Asking questions has become a very helpful tool for me. It turns out, curiosity is incredibly powerful and healing. One of my favorite questions is “How do I feel, and what do I want?” I love this question because it helps me come back to myself, and meet the need behind whatever is going on especially when I am stuck in needless emotional turmoil (NET).

Sometimes I don’t know what I want though. So I ask a second question: “How do I want to feel, and how will I accomplish it?” This question is so helpful, either as an intention or to ask in the moment when “what do I want?” feels hard to answer. It gives me confidence to move forward.

Lately I have been asking myself a third question at the end of the day, to help me savor the good moments, lean into gratitude and register when my nervous system was in receptivity mode (or rest and digest): “What is something that felt pleasant today, and how did my body tell me it was pleasant?”

This three question combo has been my ticket back to my paper, where I feel so empowered!

Resilience is not about removing or changing the things we struggle with. It is about accepting what is with compassion, and then equipping and resourcing ourselves with what we need. As we Build The New, naturally things begin to shift and heal.

It is like going to the gym and realizing that a certain muscle group has been over activated, working really hard to keep things moving and functioning to compensate for an imbalance. To correct this, we don’t just cut the over active muscles out, or turn them off. We cultivate safety by working with the weaker, shut down muscle groups to strengthen them, activate them and bring them back online, so we can restore balance and peace, and give those over-worked muscles a break. And we move forward with intentionality; knowing the patterns of over activation and shut down, we can mindfully invite new ways of engagement.

Learning how to tune into my husband’s heart message, especially when I am navigating my own triggers, emotional turmoil and insecurities, has been an absolute super power and helped me restore deep safety and connection in my marriage. It is the epitome of being a soft place to land. I truly love showing up like that, even though it is hard to do at times. It gives me this sense of dignity, grace and femininity that genuinely makes me proud to be me, and helps me cultivate the experience I want to have in my marriage.

My limiting beliefs, I’ve discovered, are not just false narratives I have to somehow shift with my mind. They are responses that point to a story that’s stuck in my body—unfelt, unprocessed and unhealed. 

One of those stories is that I have a bad memory. But in reality my memory is perfectly intact underneath a dysregulated nervous system. When I do the work to experience the sensations in my body around what shut my memory down or limited it, then resource myself and build the new, I can return to the natural and innate design of my body with a regulated nervous system where my memory is online and fully functioning.

When I feel like I have to carve out my worth in the world around me and prove to everyone that I am significant, valid and have something to contribute… then I know I’m stuck in survival or scarcity mode, an approach that will never lead to confidence, love or abundance. It will only double down on this never ending search for validation, this feeling that I must continue to carve and prove in order to survive, all while striving for a flourishing life that is forever out of reach. 

It is only when I become present in my body and with how I show up, that I can start to integrate a worthiness; the instinctual, inherit worthiness within my cells that actually always existed. When I understand that coping mechanisms tell me how to be and instincts and inherit design tells me who I am, I can find my way back to myself—to learn my original core beliefs—and actually start to thrive.

I find that 2 significant things happen when I coach my clients to meet nervous system dysfunction with acceptance and connection. 

1. We begin to heal the wound that caused the nervous system to get stuck in a dysfunctional state.

2. We begin to move into rest and digest mode, where we gain clarity and capacity to cultivate a new experience.

I’m 40 years old, and honestly, the best beauty routine I’ve discovered is one that focuses on my happiness. I know this sounds cliché or even insensitive. I get it. I have a relationship with depression, so how can I say that in order to look my best, I must focus on being happy?

Well what I’ve learned is that when I come back to myself and truly meet myself with compassion, empathy and acceptance, I start to heal the wounds of neglect and abandonment that kept me in a dark and numbing place for so long. When I sit with myself and feel what has been suppressed, and meet the needs that have gone unmet, I slowly start to feel again, and happiness returns, but not in a one dimensional way. In a layered, wholesome way. 

Happiness is at the core of my being when I do this work. This work heals the little girl inside who needed to survive for so many years. 

Happiness is about getting back to curiosity and play as a default rather than being negatively biased. 

This happiness is me, my authentic, accountable, dignified self who loves owning her life and tending to her vessel. 

My face shows what state my soul is in. The trick for me though is not to make the goal about beauty! But rather, the goal is connection to self. The glow comes naturally when that’s my focus.

Rumination or intrusive memories are a sign for me to find the part of myself that got stuck in rejection and shame, so I can validate, empathize, feel the sadness, and then offer myself forgiveness and acceptance.

Nothing really clicked in a substantial way to where there was consistency and fruit, until I started doing this work truly and deeply for me. Not for my husband, or kids. Not for anyone else. But simply for me.

Being on my paper is the most empowering place to be.

When I’m in a wrestle with anxiety and I want to experience peace and clarity, there are several things I can do. One of the most effective for me is taking myself on a walk where I notice the natural environment around me. I immerse myself in what I am seeing, hearing and touching. 

Today I did this by focussing on all the different leaves from the different plants and trees along the walk. I touched them and categorized them in my mind. “This one is soft and textured, this one is smooth and shiny, this one is rubbery, this one is like plastic.” I took note of the textures and shapes I was drawn to more than others. It felt good for my soul to be curious and explore by following my own interests. 

As I did this my nervous system began to regulate and I felt calm. My thoughts started to sound peaceful and clear. Every now and again an anxious thought would pop into my mind, and I would say “oh I don’t need to use up my beautiful time thinking about that. That’s not even on my paper.” This would bring me back into the present and help me stay focused on what I was sensing in my environment.

There are times when I allow anxious thoughts to lead me to more information about what’s going on underneath the spiral. Deciphering the difference between an anxious thought that needs attention versus one that can be redirected has been a learning curve.

When I feel confident that I can redirect, I do using orienting or other tools. When I feel that tug to sit with the discomfort, I allow myself to get present with what is underneath the anxious thoughts and honor the sensations that happen in my body as I tune in.

A powerful lesson I have learned as I continue to heal through experience is that my mental real estate is limited, which means it is precious. I get to cultivate how I use it. Being intentional about that has been so empowering. Slow and steady is the best method, knowing when to stretch and when to rest. When to go deeper and when to redirect.

When I told my husband “you don’t need to ask for permission, I trust you” I could physically see the relief all over his body. His response was full of gratitude, as he smiled and moved in close with all the adoration and affection. 

Our connection was overhauled and made new after I started healing my nervous system and implementing new skills around intimacy. And one of the greatest lessons I learned was that my sense of safety in the relationship was actually my responsibility to cultivate. That often looked like letting go of fear and trusting myself and my husband even when I felt scared.

I didn’t need to be fixed despite my deepest belief that I did. I needed to accept myself in my deepest pain. This cultivated safety for me, which led to my nervous system slowly regulating, and my brain coming back online to make better decisions, better thought patterns and learn new skills. This in turn helped me cultivate the change I always wanted but it didn’t come from forcing myself to be different.

Being self-aware has not always been productive for me, and has kept me stuck in my head, anxious, intellectualizing, dissociating and ruminating. It has definitely not lead me to regulation and connection. I guess it is like learning all the theory on how to solve a problem, only to feel completely overwhelmed and underprepared when you actually face the problem.

Being present is a different kind of awareness –where I am in tune with my body, my needs, my emotions, my thoughts, how I interact with the world, my environment, other people, and the relationship between all these different things. This is way more productive I find, and leads to connection through development of skill rather than just theory. Thinking and processing is still part of the picture but the picture is more wholesome as it integrates the whole body and how I show up in the world around me. This has allowed me to heal through experience rather than just trying to figure everything out in my mind.

Something I’ve discovered through this work:

Trying to change my own, my husband’s or my kids’ behaviour or perspective always ends in frustration and disappointment on a surface level. On a deeper level it leads to cycles of shame and judgement.

Acceptance and Building The New with intimacy skills, regulation skills, and intuitive processing is way more productive, empowering, and helps me sustain the change I want to experience on the surface. It also leads to abundance and love on that deeper level.