Do you have a feel like no matter how much sleep you get, you still wake up exhausted or maybe your
mind just won't turn off at night or your shoulders feel like they've been carrying like a
a hundred pounds of bricks for a month. If this sounds familiar you might not just be stressed.
What you actually might be experiencing is a dysregulated nervous system and here's the thing.
When your nervous system is stuck in overdrive it quietly takes the driver's seat of your entire life,
your energy, your emotions, even your physical health. In today's episode we're talking about
the five most common signs of nervous system dysregulation and what to do about it.
These are things so many of us dismiss as normal in modern life but they're actually red flags
your body's begging you to pay attention to and because I've lived this myself I ignored the signs
until stressed literally caused me to have a stroke. I've created a way to help women catch this
before it's gone that far. At the end of today's episode I'll share with you how you could join
my new gentle self-care nervous system reset. It's an intimate coaching experience that I'm opening
right now with limited spots. It's built to help you finally feel safe in your body,
regulate your energy and find joy again without a guilt and it's very, very easy to implement.
So if you've been wondering why you feel so drained, why you feel so foggy or disconnected,
this episode might just give you the clarity and the hope that you've been needing. Let's get into it.
You're listening to the Soul Aligned 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 could be 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.
[Music]
Welcome back to the SoulAlign Self-Care Podcast. Thanks for joining me today. For those of you who
come back week after week, I appreciate you and I love spending time with you and for anyone who's
new, welcome. This week we are talking all about five signs your nervous system is dysregulated
and how to heal yourself. Now just getting into it, this podcast is kind of like coming off the
heels of last week's podcast where I talked about how self-care is not solo and women need other women,
other groups of women, whether that be friends or in business or wherever, just spending more time
in groups of women supporting each other at this time. And this is kind of like on the same topic of
that, except we're going into how to heal your nervous system. Hustle culture glorifies busyness,
like it's the gold standard for success. Women wear it like a badge of honor. Now not all women,
when I talk, I'm just saying most, you know, I'm just kind of going by what I see and the people that
I work with on a day-to-day basis and my own experience. But I do see this, this is like the normal,
like the more you do, the more selfless you are, you can work yourself to death, give, give, give, never
give to yourself. The perfect example of this is the visual that I always have of the busy mom with
the little kids eating the leftovers from the lunch, like the leftover, like half eaten, like chicken
nuggets and french fries or whatever's left over on the plates and not making any time for herself
in any way, shape or form. That's always like the visual I get of the mom sitting over the same
eating the crumbs. I mean, we've all done it, right? So, but here's the truth. Being constantly
exhausted is not a badge of honor. It's a warning sign and women more than ever are paying the price
with burnout, overwhelm and a complete disconnect from any joy whatsoever. And I want to kind of,
I guess, convince you to practice daily self-care. That's been my goal all along when I've
doing this podcast and the work that I do. But it's more about, you know, when we get down to it,
I call it deep-level self-care. But this is about regulating your nervous system. This is about
getting out of that fighter flight, freeze, fawn, you know, whatever you're in and kind of stepping
into a state of calm, you know, rest and digest is what they call it. But it's a state of calm.
It's to give you a path. Today, I want to talk about a path towards burnout recovery. And we'll
explore how to reset the nervous system and to start to normalize daily self-care. And I feel like
all women need to do this. Men need to do this too. But men, I have to just say they're a lot better at
putting themselves first. They just are. But anyway, women, women's another point that I want to make.
Women's unpaid and unnoticed labor upholds a system that does not serve any of us in any way.
It holds, it is the glue. It is the fabric that holds our society together right now. If women
stopped doing all of their unpaid labor, they stopped and also they stopped making babies and they
stopped consuming, the world would come to a stop. Women make up 85% of the consumers. We have a
lot of control here, ladies, like a lot. Like we're making the babies. We do most of the unpaid labor
and we spend most of the money. So we, so, but this unpaid unnoticed labor, it upholds a system,
the patriarchy that does not serve women in any way. And it's time to put ourselves first so we can
choose where we direct our energy, whether it's to ourselves or to other people we love. We need
to make it our choice and not some kind of pressurized expectation from society. So how often do you
say yes to things because they're socially expected of you? Or because you're afraid of some kind of
judgment you're going to get whether you're going to get that judgment or not you are placing that
judgment. You're assuming that you're going to get that judgment or you want to uphold a stereotype
that selfless woman hero stereotype that just makes you look good to a society that has this
fucked up expectation right that it was created really to suppress us as women because if we're
worn out exhausted we can't really step into our power. We were told that given our everything to
everyone else will be celebrated but this actually stops us from stepping into our true selves and
sharing that version of us with the world which is what we're supposed to do. We're all very unique
beings and we're here to show up and share that version that authentic true version of ourselves
with the world and I would go as far to say that this alone is our purpose. This is our only purpose
to show up as our authentic selves. Enjoy yourselves. Follow the joy right we are all one puzzle piece
that fits into the big beautiful puzzle of the world and we all know how annoying it is to have a
puzzle with a missing piece. So isn't it kind of your job your duty your purpose whatever you want to
call it to take care of your beautiful self and fit yourself into the inner workings of the world
that's what you're here for and you're the only one that could do it. I'm not saying don't care
for your loved ones okay whenever I start talking about putting like putting yourself first people
get all like oh my god so if you just like suck the air out of the room and clutch your pearls when
I say put yourself first then this is like this is for you to pay attention to this isn't about being
selfish and not taking care of other people. What I'm saying is it's your time and energy and you
and you only get to decide what to do it not society not your partner not work not those those
hovering expectations just you and until you start putting yourself first and filling your cup first
you can't really take care of other people at your highest level you can't really put yourself into
your career job whatever you want to call it you can't really show up for your kids your partner your
friends your family the way you want to you're half-assing it you need to put yourself first in order
to show up as the best version of yourself so take charge of these most precious assets or someone
else is going to do it for you your time and your energy your most precious assets be intentional
with the way you spend your time and who you allow into your energy field today I want to talk
about how to step out of the cycle of doing doing it all and start building a life that feels
sustainable doable come and yes still deeply successful so the myth that the this big myth of
doing it all having it all whatever I truly believe we can have it all as long as we shift the
expectations as long as you shift away from the expectation that society has put on you which is
impossible impossible to reach right creating your own expectations not someone else's we've
been sold the idea that we're supposed to be carrying everything the career the family relationships
home health and more and we do it all by ourselves and we can't juggle that perfectly we're made
to feel like failures if if we don't do it perfectly which is pretty much all the time when I was a
single mom with three kids I 100% felt like a failure all the time I felt like I was failing every single
day because what I was doing was completely impossible for one person there's a reason they say that
you know that cheesy saying it takes a village that's because originally that's how we did it we were
in these communities where we were with our family members and we were helping each other raise
our children okay this was the normal this is normal for human beings but we we've moved away from
that we've spread out in the world we're all over the place our families aren't together anymore
and this changes things so we have to kind of reassess what we can and cannot do okay we're like I
said I felt like a failure a hundred percent of the time I felt like I was half-assing everything and not
doing anything up to par this is by design to make us feel like we're missing something or we just
need to adjust a few more things or we just need to try a little bit harder and we'll get that
we'll reach that magic place so we're always trying trying trying trying we're on that hamster wheel
but we never really get to that point but we are putting so much energy time and everything we've got
into it it's sucking the life out of us we keep trying to reach this impossible place instead you
need to decide what you want and how you want to spend your time and keep society and everyone else
trying to tell you what you should want out of your business none of their business but one thing
for sure is exhaustion is not proof of worthiness I just want to point that out the the amount that you
do is not proof of your worthiness you're worthy just because you're here you are you are you or you
like you don't need to prove anything you don't need to work hard in order to enjoy yourself
you need to just enjoy yourself doing does not equal worthiness the truth is pushing harder comes at
the cost of your body your mind and your spirit chronic overwhelm doesn't make you more accomplished it
makes you less present right when you're when you're exhausted and you're running on empty you're
not yourself think about it and we're going to talk more about some of the science when you're feeling
that way but you're not yourself so you're not present you're not completely present when you're
not present you're not showing up for your kids you're not showing up for your partner your friends
your family you're not showing up for your business you're not showing up for your work right you're
not showing up for anything you're not showing up for yourself real success isn't about it's not
about doing it all it's about doing what matters to you this is what I'm talking about what matters
to you if what matters to you is raising a family and that's and that's it then that is your success
screw it whatever everybody else thinks if your definition of success is to you you don't want to have
kids you want to start your own business or you want to volunteer all of your time to an animal
shelter and then you do that you you volunteer every ounce of your time to an animal shelter
and that is your definition of success then you're successful so you get to define what that means
and you need to do it in a way that's sustainable that you could that you could you know enjoy your life
you don't need to prove your strength by running yourself into the ground one of my
definitions of success now in my life is my time time freedom that's how I define success not by how
much money I make not by how many clients I have how much time freedom do I have also location
independence which means I could work from anywhere I don't have to be in a place I don't have to show
up somewhere at a certain time those are my two ways that I gauge how successful I am that's how
I define it everybody's different now how do you move from burnout to balance and reclaim your joy
this isn't just about being balanced it's about being happy to without sacrificing like your ambition
now I want to go into the definition of the word balance because there's some people who like
balance does not exist and you know they're kind of right it's just it's just how you look at balance
okay so balance is not some kind of endpoint that you reach where you're like okay I'm balanced now
and I don't have to do anything I think of balance as the same way you balance on a bicycle so
you get on the bicycle and you start pedaling and to keep yourself upright you have to constantly
be shifting your body weight everything you have to be paying attention you have to be looking
you have to be feeling what's going on around you this is the same as life so it's not like
you can get balanced on a bicycle and then you can stop paying attention just like sit there and the
bike just takes you where you want to go right that's the it's the same in life so there's no there's
really no such thing as reaching reaching a point of balance as an end-to-point it's it's like a
lifestyle if that makes sense so when some people say yeah balance does not exist I kind of agree
with them to a certain degree but there is a lifestyle of balance where you can continuously work
towards being as balanced as possible because you're shifting you're paying attention you're taking
all the data and information and you're using that to to strategize your life right that's balance
burn out something I really want to stress is burn out is not weakness if anything it's probably the
opposite it's the it's just the monstrous overworking of yourself I don't know I definitely wasn't weak
when I was when I suffered from burn out I was I'm very strong person it's just your body's alarm
system it's just information and it's flashing red and it's begging you to pay attention right
we need to pay attention to these signs or we can lead ourselves into a state of some sort of
dis-ease in the body so I always like pronouncing dis-ease like that because that's what it is dis-ease
in the body disease right this can show up as high blood pressure weight gain headaches exhaustion
insomnia sometimes it could show up as something more serious if you ignore it long enough like it
did for me I had a stroke when I was 39 years old it could also show up as an autoimmune condition
a heart attack it can fuel cancer right none of us want these things and here's the secret most people
don't realize joy relaxation and ambition are not opposites in fact joy and rest are the fuel that
keeps ambition alive without burning you out when your nervous system is calm your focus sharp ends
your energy rises and your creativity flows when you're calm when you're still you notice things
that you normally wouldn't notice when you're calm and you're still things pop into your head
that you wouldn't normally hear or pay attention to you become more productive if that's what you're
looking for maybe your form of being productive is not being productive at all so balance isn't
about giving up on success it's about creating the conditions where success feels sustainable
I have trouble saying that sustainable instead of draining like what I was talking about earlier
my sign of success is time freedom like today as soon as I finish recording this podcast I'm done
it's two o'clock I'm done I'm gonna go for a walk taking my dog with me for a little outing
taking her to the store to get her pick out a bone that's the rest of my day now there's some days
where I work longer some days I don't work at all but having that time freedom is that's my
sign of success being able to do what I want when I want okay now we're gonna get into five signs
that your nervous system is dysregulated and there's more than five signs but these are just some
really common ones okay if you're living in like that constant stress mode you're almost
don't even know how to feel calm and when you're like in the state of calm it almost feels wrong
you feel like you're doing something wrong okay if you feel like that just pay attention right now
your body is going to let you know when you're extremely stressed here are five common signs
that your nervous system needs a reset racing thoughts or a mental fog you can't turn your
mind off or you can't focus it all and your memory sucks when I was extremely stressed out I couldn't
remember anything I would forget my kids birthday that's how distracted I was I was so disconnected
like I would forget important appointments picking my kid up from somewhere like some of the things
I used to forget I was like what is wrong with me and I of course I beat myself up about it all right
but it wasn't really my thought it was just the reaction that was the distress on my brain okay
another one is poor sleep I mean this is obvious tossing turning waking up tired no matter how much
sleep you get if you're the type of person who wakes up at three o'clock in the morning where you're
just like like almost like in a state of anxiety that is that's a sign of being your your nervous system
being dysregulated because what's happening there is three o'clock in the morning is like a normal time
for our cortisol to start going up it's like slowly supposed to go up so we wake up slowly right
but what's happening there is you have too much cortisol in your system and it's like jolting you
out of a sleep right and so waking up at three four o'clock in the morning is definitely a sign
that your cortisol is high and which is just meaning that you're under a lot of stress
irritability or like a numbness so snapping quickly at the people you love being very cranky
feeling or feeling really disconnected from life or disconnected from your body
I was so disconnected from my body that even physical signs I didn't notice until it was really
really obvious like I didn't realize I was tired until my body would shake like I just was so
cute to ignore being tired because I was tired all the time I mean think about it I was working
pretty much full time I had three kids under the age of 14 right and two of them were a lot younger
I had a 14 year old and then there was like a six years in between the difference between the two
younger ones who were kind of like Irish twins but so yeah there was I just was completely disconnected
and when I would sit down at the end of the day I wouldn't notice I was tired during the day I would
sit down and my body would literally shake and it scared the crap out of me but I didn't I didn't
know what it was and then I figured out oh I'm just tired but I still didn't take that cue as okay
you need to like de-stress that was just like okay you're tired so just go just just go to bed
that was it and then the next day I started over ignoring that completely physical symptoms
this is number five so we have racing thoughts mental fog is one poor sleep to chronic fatigue
feeling like you're running on fumes all day you wake up tired did I skip that one I think I skip
that one okay we'll go back to that chronic fatigue that's when you wake up and you feel tired
when you wake up and you just feel like you're running on fumes all day like you're I just
remember always feeling like once the next time I could sit down and then sitting down for like a
second and then like getting up like you just feel like you're running a marathon all day and if
you've ever run a marathon you know exactly what I'm talking about what once you get to like
mile 20 and you're just like oh my god just one more mile oh my god just one more mile like that's
that feeling of the chronic fatigue okay and I'm not talking about chronic fatigue syndrome or
you may have that also but I'm just saying like that chronic feeling of being tired you wake up tired
that's number three and then number four was irritable irrit being irritate I can't say it
irritate oh my god I'm not even gonna try to say it just being cranky or being disconnected numb feeling
numb okay number five physical symptoms so like tension headaches tight shoulders upset stomach
shallow breathing overeating like to numb everything that could also show up numbing could also show up
as drinking wine every night maybe smoke and pot it could be scrolling on social media you know
doing something that's gonna like just like take your mind somewhere else you don't want to deal with
anything okay so I have to share that I had all of these things and then some and I made excuses too
like oh you're a single mom and that's just how it is and then I used to compare myself to other
people being like oh this person can do it and so can I I can do that too right and a lot of times
when you're seeing somebody else do it they're not doing it they feel the same way as you or they
have someone helping them or something like when you see someone else doing it and doing it perfectly
it's usually not that way I remember during this period of time in my life I had someone say
oh you're so lucky everything is just so perfect for you your kids are perfect everything's perfect
and she was looking at my Instagram and I'm like what the hell are you talking about I'm like don't
you realize that people just only put on Instagram what's good in their life I do you think I'm
gonna share with you what's shitty in my life on Instagram no thank you and I just basically told
her I said my life is not perfect nobody's has a perfect life and this is true nobody has a
perfect life we all have ups and downs and we have the downs so we can experience the ups and you
know this is this is life I used to also say I'm young my body can take it I said that one a lot
or things will calm down soon like what about that one oh it's gonna calm down soon the kids will
grow up but blah whatever do any of these sound familiar to you because if they do I'm here to tell
you they're all absolute bullshit once again you're in it you're like a unique being and you feel
the way you feel so like comparing yourself to other people shouldn't matter like if you see someone
else doing something that you have trouble doing don't compare yourself to them everybody has different
circumstances in their life everybody has different support everybody had a different upbringing
everybody has different challenges physical mental like like so many different ones monetary right
you can't compare yourself to another person if somebody else seems to be doing it it's likely
because they have different circumstances and same with you right so once again you're a unique
being and you feel the way you feel so don't compare the way you feel and say to yourself you
should feel better because of this this and this now acknowledge the way you feel and accept it
and feel it allow yourself to feel it and then do something about it okay
pay attention to what your body and your soul is telling you pay attention the good news is that
your nervous system is not broken and it can be reset with simple consistent practices like grounding
breathwork small acts of daily care somatic practices so i'm going to talk a little bit about the power
of daily like micro self care okay and here's the biggest myth about self care that it requires
hours of free time expensive retreats or perfect routines or expensive products it definitely doesn't
so five intentional minutes a day can change everything as long as it's consistent a few deep breaths
sends signals to your body that you're safe a short grounding walk outside in nature can regulate
your mood your blood pressure small rituals that are important to you repeated daily build
resilience and balance like you know a cup of tea at bedtime a bath before bed you know journaling
every morning you know a quick meditation before work whatever these micro practices stack up
they're not just things that are nice to have or nice to do or things that you're just going to do
on the weekends they're rewiring of your nervous system day by day moment by moment and every single
minute second every moment counts so i'm here to share as i talked about at the beginning of the
podcast in the intro a new program that i have so a while ago um before i get into that um i know
i know what happens when you ignore these stress signals as i said i had a stroke at 39 and that's
why i started doing the work that i i'm doing now i didn't really know how to heal myself
and it took me probably about 10 years to kind of take all the courses and learn all the things to
really help myself and i'm still learning today i am in a continuous state of learning and we all
should be there but which really important is learning how to care for yourself in the deepest level
and every individual is different okay so what works for me might not work for you and that's why
i share so many things with my clients so many different opportunities that they can try
very recently i did a five day uh gentle reset okay and i did it in my patreon and it really
seemed to resonate with a lot of people and they were telling me that this is what they wanted something
easy they were already stressed they already had no time and they needed something that took up
very little of their time they didn't want to have to like show up like i'm not saying not show up
but like show up showered make up on dress they just wanted something easy that as easy as possible
something gentle something that's not gonna like trigger them too much so i created a program based
on that kind of like that five day reset that gentle reset these small gentle little pieces of self-care
that we can implement here and there and here's what makes this program different it's personalized
to you so you'll complete a questionnaire so that i can create a plan that fits your life and each
week you're going to receive like voice notes journaling prompts action steps somatic practices
you know meditation breathwork grounding tools and you'll have access to me with weekly coaching
hours and all of this is done on boxer which is a walkie talkie type app so it's kind of like a
texting app app but you could also send voice messages in real time or just leave voices voice messages
and that's the beauty of it like i could leave you a voice message at the beginning of the week
and if you don't have time to listen to it until Wednesday or do the self-care practice until
Wednesday then do it Wednesday but also i'm creating hours every week where you could show up and ask me
questions and i could answer those questions for you during those hours you could also leave questions
for me that i'll answer during the answer answered to you whenever you whenever that question comes up
so if it's not coaching hours i'll answer it like as soon as possible but i always encourage my
clients to leave me a question as soon as they think of it or they're going to forget about it but
it's it's direct real-time support with no pressure to show up if that makes sense it all happens
like i said on boxer which is a private app that you can use on your own schedule and yes it's on
your phone but you can also use it on your desktop if you're not a phone person you get to decide when
okay this isn't about quick fixes this isn't about building a self-care system that feels
you know like stressful it's about one that feels natural guilt-free and sustainable over time
it also has to be doable and it's not a huge investment so that was something that my clients were
telling me also they were saying i don't have thousands and thousands of dollars to invest in
something that i i don't even want to show up to you right so you can try it out for a few months
and if it's not for you you can cancel so the founding member price is $25 a month with a three-month
minimum commitment i want you to stay committed for a few months and try it out okay and so i'm trying
to make this an easy yes so when you need to you know you need to do something you're at that point
but you don't you feel like you don't need another thing that you have to do this can fill that space
so you're next step you don't need to keep running on empty burn out doesn't have to be your story
okay this is your moment to choose differently to reset your nervous system to reclaim your balance
reclaim yourself and welcome happiness and joy and fun back into your life because that's the last
step of this self-care this program this is you know one of the most important steps is adding that
joy in that beauty and that love back into your life right having fun again because the truth is
you're not meant to do it all alone you're meant to thrive and you're meant to be supported
not just by yourself but by others also so this is your invitation to join this gentle self-care
nervous system reset i will put the link in the show notes but if if that's if that's not your thing
then just show up every week and listen to the podcast i'm always implementing i mean i'm always
sharing different self-care practices that you could use and i hope to reach as many people as
possible with this podcast so that nobody has to feel the way i felt 10 to 15 years ago and so
if this show resonated with you or if this podcast you've been listening for a while and
it's been something that has really helped you if you could share it with somebody else if you
could subscribe or even if you're listening to this on apple you could leave a testimonial there
for me that's really what gets it in front of a lot of people so i appreciate you and i hope you
have a good week bye
thank you so much for spending this time with me today if you enjoyed this episode be sure to
subscribe so you never miss a new one and if you're listening on apple podcasts i love it if you
can leave a review it helps get the show in front of more people who might need this type of support
and if you're ready to take your everyday self-care even deeper come join us inside the sole
aligned live patreon every week you'll get new self-care practices and tools to help reduce stress
and overwhelm plus we do a monthly reset to keep you aligned and supported always you'll find
the link in the show note and i'd love to see you there until next time be sure to take good care
of yourself love you bye
before we wrap up just a quick reminder i'm not a doctor and this podcast is for educational
and inspirational purposes only it's not a substitute for a medical advice so if you're experiencing
health concerns please reach out to a qualified health care professional who can support you personally
love you bye
