32. Understanding Nervous System Responses: Why You React the Way You Do

In this deeply personal episode of the NeuroHier Podcast, Leanna reflects on an old photo of herself holding her youngest son and realizes something powerful: who she is today is exactly who that younger version of herself needed most. What unfolds is an honest conversation about anxiety, panic attacks, emotional eating, nervous system overwhelm, and the years spent believing something was “wrong” instead of understanding what her body was trying to protect her from.

Leanna begins unpacking the connection between our nervous system responses and the patterns we often judge ourselves for — anger, shutdown, overthinking, people-pleasing, and emotional overwhelm. Through the lens of generational healing and nervous system awareness, she introduces the beginning of a new series exploring the four core survival states: fight, flight, freeze, and appease.

This episode is a compassionate reminder that your reactions are not proof that you’re broken — they are evidence of a nervous system that learned how to survive.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why your nervous system reacts faster than your conscious mind
• The hidden meaning behind anger, overthinking, shutdown, and people-pleasing
• How generational patterns shape your nervous system responses
• Why self-compassion is essential to healing
• The difference between “fixing yourself” and understanding yourself
• Leanna’s Four N Framework: Notice, Name, Nurture, and Navigate
• How nervous system healing starts with curiosity instead of judgment
• Why your patterns make sense based on what your body has carried

This episode is for anyone who has ever asked:
“Why do I react this way?”
“Why does this keep happening?”
“What’s wrong with me?”

And maybe most importantly:
What if nothing is wrong with you at all?

Be sure to subscribe because next week, Leanna begins diving deeper into each nervous system state, starting with fight, along with somatic tools and practical ways to support your body in real-time moments of activation.

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Connect with me:
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Website → leannahunt.com

Disclaimer:
Although I am a licensed Associate Clinical Mental Health Counselor, The NeuroHeir℠ Podcast is not a substitute for therapy, counseling, or medical treatment. The tools and practices I share are for educational and coaching purposes only. Every nervous system is unique, and what we discuss on this podcast should not replace your own individual therapeutic work or professional support.

The focus of this podcast is my coaching work, which centers on education, nervous system practices, and generational healing tools designed to support—not replace—your personal journey with a qualified provider.

If you are struggling with your mental health or experiencing overwhelming emotions, please seek support from a licensed professional in your area. You don’t have to do this work alone.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Nerve Air Podcast, the show for cycle breakers, parents, young adults, and helping professionals ready to understand their nervous system through a generational lens, heal what isn't theirs to carry, and consciously choose what comes next. Hi, I'm your host, Leanna Hunts, an associate clinical mental health counselor and certified performance coach. Each week you'll get stories, science, and somatic practices plus my signature for and framework. Notice, name, nurture, and navigate to help you honor resilience, break silence, and build deeper connection with yourself and those you love, all while shaping a legacy of safety, freedom, and possibility. Welcome back to the NeuroAir podcast. I was going through some old pictures the other day and I came across some amazing photos my niece took of me with my youngest Grayson right around his first birthday, and he's just recently turned 13. And as I sat there looking at these pictures, I felt these waves of emotion just come up in my body because I started to realize something that stopped me for a moment. Who I am now is who that version of me needed back then. And I could just feel it so clearly. I was 33 with my fourth baby in a season of life that on the outside probably looked really full and busy and even beautiful in a lot of ways. But on the inside, my body was carrying so much at this time in my life. My 30s in so many ways were marked by chronic patterns, having recurring mono, struggling with emotional eating, dealing with anxiety and panic attacks for the first time, a lot of hormone imbalances and cortisol dysfunction. I was also dealing with a nervous system that was constantly trying to keep up with everything that I was holding. And I didn't have any language for any of it back then. I didn't understand what my body was doing. I just knew that things were off. And I made that mean that something was wrong with me. And so often I wish I could have been there with this younger version of myself. And especially during that time of her very first panic attack. I wish I could have sat next to her, letting her know what was happening in her body wasn't something to be afraid of. I wish I could have told her that she wasn't losing control, that her body was trying to protect her. I wish I could have cried with her on the nights that she was eating in secret, not knowing how to share what she was feeling or how to ask for help. And then just sitting and hugging her after when she felt like a complete and utter failure. I wish I could have held her hand while she was supporting her husband through one of the most intense seasons of grief when he lost both of his parents just 20 days apart and our baby was three months old. She was holding space or trying to for everyone around her while quietly holding everything inside herself. And I wish I could have been there with her in that doctor's office when she was handed her first prescription for anxiety medication without ever being asked anything about her nervous system or what maybe she was caring for everybody else. No one at that time was asking, what have you been holding? And as we talked about self-compassion last week, the truth is I didn't know how to offer that to myself back then. There wasn't a lot of softness for me. There wasn't a lot of self-care or self-compassion or even understanding. But there was so much pressure and self-doubt and fear. I was trying to fix what I thought was wrong with me. And so I pushed through harder. I tried to do more, and I kept trying to be enough. And if I'm honest, when I look back at her now, I can now finally see that she wasn't failing. I see that she had a nervous system that was doing everything it could to keep her going. She just didn't have language for it yet. And I don't know about you, but 13 years ago, I don't remember there being just nervous system language in general. And so today I want to spend some time normalizing something that so many of us are experiencing. And sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's not, but in ways that can feel intense in our body, that feel overwhelming, and sometimes, maybe for you, even feel out of control. Because for some of us, this does feel like silence, but for others, it doesn't. For some of us, for you, it might be showing up like anger. It might be showing up like snapping and then being in this cycle of regret. Maybe for you, it shows up as anxiety that rises so fast that it feels like it is not controllable. And maybe for you, it looks like overwhelm that makes it hard to think clearly or to stay present or to just even feel like yourself. And maybe, just maybe you don't even know what yourself even feels like anymore. And if you've ever been in those moments where your reactions feel bigger than what's happening, or maybe your reactions feel faster than you can hold on to, I want you to know that I can totally relate to that because I've been there in my own ways for so long, living it, feeling it in my body, trying to make sense of it and wondering why it kept happening. And what so often happens next is this we don't just experience the patterns, but we judge them. We make them mean something about who we are. And maybe for you it's been something along the lines of, I'm too much, or I'm too emotional, or I should have my emotions figured out by now, or I should have my life figured out by now, or maybe the one that sat with me for so many years. What's wrong with me? And that layer, that meaning we attached is often what can hurt us the most. But what if, my friends, that those reactions and those patterns and those moments you feel the most disconnected from yourself are not about your worth at all? What if they're about your nervous system? What if your body is responding in the exact way it learned to, based on what it's been through, based on what your system has been carrying, and based on what it believes is the safest way for you? Because if that's true, then this isn't about having to quote unquote fix ourselves. It is about understanding ourselves. And this episode today is the beginning of at least a five-part series. Today we're going to understand why your reactions might feel so automatic. And then we're going to go deeper into each of the nervous system states, including fight, flight, freeze, and appease, so that you can start recognizing your patterns with more clarity and hopefully a lot less shame. So I want to ask you a question. Have you ever had a moment where you reacted and almost immediately thought, why did I do that? Or I don't even know why I did that. And maybe you said something along the lines of, that's not even how I want to show up. Or maybe it was asking yourself, why does this keep happening when I've quote unquote done all this work? And that moment right there is where so many people actually turn against themselves. And I know that because I did that for, I don't know, 20 years at least. But what's actually happening is this your nervous system moved faster than your conscious mind. Because your nervous system is not going to sit and ask, oh, is this the best response? Is this a representation of my healing? Is this a reflection of that current class I'm in or that technique I'm learning? No, it's going to the place of is this the safest response based on what I've known and based on the evidence that I have? I want you to think about that. Your nervous system is responding out of evidence, what it has known from the patterns that you have lived and also what you've observed in your relationships with others. And safety, especially learned safety, as I'll call it, often comes from the past, not the present. Does that make sense? So again, it's not usually how we're showing up in that current moment is not usually our best representation of our nervous system saying, Oh, I want to be vulnerable here. I want to try something new. It's always going to go to the path of least resistance because that is what your brain has decided is the thing that protects you the most. So here's a reframe I want you to just think about. What you judge in yourself is often a protection. And not just in a general sense, but as a part of you that actually learned how to respond in very specific ways for very specific reasons. So if anger is the thing that you're dealing with or the thing that feels the most present, what if that was a part of you that learned the only way to create space was to have to push through? Or the only way to get heard was to be louder. Or the only way to have results was to have a sharper tone. Because somewhere along the way, being calm probably didn't work. Being quiet probably didn't work. So a part of you stepped in and said, This is how we protect ourselves. Maybe you're dealing more with shutdown. And maybe for you, that shutdown might be a part of you that learned it wasn't safe to feel everything, or that feeling too much was too overwhelming for your system. So instead, your system has learned to slow it down, to numb things out, and to pull yourself back. Not because you want disconnection, but because your system is trying to keep you from that overload that maybe came at a really extreme cost at one point in your life. Let's look at overthinking. Overthinking can often be a part of you that's trying to stay one step ahead, trying to anticipate, trying to control everything, trying to figure out things before anything goes wrong. Because for you, unpredictability at some point probably came at a cost and was not safe. So your system is doing everything it can now to assess all the different scenarios. And let's take a minute to look at people pleasing, that appeasement. Oftentimes, this is a part of you that learned connection mattered more than your own needs. And you were going to do whatever it took to get that connection. And maybe for you it meant having to keep the peace. Maybe it meant keeping others comfortable more than your own self feeling comfortable. And maybe it felt like the safest way to stay close was to bypass your needs and put the needs of everybody else at the forefront. And when we can start to understand these, we can get curious about them. But if we're sitting in a place of judgment and criticism, it is really, really hard to get curious because we'll try to shut them down, we'll try to have to fix ourselves. But here's the shift: what if instead of saying, why am I like this? we begin to say a part of me is showing up right now. This is just a part of me trying to protect myself. Because when we can start to add language like this, we can start to create more space between ourselves and our reactions. Because my friends, you are not the anger. You alone are not the shutdown that is happening. And you are not the overthinking or the spiraling. And you are not the people pleasing. Remember, these are parts of your experience, not the entirety of who you are. And this is where self-compassion can start to move from something we just talk about into something we actually practice. Self-compassion doesn't say I shouldn't feel this way. Self-compassion says it makes sense that a part of me feels this way. It makes sense that I reacted that way. It makes sense I've had this pattern for as long as I can remember. Because as we start to shift our language from judgment to understanding, this is where we begin to change the pattern. Because these responses are not just random, they are patterned. And patterns are learned, which means the coolest thing is if a pattern is learned, it can also be updated. And not by forcing anything to go away, we know that that is not going to work, but by helping these patterns feel safe enough to start to respond differently. And that starts again with our awareness and our understanding. And as we start to do this with more awareness and understanding, we stop seeing our reactions as random and we can also start to recognize them as maybe more predictable patterns that our nervous system moves through. And this is where we're just going to touch briefly on our different states. I know we're going to go more deeply in them in the next several weeks, but fight, flight, freeze, and appease. What I want you to start noticing now here is that it's not just what these patterns are, but how they show up as our automatic patterns. Maybe the moment you snap and don't mean to, or the moment your mind won't slow down, no matter how hard you try, or that moment again you shut down, even when a part of you wants to stay present. Maybe it's the moment you say yes when something in you meant no. These moments are all nervous system responses and they often show up faster than we can catch or control them. So again, fight, flight, freeze, and appease are not random reactions. And these are practiced over time again as forms of protection. And so as we start to see them this way, they can become less about again the belief that or the question I sat with so long, what's wrong with me? And it can be that reframe of, oh, this is something my system actually learned. This is something I did to stay safe. This is what my body was trying to do all those years to protect me because you've likely felt all of these in your body. So for fight, maybe it feels like that tension in your chest. Sometimes we see this a lot in chronic jaw pain and TMJ. Sometimes that fight shows up as intense body heat. Sometimes it shows up as a surge of energy that rises so quickly, which can turn into that uh rapid, faster breathing, that panic breathing, that anxiety. With flight, that can feel a lot like mental spinning, restlessness, that need to keep moving or having to figure it out or wanting to just run away. And freeze is often that feeling of heaviness and disconnection, and maybe that thought pattern of, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. So the system just like, if we don't know what to do, we're gonna shut it down. And that appeasement can often show up again, like overextending, having to keep the peace or losing yourself in the relationship, no matter if it's a family relationship or a work relationship or a friendship, because your body just has decided a long time ago, or maybe it wasn't that long ago, that it was more important for your needs not to be met and to try to take care of everybody else. And this is also important to remember these aren't things that we consciously choose. These are the responses our nervous system has practiced. And again, that's why they feel so automatic. And as you're listening today, you might just start to notice that you don't just have one pattern, that you move between them, like most of us do. And again, we need these states for certain things when we are actually in states of threat. So thinking about you, I want you to think about do some of these states show up in certain types of situations, like different scenarios or maybe with different people? Because for all of us, we are going to cycle through them. And remember, no matter what the state is, your system has just learned, oh, this pattern of fight works here with this person. This is how we actually feel heard. Or this flight works here because it is not safe for me to say. So it's easier for me to just run out of the room and not have to commit myself. Or this pattern of freeze works when I feel like I can't handle the situation. It's easier for me to just sit and numb and scroll on my phone. And this isn't just figuring out again which one state we are. It's about beginning to recognize how our system moves through them and when. And even more gently, you might start to notice what each of these patterns has been trying to do for you. Because underneath all of them, something in you was trying to keep you safe. And this is where things often begin to soften even more, because these patterns most likely did not just start with you. These patterns have been shaped in your different environments, in all your different relationships and across generations. What your ancestors had to do to survive, had to do to keep food on the table, had to do to make money, had to do to move, to come to America. Maybe no one in your family talked about their emotions because it was not safe to do so. So a part of you learned to shut things down or to keep things to yourself. Maybe in your family, conflict did not feel safe. So a part of you learned to avoid or to smooth things over or to become what others needed you to be. Maybe there was a lot to hold together. So a part of you learned to stay strong, to push through no matter the costs, and to keep going, even when your body was telling you it couldn't do it anymore. None of these patterns make you weak either. They are patterns your nervous system has brilliantly and intelligently used to adapt to whatever was happening. Because your nervous system is always asking that question, what do I need to do to stay safe here? So again, it just learned this is how we survive, this is how we stay connected. And even if your life looks different now, which for most people it does, even if your environments have changed, your nervous system may still be running those same protective patterns because something in you hasn't been shown yet that it is safe to respond differently. So again, that question instead of what's wrong with me, we want to start looking at when does this show up? And do it in a form of curiosity. Maybe spending time with the question, what does my body feel like right before that state happens? Or what is this trying to do for me? And you might even notice this starts to sound like a conversation with a part of you. And again, you're not trying to get rid of this part, you're not trying to judge it, you're just trying to get curious about it. But because curiosity creates space and space creates capacity. And that capacity is what allows us to interrupt those automatic patterns. Because as we increase our capacity, we can distance ourselves from our reactions and we can start to notice a little bit sooner we have a choice to change what we do next. And in that space and capacity is where something new becomes possible. And this is exactly why I created the four ends: notice, name, nurturing, navigate. Because when something feels automatic, we don't just need to do better. We need something that actually can slow the moment down just enough to work with our nervous system instead of against it. So again, with notice, we are just noticing what is happening in our body. And I have loved the conversations with those of you talking to me about noticing and the noticing practices. And for some of you, you are feeling and noticing more. Again, not because you are actually having more, but because you are just so much more aware that your body has been talking to you this whole time. Second is naming that state or the part of you that is showing up. This helps us be able to shift out of those automatic patterns. And third is nurture, nurturing our body through that state. What does it just need in that moment? How do we offer that self-compassion to ourselves? Or like me sitting with my younger self, she often shows up, 30-year-old me. My reactions a lot of the times now are that part of me when I felt so out of control. So so much, I just need to imagine myself giving her a hug, telling her it's okay that she feels the way she does. And then that last step is navigate those gentle steps of what comes next. Because practicing over time is how these automatic reactions begin to feel less automatic. Not because they're going to disappear completely, because again, we need these nervous system states to actually protect us when there are real threats and real danger. But we can start to meet them differently. And honestly, this is also why I have been creating the NeuroAir Regulation app, because I saw this over and over again, people starting to understand the work, but in real life moments, they didn't have tools to move through them. So this new app actually helps you recognize your states, helps you start to understand your patterns a little bit more deeply and find simple ways to support your nervous system in real time. And we have included it for free inside the NeuroAir Coaching Membership, which has just been so fun because this app just helps having more support and you can use it 24 hours a day. And what I also love about the NeuroAir membership is that some people are coming to the membership just for the app. That's really what they wanted for. Some people are coming because they want that monthly somatic breathwork experience with me and the group. Some people are just looking for more community and looking for others that are doing this work. And some just want that monthly group call. So whatever brings you to the coaching community, you are welcome. There's no pressure to have to do it all. And I would love to have you. And if you're interested in any details, you could always find the link in the show notes. And so as we close, I just want to come back to that version of me sitting there in those photos with my son 13 years ago, the one who didn't have any of this language yet and didn't understand this yet. And she didn't know anything about her nervous system. Because again, if I could sit next to her now, I wouldn't tell her she had to fix herself. I would not tell her she had to figure it out. I Would just sit with her and I would hold her hand and I would help her understand that nothing about her is broken and that she is not too far gone, and I would teach her that her body is trying to protect her, and I would remind her that she did not have to do this alone. And maybe today, as you're listening to this, there's a version of you coming to mind too. And what if instead of judging this version of you, you start to begin to com meet them with more compassion? Because self-compassion is something we have to practice, especially in the moments we want to turn away from ourselves. So as we close today, I just want to come back to this. Remember, you are not broken, you are not too far gone. Your nervous system has been doing everything it is needed to keep you safe in the best way. It has known how up to this point. And this work, again, is not getting rid of these patterns, and they're not going to change overnight. But it is about beginning to understand them so you can start to meet yourself differently. So next week, we're going to start going deeper into each of these patterns, beginning with fight. We're going to look at what it actually is like in real life, how it shows up in your body, and how to work with it instead of against it. And I'm also going to be sharing a list of somatic tools and simple practices for each state, which is so cool. You will also be able to use these tools in real moments when your body is activated and you're not sure what to do. And I cannot wait to dive into all these different states with you because this is really practicality, right? These are the things that actually help us be able to move through the different states. And so we're learning continually. Remember, we're learning how to support ourselves instead of fighting ourselves. If this episode resonated with you, I would love to invite you to share it with someone, someone who might be trying to understand themselves. Maybe they're trying to understand their reactions or their patterns or their nervous system, even just a little bit more, because this is the kind of work that becomes even more powerful when it's shared. And I hope and pray that you can start having these conversations with people that you care about and that you can feel support too as you continue to deepen your work. And as always, I'm so glad you're here. Make it a beautiful week. Until next time, bye guys. Thanks for joining me on the NeuroAir podcast. This work is about honoring resilience in yourself and also those who came before you, all while finding freedom from what was never yours to carry. With the help of stories, science, somatic tools, and the four ends notice, name, nurture, and navigate, you have a path toward deeper connection with yourself, your loved ones, and the legacy you want to pass on. If today's episode spoke to you, share it with someone who is ready to step into this work too and follow the show so you never miss an episode. Remember, you may not have chosen what you inherited, but you can choose what comes next.