You Can't Grind Your Way Out of Burnout (Your Nervous System Won't Let You)

You cannot grind your way out of a dysregulated nervous system. I learned that (again) this week from my rescue dog, Marley — who reverted to peeing on me every single time I rubbed his head, and reminded me exactly how a scared body actually calms down. Spoiler: not through control.

This is the audio version of this week's The Weekly Recharge. I break down why "pushing through" keeps overachievers locked in threat mode, why Marley's submissive urination was never a behavior problem but a nervous system one, and the completely backwards move that settles a body faster than any amount of discipline. Then I walk you through a 5-step practice — Let It Flow — to send your own nervous system the one signal it's been starving for: you're safe.

If you still want to win but you're starting to question the cost, this one's for you.

Read the Previous article about Mr. Marley Lunchbox: [What My Rescue Dog’s Submissive Pissing Taught Me About Nervous System Regulation]

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Transcript

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So some of you have been here long enough to know Marley, our rescue, Mr. Marley Lunchbox. The sweetest, softest, most anxious little soul I have ever loved with every particle of my being. And some of you are brand new here. So let me catch you up on why I spent a full day this week getting absolutely hosed in golden showers by my own dog. But let me rewind. I'm going to spare you the full saga. I already wrote about it once. If you want the full, ugly, but beautiful thing, it is right down in the descriptive show notes for the link for the previous episode. Well, I think it's just an article because I wasn't recording it back then. But yeah, you can still read it. It's called What My Rescue Dog's Submissive Pissing Taught Me About Nervous System Regulation. You're in for a treat. But the short version is that the first few months with Marley were very rough. Something about me, my energy, my movement, who knows? Set off his submissive urination. And I mean set it off. There was one weekend where I was literally sitting on the kitchen floor crying, phone in one hand, straight up begging the vet to medicate both of us just to get to Monday. Three months in, I was quietly starting to wonder if Mr. Marley Launchbox was going to end up with another family after I maybe might cut a hole in the fence. That's literally how bad it got. I want to be completely honest about it. And then it got better for months, if not like an entire year. We were in the clear, clean floors, clean beds, confident dog. I truly thought we had graduated. And then this week, no warning, something quietly broke loose in that sweet little brain of his. And we backslid. Not all the way. Just one little trigger. He jumps up on your knees for some head rubs, you give him said head rubs, and the golden shower commences. Every time. So I did the thing that worked the first time. It literally makes zero sense until you understand exactly what's happening. I let it flow. I kept rubbing his head. I stayed soft. I let him leak all over me. Outside, of course. Until he couldn't leak no more. No flinch, no scold, no big reaction. I just let his little body do its thing while I quietly told his nervous system the only thing that it needed to hear. You're safe. Nothing bad is going to happen even now, even like this. Because what I finally understood, submissive urination isn't disobedience. It's not a trading gap. It's a nervous system talking. See, Marley's body hit an alarm, floods the I might be in danger signal, and dumps the pressure the only way that his scared little animal body knows how. He's not being bad, he's being terrified and also loving me at the same time. You cannot punish that out of a body. You can only make the body feel safe enough to stop firing that alarm. And every time he pees on me and nothing bad happens, no yelling, no cold shoulder, just head rubs, his system logs one more piece of evidence that this is safe, that I am safe. And that's how confidence gets built. Not from control, from safety repeated. Now, here's where I need you to stop reading this like it's only about a dog, because your nervous system runs the exact same program. You, the overachiever that you are, the racing brain, and the 2 a.m. spiral and the I'll rest when it's done with the body that literally cannot sit still in a quiet room. That's not a discipline problem. That's not you being lazy or dramatic or feeling behind. That's a nervous system stuck in threat, dumping pressure the only way that it knows how. And what do we do with it? We try to discipline our way out of it. We try to hustle harder, optimize harder, white-knuckle our way through it, we clamp down on the alarm and call it drive. But you can't grind your way out of the dysregulated nervous system. You can't logic a scared body into feeling safe. Marley didn't calm down because I was firmer with him. He calmed down because I gave him safety over and over and over until his baseline moved from danger to okay. Same program as you. Rest isn't the reward at the end. It's the signal. And when you actually rest and the ceiling doesn't collapse and cave in, the emails don't detonate, the whole thing continues to stand, your body logs that as evidence that you can stand down, that nothing bad is happening here. That's one rep. That's how the nervous system begins to learn that it's safe. It's real confidence, the kind that lives in your body, not the kind that you have to continuously talk yourself into to try to convince yourself that you're safe. See, rest is the rebellion, but it's also the head rub. It's the thing that tells your terrified, loyal, overworked nervous system that you're safe now, that you can finally stop bracing. So this week's practice is going to be let it flow. Next time the alarm hits, the racing, the tight chest, the urge to need to do something. Try this instead of clamping down. I want you to first catch it, name it, even say it out loud if you can. Oh, there's that pressure that I recognize so frequently. Don't pose any judgment to it, because you're not broken. Your body just hit that alarm. And then stop trying to shut it off. This is the backwards one. The clamping down is what actually keeps it stuck. You're not trying to fix it. So send one safety signal. You can have your feet on the floor, hand on your chest, one long exhale longer than the inhale. Whatever tells your system, I'm here, we're not in danger. I just don't recommend any golden showers on anyone. And then let it move. If you need a shake, cry it out, breathe, even if you just need to sit in it. Let it run until it can't run no more. Because you're not fixing it, you're not finishing it, you're just noticing what didn't happen. The ceiling didn't cave in. You didn't die, nothing bad happened. You just think of that mean, but did you die? That's the rep. That's the evidence. That's how your body learns that it's safe. And that's how confidence actually gets built. Not from a pep talk, from proof. So let it flow. Then let it go. And then this week on Hustle Rebels, in case you missed it, I had a solo episode about what happens when you ignore the alarm for so long that it stops registering as an alarm and it starts feeling just like a regular Tuesday. I tell the story of pushing through pain until my leg went dead while climbing a ladder in the middle of a fire. Because pushing through was the only setting that I had. And I also call out the trap I watch burned-out overachievers fall into constantly, believing that the only way out is to quit the job, end the relationship, blow your entire whole life up. Nine times out of ten, that's just an avoidance in a decisive costume. The real change starts when the harder question sits underneath, which is exactly what brain spotting is built to go after. So you can watch that episode on YouTube or listen to it on your favorite podcast platforms. So go easy on your nervous system this week. It's not misbehaving. It's just scared and trying to love you at the same time, like Mr. Marley Lunchbox. See you guys next week.