Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Welcome to the Happy Stack Podcast where we explore the science and strategies behind creating a happier, more fulfilling life. I'm Teriann Richards and I partner with organizations to address the root causes of burnout, disengagement and stress. Equipping leaders and teams with the tools they need to thrive, both organizationally and personally. Each episode we dive into practical habits, insights and strategies to help high performers like you level up from the inside out. Let's get stacking.
[00:00:33] So I want to get something straight. You can have all the goals, the vision board, the 5am routine, the color coded planner, the accountability coach, and the hustle. But if your nervous system does not feel safe, none of it is going to stick at all because you'll sabotage it. You're going to stall, you're going to start and stop. You're going to overwork and then you're crashing.
[00:00:59] And you'll reach your goals, but you're going to get there and feel no freaking joy. And today's episode is a wake up call. Your nervous system does not care about your ambitions. It cares about your safety. So let's talk about how to stop fighting your biology and start working with it, right?
[00:01:20] Here's the brutal truth.
[00:01:22] Your nervous system does not give a rat's ass a damn about your productivity habits.
[00:01:29] It does not care if the habit that you have is good or bad. It only cares about familiarity and survival.
[00:01:39] So when you try to level up, when you try to set new boundaries, start a new habit, or launch into the scary thing, your body goes, whoa, that's unfamiliar. That means it's kind of unsafe, right?
[00:01:54] Even if your goal is positive, even if the very thing you say you want is what you're doing.
[00:02:02] And so this is why you start to feel this resistance, right? It's not because you're doing the wrong thing. It's not because you're unmotivated. It's not even because you're lazy. It's probably because your system is prioritizing survival over success.
[00:02:22] Let me break this down simply for you. Your nervous system is the communication superhighway between your brain and your body, right? It constantly is scanning for threats. And not just the physical ones, right? But emotional and psychological ones too. And this process is called neuroception. It's like a subconscious radar asking, am I safe or am I in danger? And it answers before the you. Like you, the person is even aware.
[00:02:58] So if you're somebody who's ever experienced chronic stress or been praised only when you are producing, right, you've internalized perfectionism or you've experienced burnout or trauma or emotional neglect, then your nervous system may have rewired safety with overdoing, over giving or overachieving.
[00:03:27] Stillness feels unsafe.
[00:03:31] Saying no triggers guilt.
[00:03:34] Visibility feels threatening. And rest a lot of times equals anxiety.
[00:03:40] And when you set a new goal that disrupts that wiring, your nervous system fights back.
[00:03:46] Have you ever wondered why? You know what to do, right? But then you don't do it. Like, you've read the books, you've listened to the podcast, you've watched the YouTube videos, you've taken the course, you made the list, even blocked it on your freaking calendar, right? And then you avoid it. You delay, you distract yourself, or you overdo it to the point of burning, right? This is not a discipline problem.
[00:04:13] It, a lot of times is a nervous system mismatch.
[00:04:17] It is your conscious brain wants to grow, but your subconscious body is screaming, change is dangerous. Don't do it. Do not make the change. Even if it's painful to stay here, right? And unless we learn to calm our body first, right? Our mind is never going to follow.
[00:04:39] So this is from my perspective, and the research backs this up. The real reason that high performers stall, because we are trying to execute goals from a dysregulated state, right? And dysregulation always chooses protection over progression.
[00:05:00] In most high achievers, nervous dysregulation is kind of sneaky. It looks like snapping at your team for slowness, fidgeting during downtime, over scheduling your calendar to avoid thinking, feeling right emotions, feeling anxious when you're at rest or over researching. And then never actually launching the thing, pushing through even when your body is screaming for you to stop, for you to halt. And then, I guess, finally, I'd say, like people, pleasing to avoid discomfort. I want to say this really succinctly and clearly.
[00:05:40] Reactivity.
[00:05:41] A lot of times, not all the times, but a lot of times is a nervous system issue, not a flaw in somebody's character.
[00:05:51] For the most part, most of us have been conditioned. But the good news is conditioning can be rewired. That's the beauty of the brain, right?
[00:06:03] So, quick neuroscience primer here. Your nervous system works like a ladder with three rungs, right? This is from polyvagal theory. Number one is the ventral vagal, the top rung. This is the safe and social state. Calm, focused, engaged, able to connect and create.
[00:06:27] Number two, sympathetic. That's the middle rung. Fight or flight. It's mobilized. It's alert, driven, but also irritable, impulsive, anxious.
[00:06:39] And number three, the dorsal vagal, the bottom rung, shut down, freeze, numbing out. Check the freak out, Foggy. This is where depression and apathy live.
[00:06:51] Now, you need all three states sometimes, but you don't want to live in the bottom two. The goal here is flexibility, right? It's being able to move between states and then come back to safety. And that's what real performance and real fulfillment and real happiness is built on. It's not built through force, but it is built through flexibility and regulation.
[00:07:21] So I want to get tactical.
[00:07:23] Here is how to align your nervous system with your goals.
[00:07:29] Number one, start with safety, not strategy. What do I mean when I say that before the new habit? Because guess what goals are building new habits. Before the new habit. Ask yourself, does my body feel safe doing this? And if not, don't push harder. Start smaller, soften, regulate. Sometimes we set these big, hairy, audacious goals, and the second we set them, we're like, holy.
[00:07:56] Like, that is so freaking scary. And your body goes into either numbing or flight or whatever.
[00:08:04] So it's too big for right now.
[00:08:07] So just break it down a little bit smaller because you can still get there. It's just chunk by chunk, milestone by milestone, right?
[00:08:14] Number two, create micro safety cues.
[00:08:18] So I want you to anchor moments of felt safety in your day. So that could be 30 seconds of hand on heart breathing.
[00:08:28] A walk without stimulation, that just means, like, no cell phone, no earbuds, Just go and just breathe in the. Either outside, in the nature, or, you know, standing on the treadmill, but nothing extra, right? So saying I'm safe out loud before a tough task. Now, ideally, you do this when no one else is around, because that would be a random thing to say out loud. And somebody would be like, what did you say? And you'd have to explain it. So in a quiet spot of your own, you know, or, you know, in a space where you feel safe to say this around other people, say, I'm safe out loud before doing something hard, having the hard conversation, jumping on a stage, starting the business, whatever it is, right? And then another one that really works. And anybody who's ever taken any of my communication or public speaking courses knows, I get you up and I get you to move and I get you to shake and I get you to dance.
[00:09:17] So shake out your body between meetings, between tough conversations, because it moves the energy and it actually tells your body that you're safe. You ever see a dog after they, you know, like, they yap at each other, they have, like, a tough moment, they'll do like a shake.
[00:09:33] They don't have water on them. They're shaking because they're regulating their nervous system. So we needed to do that too. We could take a lesson from our puppies. So these micro moments, they retrain your system to associate calm with action. Right. Number three, use the 5% edge. I want you to, instead of going 100% all in on something, what is 5% more than I'm doing right now? Right. So what this does is it creates expansion without triggering all the alarm systems to go off when we go too big. Right. Number four, track success through regulation, not results.
[00:10:09] At the end of every day, ask yourself, did I respond or did I react today?
[00:10:14] Did I say connect it to myself and did I create calm before I created all the content?
[00:10:20] So what I'm getting you to do here is you're looking back throughout your day and going, okay, did I respond effectively or was everything I was doing was putting out fires, I was just reacting? Right. Was I proactive or was it reactive? Did I stay connected to myself? In other words, were you still with you while you were making the choices and doing the things, or were you having, in a lot of ways that robotic out of body experience where we just go through our day robotically, but over time that creates dysregulation in the body. Right.
[00:10:51] Number five, ritualize your wind downs. I'm going to say this until I'm blue in the face, so if you've heard it before, I apologize.
[00:10:58] A dysregulated system cannot shift into recovery. So choose a nightly practice. Even if it's five minutes that signals closure. It could be breath work, it can be journaling, it can be reading, it can be gratitude with your eyes closed. It can be warm tea in a bubble bath. I don't care what it is, just train your system to land right at the end of the day. Your nervous system is not trying to sabotage you, but it is built to protect you. But it's based on some outdated programming. Right? It's stuff that was created years and years and years ago, but you're an adult now and you get to rewire what that safety means for you.
[00:11:41] Because when your body feels safe, your mind can focus, your emotions can stabilize. The habits that you're trying to create for who you're becoming next can actually stick. They can hold and you can actually start to land in that joy and that happiness and that fulfillment. Right? Regulation is foundational. It is something that we all need to pay attention to and give effort to. And to me, this is the leadership edge that nobody's talking about yet. But you are now, right? So this week, your challenge is simple. Choose regulation before you go into execution mode. Just one moment a day where you breathe, where you pause before you build because your nervous system requires it. It is your secret weapon to building a happy and fulfilled life. And this is how we stack happiness that lasts, right? I'm Cherrieann and I will see you in the next episode. Have a great day.
[00:12:39] Hey, thanks for listening to the Happy Stack podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a little extra happiness in their life. Let's keep stacking those wins together. See you next time.
