Headaches, Nausea and your Nervous System

Today I want to talk about how to understand what's happening in your body in relationship to your nervous system.

When you have a headache, feel nauseous or have pain my guess is you have strategies to take care of them.  Perhaps you reach for the Advil bottle or eat an edible or you're down for the count needing to hide in your bed under the covers for the rest of the day.

None of these strategies are wrong or bad (the Advil is questionable), however did you know that these are all signs your nervous system is giving you that you're overloaded.

Yes, these symptoms are a message from your BodyHome telling you that you are moving towards a state or freeze or dorsal.  And that energy that's causing the discomfort is yearning to complete.  It  is so powerful to know this because when you have mapped your nervous system you will have a clear idea of what is happening.  And when you know what nervous system state you're in, you can let go of trying to analyze or figure out why you feel the way you feel.  What a relief!  Instead, you'll utilize the simple somatic tools that work for you to support your system in coming back to a state of regulation (where you feel good).

In my experience, I've seen pain and headaches be relieved inside of one session with countless clients.  I've also relieved my own discomfort and suffering. 

I used to get nauseous and dizzy ALL THE TIME since I was a little girl.  I remember my mom used to give me some green syrupy cough medicine before bed so that I wouldn't get dizzy when I woke up.  It worked sometimes but it was just masking the fact that my nervous system was overloaded.  It wasn't until I started repatterining my nervous system that those dizzy spells started to diminish.  When I do feel nausea or dizziness coming on, I recognize that my system is in overload and I can support my system to move towards regulation clearing those symptoms.

THIS IS A SUPERPOWER!

It doesn't matter how long you have had these symptoms or how old you are.  You can re-pattern how your system responds to stress.

Most importantly, you deserve to understand how your body works and how you can work with it. 

Ready for somatic therapy?

Contact me here to set up your 30-min complimentary consult

Tools for anxiety during the holidays

Hello Friend~

Thanksgiving is next week.
Whether you are spending time with family or friends, the holidays can be a confusing and exhausting time physically and mentally.

If you are someone who is easily triggered by your family dynamics, you're not alone. Our nervous system patterning begins before conception and is developed throughout your childhood until you're 25. This means that we are typically most triggered or notice ourselves moving into old patterning when we're with our family.

A few examples of things that might show up for you around the holidays:

• self-soothing by eating too much

• feeling reactive

• feeling irritable and angry

• feeling anxious, rushed, or a sense of urgency

• thoughts racing and feeling like you can't get everything done

• your inner critic gets louder in your head

• feeling stuck or like you're in a cage or trapped

• chronic pain like headaches, stomachaches, and joint pain may get more intense or more frequent

• feeling invisible in the family

• feeling like you have to take care of everyone

• neglecting your own self-care and caring for oneself in general

• grief or a lot of sadness

One of the most important things to remember is all of these experiences are all coming from your amazing and brilliant nervous system which is doing its very best to keep you alive.

In fact, these experiences are self-protective responses that began when you were little to keep you alive. And the current experience of being with family is pulling these out of your implicit memory, the memory in your nervous system.

That's why when you're a grown-ass adult and you're with family, you can feel like you're a kid all over again.

So, what can you do to mitigate the intensity of the holidays?
I invite you to develop tools that you can use when I'm with people and when you're alone.

1. When you're by yourself:

Find a handful of tools that you know help you to regulate your nervous system and practice those when you're alone. When you're doing those activities that feel good, shift your attention from doing to the experience your body is having. What are the sensations, images, impulses, and emotions you feel when you're inside that enjoyable activity? (ie. tingling, openness, calmness in the mind, heaviness, etc) Practice these tools throughout the day looking for signs of regulation.

2. When you're with other people:

Have a handful of tools you can use when you're with your people. Some of your regulation tools from step 1 may work here. I think it's really important to have an exit plan for when you get overwhelmed so you don't feel trapped which will increase your activation. One of my favorites is to go to the bathroom and do something to move that energy so I can return to the group a little more present. (ie. shaking, shaking my head from side to side, putting my arms out in front of me in a STOP position, etc).

There is incredible empowerment when you can take care of yourself in stressful situations.

Want to develop your own toolbox and shift out of feeling anxious and overwhelmed?
Let's chat about somatic therapy.
Click here to set up a complimentary 30 min consult

Grief can happen when you least expect it

Yesterday I went to a nearby forest preserve for a hike.  I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of sporadic sunshine on my skin while surrounded by trees who leaves have transitioned from dark green to orange, yellow and lime green that gently rode the wind down from the branches to the ground.    The uneven squishy earth on the trail was a welcome change on my feet from hard cement city sidewalks and sounds of birds and running river water was music to my ears accustomed to sirens and traffic.  I was present and soaking in the yummy.

While on this glorious walk, all of the sudden my thoughts started racing.  I found myself urgently planning my future. Thinking, " If I do this then I can this".  Exploring all of the possible scenarios and choices that I might make in the future.  Then, in a moment that seemed totally out of the blue, I got very sad.  Tears formed in my eyes and a familiar heart ache formed in my chest.  I paused my walk and began to notice the sensations in my body as the emotion came like a wave.  Tears, sound, chest pain, then tingling down my arms and legs.  I let myself ride this wave of emotion for about 60 seconds...then it was gone. 

I began walking again, slow and steady. As I walked,  I started to reflect on what just happened. I noticed that right before I felt that emotion that I am now calling grief, my thoughts were focused on what I'm going to do in the future and they felt urgent.  Interesting.  I don't know what the grief was about and I don't need to know.  What I do know is that that pattern of thoughts is very familiar and its a sign from my body telling me something needs to move through.  Now this is powerful information.  Knowing the signs that your body is telling you, "I need a minute to digest something".  Now I can really listen for that sign, pause and give my system a minute to digest whatever is there.  So powerful.

Healthy nervous system patterns look like riding the wave of emotion and then coming back to being present, just like I did on my hike.  Because what is extremely damaging and dis-ease producing is stuffing emotions or experiences down or feeling too much and getting stuck in them.  It's so common to stuff or ignore what we feel.  It's what we've been taught and it explains a lot of the challenges we face now.

When you've lived a lifetime of not feeling OR feeling too much, you develop low ability to fully feel the full spectrum of emotion.  It may not have felt safe in your family to express how you felt and it certainly isn't well received in our culture. Now, you're anxious, depressed or stuck and you know you need to learn how to feel emotions to completion but it just feels like waaaay tooo much for you to handle.  The fear is you might rage on someone or get lost in depression and never come back.

I intimately know these worries because I lived it for many many decades and my clients talk about it in our work together.

Here's what I know to be true.  Your nervous system wants to come back to regulation and feel safe and at ease.  When you provide it the education and experience of safety in feeling, you can more easily ride out your emotions and then settle in a regulated space.  When you do that you have more energy, feel open and receptive, feel safe, curious, creative and able to listen to your gut.  And when you feel an emotion, you can move through it and get on with your life. 

If you feel ready to learn these skills, go here to book a 30 min consultation to talk about somatic therapy.