a lot of them to the forefront. I think when I speak with my clients, a lot of what they're wanting is that sense of peace and calm. And we talk a lot about moving from being in a reactionary state all the time, because again, we're so like amped up, to how do we bring it down so we can actually pause and respond? But that takes practice. That takes practice. So I'd love to dive into how do we actually do this? What are some techniques that you can share that when we do feel these signs and symptoms, this dysregulation, the irritability, this need for constant control, how do we get our body back down? Yeah. Is there hope for us? I know there is.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Okay, so I think the best way for us to go about this is I love to teach about like three foundational lifestyle things that help support a regulated nervous system. And then we can also talk about kind of in the moment stuff where you're feeling yourself being kind of activated or anxious or overwhelmed, right? That's another common symptom, which is constantly feeling overwhelmed. What can we do in the moment to kind of help shift the state of our nervous system? Does that sound good? Okay. That that sounds great. Yeah. And I think it's important to talk about both of those because I think it's easy to like, you know, follow Instagram accounts or what have you, where it's like, I have all these tools to regulate my nervous system, but ultimately we have to ask the question like, why are we so dysregulated that we need all these tools all the time, right? It's like, let's get beneath that and then have the tools when we need them once in a while.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

And I'm a I know that the work that we do is similar. And when women seek you or I out, they don't want that quick fix. They don't want just that thing that you can do in the moment to feel good for that day or for that week or the program for eight weeks or whatever. Yeah. They're really looking for for lifestyle change. And so let's start with those three foundational kind of lifestyles, as you say, that support this. What are what are those three? What do they include if you're willing to sell the means?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

And when it comes to them, we all have so much on our plates already that these are three things. Honestly, they take about 10 minutes when it comes to a nervous system perspective, right? Like you only need to do them about 10 minutes a day to feel the benefit in your nervous system. And if you do them regularly, even if it's not every day, you'll see such an a positive return on that investment of your time. So the first one is daily movement. You've got to move your body every day. I can't overstate it. When we talk about regulating your nervous system, what we're actually talking about is teaching your body how to complete the stress loop or the stress cycle, right? So our nervous system perceives something stressful. An email from our boss, a kid that's, you know, putting their shoes on at a snail's pace and we're gonna be late for work or school or whatever it is. And our nervous system is just like, ah, this is not good. This is stressful, this is a potential threat. And what happens then is there's a physiological response in our body, right? We release cortisol and we release adrenaline, and that kind of spurs us into action and it activates our sympathetic nervous system, which is that fight or flight response. The best way to kind of close that loop and teach our nervous system that it's safe to come back to baseline stress level. We don't have to stay all activated and anxious and wired and tense and all these things is through movement. That's the number one way. And if you even think about like the term fight or flight, when we're in that space, every cell in our being is wired for movement, right? To fight or to flee. So when we are feeling anxious or overwhelmed or activated and irritable and edgy and what have you, our whole body is primed for movement. And when we just sit or even try to meditate or do breath work, it's not particularly helpful when we're in a sympathetic nervous system because our body just wants to move. So when it comes to nervous system and movement, if you're someone who already tends to be higher energy, like in the higher energy state, you're probably living a lot of your life on the threshold of your capacity when it comes to handling stress in that moment, right? So you actually want to avoid really intense, like high intensity workouts, intense, high-intensity workouts.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

All the intensity. We don't need more intensity. We need, we need to actually bring it down.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

So just like go for a walk, do some Pilates, right? Sit on the floor and do some stretching, do some jumping jacks and like go up and down your stairs a few times. But just getting your body moving helps to discharge so much of that pent-up activating energy and bring such regulation to your nervous system. So that's the first one, daily movement.

Three Daily Foundations That Work

SPEAKER_00 22:13

I love this so much. You are totally preaching my preaching my language. You know, I spent about 10 years in the fitness industry, owned, I owned and operated a fitness franchise geared towards moms. And oftentimes moms would come and want to like go hard and get their pre-baby body back and all that thing. And that was the driving factor. And what I'm finding as I'm working with moms kind of in a different season of life, who are like, have been in motherhood, but aren't fully fulfilled, again, are overwhelmed, all these things is exactly what you just shared is how do we turn the dial a little bit from this need to go hard, go fast all the time, to really viewing movement as one of my terms is movement is our greatest medicine. Yes. Is just recognizing the power of movement, not just for our body's sake, but for our mind's sake, and as you're now exposing us to really nervous system regulation. Yeah. And just like you said, women are like, but I'm already so busy. How do I fit it in? Can you go for a five-minute walk? Five minutes, five minutes, or do a couple light stretches before your next Zoom call. That's it. And it is, it's not unbelievable to me because we know the science behind it and we know from our own journeys, but the immediate feelings that we get of release and again, of I'll use the term now regulation. Yeah. Because of some just basic soothing movement is so powerful. So it is no surprise to me that that is your first kind of tip at to how to weave this in. So, so good.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah. And I love that you bring up the point about intensity because I think like we're really good at doing hard things, right? A lot of us like get to this place of burnout because that's our that's been our MO. And in those, you know, the early years when I was learning about my nervous system and really shifting a lot of ways that I was approaching. Life, something I kept reminding myself is that nothing heals by pushing harder. And that just kind of became right because I'm like, if I had a broken leg, there's no doctor that would tell me, well, go train for half marathon. But we're exhausted, right? Chronic fatigue, physical symptoms, anxiety, and we just think we're gonna push through it. And nothing heals that way.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Nothing heals by pushing harder. Worth repeating again. I think that that's so powerful, especially again for our listeners and for all of us who are the high achievers, who that's we've been able to do that for so long. And we can do that for so long until like you and I have experienced, and I'm sure some of our we hit rock bottom and our body won't let us do it anymore. So nothing heals by pushing harder. And I think it comes back to also just accepting and giving yourself permission. This is about healing. It is about, it is about that. It's not just about changing ways or becoming it's how do we really truly treat our mind, body, soul the best that we can as we continue to move through life. So good, Michelle. So good. Talk to us about what your second one is.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

So the second one is stillness. Um and this is one I think that we probably all struggle with for many reasons. I think the first reason is that we just live in a time where we are constantly inundated and bombarded with information, right? And our brain isn't intended to consume and process that much information. So that in and of itself can actually drive dysregulation. And then, like it's it's all the things, right? It's our schedule, it's the pace with which we live. It's the constant requests coming in through our cell phone and our kids needing snacks and you know, all of the things. And our brain repairs, our brain categorizes and heals and becomes more efficient in moments of stillness, not when we're consuming more information and trying to plan all the things and do all the things, right? That's not what that's not when it happens. Our nervous system is built in that it needs periods of activity, but then it also needs periods of rest. When we're in our parasympathetic state, when the state that we're feeling regulated, the nickname for that state is rest and digest. It's a state of stillness, right? We're able to do what we need to do on the inside because on the outside, we're taking the time to kind of step back and do that. So, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah. I was gonna say, let me ask you this, Michelle, because I think this sounds all fun and good, if you will. And like obviously the research backs it. But for our listeners right now, who are like, okay, that's great. One that's hard to me, stillness. How am I gonna squeeze that into my already busy day that I don't I don't have time to insert something else? What does this look like on the most basic level to start to insert some stillness into our lives?

Movement To Close The Stress Loop

SPEAKER_01 27:32

So I think you made a great point. I don't think, especially with this one with stillness, it's not actually inserting something new into our schedule. I think it's actually the removal of some things in our schedule, right? So if you, I mean, and then this is again, it's so simple, it's not easy. If you have a commute, even if you're doing drop-off or pickup for your kids, put your leave your phone in the backseat or put it right somewhere that you can't reach it. Turn off the podcast, turn off the radio. Can you spend a 15-minute drive alone in your thoughts? Right. And you don't have to start with that either. Like you, so many of my clients, I'm like, start with two minutes tomorrow. Like when you go on your walk, we're gonna do a, you know, a walkover lunch break instead of eating at your desk like you've been doing. Can you leave your phone at your desk and go for 10 minutes without it? Or can you, you know, fold laundry without listening to something or, you know, whatever it is. There's things that we do all day long. It doesn't have to be sitting and doing meditation, although we know the benefits of that. But starting right with just like removing a lot of the consumption, I think the daily consumption that we're not even aware of the impact that it has on our nervous system. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Totally. And one thing that coming to mind that I always like to share, people are like, I can't believe that you do that, Megan. You have like kids that might need you. I keep my phone on do not disturb 24-7. Yeah-7. And the only breakthroughs are my husband and my son. And so, because in reality, do I need to hear from X, Y, and Z or even clients? I love you, but like I have boundaries, right? Is what are the simple steps that we can take to, as you share, quiet some of the noise?

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah. Notifications. Notifications.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Don't let the little red thing show up because that causes that trigger. It increases our cortisol, right? Versus what does it actually look like to shut some of those off? And it can be uncomfortable at first, but it's just like any other habit we're working on. The more we do it, the easy it becomes. We find what truly works for us. So stillness, so, so powerful. And I know as, you know, as a very, very active child and athlete all my life, and again, high achiever and constantly busy and doing. This has been something that has been challenging for me. And as I've dove into it further, it's just so impactful. It's so impactful. So for those of you out there thinking there's no way, like I don't even know if I could try two minutes. You're not gonna know unless you try. I always share. It's all a big science experiment. Give it a go, see how it works, and then tweak it from there. So stillness. Okay. What's the third one that rounds out kind of these lifestyle changes to help with nervous system dysregulation?

Stillness By Removing Noise

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yeah, the third one is incorporating more play. Oh, and I think that's another one that we think, you know, I don't have time for that. That's for the kids. Like, I don't think we really understand the mental, physical, emotional, spiritual benefits to just more like doing things that we enjoy more. More of those things, please. Yes. And so many of the women I coach, you know, it they're almost stumped by that. Like, well, I don't even know what I would do, or it's been so long. Like, I don't even know what I love to do or what lights me up or what excites me or what I can get passionate about anymore, which is just such an awesome opportunity to re-explore all of those things again. And I think with this one in particular, you know, play, I guess there's a couple of things here when it comes to the nervous system. One, there's a we have a social nervous system, right? So so much of our safety actually comes from connecting with other people and spaces that feel good and supportive and accepting and all of these things. So that's really important. And then the other part of it is that even if you think just biologically, when we are in a dysregulated state, whatever, thousands of years ago, running from lions and tigers and bears, there was no time to play if we were running for our survival or fighting for our survival. So when we engage in things that feel like play, that's such a strong signal to our nervous system that we're safe, right? We can come out, shift out of that stress cycle and come back to baseline. All of those chemicals that are being flooded into our system kind of slow down. We don't need the cortisol when we're in a lay state, right? So, so there's so much on the physiological side. But ultimately, like I think a good place to start is to think back about the things that you loved to do when you were young, right? That just kind of like faded out when you entered adulthood and had to get so serious and go to college and get married and have kids and have a job. Because play for me, like speaking practically, is not sometimes it is rarely, sometimes is like playing Barbies with my kids, right? Like that sometimes I enjoy that. Most of the times I don't. There's other things that's gonna be your choice. Yeah, yep, yep, I hear you. Um, however, like last year before we just moved to Texas, we had a house in Miami where I was just going out and like shooting hoops. And like, man, I remember being like 14 years old where I grew up. And I was like, our hoop, our basketball net was right by the streetlight, and I'd be out there all night long baskets. Yeah. And that was like the sound of my childhood. And then, like, just at 38 years old out there doing this, I'm like, it just did something to my body and it made me enjoy my life so much more and enjoy, you know, everyone in my life, my kids and my husband and all the other things. So maybe it's baking, maybe it's an instrument, maybe it's, you know, used to skateboard and you haven't picked up your skateboard in forever. Maybe it's art, maybe whatever it is. But there has, there have to be things that don't feel complicated, that don't feel like another obligation, that don't feel, you know, like too much where it's where it's overwhelming that we can just kind of pick up here and there that feed our soul.

Play As A Signal Of Safety

SPEAKER_00 33:17

I love this so much. Play is one of the pillars and the foundation that I use with in coaching women as well, because there has, I truly believe there has to be that fun factor in our lives for us to live our most fulfilled rock star lives. There has to be. Again, we take ourselves too seriously, all of our obligations, we are so conditioned to put everyone else's needs first. One thing that I'd love to share is I always like to look at this concept of play of just get a little bit curious. I loved how you shared. One of the easiest ways is to think back to when you were 10 to 12 to 15. What did you enjoy? Retry it. Maybe it serves you now, maybe it doesn't, but also just get curious. Try new things. Yeah. Keep it simple. I was just speaking at an event the other day and I shared how many times have you walked by a mirror and just made a funny face at yourself? That is play. What did that take you? It made you just giving it all it took was giving yourself permission to have a little fun in the moment. It doesn't have to be a big book a weekend away with girlfriends. That is great. That is fun. That is play. And it's how do we insert this more into our everyday life?

SPEAKER_01 34:22

Don't be silly with your kids, kitchen dance party, you know, like just all these things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

So good. So good. Okay. You have walked us through three things that you believe are kind of foundational in terms of lifestyle regulation for your nervous system. These are so good. So daily movement, stillness, play. So good, so simple, not necessarily easy. Sure. I do want to spend just a couple minutes and having you share with us again, these take practice. We are building a lifestyle. What about in the moment, when you're feeling heated, when you're feeling like you're on edge? Can you give us maybe just a couple brief tips as to what we can do to regulate our nervous system when we're in the thick of it?

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Yeah, for sure. Okay. So I think the first thing to remember is what we talked about earlier about our nervous system not speaking a verbal language. So if you're noticing that you're feeling quote unquote dysregulated, you're maybe you're feeling really anxious or nervous about something or overwhelmed, or maybe on the other end, right, you're feeling really tired or burnt out, disconnected, dissociated. The first thing to remember is that all of these are, you know, big red flags reminding you to get out of your head and into your body. That's the first, that's the first thing. So I can give you some resources, body-based, somatic practices that will help regulate your nervous system and shift you out of either that really heightened state, feeling irritable, edgy, anxious, down to baseline, or when you're feeling really down, shift you up to baseline. So what does our body respond to? How can we communicate with our body? Movement is the first one. Our body loves to move. So the next time you are feeling anxious or overwhelmed, instead of trying to, you know, breathe it away or sit calmly and meditate to feel more calm or whatever. I would encourage you to follow your body's impulse to move. And one of the best ways you can start to do that is by shaking. So it's exactly what it sounds like. I do it all the time in my new office here in Houston. We're lit, we live downtown. So my neighbors next to me are like, I could probably like high-fire through the window instead of just all day long. They're like, it's like four in the morning. Like, what is wrong with this woman? Um, but I'm just shaking and it's exactly that. You stay like you can do it standing, but just shaking out your arms, shaking out your legs, and allowing a lot of that activated energy to kind of move through you and release. And our nervous systems, it's so interesting. When we incorporate a lot of these practices, it's really short. 60, 90 seconds of shaking is enough to actually shift your nervous system out of this anxious fight or flight feeling and back down to a baseline stress level. So that's one of my favorites when it comes to movement, is just shaking. You can do that by dancing too, like put on a high song.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yeah. Yes. And I'm aware of shaking. One of my gurus I follow, Brendan Burchard, talks about shaking as one of his practices. You know, he's the author of High Performance Habits. Because we're not on video for our audience right now. Is it literally just like we're shaking our body? It's almost like a dog shaking in themselves out, correct? Is there anything specific? Do we want to move in certain ways, certain speeds, or is it just really leaning into what our body is needing?

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah. So we've seen, I mean, our dog, and we're animals, right? Like we intuitively know how to do this. When our dogs shake off like that, that's what they're doing. They're helping their nervous system to regulate. It's exactly what we want to be doing. So I like to teach what I call tree shaking. So it's like holding your arms up like a goalpost, right? Kind of where your hands would be by your head. Um, and then just really shaking from that space. And it's literally, yes, just like uninhibited shaking. Shaking as, you know, and and it's really following the impulse of your body. Your body will intuitively know the more you trust it. Okay, I need to shake out my legs, it's my hips, shaking. I need to do in my arms, I need to stretch out my neck. Just allowing yourself to move and release in that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

And if our listeners aren't comfortable with their neighbors seeing them, I'm gonna give everybody permission to close the blind as they start this practice. If if babe like, or maybe it's something you even do with our kids. Again, we know that when kids get dysregulated, what do they do? They start to move all around, right? And so oh, good one, good one. Do you have one or two more that you might be willing to share with us?

Fast Resets With Shaking And Cold

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Sure. Okay. So another thing that our nervous system is it's really helpful to our nervous system is temperature. So our body is really sensitive, I think, and can be influenced by the temperatures of things around us. That's why a warm bath can feel so soothing or hot shower, right? Like my kids, I know like if they're getting at it, like I throw them in the tub, all of a sudden the whole everything just changes. Everything's calm. Yes. And the same is true for cold temperature. So if you're feeling, if you're waking up one day and you're feeling kind of disu exhausted and disconnected, and you know, maybe if if we use the term burned out, cold temperature can make such a difference. So we hear people taking ice baths, right? And cold plunging. That's ultimately what they're doing. So you can just grab a bag of frozen vegetables out of your freezer and hold it on the back of your neck that activates your vagus nerve, which is our body's calming mechanism. You can also hold frozen, like an ice pack of frozen vegetables to your forehead or your cheeks that activates something that we call our mammalian dive reflex, which actually calms our heart rate and helps to our body to regulate in that way. So that's something that's really easy that you might find helps to shift the state of your nervous system. All these tools, too, it's just like you were saying, Megan, try them out. Get curious about it. Yeah. And to a certain extent, they're all, they are all bioindividual, which you know, different people will respond differently to different techniques, but you want to kind of have two or three in your back pocket where you're like, oh, this really helped. This might go to yeah.

Softening, Support, And The Close

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Yeah. Oh, Michelle, this is all just so many great gems of information that I think our our audience can really just walk away with some actual things that they can do today. Michelle, it has been such a pleasure to have you as a guest on The Rockstar Mom. I have taken away so much. I know that our listeners have as well. Nothing heals by pushing harder is really what sticks out to me. And I wanted to repeat it one more time is just continuing to give ourselves grace, give ourselves permission to truly, truly take care of ourselves on the deepest levels. And so I thank you so much for for all of your expertise you brought us. Before we close out, any final closing thoughts for our listeners today.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

So something that was kind of, I'm glad you asked, something that was kind of coming to me through our whole conversation, especially when we talk about curiosity, is I am willing to wager that for all of us listening, the the benefit that we would see from learning to soften is huge. Because I think we come into this space, right, where we've been experiencing burnout. We know how to do all the things, we know how to push, we know how to show up, we know how to wake up before everyone and go to bed after everyone, and we know how to keep the house clean and run in the board, the boardroom, and we know how to do all of these things. So I think for a lot of us, the expansion of our edges aren't really around how do I be more productive or use my time better or whatever. It's actually like, how do I learn to ask for help? How do I learn to surrender a lot of the things that I'm actually trying to control that aren't for me to control? How do I allow myself to be held and cared for by people that I trust? How do I be vulnerable in a new way when things feel really hard, but all I know is pushing through it? So I think an exploration on what that looks like for each of us to soften for a lot of us feels a lot scarier and more vulnerable than the alternative, but ultimately that's where our growth is. And that's, you know, our break. I think our breakthrough is right on the other side of that.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Thank you so much for that. Learning to soften. And I think going along with that, knowing that we're not alone in this. Yes. No, we've got thousands of listeners here who are in this as well, but took that first step to listen to some of these conversations on the Rockstar Mom so we can better ourselves and ultimately live a more fulfilling, enjoyable life. So Michelle, thank you so, so much for being here today. I look forward to talking again soon.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Oh my gosh, this is so fun. You make it so easy. You're such a joy. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Thank you so much for tuning into the Rockstar Mom podcast. If today's episode resonated with you, here's how we can keep this momentum going. First, be sure to subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Next, I'd be so grateful if you took a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback helps us reach even more women who are ready to live more intentional, fun-filled lives. Lastly, please share your insights on social media and be sure to tag me at Megan Caldwell PDX so we can connect and inspire other rock stars to live their best lives too. Again, I am so glad that you are here, and I'll see you next time.