This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Stop Saying “I’m Fine”: Nervous System Regulation for High-Achieving Women with Michelle Grosser | 372

Starting point is 00:00:00 I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. And in today's world, women's work often looks like juggling 12 things at once while assuring everyone we're fine. We're totally fine, just fine. I said I'm fine, right? Aren't we all out there smiling through the stress, getting shit done and running on fumes? We push through because we care. We over function because we're capable. And we tell ourselves that it's just a season, which ends up being a lie because this season we're in feels comparable to winter in Alaska. And if you're anything like me, you've probably spent

Starting point is 00:00:53 a whole lot of time trying to think your way to a better place. You try the strategies. You read the books, you take the courses, you listen to the podcasts, you look for the gurus, you seek outside of yourself for the answers. But what if, and hear me out on this, these things are support systems, but not solutions. What if the next step isn't more learning, more doing, or more figuring it out? What if the thing that changes everything is being connected, being grounded, and being regulated with and to your body? Because here's the deal. I don't care how many step-by-step guides you follow.

Starting point is 00:01:33 You can't create peace from panic. You can take as many courses as you want, but you can't unlock creativity when you're in survival mode. And it doesn't matter how many leadership books you read. You still can't lead powerfully if your mind is sprinting and your body is screaming for rest. We've talked about burnout before. We've talked about the nervous system.

Starting point is 00:01:54 And we're going to keep talking about them because we clearly keep needing to. So if you're feeling like all of your systems are nervous, this episode is for you. Michelle Grocer is a nervous system strategist, podcast host, and formal trial attorney who now helps high achieving women regulate from the inside out. Her science-backed, sematically grounded approach to leadership

Starting point is 00:02:18 as helping women get out of their heads, into their bodies, and finally feel grounded in the lives they've worked so very hard to build. Michelle, welcome to the show. And let's start by talking about why being busy, overworked, overcommitted, and all around burnt out has become sort of this badge of honor. Like we talk about it so much. Oh man, you nailed that. I think there are so many factors at play. I think some of it is cultural, some of it is societal, some of it is, you know, things we've brought on ourselves and been conditioned to. And I also think that each of us is always playing one of two games, right? We're either playing an outside in game or an inside out game. And you're nodding your head along. So this is probably something if you guys listen to this show you've heard of or you guys have talked. about, but the idea that either I am looking to the outside to make me feel what it is that I'm wanting to experience, right, at peace, successful, fulfilled, productive, joyful, what have you, and looking to my work or my children or my spouse or everything on the outside. If I can just get it out there, it's going to be able to make me feel how I want

Starting point is 00:03:33 to feel. So that's an outside in game or playing an inside out game, right, where I understand that I am actually the source of everything that I want to experience. And I can certainly work hard and have big dreams and goals and want to be connected to people that I love. But regardless, right, I know that if I want to experience more joy or more peace or more patience or more success, that's actually an inside game. And I think we've gotten that really conflated. I think there's a lot of pressure on us as women, particularly high achieving women doing

Starting point is 00:04:08 all the things and raising kids and managing a home. I think the help as far as like our community and our family and running the life that we run is very different than how I think it was actually designed to be. And then I also think that, you know, somehow for some reason, call it the patriarchy, call it like whatever it is that you want to point to. It's probably a lot of things. I think we've lost the truth that we all have limitations, right? I have limitations on my time, on my energy, on my bandwidth, on my attention, all of these things. And we're expecting ourselves to be able to function at a pace for longer stretches than is actually possible. Forget practical, right?

Starting point is 00:04:52 So I think there's a lot of pieces at play there, but certainly I've run that race and led me straight to burn out, hence the work that I'm doing now. Okay, Michelle, truly, we could probably stop the podcast right there and have a phenomenal episode. there's so much in there, and the reason I was nodding my head so much is this is completely aligned with what I know to be true about confidence. I often say we get so many mixed and false messages about confidence, and the sneakiest one is that we are supposed to seek confidence outside of ourselves, right? Like that it's somewhere out there, someone or something has our confidence and we got to find it and get them to give it to us or whatever. and it's only ever always an inside-out game. So I know this to be true about trusting ourselves, which is how I define confidence firmly and boldly.

Starting point is 00:05:45 And it's not even remotely surprising to me that this would be true about all the other things that we want that are important. And yet, it's just so easy to default to knowing that we want certain things and then like trying to figure out how to get it. So like we talk about stamina, we talk about energy, we talk about focus, we talk about relationships, creativity.

Starting point is 00:06:13 I mean, the list goes on of all the things that we want. Yeah. So if it's not an outside in game, how do we create those things internally? What are, I'm quick to go to doing. So challenge me every time I do that. Yeah. But what are some of the things that we should be listening to inside of our bodies for to create those things we want?

Starting point is 00:06:37 Does my question make any sense? Yeah, I think so. So this is kind of what I'm hearing. Let's say, I mean, we can use, let's say like being productive, right? I think that's one of the things that it's really like get this planner and organize your calendar in this way and then optimize these 17 different things in your morning routine and you're going to have a productive day, right? All of that is that.

Starting point is 00:06:58 external. So let's kind of talk about, I think first you make a great distinction between doing and being, because that's a huge part of it. And then let's kind of jump in to how this works somatically with our body, if that's okay. Does that make sense? Okay, great. Okay, I guess to start, I think a lot of times we get caught up in that hustle and kind of where our conversation started today and just doing all of these things because it's actually a mis, a disordered life, right? We are ordering our life, or if we do all these things, or this is our thought process, if I do all these things, then I'll finally be able to have what it is that I'm chasing, right? And then I'll be able to experience the life I want to experience. So if I build the business, work hard,

Starting point is 00:07:44 have the kids, get the marriage, get the house, get the, all the things, right? Then I'll be able to have the money and the success and the, you know, peace of mind and what have you. And then I'll finally be able to, like, be present and grounded at work and at home. And that's just a mountain with no peak, right? You kind of alluded to it at the beginning. We get caught in the doing, and then lo and behold, there's always more doing. And it just never kind of seems to resolve itself. And then what we're chasing is always just like, just out of reach.

Starting point is 00:08:12 Like, it's just over there. I see it. It's so close. I just got to push harder and go harder. And it's this illusion. So if we just reorder that, right? Instead of doing so I can have, so then I can be, we just kind of swap that. And if we be and then do from that place,

Starting point is 00:08:28 of being, we actually get to have more of what we want to experience because like attracts like, right? It's the law of residence. It's we get to reap what we sow. So if we want to be fulfilled, let's say, or at peace or whatever, then what does it look like if we would do from that place? Like what would peaceful, grounded Michelle do in the morning, right? She sure as heck wouldn't wake up to like a blaring alarm, grab her phone, check her email, right, and get all that dopamine and cortisol pumping through her system and then wake up her kids when everyone's already running late and nothing's been prepped the night before and right no she would wake up and have she would just be peace right she would exude peace she would make decisions from a place of peace her life

Starting point is 00:09:13 would look so different and then as a result she would actually be able to have a peaceful morning and then what she would be able to to attract is more peace so I think that's kind of a good starting place to take a look at like hey where am I doing and trying to earn this stuff that I actually have the accountability, the opportunity to just be from that place. And I think that changes things. And let's talk about how this shows up in our body. I think a couple things. When we talk about our nervous system, there are three different circuits in our nervous system. And we are always operating in one of those circuits. So when you think about, I like to liken it to driving a car, right? A car has a gas pedal and a car has a brake. Just same thing as our nervous system.

Starting point is 00:09:57 So both of those are very necessary in order for a car to be able to function and serve its purpose. Same is true for us, right? We need a little bit of that gas pedal, right? This morning, even just getting ready, preparing to be on your podcast. Like I needed a little bit of that go, go, go energy. I needed my brain to be sharp and focused and prepared. And we also need a break, right? There are times where I need to downshift where my body needs to actually rest and recover.

Starting point is 00:10:22 If I've been going too hard, I need to push on that break, right? and kind of slow things down. And there's always that constant like a little bit of break, a little bit of gas. That's how our nervous system is designed to function. What happens is that so many of us are living the life, right, the pace, the expectations, the stimulation, the information, all of it, where that gas pedal is constantly on. And that's when we're in our sympathetic nervous system. We talk about being in fight or flight.

Starting point is 00:10:51 And we kind of talk about what that looks and feels like and then how it impacts how we lead at home and at work. But we're stuck in that space, and that has a huge impact. We're not designed to be stuck there. Or it's the other extreme, right? We're stuck in a freeze response with the brake pedal push down. And we feel really burnt out or disconnected or dissociated or we find we're procrastinating a lot. We feel overwhelmed, but we can't take action, right? So the key here is to have tools. And ultimately, this is the work that I do and teach, that when you notice you're in either of those two states. How can I help myself? If I'm way up here, activated, ain't just fight or flight, right? Feeling urgency, everything's behind. There's not enough.

Starting point is 00:11:32 Tools to bring myself down regulating back to baseline. And then when I'm feeling really low, how can I upregulate my energy with body-based tools? And the reason, and I guess I'll kind of end here and then let you ask and take it where you want to take it, we start with our body is because as we study the nervous system, what we learn, and this is so huge, you guys, is that only 20% of the nerves in our body are sending messages from our brain down to our body. What does that mean? That means if we're working only on mindset and affirmations and, you know, planning out our day and the logistics and everything in our head, I mean, you talk about confidence, right?

Starting point is 00:12:17 if we're trying to convince ourselves mentally to have confidence, let's say we have to speak on a stage, right? And we're like, you're prepared, you've got this. Like, your heart is still racing. Your voice might still be cracking and it's hard to get it out. Your hands are shaking because only 20% of the messaging in your body is coming from your head, your mindset work, and sending messages down. The other 80% is what we call our afferent nervous system. That means it's taking its cues from our body and actually sending that up to our brain. What kind of cues is it taking? Well, if we're breathing really shallow and quick, our body is like, whoa, we're getting ready to run from something, right? Something's not safe. Message to the brain, right? Put us in fight or flight. If our muscles are

Starting point is 00:13:03 tense, oh, we're bracing, right? Something bad must be about to happen. Message up to the brain, put us in fight or flight. If we're really jittery, if we're like, if we have a pit in our stomach, If we have butterfly, all of those cues are being sent up to our brain. So if we're only working on our mindset stuff or our planning or intellectualizing everything, at the end of the day, it's like a four to one tug of war, right? We're going to lose every time. So we actually have to have tools to show our body, hey, we're good, right? We got this.

Starting point is 00:13:37 You can downshift, give me access to the parts of my brain that let me show up grounded and in control. and then that's the game changer. So that's fascinating to me because we do hear so much and spend so much time like brain to body, I think, and it's nice that it's 20% effective,

Starting point is 00:13:55 but being able to have such a greater impact. I want to go back to something you said early on. I call it the false equation of confidence, but I think it applies here too. It's that if X happens, then I'll feel whatever it is that you want to feel. And it's, again, that looking for, or something external as opposed to the equation that actually works is if I'm X,

Starting point is 00:14:20 I'm more likely to get whatever it is that I want or if I'm confident or if I'm safe or if I'm whatever it is that we claim we want, if I'm creative, then I'm more likely to get this thing. So I want to talk about some of these tools. But before we do, in my preparation, I read something that you say that there's a connection between success and safety in the nervous system. Why is that and what does that mean? Because obviously a lot of us really want success. And I think maybe, I mean, I know we all want safety, but it seems like something we don't think about as much as success. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:58 Oh, what a good question. Okay. So our nervous system as our body's command center has one primary function. Like it's always only looking out for and concerned about one thing. that's keeping us safe, right? Like, it doesn't care if we take good calculated risks. It doesn't care if we feel fulfilled. It doesn't care if we're successful.

Starting point is 00:15:18 It doesn't care about if we're confident any of that. It only cares if we're safe. So that's going to be the primary function. We know now that 95 to 98% of everything that we think say and do every day is governed by our subconscious, our nervous system, right? It's just making decisions calling the shots without us even being aware of it all day long. How does that relate to our success? When we were talking about that analogy with the car, the gas pedal or the brake, when we're stuck with a gas pedal on, i.e. in fighter flight, or let's just start there, when we're stuck in fighter flight, knowing that our nervous system has one job to keep us safe, because we're in that stress response and our nervous system is prioritizing safety, it actually, when we're in that state, it actually shuts down our prefrontal cortex.

Starting point is 00:16:10 That's the part of our brain that is responsible for all executive function. So if we want to have access to higher levels of communication, right, being able to brainstorm and be creative, solve problems, making decisions, right? Seeing things from different perspectives, managing moving parts, planning anything, we need access to that part of our brain. It's awesome. And relative to the emergency response part of our brain, it's very slow, right? You touch a hot stove. you don't need your prefrontal cortex to be like, should I lift my hand or not, right? It bypasses that part of our brain. The alarm center comes right on and it's just instinct, right?

Starting point is 00:16:48 So when we're operating in fight or flight, day and day out, which actually most of us do, that part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex is not online. And our subconscious patterns and our fears and, you know, our risk aversion and our fear of rejection and embarrassment and criticism and all these things keep us playing really small. So if we can, one, I notice when I'm in fight or flight, two, I have tools to shift out of that state and bring me back to a place of regulation. That's the third circuit or ventral vagal where we want to be spending most of our time. Bam, what happens? My prefrontal cortex can come back online and I have access to all of my mental faculties that help me achieve the success I'm after. Let's call this what

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Starting point is 00:21:00 What do we need to be putting in our toolbox that focuses on the 80% body to brain inside out? Because we have a lot of shit in our toolbox that goes the other direction, right? That's right. Yeah, we do. And then we get frustrated because we're like, man, I've been doing this forever. And I'm, I still feel stuck. Okay. I like to talk about it both in the micro and the macro.

Starting point is 00:21:21 So big picture, there are things that we need to do, incorporate, deal with, frankly, in our life that are dysregulators. or regulators, right, that on the day-to-day, these are just like lifestyle, big-picture things. And we also want to have in-the-moment tools, right? Big picture, I'm kind of, I'm really taking care of my nervous system. It's growing in resilience and flexibility. I can handle way more stress than I used to be able to handle and it doesn't send me into fight or flight. However, life's going to keep on lifing.

Starting point is 00:21:54 And in the moment, stuff is still going to trigger me and bother me and frustrate me and annoy me and make me anxious. and I want to have in the moment tools to shift the state of my nervous system. Okay, so I'm going to go through some of the things that kind of shrink our bandwidth, shrink our window of tolerance and make us really susceptible to having this rigid nervous system that it just doesn't take much for us to be thrown into fight or flight or freeze response. One, I think emotional regulation is huge. So if we do not have practices to feel, right, to actually release,

Starting point is 00:22:30 our emotions, especially those big ones that are really uncomfortable, that frankly we run into a lot in business and life and parenting. And we are masters at suppressing and repressing. That takes a massive amount of energy and that shrinks our bandwidth and it dysregulates our nervous system. So I think emotional hygiene, if you will, is really important. And then it's things like boundaries, right? What are we protecting? I teach boundaries around our attention, our behaviors, our bandwidth, and then our inner child, right? How are we fostering and re-parenting that part of ourselves? What are our coping mechanisms for stress? That's a big one. But then there are three daily things that I teach in this big picture thing, and I can go through them really quickly. But one is movement.

Starting point is 00:23:16 Movement, there's no way around it. It's the number one most efficient way to regulate our nervous system. I mean, if you even just think about the term fight or flight, every cell in our being is primed for movement because we want to fight or we want to run right our body's like ah we're freaking out like the numbers don't match or this client called upset something's not safe we should run or we should fight and most of us spend a lot of our day right not moving sitting down sedentary so movement daily movement is the number one regulator for your nervous system second is stillness we have to have pockets during the day where our brain is not being inundated with information and demands and sounds and, you know, ask requests for snacks,

Starting point is 00:24:06 like whatever it is. So if you have a meditation practice or something like that, awesome, good on you. For someone like me, I just like, man, if I'm going to drive commute or drive to the grocery store or something, like can I do that just in silence, right? Can I come back from morning drop off and just be in silence? Can I fold the laundry without having the TV going in the background. Our brain needs those pockets to reorganize, right, to flesh itself out, to be creative. And a lot of us are just going, going, going from the moment we wake up. There's always sounds, noises, right? Lights, requests, information. And our brain doesn't have the chance to wind down and do the work that it does in those times. And then the third one is play. So many of us,

Starting point is 00:24:51 we work so hard. It's like, man, my schedule's already so busy. Like, I don't have time to play. That's for kids. I don't even know what I would. would do. But play, and what I mean by that, is really just doing something that like brings you joy for no reason, right? There's no end that you're after. You know, when we play, we're only able to access that when our body feels fully at ease, right? We're able to kind of get lost in it. No one needs anything from us. So play is a really strong regulator of our nervous system. It will actually grow your bandwidth in a huge way to increase the capacity of the stress you can hold. So putting in pockets of play. So those are like the big picture things that really help grow the resilience.

Starting point is 00:25:31 And Michelle, I just want to reiterate that those you said are daily practices, movement, stillness, and play. So I have to imagine like me, there are some people over listening that it's like, I play once a quarter. We're talking about daily, yes? Yeah, I mean, ideally, right? Like moving your body, I think, if you can move your body four or five days a week, awesome, right? If you can go for a walk without your headphones and your phone, you're getting in stillness and movement at the same time. And then, then play, I mean, more regularly than you are right now, I think is a win. None of this is really rigid. But yeah, and, you know, what I teach is like, you don't have to overcomplicate it.

Starting point is 00:26:08 You don't have to go out and buy something. Like, do you love playing soccer with your kids in the backyard after dinner. Go do that. Do you love to, you know, read fiction before bed. Go do that. Do you love to paint cookies on the weekend or play an instrument or go shoot hoops in the yard or garden? Like, just do more of that. Yeah. Okay. So I'm glad you said that because that was going to be my second part, my point in saying daily was that more frequently than we probably think or more than we're probably doing, right? But then that second piece was I think women especially have a tendency to like, am I doing it right? Right. And so it's almost becomes contradictory somehow because we're so focused on checking boxes or doing it right or this doesn't count or whatever. And so

Starting point is 00:26:54 I'm glad you said that. What I heard is this is not meant to be rigid. There is flexibility. And you've got to really check in with you and your body about what works and what feels good. And I hone in on movement specifically. My regular listeners are probably so sick of me saying this. But I think when many of us think of movement as women, we think of like, I need to be dripping sweat at the gym. And we think about it in the context of what's going to make us look the best. And when we're talking about movement here, sure, if that, it feels good to you and you want to do that, great. I'm not saying don't go to the gym or don't work out hard. But I want to make sure that we're counting a walk or playing soccer with our kid. We're talking about movement, not a workout hour-long thing, correct? Yes, and that's such a good distinction, and I'm glad you brought that up. because when we talk about high-intensity workouts, moving our body with high-intensity, our body, our brain, they've developed, they've evolved in such amazing ways.

Starting point is 00:28:02 There's still a lot of way for us to go. Our brain does not do a good job differentiating between good and bad stress. Stress is stress. So when we actually engage in really high-intensity workouts, we're actually stressing our body that's probably already beyond the bandwidth of the stress we can handle. So a lot of the women that I work with that come in and they're really high, right, high activity, they're feeling anxious, everything's urgent, they're feeling like they're always on edge. It's actually dialing back a lot of those really intense workouts.

Starting point is 00:28:32 And yes, go for a walk, right? Sit on your floor and just do some stretching or some Pilates or some yoga. Because a lot of times before we can regulate our nervous system, our body actually can't handle the additional stress of a really high intensity workout. Yeah. Okay. I cannot let you go without asking about this. I think when we think about the outside in approach,

Starting point is 00:28:53 what we end up creating is a lot of overthinking, a lot of anxious feelings, a lot of stress, like from an urgency, got to get shit done place. Yes. You talk a lot about being grounded and that going inside out approach will have you start to be living and leading from a grounded state.

Starting point is 00:29:14 I'm curious your thought. Being grounded for me is something that I have a really hard time articulating it. I know it when I feel it. There is something of like, there's almost a physical, like, I do feel more like feet on the ground, settled. But what are we talking about here when we talk about being grounded or a grounded state? What does that look and feel like so we know it when it happens? Yeah. Oh, what a good question. And I love that even as you were trying to articulate it for yourself, what was coming through is how it feels, right? And I think that's so important. So how does it feel to be grounded? And when we talk about feel, I'm talking about sensations in our body, right? I'm talking about emotions. So what does it look or feel like or what might it look and feel like to be grounded? I'll speak for me personally. When I am grounded, I'm I do not feel like I'm running behind.

Starting point is 00:30:17 When I am grounded, right, I do not feel the sense of, like, urgency that there's not enough. I'm operating from a place of abundance, right? And I think that can go in a lot of different places. For me, it's usually time and resources as far as, like, help kind of abundance and not this scarcity of like, there's so much to do today and not enough time to get it done and I don't have enough help kind of place. when I am grounded, I'm able to be present, right, so I can sit down at my desk and I can be where my feet are. And when the workday is done, I can go be where my feet are with my family and make dinner and be present in conversation with them, present to me, because I know what the opposite looks like, right? When I'm not grounded, I'm constantly checking my phone and I'm constantly looking for

Starting point is 00:31:02 refreshing my email or my social media or what have you. That's me caught in hypervigilance or fighter flight. When I'm grounded, what does my speech look like, right? A lot of us, when we're in fighter flight, will tend to speak very quickly, right? And the words will just keep coming and they won't stop. Or we find that where, you know, our tone will change or the volume of our voice will change. So how does that sound like when you're really present and grounded? It probably, you know, your cadence will change and your tone and your volume will change. Do I have the capacity to see things from other people's perspectives, right? Can I access empathy and compassion? How about when I'm grounded, do I have the ability to access curiosity before judgment? For me, that's a huge one.

Starting point is 00:31:51 When I'm not grounded, I'm so quick, right, to judge myself for everything. Man, like, why did you do that? That wasn't good enough. That's not going to work. Like, every time you yell at your kids, you're like ruining them, you know, whatever, that judgmental voice comes up about myself and others, right? critical about my husband, critical about my team. When I'm grounded, whoa, I get curious. I notice it. Man, I wonder why I did that. Oh, that's so interesting that I chose to say that instead of this.

Starting point is 00:32:18 Let me go back and like rewind that and see how I can make sure I don't do that next time. I wonder why my team did this, right? So I think, I mean, that's a lot of things all over the place. But I think when we feel grounded, it is. It's all encompassing. And I think the best word to associate it with is I'm just really able to be in the hearing now. Yeah. I'm so glad you said that about the judgment because I can't speak for everybody else, but like, amen, right?

Starting point is 00:32:43 Like that's a really big sign for me that I am not in a very grounded or regulated place. Now, I said that was going to be my last question, but I have to ask this because I don't want to skip over it. No matter how much we practice any of these daily tools or that we are emotionally regulated. or have good boundaries or really great with our coping mechanisms, life still keeps lifing, as you said. And so what about some of these backpocket in the moment shit hits the fan and what are some of those tools that we need to know about? For sure. Okay. So our body does not speak a verbal language, right? It's why like, have you ever been really upset about something or frustrated or annoyed and someone's like been like, Nicole, just calm down. It's like that never works.

Starting point is 00:33:32 or to myself, right? Like, that actually makes me rage even harder. I'm like, are you kidding me right now? Like, I wish I had thought of that. I would love to calm down right now, but that's just not what my body is doing, right? So it doesn't speak a verbal language. How does our body receive communications of safety,

Starting point is 00:33:47 which is ultimately what it's always seeking? Movement, sound, breath, touch, temperature changes, pressure, like compression, a weighted blanket, something like that. All of these are different ways in which our body receives the mess. of safety. So we want to have, like you said, back pocket tools that help shift the state of our nervous system. So to a certain extent, these are bio-individual and certain tools will help certain people more than others. But I'll give you like a quick three that I think are super helpful that seem to work with a lot of the women that I teach. The first is called the physiological

Starting point is 00:34:20 breath. This is my favorite breath. It takes 10 seconds maybe. I'm going to teach it to you guys right now and then we can do it together a couple times and you'll feel in real time how it can help shift the state of your nervous system and maybe three or four cycles so this is how it works I'll talk us through it once and then we'll do it together a couple times but you breathe in through your nose when it feels like you're at the top of your breath one more quick sip of yep in through your nose and then out through your mouth through pursed lips long slow extended exhale let those shoulders just drop so let's do it together twice in through your nose When you get to the top, another quick inhale through your nose, out through your mouth.

Starting point is 00:35:01 Let everything drop your shoulders. Good. Keep it going. Extend that exhale one more time. In through your nose. Another quick one at the top. And out through your mouth. Beautiful.

Starting point is 00:35:17 And that's two breaths. I don't know how long that took 10 seconds, right? Just a couple more of those. And you can do that while you're driving. You can do it in a meeting. You can do it when your kids are at. fighting, like whenever. So that's a breath. There's so many different kinds of breath, but that's my favorite. Temperature. When you're feeling both in fight or flight or in a freeze response,

Starting point is 00:35:37 our body responds to temperature changes really well to help bring regulation. So for example, if you're feeling like you're overwhelmed, right? And man, I'm like, just stuck. I'm so overwhelmed. Or like, I'm so anxious about something. I can't even get started and weren't really worried about this, go to your freezer, grab a bag of like frozen vegetables or peas or whatever you have in there. Hold that to the back of your neck. You can hold it on your hands, your wrists. You can even touch it to your cheeks. That does a couple of things. One, it activates our die reflex, which actually activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which is our body's calming mechanism. And then on the back of our neck, that activates our vagus nerve, which is nerve that runs from

Starting point is 00:36:20 our brainstem to all our major organs, also our body's calming mechanism. And then on the back of our back. mechanism. So that's like a quick tool that can be really helpful. 30 seconds a minute, right? And you'll notice a shift in the state of your nervous system. And then the last one I'll give is called shaking. And it's exactly what it sounds like. So our bodies, when we are in a fight or flight response, let's say, there's a physiological response to that, right? So let's say an email comes through and we just feel that like jolt of like, oh my gosh, right? Like, you know, a client's upset or something didn't happen or someone dropped the ball and I just realized it, that's not just a realization. Our body starts to release cortisol and adrenaline or stress hormones to mobilize us to fight

Starting point is 00:37:05 or flight. And we usually don't do that, right? But our body has to have some way of metabolizing and discharging all of those hormones. And then second, we tend to brace, right, tense our muscles when we're in fight or flight. So a lot of us, maybe you guys are even doing it right now, right? your tongues pressed to the roof of your mouth, your jaw might be clenched, your neck, your shoulders. We're just holding tension. Those are all sending cues, again, right from our body to our brain, that something bad is about to happen, stay in a stress response. So if we can help our bodies to loosen that and then move to discharge a lot of that pent up stress, that's enough to shift the state of our nervous system. And our dogs do it, right? I was just, I was like, I've been thinking

Starting point is 00:37:49 about my dog this whole time. I'm like, do all dogs do this? I think they do. But like, I love when he does the full body head to butt shake. It does something for me, too. So, yeah, anyway, keep going. And then what does he do? He goes on with his life, right? He's like, I'm over it, long with it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So the same is true for us. And we can, like, what I do is I'll put on a song or sometimes I can't. I usually do it here in my office, but sometimes if I'm in public, like, I'll go to the bathroom. And I just shake out my hands, put them above my head, like wiggle my hands, wiggle my arms, wiggle my legs, kind of bounced around a little bit. 30, 90 seconds, 30, 60, 90 seconds, right? That's enough.

Starting point is 00:38:25 And then I'm able to reset and then come back out. Again, access to my prefrontal cortex and I can address whatever was before me that felt overwhelming a couple minutes ago. So those are some of my favorites. Michelle, thank you. Fascinating stuff. Super important, super helpful. Listener, I know you're like me going to head right to her website, Michellegrosser.com, forward slash reset, you can get her nervous system reset guide, which has a lot of these tools. So again, Michellegrisser.com forward slash reset. We'll put that and all the other ways to find and follow Michelle in show notes. Michelle, thank you. Oh, my goodness. Such a pleasure. You are a joy.

Starting point is 00:39:03 Thanks for having me. My pleasure entirely. Okay. Friend, how about we stop pretending we're fine when we're anything but? Let's stop confusing burnout with ambition. Let's stop worshiping the hustle and start listening to the wisdom of our bodies because the truth is the version of you that's grounded, rested, and regulated, that version makes better decisions. She leads with clarity. She creates with confidence. She connects more deeply. She's not just more productive. She's more powerful. So breathe, stretch, slow the hell down, and let's get out of our heads and back into our bodies. And remember, you are the solution you've been searching for. Because coming home to, yourself, well, that is always woman's work.

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Stop Saying “I’m Fine”: Nervous System Regulation for High-Achieving Women with Michelle Grosser | 372

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