Before we do anything else,
Let's come back to you.
One hand on your chest.
One hand on your belly.
Now take one big,
Slow breath in.
And let it all out.
And if you're just joining me here on track to welcome,
You can absolutely be here.
But I do want to gently say that session one is waiting for you and it's worth going back to because what I taught there,
The return is the definition of self-led,
The three places that we lose ourselves,
That the foundation,
Everything else in this course is built on.
It's a good one.
I promise.
Us.
Now I'm going to assume something about you today.
You've had moments where you reacted and immediately thought,
That was not me.
Who was that talking,
Right?
You snapped at someone you love,
Or you went completely silent when you meant to speak,
Or maybe you found yourself agreeing with someone that you didn't even want to agree with.
And before you knew what happened,
You were spiraling.
Maybe you've spent time afterward replaying it,
Wondering why you can't just hold it together,
Why the tools don't work in the moment,
Even when you know them.
You lay in bed at night,
Replaying,
Replaying,
Replaying,
And you can't sleep,
Drives you crazy.
And if that's you,
I want you to know that that is everyone listening to this audio right now.
There is nothing wrong with you.
You are normal.
You are sane.
But you just need tools to ground yourself in the moment to be better prepared.
And that was your nervous system doing exactly what it's designed to do.
Just know that.
Okay,
So today we're going to start working with it instead of against it.
And here's the truth I want you to hold in this session.
A regulated woman is not a calm woman.
She's not emotionless.
She's not unaffected.
She doesn't have it all together all of the time.
She can be in the middle of a hard conversation and stay in her body.
She can be furious and still choose her response.
And yes,
She can fill the fear and still move forward.
And if you're anything like me,
You know what the unregulated version looks like too.
It's not pretty.
Because for me,
It looks like going cold and quiet when I'm hurt.
When what I actually needed was to say,
Hey,
You know what?
This matters to me.
It looks like over-functioning,
Doing more,
Fixing more,
Managing more,
Because stopping feels terrifying.
And it looks like that split second before I say something I'll regret when I know I should just pause,
But I don't.
And that's not a character flaw.
That's a nervous system that hasn't felt safe enough to respond instead of react.
So here's what I need you to understand.
This is the most important skill in this entire course.
Not boundaries,
Not truth-telling,
Not self-trust.
Regulation.
Because when we are dysregulated,
When our nervous system believes it's in danger,
We're going to react.
When we're regulated.
We respond.
And that gap between react and respond,
That's where your power lives.
So let's do the return together.
You know it now,
But we're going to use it every single session because repetition is how the nervous system learns.
This isn't just a warm up.
This is the work.
Okay,
So let's place one hand on your chest,
One hand on your belly.
Take a nice deep breath,
Filling your entire chest and belly with air.
And a nice exhale,
Long exhale.
Exhale.
Now another inhale.
Nice exhale.
Do that one more time.
This time,
I want you to imagine filling your entire body from head to toe with that healing oxygen.
Let your exhale be a little longer than your inhale.
I want you to feel your entire body releasing.
Nice.
Now,
Ask yourself slowly,
What am I feeling right now?
Name it simply.
Anxious.
Heavy.
Scattered.
Tender.
Numb,
Relieved.
Relaxed.
Calm.
Sleepy.
What is true right now?
Not the whole story,
Just the truth of this moment.
I am overwhelmed.
I'm tired.
I'm actually okay right now.
I don't know yet.
And that's allowed.
What do I need next?
Not forever.
Not everything.
Just this next need right now.
Good.
That is the return.
You are home.
Now I want to build on that today.
With something that I call the regulation menu.
Because here's what most people don't know.
Your nervous system has two different threat responses and they need different tools.
The first is activation,
Fight or flight.
This is when you're reactive,
When that heart starts racing,
The voice gets tight,
Everything feels urgent and loud.
You might snap,
Spin,
Over explain,
Or maybe even go straight into the fix it mode.
You might see red,
The room might start spinning.
Okay,
But the second is freeze.
This is when you shut down,
You go numb.
Foggy.
You can't find the right words to say.
You've gone somewhere else entirely.
You're not even in the conversation anymore.
Or you might just go quiet.
Disassociate,
Maybe procrastinate.
Or simply just disappear.
And most of us have a default.
So I want you to just notice which one of those feels most familiar to you.
Now here's your menu.
When you're activated,
Fight or flight,
1.
The long exhale.
You've been practicing this.
Exhale twice,
As long as your inhale.
And this is your fastest regulation tool.
It works in seconds.
2.
Cold water on your wrists or the back of your neck is an instant signal to your nervous system that you are safe.
3.
.
.
Both feet on the floor.
I want you to press down.
Feel the ground.
Name five things that you can see in front of you.
You are here.
You are present.
You are not in danger.
4.
Hum absolutely anything,
Even quietly,
Even under your breath.
Humming activates the vagus nerve.
And will bring you down almost immediately.
I know it sounds too simple,
But I want you to try it anyway.
And when you're frozen,
Let's get into those steps.
One,
I want you to move,
Even just slowly,
Rolling your shoulders,
Wiggling your fingers,
Shaking your hands.
I want you to wake the body up because it needs to know that it's safe to come back.
Two,
I want you to touch,
Rub your own arms,
Your face,
Your hands.
I want you to remind your body that it exists and it's okay.
Three,
You speak out loud,
Even just this,
I am here.
I'm okay.
Because your voice brings you back to yourself faster than almost anything else.
And four,
Something warm,
A sip of tea.
A warm drink because it truly works.
It's not too small.
Okay?
Your body already knows how to regulate.
You've been doing it your entire life.
What we're doing now is making it conscious so you can choose it when it counts.
And here is the truth that changes everything.
And I want you to really let this land.
You cannot think your way into regulation.
Logic does not reach a nervous system that believes it's in danger.
That's why you can know,
Intellectually know,
A conversation will be fine and still feel like you're about to fall apart.
That's why you can want to hold your boundary and still collapse the moment that someone pushes back.
That's why all the preparation in the world doesn't always help in the actual moment.
The work is not to think more clearly.
The work is to feel safe enough to think at all.
And here's what I've learned in my own life and in working with women for years.
The moment that you can name what's happening in your body,
You get a little bit of your power back.
Not all of it.
But enough to choose your next step.
So here's your script for the week.
I want you to say this to yourself before anything hard,
Before any conversation,
Any moment where you feel yourself starting to spin or shut down.
I want you to say,
I don't need to perform here.
I just need to stay in my body and tell the truth.
Say it to yourself again.
I don't need to perform here.
I just need to stay in my body and tell the truth.
Write that somewhere where you're gonna see it.
On your mirror,
In your phone notes,
Or on a sticky note on the dashboard of your car.
Because that sentence is your regulated response waiting to happen.
And here's your one simple assignment from this session.
It's gentle,
Doable,
And powerful.
First,
Get honest with yourself about your default.
Activation or freeze?
Most of us have one we go to first,
And I want you to just notice when one feels more like home.
Then pick the one tool from your regulation menu and try it exactly once this week.
Once.
In a real moment,
Not a perfect moment,
A real one.
And I want you to really notice what happens.
And then I want you to write one sentence.
And that's going to say,
Today I regulated myself by blank.
Maybe that looks like.
.
.
I regulated myself by humming in the car before walking back inside.
I regulated myself by pressing my feet into the floor before I answered.
Maybe it's I regulated myself by doing the return before the conversation I had been dreading.
Tiny,
Real,
And powerful.
That is how this becomes yours.
Let me leave you with this.
You are not someone who loses control.
You are someone whose nervous system has been working overtime.
It's been protecting you,
Managing you,
And trying to keep everything in your life from falling apart.
And now you have a menu,
You have a practice,
And you have a way back to yourself that doesn't require a perfect morning or a quiet house or everything going right.
You just have to choose one tool,
One breath,
One return.
You are responding and now you know the difference.
I want you to take one more breath in.
And let it all out.
You are doing the work,
My friend,
And it shows.
Join me in the next session,
Less Performing,
More Living,
Where we will take everything you've built here and start applying it to the real moments,
The ones where you've been managing everyone else's feelings instead of choosing your own.
That session is a good one.
I think you're going to feel it.
And if this session landed for you,
If something cracked open or clicked into place,
It would mean the world to me if you'd leave a review.
It helps this work reach more women who need it.
You can also share this track directly with a woman in your life who's been running on reaction instead of intention.
Share my profile with anyone that you think belongs here.
Until next time,
Less performing,
More living,
Less pleasing,
And always,
Always more truth.
