REWILD + FREE - The Nervous System in 30 minutes!

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

The nervous system is NOT just this trendy thing circulating the internet right now! Let's talk about it! In this episode, I explain my own interpretation of the autonomic nervous system in 30 min!    Understanding my own nervous system has really helped me understand myself and reconnect to my body. Special thanks to my teachers and mentors on this topic:  Sela Felker Kimberly Ann Johnson Lindsey Lockett Connect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer)Want to be a guest on the podcast?  Fill out this formIf this show has inspired, transformed or made your life a tinyyy bit better in anyway and you’ve been searching for a way to say thank you, and support me in producing more episodes, you can now buy me a donut 🍩 (see link below)Support the showConnect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer) Want to be a guest on the podcast? Fill out this form

Welcome to the Not Just a Mom Show, where we have open and honest conversations about the vulnerabilities and the victories within entrepreneurship and new motherhood. If we haven't met yet, I'm Nicole Pazvir and I'm going to be your host. Here on the show, we don't subscribe to perfection. In fact, being present is the new perfect and showing up messy is the new norm. We are worthy, just as we are, as all that we are, not just the label we put on ourselves. We are more than just a mom, and I'm so glad you're here. Hello, I am recording this on a Saturday morning, and it has been the strangest day already. I woke up quite early. I

woke up before seven o'clock and I've kind of been waking up pretty early all week and I think that's just because I'm excited about some things that are going on and I've been feeling really creative in the morning so I've been trying to use that time to actually unlock that creative flow. And for me, that basically looks like staying in bed because Aubrey is likely laying on me or right next to me. And I'm usually just kind of unloading everything in my mind into the notes section of my phone. I've also been using my morning time to catch up on podcasts or like video replays that I've just been having a hard time finding time for,

especially ones that I want to be super present for and not like distracted with driving or walking or cleaning. Yeah, so today was a productive morning in that sense, but then the dog was throwing up, and so that got me out of bed, and I thought that was going to wake Aubrey up, but it didn't, and she literally has slept until like 9 30. She always sleeps in, like she always sleeps till like 8 or 9, but 9 30, 9 30 30 10 that's pushing it for her um and I have my stepdad Dave here this morning helping me out and he got here before Aubrey was even awake so it was like okay wait a minute this is weird like you're here you're supposed to be helping me by watching Aubrey but Aubrey's still sleeping so um we just got to chat. I had a tea, he had a coffee. It was nice to catch

up. And then Aubrey did finally wake up. So here I am sitting with my computer so I can record. And there outside, Aubrey likes to take everyone that comes over to our front yard. We have a boat. My husband likes to wakeboard and wake surf. So we have a boat that you can do that stuff on. I know nothing about boats, but like, it's not just a rowboat. It's not a sailboat. It's like a boat that you do fun things on. So we have one of those boats in the driveway and Aubrey likes to take everyone to the front yard to go touch the boat. So I think that's what they're doing right now. But it occurred to me that almost every podcast episode, I probably reference the nervous system in some way. Um, and I've been trying not to get super nerdy with the nervous system. I've been trying to keep it really digestible,

but I've also noticed that just like nervous system regulation and that language is kind of getting trendy. And I don't love that because trends historically kind of come and go. And of understanding why we are the way we are and why we are having certain reactions or certain beliefs or certain, yeah, just like thoughts move through us. So I wanted to spend today, well, not the whole day, but the time that I'm here recording, I wanted to spend this time just explaining a little bit more about the nervous system and my understanding of it. And so this episode is going to be a little bit different in the sense that I guess I'm kind of teaching. And I actually have notes for this one. If you guys have been listening, I definitely don't usually have notes. No guarantee that the notes are actually

going to keep me on track, but at least I'm going to try. So to start, I wanted to, well, first of all, I should give thanks to a lot of my mentors and teachers that have gotten me to the place of understanding that I'm in today. And some of my biggest mentors and teachers have been Kimberly Ann Johnson, Lindsay Lockett, and Selah Felker. I will link a way to connect with them in the show notes. I've referenced Kimberly Ann Johnson before on the show because she has a couple books that I absolutely love. Lindsay Lockett is kind of pivoting, I think, a bit online. So like her Instagram page is just evolving a bit, which is really inspiring to watch. But I've taken some of her earlier nervous system trainings and courses, and I've been part of her group nervous system hygiene course. So a lot of this information is taken from either

Lindsay Lockett or Kimberly Ann Johnson. And then Selah Felker is someone that I've worked one-on-one with, and she's been a huge, huge huge huge part of my own transformation and just my healing journey so yeah it's just super cool kind of taking a step back and seeing the influence that these people these women have had on me and I owe great thanks to them for being able to stand in their truth and being able to share their wisdom outwardly to people like me. And so I'm going to give some of that back to you today. But first, I want to, I guess, paint the picture or kind of tell a story. And that's just this visualization of a wolf and a rabbit. And if you've been in any of Kimberly Johnson's containers, she's likely kind of told this story.

And I think she even probably talks about it in her book. But just to save you the trouble and shorten it up, basically just think about a wolf and a rabbit. And they're both like in their natural habitat. So a wolf is just kind of walking, walking, doing his wolf thing through the prairies. And a rabbit is just probably like munching on some grass likely not a care in the world in this point of time um and then as the bunny is just chewing his grass minding his own business his ears perk up and maybe the like little hairs on the back of his cute little bunny neck start perking up and he his his his nervous system

is activated by a potential threat and out in the distance he can smell sense whatever bunnies do a wolf and so back to the wolf the wolf that's just been walking through the prairies doing his own thing the wolf smells this bunny and he starts having like just like pigeon vision what does pigeon vision that is not a thing pigeon vision I should probably cut that out but I probably won't because I hate editing you know what I mean he has his blinders on he has his blinders on for this bunny his nose is sniffing the ground he's following the tracks of the bunny his his salivary glands are probably salivating he's just like getting so excited for this yummy juicy delicious lunch he's about to get his hands on his paws because he's a wolf so he has paws not hands and so anyways this wolf kind of keeps following his nose keeps following his sight and following his felt sense

of where this bunny is and this bunny as it's detecting its prey in the distance it starts running and you know how bunnies do they they kind of run zigzag, zigzag, zigzag, and it looks totally inefficient, but that's what they do. So this bunny is zigzagging across the prairie fields, and this wolf just keeps, I don't know if the wolf would be charging at it, but you know, like stalking its prey very stealthily and strategically. And then there's going to come to a point where the bunny stops running and the bunny just collapses and lays down. And a lot of people say, oh, the bunny's just playing dead. And when we say playing dead, that almost insinuates that it was a choice and

it wasn't a choice. The bunny's nervous system basically detected a threat was coming and said we need to save our energy and literally like the bunny's body went limp to conserve the energy so the body is now laying dead not actually dead but looks like it's dead and as the wolf approaches it the wolf sniffs the bunny and thinks oh okay well this bunny's dead and so it picks it up and it gives it a good shake just to make sure it's really good and dead and then it throws the bunny off into the distance and goes on with its day likely never thinking about that bunny again and as the wolf is walking away come maybe he's going back to his like wolf family or maybe he's going to go find his next source of lunch i don't

know he he his his eyes start actually not being so centered and he starts looking around he probably yawns he probably stretches and he relaxes a little bit and so the wolf has completed the nervous system cycle of a healthy fight response. The bunny laying, playing dead, for lack of a better word, once it's felt senses that it's safe, it perks back up and it starts to shake. And if you have dogs, you see this in your dogs. Like my dogs shake all the time. And a lot of mammals do this to shake off charged energy. And so the bunny shakes. And again, the bunny just goes on to munching on grass like it was doing before and doing its cute little bunny things, likely to never remember that experience again.

And again, bunny has completed a nervous system cycle of basically a healthy flight response and freeze response because it shut down to protect itself. And this story is super cool because we see this in nature everywhere. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. And when we start trying to compare it to humans, it starts to make a little bit more sense in terms of like why humans are the way we are. As humans, we are mammals, we technically should be having very similar nervous system responses to other mammals. And the difference is, is we have a social engagement nervous system. Mammals, animals like the wolf and the bunny do not. So the wolf and the bunny have a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system. And if you've likely heard like fight or flight versus rest and digest. So that's what the bunny and the wolf have.

Thanks to polyvagal theory, we now know that humans have a social engagement branch. And basically, that means they have an extra layer, let's call it, to their nervous system that allows them to actually be social and think of how they are in relation to other social beings. And so as an example, for the bunny who had a little shake right after the instance, many humans would think, oh, I can't shake. I'm going to look silly. People are going to make fun of me. And so we don't complete that nervous system cycle because our egos basically get in our way. Anyways, enough about the bunny and the wolf. I want to get into actually discussing like the core of the nervous system and the different nervous system states.

And so to put it most simply, the nervous system physically is the spinal cord and all the nerves running through our body. Those nerves are constantly perceiving things from our environment and our body and communicating them to our brain. Basically, from that perceived reality that the nervous system is constantly uptaking from our environment, it coordinates reactions either emotionally or physically within the body so that's why we have certain reactions right physically we might um get butterflies in our stomach or the hair on the back of our neck sticks up or we just feel some sort of way or um some involuntary things that are happening within the body that we can't even see in terms of like

blood vessel dilation and digestion. All of those things are part of the coordination of the nervous system. And then in terms of emotions, again, like our nervous system is coordinating different hormones and stuff throughout the body. is coordinating cortisol which is our stress hormone it's coordinating oxytocin which is our feel-good hormone and so it's playing a part in what emotions we're feeling us to understand and explain our mental health our emotional health and our energy and um yeah just having that deeper understanding at least for me has really helped connect to myself and have understanding of why I do the things I do and it's also shed light on things that I thought were just part of my personality and helped me understand that no that's actually

like a survival response from my nervous system um and in terms of survival our nervous system. And in terms of survival, our nervous system, literally its main job, every single second, it's asking, am I safe? It's constantly on the lookout for threats, triggers, stress, things that are going to cause overwhelm, underwhelm, too much, too little, too fast, too slow, all of that. It's constantly looking for things that are altering equilibrium, basically. And so I already mentioned that in humans, we have the three branches because of the social engagement branch that has now been, I guess, made familiar because of polyvagal theory. And so I'm just going to go through what these states look like under threat

or in safety so under threat basically um oh and before I get into this like I just want to reiterate that this isn't conscious like we aren't thinking about this um these are things that are just happening without our logical mind having a say in it. And like I said, so the nervous system either acts one way when it's safe, and then it acts differently when it's under threats. And threats can be pains, threats can be stress, threats can be anything that is just feeling like too much. So under threat, the social engagement branch, that's going to include like our our fawn response and fitting in and that's so when we are agreeing to something or

maybe we're being extra nice, we're people pleasing. Basically, in this state, you're moving closer to your threat because that's safer than standing out. It's safer than confronting that person or setting a boundary. So in the social engagement branch, that's what other mammals don't have. So like that bunny, that bunny wasn't able to just fawn or fit in and pretend it's a wolf so that the wolf doesn't come eat it. This makes me wonder, what does this mean for the mammals that actually like can camouflage? But that's different, I think. And I don't even know if that's mammals or is that just like an iguana? I obviously need to do more research on my animals. Let's go back to humans. So once again, under threat, our social engagement branch is going to be

the fawning and the fitting in, the people pleasing. Under threat, our sympathetic nervous system, that's our fight or flight. This is what many of us know to be true. This is fight, you're moving towards something, or sorry, fight, you're moving away from something, fight, you're moving towards something. And fight can often seem aggressive. But I'm going to go into what this looks like in safety. And just like, we're also going to talk about what a healthy fight response looks like, because specifically in women, this really isn't modeled. This is something that a lot of us have a lot of shame towards um but that is me digressing so let me come back parasympathetic branch so that is our freeze response that's when our body is shutting down and again all of these things are protective mechanisms to keep us safe so these aren't necessarily bad even though our

society really likes to label things as good or bad, these things aren't bad. All of these serve a function. Now, in contrast, when our nervous system is in safety, the social engagement branch is going to be our sense of belonging, being able to bond, being able to be intimate, having healthy communication. It's our ability to speak out and set boundaries. It's being able to stand out and be different and just not really getting paralyzed with that fear of being an outcast or being kicked out because we're feeling safe. The sympathetic branch, that's gonna be,

when it's feeling safe, that's gonna be our drive and our focus. That's how we wake up in the morning. That's our healthy aggression. That's climax and orgasm in sex. In birth, it's the fetal ejection reflex. Basically, the sympathetic branch in safety is our doing energy. And then the parasympathetic branch, so that is more commonly known as like rest and digest.

That's when we're able to slow down. That's when we're able to release. This is our being energy. And in birth, this is when we're dilating. You can't force dilation. I mean, doctors try, but you can't force dilation. And dilation can only happen when you're feeling safe. So I'm going to reiterate that there's no good or bad here. We have to have all of these states. They're all functional, under-threatened in safety. It's not that one is on and one is off. Instead, I like to think of it as almost like a frequency,

like a dial on either like a light dimmer switch where you can change the frequency of the brightness of the light, or think of it as like the audio sound board on a DJ board, like if you were a DJ, whatever that thing is called. So basically your nervous system is the DJ of your body where you look online um people are talking about nervous system regulation and i just want to remind everyone that to be regulated does not mean to be calm and cool and collected all the time to be regulated basically just means you're not stuck in any one of those states. To be regulated means that your DJ sound board is always vibing different music, right? You're not stuck on one sound. And so really the truth about nervous system regulation is being able to be flexible and be agile in like the different nervous system states. And I think that's where a lot of us are missing the mark. We are feeling like we always have to be

in like those quote unquote healthy states where we're not aggressive. We're not lashing out. We're not aggressive. We're not lashing out. We're not just reacting too much or too little in any way. um the patriarchy it's been ingrained in us that it's not safe to be in some of our activated nervous system states and with that we start judging ourselves for them right when you feel like you i talked about this in previous episodes about being in my freeze response and how really the way to thought out of it was to not think too much of it and to not try to fix it. And I think that really is like the medicine in all of this is that none of these states are good or bad. And we really need to start on learning some of what society has kind of told us in terms of how we're supposed to show up in the world. The other thing is really starting to just become aware of our own inner judgments of ourselves

and instead coming to basically all of this with just this massive state of neutrality and curiosity instead of wanting to micromanage and fix and um i'm not sure if i want to talk about trauma or not i was i have it in my notes but i feel like that's like this whole other thing. I will just say that trauma, again, that's kind of like a trendy word online right now. And trauma simply is anything that's too much, too fast, or too soon. And this is why we have to be so careful with just exploring trauma because it's so unique to each person. So I don't know, for example, like me and someone else could have

the exact same experience. I might walk away feeling like it was traumatic and the other person might not. And I think once we can have that understanding, it actually helps give ourselves some self-compassion for why we're reacting the way that we are. I think that's all I'll say about trauma. And I've also said this on previous episodes, but I'll mention this again, that the more you're in one state, we often just go to what's familiar. So I think I've given a ski track analogy. We can play with that. Like ski tracks, it's just easier to follow where the tracks already are it's like grooves right so you it's easier to go where where there's a groove to follow as opposed to making a new groove and this is true for our nervous system so when we're under threat or aroused or stressed we tend to have default states we tend to just follow our ski tracks we tend to

just follow our grooves so this is why it can seem like as much as you want to logic your way out of the next time you're at a doctor's appointment and you want to speak your truth and say no to something but you end up walking away just agreeing to whatever they prescribed i know this from my own experience you can start to understand well well, okay, this actually makes sense because my default nervous system response is to just kind of fall in or fit in. My default nervous system response is to maybe be submissive in the context of being with

someone who I perceive as an authority figure. And this is when, because I think I made a comment about personalities, and Lindsay Lockett talks a lot about this, about like, just like your nervous system states not being your personality, so it can be so easy to identify as a people pleaser, for example. But once we start understanding that those people pleasing tendencies aren't just a personality trait that we need to stop doing, but actually a nervous system response that we need to start soothing, we need to start showing our system safety in order to work through it. It just kind of adds to, I guess, the already really intertwined layers of healing and working through life and personal

development and holistic health and all of the things I hope all of that was kind of helpful I hope I sort of explained that well I feel like it was a bit awkward because I was just talking and some of this really, really does do well with like a visual. So maybe, I don't know, maybe I'll do like a future workshop on this. I don't know. We'll see. I do want to talk about the healthy fight response for a minute though. This is a conversation that has been popping up literally all week for me.

I had a friend text me and share her experience about just kind of some maternal mama bear rage she was having and I really just helped normalize it for her about this too and really just discussing how that healthy fight response especially in women especially as moms really isn't modeled to us and there's so much out there about being like a gentle parent and a conscious parent and attachment parenting and it's tricky because when we really cling on to those identities it makes us feel like we can't be angry it makes us feel like we're not allowed to be triggered by our kids it makes us feel like there's just no space for having our own little temper tantrum because we're frustrated or

maybe because our needs aren't met or because fill in the blank maybe we're just hungry um and so yeah i just wanted to kind of bring this topic forward because i think it's something collectively as women um like i said it hasn't been modeled it's something collectively as women, like I said, it hasn't been modeled. It's something that we've kind of learned to feel shame and judgment towards. And I've heard some women voice that for them, it kind of, when they're feeling that rage, when they're feeling kind of their blood start to bubble and they start seeing red, it wants to come through them in the way of yelling. And for others, it wants to come through in the way of like aggression, of like hitting something and like using force. And I think both of those things are things that are really shamed in our society, right? Women aren't supposed to yell, women aren't supposed to hit, we're not supposed to do any of those things. And obviously, we're

absolutely not supposed to do those things to someone else. But when we are continually suppressing that emotion, we aren't completing that cycle. And so I want to bring it back to the wolf and the bunny again, and just remind you that like, both the wolf and the bunny again and just remind you that like both the wolf and the bunny had completed their cycles and by completing their cycle it doesn't become this big thing it doesn't become this big imprint in their mind and a sticky point in their experience in their story and I just want to invite you to reflect on when you were listening to the wolf and the bunny whose team were you on were you on team wolf were you like yes wolf I hope you get that bunny for lunch or were you team bunny like yay bunny I hope you can run away from this wolf I hope he doesn't get you I'm gonna go ahead and

assume that many of you were team bunny I know I was or am I don't even know where I stand on that right now but so many of us are kind of in this mindset of just identifying with the prey and identifying as the victim and needing someone to save us and all of these things and really being scared to lean into our own power and leaning into our own strength and it makes sense because like I've been talking about, it hasn't really been safe to do. We've been praised for being just small and quiet and appeasing to other people. And this leads me into Reclaim, which is an eight-week group container that I'm starting actually this Friday we have our first call on Friday but I've also added evening calls so the evening call would be on

Sunday so either August 4th or August 6th and basically it's going to be a mixture of live women's circles on zoom basically a a spot for storytelling, for reflecting, for mirroring, for basically just practicing using our voice and speaking our truth and really just starting to learn to even identify what that truth is and then speaking it out loud in a safe environment. And then we're also going to be, I'm going to be walking you through a guided study on the book called Made Into Mother. And I've talked about this on my social media basically all week. So you can go check out my Instagram if you want to know more about it. But basically, yeah, Reclaim is going to be just an

opportunity to not only explore the Made Into mother journey, but also just start uncovering and reclaiming our innate feminine power. And this ties in really nicely with what a healthy fight response looks like. And it's kind of cool because this is what I mean with the nervous system. Like it literally comes into every conversation because it is literally like the core of our being. And so as much as reclaim is kind of about leaning into your femininity and just like uncovering your truth and understanding yourself more as a woman and becoming that more mature feminine archetype, not this maiden just waiting for her prince charming to save her. You can't help but weave the nervous system into it. So anyways, I'm going to stop there. If you

want more info on Reclaim, I'll leave it in the show notes. Otherwise, make sure you're following me on Instagram if you don't already because I'm talking lots about it there. It's not too late to sign up. If you are listening to this and we're already past the start of Reclaim, I still encourage you to check out the book called Made Into Mother by Sarah Durham Wilson. It is an awesome book. It has literally just been a game changer in how I see everything.

And I'm so, so excited to be reading it again. And then in terms of nervous system resources, I think I've mentioned this on the show before, but Call of the Wild by Kimberly Ann Johnson is a beautiful introduction and just like really simple digestion of the nervous system. And really anything by Kimberly, anything from Lindsay Lockett, all great, great resources. So yeah, I'll leave it at that. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.

So I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode if you were thinking of anyone while listening please send it their way and if anything resonated with you or you love these conversations please subscribe and leave a review this really helps the podcast algorithms put my show in front of more people just like you. And the last thing, I would love nothing more than hearing from you. So say hi, DM me on Instagram and give me a follow at NicolePasvir. Until next time.