How to Rebuild Yourself After Adversity | Regulating Your Nervous System & Measuring Recovery

There comes a point after adversity where survival is no longer the goal.

The real question becomes:
How do you rebuild yourself in a healthy, sustainable, and honest way?

In this episode of The Resilience Movement, Donna Moulds explores what recovery actually looks like after prolonged stress, trauma, burnout, heartbreak, workplace toxicity, identity loss, or emotional overwhelm.

This is not a conversation about “just staying positive.”

It is a grounded discussion about:

• regulating your nervous system
• recognising survival patterns
• rebuilding emotional safety
• measuring your recovery honestly
• restoring routines and structure
• understanding exhaustion and hypervigilance
• reconnecting to purpose and future vision
• learning when to rest and when to move forward

Donna also reflects on the pressure of living publicly while emotionally overwhelmed, referencing how people in the spotlight, including reality TV personalities and public figures, may need space to step away, regulate, and prioritise their wellbeing before continuing to perform for others.

This episode is for anyone who feels emotionally exhausted, disconnected from themselves, or uncertain about what their next chapter looks like.

Because resilience is not about becoming who you used to be.

It is about becoming stable, clear, and strong enough to create what comes next.

🎙 The Resilience Movement Podcast
Hosted by Donna Moulds

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Well, it's time for another podcast. And um I have to say, I haven't done one by myself for a while. So I thought I would jump on here and talk about a few things. Wearing my new Mother's Day little, I'm not sure what it's called, but I just love it. It um is so warm because here where I live, it is coming into winter time and it certainly is chilly. So thanks for tuning in, those of you who have not heard us before. We talk about a lot of different things. Um, adversity, recovery. Some amazing speakers have been on here telling their stories. Um Todd Maguire, Donnie, and he told the story of his uh life and the book that he's written. And um, I think that was our last one, or not quite sure. So, anyway, so today I'm here and we're going to talk about adversity. And I want to talk to let me just say those of you who have been in adversity for a little while, and you kind of realize that you're in survival mode, but it doesn't work anymore, and you've got to come out of that stage of survival mode because it's not serving you, you know, to be honest. And sometimes it takes a little while for people to recognize that they're in that survival mode, in that fight or flight, or you know, but let me talk about some of the things, and and I will talk from personal experience as well. Um, but when you realize you're in survival mode still, like you you can wake up feeling exhausted, your nervous system is fried, you know, and you've got thoughts just looping and looping and looping. Um, and you're you can be emotionally reactive or even emotionally numb. Um, I'm sure you can relate to those. And even though life keeps moving, parts of you still feel kind of stuck um in past events. So sometimes we can loop past events because we're, you know, trying to understand it, reliving it, uh, are kind of still stuck there. Um, and we all know from you know, lots of research that has been done that, you know, your body doesn't know, your brain doesn't know whether you're still living it. If you're still telling the story from 10 years ago and you haven't healed those parts, then your body still relives it and feels the feelings because you've continued to talk about that's that that side of things that happen. So, and you know, sometimes there are things that people don't really talk about, which is, you know, healing is not just emotional, um, recovery is practical. So the practical side, and and I call this capacity building, right? And at some point we have to stop asking ourselves why something happened because it happened, and we actually can't go back to yesterday, right? Or whenever this something happened. So you can't turn back to it. And you need to think about asking yourself different questions. And you can ask yourself a question of what do I need to do to get back to myself? Uh, but also you can have a reality check. I know I've experienced this of there is no going back to that self because that self is not the same anymore. And that could be because you've grown, it could be because life has changed, it could be because um you are in a different chapter in your life. There's lots of reasons why. And the conversation is not about toxic positivity, not pretending everything happens for a reason or not by passing pain. It's about a real process of getting back on track after the adversity, regulating your nervous system, measuring your recovery honestly, and figuring out what you need to do next. Like what does next look like for you? And so sometimes there's things that you need to recognize for yourself. And if you can't recognize those things, maybe some support to help you um get out of you what it is next steps would look like, or what do you want them to look like? Because remember, you have a choice, right? And life goes on, the sun comes up tomorrow, the tide comes in, and things go on. So you deserve to be okay again, you deserve to have your um peace, your your um uh sanity. I felt that way, and and you deserve to be able to then have those days where you wake up and you feel peace again and you feel contentment and you feel like you are coming back to a person that you want to be, that you recognize. Um, or even if you don't recognize that person, who do you want to come back to? Who do you want to become? And you know, so they're they're the things that that we're going to talk about on the podcast today. And um, you know, there's some things I want to share with you as well. So, and this is not from the perspective of someone who has everything perfectly figured out because I don't, but it is from someone who understands what it feels like to go through difficult seasons and then slowly realize you can't stay emotionally parked there forever. You know, for me, I I have woken up sometimes and gone, wow, I've stayed here a little too long. And I can't remember who said this one time, but it was you can be sad, you can be angry, you can be hurt, you can be all of these things. Um, just don't stay there too long. If these are negative feelings that you're having that impact you, you don't want to stay there for a long time. You don't want to stay angry, you don't want to stay hurt. You you want to find yourself in a place that you want to be. Now, let's face it, if you want to be an angry person, then you can stay there. I'm not sure anyone wants that. So for me, it was I can't stay parked here forever. I've got to at some point have an intentional recovery, an intentional path forward of what I'm going to do. And I think it's important because adversity changes us, no matter what it is we're going through. Um, you know, different stages in our life can change us and sometimes not for the better. So, you know, um, sometimes it's the grief or betrayal, sometimes it's divorce or burnout, sometimes it's a workplace experience or public embarrassment or financial pressure or trauma. You know, sometimes simply years of chronic stress and hypervigilance can, you know, be very difficult to um move from. And the hard truth is that if your body still believes you are unsafe, it will keep reacting accordingly. So that's what you want to make sure that you're listening to. And your nervous system doesn't care, care that the threat is over. If your body still believes you're unsafe, then your body's going to react accordingly, right? So I think many people function in survival mode without even realizing they're just in survival mode. And I remember um a very dear friend of mine once said, you'll never be given more than you can handle. And, you know, that's I didn't believe that to be true at the time, but now I do understand. And there's lessons that we can learn along the way. Um, it's not that we ask for adversity, but adversity can build character and we can learn from it and hopefully not stay there for a long time. So you might still be going to work, still parenting, still paying bills, still showing up, doing the things, building a life. But internally, you can also be exhausted. So your sleep can be affected, you can be overthinking everything. I mean, I'm a super overthinker. Um, you become hyper-aware of people's tones and behaviors, and your cortisol stays really, really elevated. So the other effects of that are you can lose joy, you can stop trusting, you can isolate yourself, and you can become emotionally reactive because your nervous system has, you know, no capacity left. So when you're when you know you're at capacity, or sometimes you actually don't recognize that you're at capacity, you just know that you're not yourself, and sometimes you know that your behaviors towards different things are significantly different. And um, here's something I've learned personally. There's a difference between functioning and healing. Just because you are still operating doesn't mean you are regulated. And I think for many high-performing people, especially those who are used to responsibility and you know, leadership, we become very good at functioning while internally dysregulated. And the body starts demanding attention. You know, the body says, um, uh, if you're not going to listen, I'm going to make you listen. And this was very um apparent for me uh last year when I had a period of chronic stress. And and on top of that, it was emotional exhaustion because of the chronic stress. And I ended up with um shingles in my eyes. And, you know, if that wasn't a wake-up call of you've got to get a handle on what's happening in your life right now. And it wasn't that the situation was going to change quickly because it was quite a um, to me, it was quite a difficult situation to manage. It meant that if I wasn't going to listen to my body, my body was going to force me to listen. And, you know, not being able to see, not being able to do the things that you normally do. Um, and I remember this very clearly. I was standing in the kitchen, and at this point I didn't know I had shingles, but um my eyes had been going funny, and and for a couple of months I had um what I thought were little pimples in my eyes, or or what might have been a sty, I thought, but it actually wasn't. It was shingles in my eyes, and I lost vision for a little bit, and I went straight up to um the emergency room, and of course they were concerned I was having a stroke, which I wasn't having a stroke, but um, once they had looked and checked me over, and the ophthalmologist had checked me over and and everything, and they had done a swab, they realized that I had shingles. And and so that was a big wake-up call to go. The dysfunction in your body, the stress in your body that had been continuing. And if I want to be honest, I had been stressed, stressed quite significantly since about October um the previous year, moving into um then that year. So, and of course, it escalated in you know, July, August, and September. Um, but that was a like, um, you're not going to listen, uh, we're gonna make you listen. And that's what the body does. So that's where I had to really um uh think about how I was gonna manage this. And I I think nervous system um regulation has become a bit of a buzzword online, but for people who have genuinely experienced great adversity, this is real. Um, and your nervous system is going to affect your sleep, your digestion, your hormones, your decision making, um, emotional stability, concentration. It can affect relationships, and it certainly did for me. Energy, confidence, um, just it was a whole gamut of things that that I really had to manage. And so if your nervous system is overloaded, you can't think clearly about anything. And so I had to stop. I had to um really uh slow down and I had to compartmentalize and recognize what I actually could control and what I had no control over and had to learn because everything felt threatening and everything felt heavy and uncertain. But when you can break that down into chunks and help yourself regulate, um, then you can then you can start to manage that. And one thing um that I know for sure is you cannot build a beautiful future from a permanently dysregulated state. So at some point the body needs safety, uh, not escape or avoidance. It just needs safety. And so, and this is just you know my uh personal opinion, you've really got to get in touch with yourself and um think about what's your honest recovery plan. And so for me, let me talk about what an honest recovery plan looked like. So when you want to get back on track, um, because you've gone like enough is enough, like we've we've gone too far. This is uh taking over my life. And you think about certain things. Like um, I was listening to um someone talk about, and they were talking about um this too shall pass, you know, this too shall pass, and and it will only if you actually do something about it. If you ignore it, then obviously it's not going to pass, right? So, and usually um much less dramatic than people think when you can get back on track. It's actually little small chunks, it's not big dramatic things. Um, it's just really small steps um consistently done. And um recovery often starts with, you know, basics. And like I said, done consistently. If you pick one thing and and then get on top of that and then add another thing. If anyone's like me, I tend to be uh all or nothing. So if I'm gonna get back on track with working out, I tend to go too hard too fast and end up, you know, in a lot of pain because I've damaged muscles. And so I had to actually figure out how I could do this in baby steps basically and manage, you know, one thing. So I hadn't slept properly in a very long time, and I'm talking um almost 12 months. I had not slept properly. Uh, and I would run things over in my head again and again and again. Um, but there were some things that I had to manage, and sleep was a big one that I had to manage. So um, and I had done um, I had set up a bit of a plan for myself, and and so managing my sleep was one of those things, but also hydration and making sure I was getting enough um fluids in, making sure I was eating well, so so my um nutrition had to uh shift a bit. And so sleep, hydration, protein was a big thing. And also um one of the big things, I'm just not doing that. The answer was no. Like, no, I can't do that. Thank you. No, I'm not doing that, thank you. And that was it. You know, it was no, I'm not going there. No, I'm not doing that. No, I don't want to be around people at the moment. I need to be by myself, or but it was really about saying no to things. And, you know, that's partially also around boundaries and and putting other people first. And a lot of quiet time for me. I needed that quiet healing time. Now, when you talk about quiet time or being by yourself, that's not quiet time sitting on your phone doom scrolling, right? Um, for me, I did do a lot of research. I was researching what was happening, uh, how I could then manage that. Um, you know, I've worked out what works for me. And specifically around reducing overstimulation, that was something that was um really interesting because I didn't really understand what that meant. Um, but I got really overstimulated quite easily and and um had to manage that as well. Um being out in the sun, don't underestimate what 20 minutes out in the morning sun can do. That is um a very, very important 20 minutes, and it does make a difference. And I had to wait until my eyes could actually cope with that because my eyes were very, very sore. So um movement. Um, I've walked a lot, I do a lot of walking now, and that really works for me as well, walking with the dog and having a bit of a routine. I'm still not great with that. I'm very spontaneous, so I'm I'm not great with routines, but um getting back there. Um and I don't drink really, I don't drink very much. Um it might be once a month, if anything, now because it just doesn't feel good. So and I don't have any chaos in my life. And reducing, if you are emotionally addicted to problems or fixing things or um solving everyone else's problems, if you're if you are quite hooked on that, then maybe you want to reduce that and let people figure out their own stuff and you figure out your stuff. That can be um a really positive thing for yourself too. And understand that healing is not glamorous, it's just it's incredibly unglamorous, and that's okay. So for me personally, one of the biggest shifts was understanding that I didn't need to force myself back into the version of me that existed before what happened before the adversity. That before the adversity, um, you know, she is gone. I don't know why, I don't know what happened there, but but she's gone. And I'm not sure that that's uh, you know, a bad thing. Um I still struggle with that um because of how driven I was and how much I love to achieve things. Um, but something kind of Broke in me, um, that I'm just not that person anymore. So that that version of me does not seem to exist anymore. And I'm learning the version of me now and what that looks like. So if the version of you is still there and that's what you want, then that's fine. Um, but for me, that's not that's not the same. So and I and I don't think the goal is going back, I think the goal is discovering or rebuilding differently. I think that becomes the goal. And one of the things that I think became really key was to measure your own recovery. Um I think Brene Brown once said, if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist. But that's not really what I mean. I'm what I mean is measuring if there's improvements, and that's measuring how you feel, um measuring your joy, or measuring how light you feel, or how heavy you feel, or measuring um your sleep, or measuring like it's really going, am I sleeping better? Uh do I feel lighter? Am I laughing more? Am I um able to, I call it capacity building as well. You know, you're measuring your capacity. And over the last, I guess, three months, um, I've really been measuring capacity. And um, I fell into a trap of thinking about what my capacity was and comparing it to that. But like I said, I'm not the same. So measuring it for me is am I improving in the direction that I want to go? So for me, that was the question I needed to ask. Because how do I know if I'm actually getting better at whatever it is? And it could be, is my sleep getting better? Is my concentration getting better? Is my mood getting better? Is my um anxiety reducing? Is my whatever it is for you, then ask asking yourself, is it getting better is really um really key because then you can uh measure that and your recovery, like measure it honestly, um, not emotionally. And it's not about going, see, I'm not getting any further. It's not about that negatively um, you know, negative self-talk and and criticizing yourself. It's where am I at? And that's that's a really important question to ask. So being practical about it. Um, here's some other questions. You know, I I did say, am I sleeping better? Am I catastrophizing less? Is my body less tense? Um, am I isolating less? Um, can I think about the future again? Uh, can I regulate after something has triggered me? And for me, I always say if I'm triggered by something, that demonstrates to me that I have more work to do. And um am I feeling safe in stillness? That's a really good question to ask yourself as well. Uh, am I making decisions from clarity instead of fear? So there's some of the questions you can ask, but you know, figure out what the questions are that you need to ask yourself because when you figure out what those questions are, they can be markers of recovery for you. And sometimes progress is subtle. And sometimes you can be surprised by your own progress. And um, you know, sometimes healing looks a bit different. Um, it could be am I no longer crying every day if that was the case? Um, am I cleaning my house? I mean, I cleaning a house for me is a stress release. So I love cleaning the house. Um, but if you don't like cleaning your house and you find those tasks really hard, are they less hard? And whether you want to go for a walk or not, are you getting yourself out there in the fresh air and eating properly and um being able to focus because those things are important for you, right? So, regardless of what's happened, this is about what's good for you. And you really have to decide that for yourself. You have to take responsibility for that. Uh, if you want things to change, and um you know, it's also it's like, do I want to socialize again? And is curiosity returning? For me, curiosity is a really big thing. So don't underestimate the small markers, the small recovery markers, um, because they can be really, really impactful. And um, I wanted to talk about also honestly, you can even see this publicly with shows like Married at First Sight. I didn't watch the show, but I see enough online to see what's happening. And every year we watch these people go through emotional conflict, public scrutiny, rejection, humiliation, you know, relationship breakdowns, certainly a lot of online criticism and intense exposure happens for them as well. And while people online turn it into entertainment, they actually are still human beings with a nervous system. So some of them genuinely look traumatized afterwards. And I think sometimes the healthiest thing a person can do after a highly stressful emotional experience where they're publicly exposed is to step away from the spotlight, um, not necessarily disappear forever, but um and not isolate, but regulate, rest, reconnect with themselves, get grounded again. Because life goes on after public embarrassment or heartbreak or mistakes or conflict or adversity. Like life goes on. And you need to be okay enough internally to actually live it. So I think that many people underestimate how much constant exposure to criticism and stress impacts the human nervous system. Um, and and you've really got to build uh a life um that your body feels safe in. And this was a huge lesson for me. Um, you cannot constantly live in overstimulation, hypervigilance, exhaustion, or you cannot live feeling emotionally unsafe and dysregulated and you know, and expect peace to magically appear because it just doesn't happen. Eventually you have to create your nervous system. Um, or sorry, you you've got to create an environment for your nervous system to actually breathe inside of. And, you know, um, that means you've got to change your environment or your habits and boundaries and change the pace. And sometimes recovery is less about being strong and more about becoming safer. And that can feel confronting for high achievers because many of us were rewarded for pushing through exhaustion. Um, but the body truly does keep score. I don't know if anyone has read that book, but the body keeps score is a very, very interesting read to understand how that does. Um, so what you could do next if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, I know I need to get myself back on track, uh, here's where I would start, you know, not with massive reinvention. Um, you know, you're not trying to become your future self overnight, but asking yourself, like, what do I need right now? Um, what is it that I need for myself to feed myself, my body, my brain, um, my nervous system? So is it sleep? Is it boundaries? Is it movement? Um, is it laughter? Is it silence? Um, is it nourishment? You know, do you need to sit by the ocean? And if it's things like less chaos, well, what does that look like for you? If it's therapy, uh, do you have someone that you, a therapist that you can talk to? Is it journaling? I mean, journaling can be a very, very powerful tool. If you've listened to any of my podcasts, you know I've journaled for a very long time. Uh, is it sunlight? Is it community? Do you need to make a contribution towards something else, giving to something else, taking um, you know, the focus away from your everyday? Is there something of purpose? Do you need to have an online detox? Do you need to get offline and get away from the doom scrolling if that's what you do? And you know, one of the things is if your if your feed, if you love your social media and your feed is just filled with negative, change the algorithm. You have the choice to do that and have it filled with more positive stuff, stuff that feeds you, um, stuff that, you know, is more nourishing than depleting. All right. And so ask yourself, what would help me feel more stable over the next 30 days? What do I truly need to feel more stable over the next 30 days? And just sit with that, you know, and it doesn't have to be a list of 20 things because you know that you're not going to be able to do 20 different things. But what's a couple of things that you can implement for yourself over the next 30 days, right? You're not looking for perfection, you're looking for stabilization because that will allow more clarity. And then you can uh have clarity which creates momentum so that you can build on that. Um, you know, so I think that um the most powerful thing we can realize after adversity is that you don't have to stay emotionally identified with the hardest chapter of your life forever. Um and you are allowed to recover, you're allowed to rebuild, and you're allowed to become someone different and create a space for yourself that's got more joy or purpose, peace, and have and create a vision. Um, when we're stuck in that fight or flight, we we don't have generally have capacity to have a vision of the future that we'd like to create. And so understanding that recovery is not a weakness, um, sometimes recovery is the bravest thing that you can commit to because you want a better version of yourself for the future, not a better version of yourself for somebody else, for you for your future. So I want to thank you for being here with me today. And please share this with someone you know it might resonate with. And um, I I want to thank you for uh joining me again, but also uh subscribing to the podcast. And I look forward to sharing more information with you, and I hope that you have a wonderful plan ahead for yourself. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.