If you're on your healing journey,
you might have asked yourself at some point,
how do I know all of these practices are working?
How do I know I'm healing my nervous system?
And today on the podcast, I'm talking about just that.
So what does that mean,
some of the tools that you use
and the signs of the progress that you're making?
So let's get into it.
(gentle music)
You're listening to the SoulAlign Self-Care Podcast.
I'm your host, Tina Stinson,
and I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress
and burnout that shook my world.
Now I'm laying it all out.
The deep-level self-care practices and mindset shifts
that I needed that kept me healthy, balanced, and thriving.
Join me in this intimate space
as we explore healing, resilience, and a soul's journey
to alignment.
This is where real conversations about deep-level self-care
happen.
Let's get into it.
(gentle music)
Hey guys, welcome back to the SoulAlign Self-Care Podcast.
I took last week off and it did feel great,
but I am back now.
And today I'm talking about healing the nervous system,
what it means, tools that you could use
and signs of any progress that you're making.
And that's a big question for a lot of people,
including myself at certain times in my life.
I'm like, is this working?
All of the stuff that I'm doing, the meditation,
the breath work, the yoga, the yoga knee draw,
like this just, the gratitude practices,
the journaling, all the stuff.
Like how do I know that this is working?
And so I'm gonna go all over all of that stuff today.
This process of healing the nervous system
can transform how you feel every day
from reducing stress, overwhelm, and burnout
to boosting your energy levels.
So what exactly does it mean to heal your nervous system?
And how do we do that?
So let's get into it.
But before I get started, I wanna share that my journey
started from being completely disconnected
with myself as a person, being disconnected with my body
after years of being in a mentally
and verbally abusive relationship,
and just not practicing any self-career at all
or self-love for that matter.
I just lost all that connection with myself,
all of my self-worth, and my journey back to
like a healthy, you know, living, balanced lifestyle
was quite a journey.
And everything that I share here is something
that I have tried and that I use currently,
or I have used at some point.
I go in and out of things all of the time.
You know, I started setting and maintaining boundaries,
removing as much friction from my life as possible,
which reduces stress and anxiety and overwhelm, right?
So like decluttering.
And I'm not just talking about decluttering space.
I'm talking about decluttering your processes
that you use in your life and your mind too.
Allowing space for self-love and self-care,
reconnecting and supporting my intuition,
it's so important to be able to trust yourself
and our intuition is so strong.
It's such a powerful tool that we all have.
And then learning how to heal and support
my nervous system moving forward.
So you don't just heal this stuff once.
You have to, there's maintenance for everything,
just like working out, just like healthy eating.
There's maintenance for everything to help you support you.
So doing different somatic exercises
and deep-level self-care,
support your nervous system
and also makes you more resilient to everyday stresses.
So that's what a healing nervous system looks like.
This is the work I do every day with my clients.
So be sure to listen all the way through
'cause I'm gonna tell you how you know
if this stuff is working.
But also I'm going to share with you
how you can work more intimately with me
if you're just beginning your healing process.
Okay, so what does healing the nervous system completely mean?
So your nervous system is like your body's control center
and it manages everything from how you react
to stress to how you digest food.
So those are kind of related.
So if you having digestive issues,
you might wanna look at your stress levels.
It includes the central nervous system,
both the brain and the spinal cord
and the peripheral nervous system,
all the nerves that go throughout your whole body.
And a crucial part of this system
is the autonomic nervous system,
which has two main parts,
the sympathetic nervous system responsible for like,
fight and flight response
and some of us that are stuck in
and the parasympathetic nervous system
which handles the rest in digest activities
in which is when you're feeling at peace.
So when we talk about healing the nervous system,
we're focusing on rebalancing these systems,
especially if they've been thrown out of whack
by chronic stress, trauma, ongoing anxiety,
all that stuff that we face on a daily basis.
Essentially it's about calming the over reactive stress
responses and nurturing a state of relaxation and recovery.
And so like I talked about in the beginning,
it's about doing those deep level self-care practices,
but also about doing those somatic exercises
that help you release some of that stuff from your body.
Okay, it's not about just avoiding stress.
It's about learning to be able to respond to it better.
So some of the tools that we have
for healing the nervous system
and that I've had really great success with,
one of them is meditation and I love meditation
and I have to share with you when I first started,
I just couldn't meditation and still today,
I'm not gonna sit down and meditate for an hour.
I'm like a good like three to 10 minute girl, okay?
And I could tell you that doing meditation this long,
even if you're only doing guided meditations
and that's what you stick with, can be life changing.
And like when I first started,
I had trouble sitting through a three minute guided meditation.
It just wasn't my thing, but I kept hearing
about how transformative it is and I kept doing it
and I kept doing it.
And now who would have guessed I'm a meditation teacher?
I'm certified meditation teacher.
I create meditations for aura, so I'm a creator on aura.
And I just find that the transformation
from what I went from to what I do today
and I love creating meditations for people.
And if you follow me on any of my platforms like Patreon
or if you're in any of my programs
which you can find at tinnestintsin.com,
then you would know that meditation is a big deal
and I almost include meditation banks
and like all of those places,
there's tons of meditations on there.
So meditation for me is a big one.
And yoga nidra, if you wanted to put that
into the meditation realm, but because it's,
but I really think it should have its own category
because that's been magical for me.
And what I just told you about meditation,
anybody who's familiar with yoga nidra,
a lot of times it could be quite like a long period
of time that you sit for.
But I set my up, myself up for success
by doing this at times when I know I have this space
like right before bed or right when I wake up in the morning
or I love doing it after a yoga class.
So to say the least, doing meditation has been so,
so important to me, mindfulness,
being fully present in the moment helps break the cycle
of worry and stress and trying to just focus
on the breath for a few minutes
and the sensations around you.
And I do a meditation actually called take five
and that's what this is about.
It's about like coming back into your body
and check in in with yourself and being in the present moment
'cause that's all we really have, right?
Is the present moment and doing this a couple of times a day.
You know, so five minutes in the morning,
five minutes in the afternoon,
five minutes at the end of the day.
I mean everybody has five minutes here and there.
So mindfulness, CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy
and I've practiced this in my coaching practice
and so I'm very familiar with it.
So this therapy helps you reframe negative thoughts
and develop healthier coping mechanisms.
I thought I'm a huge advocate for reframing.
It has changed my life.
And before I even became certified in CBT,
I was doing this naturally with myself
which I find very, very cool.
And it took me a while, like if I went to therapy for it,
I think I probably could have moved through it a lot quicker
because it took me a couple of years
to be able to reframe things
to really, really get the benefits from them.
And as I said, it was life changing.
It's like giving your mind to tune up, okay?
Breath work, okay.
Like once again, life changing for me,
I talk about many times on this podcast
and with many of the guests that have come on,
how much it has changed my life
because it has, it helped me reduce my blood pressure enough
in order to go off blood pressure medicine,
which is absolutely amazing.
But breath work not only reduces stress and anxiety
and overwhelm, but it can also energize you.
So breath work is free, anybody can do it.
And it's just, there's so many benefits to it.
Deep mindful breathing techniques
can activate your parasympathetic nervous system
that we talked about at the beginning.
So the rest and digest where you're like chilling out,
you're in flow.
And so it promotes a sense of calm.
And it's one of the quickest ways to do that
in your body, I think, for me, it was very, very aligned
with exactly what I needed.
Some of the body or like somatic tools are like yoga.
So this yoga combines like physical postures,
breath control, meditation,
it's fantastic for both your body and your mind.
And I think one of the mind parts of yoga
that's been really strong for me is challenging myself
with more difficult poses.
You know, it's almost like, you know, it reflects,
you know, your life where you face difficult challenges,
you know, every day, every week.
And you know that you can breathe through it, hold steady,
and you can handle these difficult challenges.
And when I'm doing a difficult yoga pose,
it's kind of like working through that process
that you would work through in your life
when you're faced with difficult challenges in your life.
And I just find that they're so related.
And it really helps me become a stronger person,
not just physically but mentally.
Exercise, so regular physical exercise reduces stress
hormones and boosts endorphins, which is your body's natural,
feel good chemicals and we could all use more of that.
And I've always actually enjoyed exercise
and one of those annoying people.
I've been, I mean, I can remember
having a regular exercise practice when I was 14 years old.
Like, I just love it.
I've always been a very physical person.
And so exercise definitely comes easy to me,
all types of exercise.
And so what I encourage my clients to do is
I don't call it exercise, I call it movement
and to find something that you really, really enjoy.
And it doesn't have to mean going to the gym
and doing a workout.
It can mean going for a walk, going for a hike, gardening,
doing different activities around your home
that use the body in all these different ways
can be beneficial.
Massage therapy helps release tension, improve circulation,
promotes relaxation, who doesn't love massage.
I would get a massage weekly if I could manage that.
So that's life goals, right?
So if I had to do like hashtag life goals,
massage would be on that list weekly, massage.
I always say that I think massage
should be covered by health insurance
because it promotes such a healthy lifestyle.
But we all know that insurance companies really
don't want to keep us alive.
That's a whole nother podcast.
Anyway, so massage therapy, healthy nutrition,
eating a balanced diet, rich in vitamins and minerals,
supports your nervous system overall function.
And it really does because when you're not eating well,
you're stressing your system.
So when I talk about decluttering,
I'm talking about removing friction from every area
of your life.
And that includes removing friction from nutrition,
which would be when you're having added chemicals
and added sugars into your body,
that's causing stresses on your body.
It may not be like mental stress,
but it is physical stress.
And that adds to your other stresses
and it kind of snowballs into more and more.
So the more you can reduce all the frictions in your life,
the better that you'll feel.
And so healthy nutrition is a part of that.
So getting more into the somatic tools,
like progressive muscle relaxation, which
can be done with a guided meditation,
or you could do it yourself in your head, body scanning.
That involves mentally scanning your body
or areas of tension and consciously relaxing them,
which is very similar.
Also, when you do yoga, Neetra,
there's a lot of body scanning in there.
It's not about focusing on the relaxation,
but it's about just focusing your attention
in different areas of the body.
Very cool.
Tai Chi or Kigong.
I put those together, but really the one
that I practiced was Kigong.
These gentle flowing movements,
like, oh my god, it's just so relaxing.
And the commonalities that I found between Kigong, yoga,
and then energy healing were amazing,
because I was learning all three of those at once.
And I noticed that a lot of the body movements were similar,
even though they are completely different activities.
So you're combining these movements with breath work,
just like yoga, and it enhances your body's energy flow
and it promotes relaxation.
Dancing and any other type of movement like that,
I even do shaking, shaking out your body,
shaking the stresses away, but putting on some good music
and dancing always makes us feel better.
Some of the tools that you can use for, you know,
like, just deep inside your soul that really help
with reducing stress and anxiety and helping
you become more resilient are things like a gratitude
practice.
And I talk about this so much because I really want people
to go deep into the gratitude practice,
not just making a list every day of what you're grateful for,
but really feeling into the gratitude
and how it makes you feel inside your body
and the effects that it has on your life.
So, you know, I may be grateful for my dog, Milly,
but she makes me feel loved and supported unconditionally.
She is a companion and she has a huge effect on my life.
If she wasn't here, I believe I would be very lonely, okay?
And so, like, just thinking about how grateful I am
for all the things that she adds into my life
makes me really feeling to the gratitude even more.
And another practice that I learned,
I'm trying to remember where I learned this from,
it was a book I read, it was kind of,
I think it was a book about manifesting actually,
but if it comes to me, I'll put it in the show notes.
I can't really remember where I learned it from,
but a gratitude practice at night, really just like,
thinking about one thing that day that you're grateful for,
and why and how it felt.
And so, it could be as small as,
oh my God, I had time this morning to have my coffee
in peace, no interruptions, just quiet time,
cuddling with my dog, having my coffee,
and I'm so grateful for that.
Or I had like this really fun encounter
with someone at the store,
or I went out to lunch with a friend,
or whatever it is, okay?
So that's a really great way to end your day
and go to sleep on a positive note.
Another soul tool is creative expression.
So painting, writing, playing music,
engaging in any kind of creative activity
can be incredibly therapeutic.
And I have to add that you don't have to be an artist,
you don't have to be good at it, okay?
I paint and I draw, and it's funny the more I do it,
I do get better at it.
I really do, I look at the progression
from when I started to add that back into my life again,
and I look at how far I've come,
and I definitely do get better at it.
Nature, like your connection to nature is so important.
We're meant to be completely connected with nature,
and we're so disconnected today.
We stay inside all day, we're looking at a screen.
Sometimes our feet don't even touch the ground
for weeks at a time,
and we're not really getting grounded.
We're not connecting to the earth,
and when we do that, it actually gives us energy.
We feed off of the earth's energy, just like plants, right?
So spending time in nature can ground you,
calm you nervous system, low your blood pressure.
It could actually reduce pain, which I think is really cool.
So going for a walk in the park, a gardening,
going for a walking nature,
even if you don't have the availability of nature
in your inner city, going for a walk outside,
appreciating a bird or a tree that you might see,
or even just sitting outside can be helpful.
And spiritual practices.
So activities like prayer, chanting, and participating,
any type of spiritual positive, positive I might add,
because there is a lot of religions out there
that are not positive.
Positive spiritual rituals can provide comfort and support
for your emotional well-being.
And so I'm trying to think what that looks like.
So I don't really, I'm not religious at all.
I would definitely say I'm very, very spiritual.
And I do believe in the power of our voice and our words.
And so when I want to experience something,
I speak it into existence, right?
And so when I go live every week on aura,
and I do a talk on aura every Monday at 3 p.m.,
I love doing that.
It's so much fun.
And if you'd like, I could put like a free 30-day trial
of aura in the show notes for you guys.
I'd be glad to share that with you.
So I'll do that.
And you could join me on a Monday at 3 p.m. Eastern.
I do self-care practice of the week.
I really enjoy enjoying doing it.
But before I go on every week,
I'm like, I'm going to have the best session ever.
I'm going to connect with the people.
I'm going to give them what they need today.
And like, I just speak it into existence.
It is exactly what I want to experience
during that 30 minutes of my time.
I don't want to waste my time.
I don't want to waste their time.
And so it's really important to me.
So that's a practice that I do regularly.
I feel like my gratitude practices spiritual,
it just helps me connect on a deeper level
to everyone around me.
As you know, or maybe you don't know, we are all connected.
This has been proven scientifically
that we're actually connected.
We all come from the same source.
And so living your life that way is a whole different ball
game.
Once you realize that that other person
that's walking down the street on the other side
of the street, even though you don't know them,
you're connected with them.
You act in a different way.
You move forth in your world with a different type
of care for humanity.
And I think that's the best way to approach living your life
every day.
So last but not least, I want to get into how
your nervous system is healing.
Because this has been a question, I think a lot of people
ask because they're doing all this work.
And sometimes you're being consistent.
And you're like, why don't I feel any different?
But sometimes we just don't notice
because the changes happen so slowly.
And so that's why it's really important
to look back and look at where you've been
and pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself
when you've made these little wins.
Because you don't even realize how far you've come
when you're healing.
So some of the signs your nervous system is healing
or it's on the mend is your sleep will start to improve.
This is a big thing because when you start
to control your cortisol and you get linked up to nature,
and your circadian rhythm is normalized or whatever
you want to call it, your sleep gets better.
And so you'll get better sleep quality.
You'll get more duration.
You'll be able to fall asleep easier.
And you'll be starting to wake up feeling refreshed.
So there was a time in my life where I would sleep a solid seven
or eight hours, but I was not waking up refreshed.
And I knew I still needed to do some work.
That's how I knew.
So think about the differences in your sleep.
And just because it's not perfect,
doesn't mean you're not on your healing journey,
you're not having any healing.
I was sleeping solid.
I just needed to improve my sleep.
So reducing my caffeine levels was one of the things
that I did that really, really helped.
Because not only does that reduce your caffeine, right?
So some people, everybody metabolizes caffeine differently.
Some people hold it in their system longer.
So what somebody else does might not be for you, if that makes sense.
But also it affects your cortisol.
If you wake up in the morning before you have any breakfast or anything
and you're having coffee, that affects your cortisol levels
and your cortisol levels that has a lot
an effect on your nervous system.
So it's about looking at all the different areas
that I talked about previously.
OK, you'll notice increased resilience.
That's another sign that you're healing.
You'll handle stress more effectively.
You'll bounce back from setbacks more quickly
and you'll respond to difficulties instead of reacting to them.
So instead of blowing up when something happens,
you'll just think more clearer about it
because you'll have that resiliency I talked about
that comes from consistent, so-and-a-practices
or self-care practices.
OK, so what else?
Enhanced mood, I'm sorry.
I lost my train of thought.
So another thing you'll notice is you'll be in a better mood.
You'll notice a reduction in anxiety and depression
and you'll feel more stable and positive.
So I think that it's really important to journal
because you can kind of trace these things
and you can go back, say, you started in January
and then you're ending in December,
look back at your January post and think
about some of the things you experienced over the year.
Are you just generally in a better mood?
Are you just getting better sleep?
Do you handle situations better?
Another thing is physical relaxation.
So there's less muscle tension.
You'll have fewer stress-related physical symptoms
like headaches and stomach issues.
So that's very important.
So one of the things that happens to me when I'm really stressed
and I don't-- nothing has to be going on
for this to happen in my body because I was in fight or flight
for so long.
I was stuck there for so long that being tense feels natural
to me.
That's my natural state.
So bringing myself out of that was really hard to do.
And sometimes I bounce back into that.
And I know that that's happened when I get this tension
in my upper back.
And that's when I know, especially if there's nothing going on,
I don't feel stressed or anything.
It's just a state of my body.
That's when I know I need to do some work.
So that's when I know I need to do some deep breathing
or I need to do a meditation or I need a good walk or a good run.
Calm mind.
You'll experience fewer racing thoughts
and greater mental clarity.
This is huge for me because I don't know about you,
but when I was in a state of anxiety,
I would go into these deep thoughts of things that never even
happened, of probable, horrible things that could happen.
And then I would get to the end of that thought
and be like, what is wrong with me?
Why did I go there?
And I'd be like, cancel, cancel, cancel.
Like, okay, let me redo that in my head, you know?
And slowly but surely, this stopped happening as much.
And it still happens.
Sometimes I think it's pretty normal for that to happen,
but just not as much.
Better digestion.
So everybody reacts differently to stress.
And some people, it really hits their digestive system
really hard.
Now me sometimes, but not very often.
For me, it's more tense, like, tenseness in my body.
And I'm sure it affects my digestion,
but it doesn't affect me on a level where it affects my lifestyle,
if that makes sense.
It doesn't make my lifestyle worse.
So your digestive health improves as your body's rest
and digest mode kicks in more effectively.
Hence the term rest and digest.
Because when you're in a state of fight or flight,
your body is not focusing on digestion.
It's focused on staying alive, survival.
And so like, that could cause a lot of gas,
a lot of stomach upset, and all kinds of different symptoms.
And so getting yourself into a relaxed state, you know,
I talk about this when I talk about,
not into a dev eating, mindful eating,
being intentional about getting yourself in a relaxed state
before you eat and not eating on the run,
can be really important if you're having
digestive troubles.
So healing your nervous system is a journey
that involves patience and consistency.
And I cannot stress the consistency part enough.
That's why this week's self-care practice is about
recommitting to yourself or committing to the first time
of a daily self-care practice or somatic practice
to help heal and support your nervous system.
By integrating, like, all of these different things I talked about
for the mind, the body, and the soul, these tools,
all these tools I talked about today,
by putting that into your daily routine,
you can create a balanced, resilient nervous system.
You could be ready for anything, okay?
This kid lead to a healthier, happier life,
where stress is managed,
you feel like you're in a state of flow,
you know, the majority of the time,
as I say always, nothing is ever perfect.
It's all about, you know, tuning into yourself,
asking yourself what you need,
and then giving yourself the things that you need, okay?
And doing this on a very regular and consistent basis.
You're gonna feel more at peace if you do this for yourself.
Every small step that you take brings you closer
to a state of harmony, well-being, and flow.
I just like the word flow,
'cause that's what I feel like when I'm in that moment
of like complete relaxation.
And it's not all the time for me.
And you know, this is a work in progress for me
as it is for a lot of people.
And that's why I actively practice most of these things
that I talked about today.
Like pretty much all of them except for the Taiji.
Definitely tried it, but that wasn't my thing.
I really like the Kigong a little bit better.
So this is the work that I do to help support other women,
like you, to help you heal and then support you,
and then help you thrive in your life.
So you learn how to heal your nervous system,
you learn how to support your nervous system,
and then you move forward into your purpose
and you're living your life fully.
You're not surviving, okay?
So as I said in the beginning,
if you would like some more support,
I have a great new way that you can join me in this work.
Starting in June, I have a new group membership
called the Soul Align Self-Care Healing Circle,
where we meet weekly to implement deep-level self-care
and other somatic practices to help support your mind,
your body and your soul.
And I would love for you to be a part of it,
if that feels aligned with you,
I would love for you to be a part of the healing circle.
And you can get all the details and join us
with I'll put the link in the show notes
so that you can get it now.
'Cause if you get it now, this is a beta program
meaning that it's completely new.
And as a founding member, you can join out for 50% off
and keep that price as long as you stay a member.
And that price is not gonna go up
until more towards the end of the year.
So you have a good span of time to get in.
But if you get in at the beginning,
you have a chance to help shape the program, okay?
Because the feedback that I get from the founding members
is what's going to shape the program
into what I hope to be the perfect amount
of support and self-care that you need to heal.
So there's a seven day free trial
so that you can go in there and just like browse around
and get kind of get a feel for what it's gonna look like.
And you can also cancel it any time.
So definitely check out the link in the show notes
for the sole align self-care healing circle.
And I can't wait to see you on the end side.
And at the end of this week,
there will be another guest episode
that is going to be released on Friday.
And I do an interview with Carolyn Mug
and she is a mindset coach.
So definitely check it out if you're working on your mindset.
Okay, I love you guys.
