Why Can't I Follow Through on the Things i Really Want?

Have you ever decided that you want to enhance your life with a new job, an online course, a new habit, and something stops you from taking action?  You know this thing will be so good for you and you'll feel better or have more skills.  Your cognitive mind KNOWS this to be true.  It's logical.  It makes sense.

Perhaps you bought the course but can’t get yourself to sit down and do it. Or you got a request for an interview and you can’t bring yourself to schedule it. You committed to doing a new workout and you’re great for the first week and then you can’t stay consistent. You feel like you're a procrastinator, you don't have what it takes, and you can't follow through.

Me too!

I want you to know this also makes so much sense and I can really relate to this. 

Let's look at it from a nervous system perspective. 

One of the main jobs of your nervous system is to keep you alive by looking to see if the situation you're moving into is safe or dangerous.  AND it records safety and danger from every situation that you have.  This is happening below cognition, in your body brain.  Your body brain stores all of this information in a storage facility.

So, let's say in the past you had an experience where you moved towards something new, something that was good for you, and that experience was not safe for some reason.  Perhaps you were made fun of or new people or situations were dangerous in some way.

Fast forward to the NOW experience.  You want to move forward with this new habit or course.  So, your nervous system goes to the storage facility and checks to see, "does anything in this new situation match the danger of an old situation".  If it does match danger, your very reliable smart Autonomic Nervous System will turn on one of its defensive responses to stop you from moving towards the perceived dangerous situation. (typically a freeze or dorsal state)

Now you're in a conundrum because your mind wants to move forward but your body won't let you.  You can't talk yourself into it and the more you try the more frustrated you feel.  Not to mention the shame and guilt of not feeling like you can take action to improve your life.  This can create an inner battle and a very frustrating state of being.

How can we move forward from this pattern?

First, understanding why this is happening is so so important.  One of the ways the nervous system can feel safe and lower its defenses is through context.  When you can't move forward it means that your nervous system is doing an A+ job of taking care of you by keeping you safe from the "perceived threat" of this new thing you want to move towards. 

Second, once you understand that this is your nervous system taking care of you, it turns down the volume on the guilt and shame of the pattern.  When the shame and guilt lower a little bit, you can recognize that your nervous system is in a defensive nervous system state.

Third, knowing your states and how to move from defended into ventral or regulation. Once you recognize what state your nervous system is in you can start to work with it.  Go to your toolbox of regulation tools and begin to use them to slowly come back to regulation.  Tracking your sensory experience the whole time you can gently guide your body into a place of feeling present, awake, and a little safer. 

Fourth, take the next smallest step forward.

When you take a tiny step forward towards the new thing from a place of regulation, you're shifting the pattern from feeling dangerous to feeling safe enough to take that small step.  You can regulate before, during, and after that next tiny step to help your nervous system to FEEL into the new thing in a safe way.  This is how you can start to slowly teach your nervous system new patterns and move towards the things you want in your life. 

Your nervous system learned these old patterns and it can learn new ones.

It's so depressing to want to grow and feel like you can't. 

Let me know how this goes for you

And if you're ready to step into 1 on 1 support, click here to schedule a 30-minute consult to shift from feeling "I can't" into feeling "I can".

OR

Join a Somatic Movement class this week to build some regulation skills and add healthy movement to your life.

You Can't Love Yourself If You Don't Know Yourself

I'm just gonna let that sink in.

In order to love someone, you take time to get to know them. Spending time with that person over and over as you get to know their ins and outs, their sense of humor, how they are with others, how it feels to be with them, what it’s like to do activities together, what it’s like to be quiet together, etc...

To feel at ease in your own skin (at a bare minimum) and eventually feel love and appreciation for yourself, you've got to get to know yourself on all of these levels. Literally, build a relationship.

I've always thought of self-care practices as a way to develop a deeper relationship with yourself. Whether you're meditating, practicing yoga, breathwork, receiving a massage, journaling, therapy, etc. All of these practices provide private and intimate time between you and yourself.

For example, getting on your mat to do a yoga practice required you to carve out a specific time in your day (ie. date-night), create a sacred space by turning off notifications, adjust the lighting, close the door so you're not interrupted, and as you practice, you develop a curiosity and compassion with yourself (ie. getting to know all the parts of you as you move, breathe and feel).

Damn, sounds like a fun date!

Now, bring a deep knowledge of your nervous system into the picture, and then you truly have a relationship with yourself. You know what your body is saying to you and what you can do to shift that shit if you need to. You don't have to guess about what it needs or force it to do something that someone else is telling you to do. You know your boundaries and can set them without guilt or shame. You can fully sink into enjoyment and ease without feeling like the next shoe is gonna drop. You're communicating with your nervous system by listening and responding to what you hear. It's kinda like, the dream relationship you've always wanted with clear communication, curiosity, and compassion.

You are the longest relationship you're ever going to have.

To support deepening this relationship with yourself, I'd love to offer you a quick, down and dirty, breakdown of the 3 nerves of the nervous system. Why? Cause we should have learned this in 8th-grade biology class. AND this knowledge will directly affect how you develop your inner intimate relationship.

There are 3 nerves in the nervous system that run from your brain 🧠 stem down your spinal cord. From the spinal cord, bundles of nerves move into all of your organs, tissues, and skin. These bundles correspond to the chakras!!!🤯

The 3 nerves

Sympathetic

Parasympathetic - Dorsal Vagal

Parasympathetic - Ventral Vagal

Let's talk about Ventral Vagal first. This parasympathetic nerve supports resting and digestion. It helps all of your organs to work as they should, digest your food, and allows you to feel grounded, present, playful open to possibilities, and to feel a connection with others. The more you spend time here and marinate in the Somatic Experiences of the ventral vagal complex, the more resilience, health, vitality, and trauma resolution you will feel. The thoughts here are "I can."

Your self-protective system is made up of Dorsal Vagal and Sympathetic:

The sympathetic nerve turns on to mobilize the car. It's the gas pedal. A little bit is great for playing, getting things done in a relaxed way, and getting out of bed in the morning. A high sympathetic charge creates a feeling of irritability, anger, and rage. The thoughts here are "I must do this now".

Dorsal Vagal. This is like the emergency brake of a car. Where there's too much stress-energy in your system, Dorsal Vagal turns on to keep you alive. This creates a shutdown. The shut down could be how you live your everyday life, a little spacey, disconnected, out of body, and foggy. It can also look like procrastination, excessive crying, depression. The thoughts here are "I can't"

There is no good or bad when it comes to the nervous system. Whatever state you're in, your system is always and forever taking care of you, working to keep you alive. So...thanks Nervous System!

However, the stuck stress-energy in our bodies from traumas big and small can affect current experiences creating a feeling of being in the same patterns over and over again, the same addictions, the same relationships, the same emotions, or a small range of emotion, disconnection from the BodyHome as well as a slew of emotional and physical challenges.

Your nervous system learned these patterns in the past to keep you alive.

AND

Your nervous system can learn new patterns now.

I hope this is helpful and I am here to support you in a deeper connection to who you are. I invite you to live into the possibility of a new way of living and being in your own skin.

Reply to this email to schedule a 1 on 1 consult for private work

OR

Join a Somatic Movement class

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With love, courage and regulation
Dorie

Yearning for the Good Old Days?

Happy Solstice

After this past year, do you find yourself yearning for the good old days? The days before masks and fearing other people's bodies. The days of being at concerts waving your body to the beat of the music with other people. the good old days of being together to without worrying about other people breathing on you.

It's kind of like pining for an old flame from the past.

Idealizing the relationship as if there were no challenges.

Your mind and body are living together in the same skin, and yet when we're pining for what was, your mind is in a different time zone than your body.

Don't get me wrong, I love to get lost in a juicy fantasy and the idealized past in my head.
But it can feel as though I'm split into 2 worlds and not fully here for my life.

A big part of healing from the intense experience we were and are in, is allowing the body part, the somatic part of you, to fully digest and finish the defensive responses (aka. stress-energy) of the covid experience.

-being locked up in isolation

-not connecting with others

-depression, anxiety, fear, worry

-losing jobs, freedom, money

-not knowing when or if you'll see your family members, partners, friends

Even as things are opening back up, there is still so much wobbliness and uncertainty.

If you are struggling with the ups and downs of your reality and would like to find ways to clear negative thought patterns, anxiety, worry, depression, chronic pain, or migraines, it may be time to explore Somatic Experiencing.

Somatic Experiencing will bring your body and mind back to the same time zone so your body can move through and fully finish what's keeping you stuck and bogged down. This will release your life energy for the things you want to move towards in the next chapter of your life. It will also help you find more ease in your own skin.

Reply to this email to set up a 1 on 1 consult for Somatic Experiencing

and/or

Join a Somatic Movement class this week

with LOVE, Courage, and Regulation

Dorie