Get Grounded In Chaos

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The news is gnarly.

Email and texts flood my phone.

My to-do list won’t stop screaming at me.

Time for a PAUSE.

Take a moment right now to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth. Three times. Slowly. Close your eyes if it feels good. Allow an audible sigh if it wants to come on the exhale, Ahhhh.

This simple action resets your autonomic nervous system. It brings you back into your body and gives you access to your full, rational, authentic self.

That’s the opposite of what you were feeling before—the full activation of the vagus nerve and autonomic nervous system. The nervous system works as a primal alert to minimize pain (physical, emotional, psychological) and keep you alive. It generally gets programmed by the time we’re seven years old.

When you read the news, face your inbox, or look at the to-do list, the nervous system typically first activates an unconscious impulse to DO something, urgently—something to stop the discomfort of knowing that people or situations need help, fixing, tending—some kind of action..

Maybe you respond to some things, but there’s not a lot you can do about the news. (The mind wants to keep reading to try and make sense out of things—that’s the mind’s job to keep you safe.) So, when DOing doesn’t work, the next impulse is to RUN—either physically move away or find a distraction. How many times has doing the laundry felt easier than paying the bills?

And then, when action or escape are impossible, the nervous system takes you into the COLLAPSE of complete overwhelm. It’s all too much. You find a way to check out.

I lived in the cycle of DO-RUN-COLLAPSE on repeat for years without even knowing that my nervous system was on an unconscious program of protection.

The first step to changing the program is to observe it—track what happens in your body. When you read the news, how’s your breath? heart beat? When you open your inbox, Is there tension in your neck, back, belly?

Once you see and feel what’s happening in your body, begin to make conscious CHOICES about what you expose yourself to and when—as if you were the parent of a small child.

For example, test what happens when you don’t look at text, emails, or news on your phone until after you’ve gotten up, done a short meditation, had breakfast.

Play with the PAUSE when you are in the midst of handling your to-dos.

Notice the urges and impulses that arise in your body when you make a change from the unconscious pattern in your nervous system.

Maybe keep a journal.

And if you want personalized help with all of this, schedule a session with me.