Cecelia Baum Mandryk (00:20.526)
Welcome back. Today I wanna share something that can truly change everything once you see it. Your nervous system is behind everything you think, feel and do, and when you learn how to work with it, even just like 10%, not even 10%, even just like 1%,
your whole life will start to shift because this applies to every situation, every single day. December brings it into spotlight, right? But this applies to your entire life. I’m talking about it right now. The last six to eight weeks of the year, you’re hit with lots of sensory input, lots of emotional labor, lots of expectations, lots of comparison, lots of noise, lots of reflection, sweaters for the first time if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, and lots of pressure. And so a lot of us
can be in these situations and start to wonder like, what is wrong with me? Like, why am I reacting like this? Why did I just scream at my kid when my kid didn’t do anything? Why is everything so irritating? Why do I feel behind? Why can’t I show up the way I want to? Why doesn’t December feel how I want it to feel? As we get started and as we go through this episode, I want you to kind of take this into your being. And I talked.
I in the last episode about how intellectual knowing is superficial, but we want to go deeper, maybe it was a couple episodes ago, is really we want to not just know this intellectually, but we want to believe it. Nothing is wrong with you, no matter how you’re reacting, no matter how many people you’ve yelled at. Your system isn’t broken, it’s overloaded. There’s nothing wrong with your system. Your system is actually doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
you’re just not caring for your system, not again because there’s anything wrong with you, but because nobody taught you how to care for your system, right? Like I never learned how to care for my nervous system. There was never a class in school. You know, they joke about like there should be a class around like finances and day to day like taking care of budgets and things like that. I mean, I think almost more important would be like nervous system regulation. Like how do you meet and work with the emotions you feel every single day? Because if you can’t do that,
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (02:29.812)
then you will continually be drug around trying to avoid emotions, trying to create emotions, trying to control other people, thinking that you are broken, looking in all the wrong places for the peace and contentment and the groundedness and the being the person you want to be. Right? You will look in all the wrong places and you will wonder what’s wrong with you when in fact the answer is quite simple. Not always easy, but quite simple. Okay, so
If your nervous system is kind of like a battery, when the battery is charged, you’re in a more regulated space, right? You can think clearly, you can connect, you can make decisions, you can handle setbacks, you can hold conversations. You could also, I actually think about this, I’m not a computer science person, so I always hesitate to go to these places, but it’s what comes up in my brain. It’s like if you have recently updated a computer and the programs are closed and things are just like working and you get on and you like open a website or a program and it just like,
works, right? You open Adobe Illustrator and you don’t have to sit there for five minutes. It just happens. Compared to, that’s regulation, compared to when maybe you haven’t updated your computer, maybe you have a virus, maybe there are a lot of things running that are heavy on CPU usage and everything just feels really slow and it’s not working very well. That’s when you’re in activation into dysregulation. Dysregulation can feel like kind of a big heavy word.
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you. Those are just kind of the two sides of the coin. Activation might be a gentler word to use there, but you can use whatever word you’d like to. So when you’re in that space where your computer is kind of overloaded, everything feels harder, right? Small things take a very long time. Normal tasks like checking your email feels like it takes ages, like it’s climbing a hill with ankle weights, right?
And you start to judge yourself, you start to wonder what’s wrong, you start to think like, I should be able to do this faster, this should be happening quicker, blah, blah, blah. You lose your clarity, your reactions get bigger and louder, your old stories and these unhelpful beliefs that you thought you worked through come back. And I think the most important thing is that you cannot access your highest self either on an overloaded CPU or if we’re thinking about the battery on a dead battery. You cannot.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (04:53.452)
connect with the version of you who wants to thrive when you’re in those places.
you understanding that your nervous system is the thing that’s kind of running behind the scenes and it impacts everything, right? So this, your like operating system affects everything that’s going, this is when I start to get a little bit like nervous about talking into computer science and computer land, because I’m not, I am not that conversant in it, but I think that it holds together.
you have this operating system, have this like the hardware, the computing capacity, and those, if they’re not taken care of, then it’s very hard to do even very simple things on your computer, right? It’s very hard to open your notes application, to connect to your phone, to see like that note, that brilliant note that you wrote while you were walking, right? And this happens not because there’s anything wrong with you, but because your system is…
because this kind of how it’s designed, right? It’s actually the system is required to keep you safe, to sequester energy in case there is an emergency, to give you little dopamine hits. This part of your system is, I mean, it’s really, really, really wants to keep you safe, right? That’s its most important job. And so when it feels like it’s in danger, it feels activated, it feels stressed, it’s not going to lend a lot of energy to this like creative
to painting, right, to creating something in that way, even to problem solving in more logical way. It doesn’t really happen. So let me give you an example. If my battery is low, something or like I’m kind of overwhelmed, something as simple as taking a walk with my kids can be a minefield, right? They’re moving too slowly. They’re taking too long to get dressed. They’re talking too much. I get kind of snappy and frustrated. I feel impatient. Why can’t you just get your gloves on? Well, I’m three and it’s like kind of hard to get my gloves on.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (06:57.638)
Like, obviously I know that. But when I’m not regulated, suddenly I can’t handle the things around me. Noise feels too loud, right? My sweater feels too itchy. The collar of this one feels like too tight, right? And then inside I start to judge myself, right? I can’t do this. This is so hard. I’m failing. Someone else would handle this better. I’m a terrible mom. And that’s not the truth, but I’m just operating from a disadvantaged place in terms of my system. I’m trying to operate on 5 % of what is available to me. On a regulated day, this exact same walk, this exact same series of events can feel fun. It can feel like an adventure. Getting dressed can be a game. Going on the walk can be a game. We get to sing songs. We get to laugh. We wander. I feel connected, patient, spacious with them. I enjoy myself, right? Same kids, same walk, different capacity for my nervous system.
And this is, I’ve been doing this work a long time so I can really notice when I’m in those spaces and help myself in that moment. But as you’re tuning into this, really noticing when you start to feel stressed, when things start to switch over from that like fun mode to like crisis mode, or like happy person to angry person, or like what all those little changes, right? Because you get to go know your nervous system and help it.
to help it like you might help a small kid, right, who’s having a big emotional experience. And I love to think of my nervous system like this small version of me who doesn’t know time, doesn’t really know if it’s an existential threat or a live physical threat, who really takes things at face value and I get to work with them and validate them and make space for them in the moment. Okay, so most people, when we try and think and plan and decide with a drain system, most of us are doing this with.
an activated or drained system most of the time, right? Where most of us spend most of our time in some space of dysregulation, some space of activation. Again, not because there’s anything wrong with you, but because that’s the society we live in and just most people are kind of in that space most of the time. You’re trying to like map out next year while running on fumes. You’re judging yourself harshly while you’re feeling burned out and wondering why you can’t come up with a new location for alpha on the shelf or whatever that is.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (09:21.684)
And you’re expecting clarity and creativity from a brain that’s in survival mode, and that’s just not possible. And you will still be able to get things done because you have a huge capacity, but it will be not as good as you think it will be. It will not be the you who’s forward thinking, who is really creative, who is a cognitive problem solver, right? It’s going to be you at like a very damper level. When your battery is low or your CPU is overwhelmed, your system pulls energy away from higher level thinking.
and reroute it towards protection. This is also like other things that show up in this space are digestion, right? Because digestion, if you think about it, when you’re in danger, like physical danger, it is more important to run away than it is to digest things. And so if you have chronic digestive issues, this might be connected to your nervous system. And I’m not a doctor and I’m not gonna diagnose you on a podcast, right?
but I want you to think and ask, am I chronically stressed? I wonder if I could work with my nervous system and if that might have any positive impact on my digestive issues. Maybe it doesn’t solve them entirely, but maybe it shifts them, right? Maybe it makes it more accessible to change them. When we’re in that kind of low space that like we don’t have a lot of CPU usage, like capacity there, and you’re pulling energy from the higher level thinking, from these
And from creativity, from connection, from the you you want to be, you’re not failing and you’re not too much and you’re not behind. You’re actually just trying to build your life and show up in your life from a small percentage of what’s available to you. Again, so like if you think about a computer, it’s saying like, oh, 95 % is occupied by some like thing that’s running in the background. You don’t even know is there. And you’re over here thinking you’re a failure because you’re running on 5%.
And the truth is you’re not a failure, you’re just running on 5 % because your brain thinks it’s a danger, your nervous system thinks it’s a danger. The really amazing thing is you don’t need a full recharge to feel different. You don’t need a big retreat, you don’t need a perfect morning routine, you don’t need hours of meditation. In fact, if you introduce just a few minutes of breathing or tapping or some kind of practice that helps to regulate your nervous system, even just awareness of when your nervous system is in activation or dysregulation,
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (11:44.782)
tiny shifts will change your clarity, your patience, your self-talk, your choices, your relationships, your entire emotional landscape. You will be able to feel and process emotions instead of react to them. You will be able to recognize when you’re activated, step back and ask, how do I really want to show up right now? Who do I really want to be? When you figure out your nervous system, you will figure out more of your life. And I know that sounds like a big promise, but it’s like, I mean, regulation is just…
Everything and you don’t even need to be perfect, right? I just said this but I want to say it again You don’t need to be 100 % regulated 100 % of the time for this to work You need to be 2 % more regulated 5 % of the time, right and those are totally made-up numbers You just like little shifts start to make a really big difference because when your system starts to determine When you’re in regulation versus activation you it it kind of decides what something is a threat versus not
what you can tolerate, what discomfort is okay for you, whether you feel hopeful or hopeless, When you say what you mean or you shut down, right? When you disconnect for people or you come instead of boundary. When you connect or protect, whether the path ahead feels possible or overwhelming, whether you’re thinking I’ve got this or like I’m for sure gonna fail. So when you start to understand that it’s your state, not your identity,
you’ll stop blaming yourself and start working with yourself. That’s the option, right? Okay, so one thing that I talk a lot about breathing on here, because it’s generally a little bit easier to talk about, and I think taking slow nasal breaths is really powerful diaphragmatic breaths, right? With slightly longer exhale, it can go so far, it sends messages through your vagus nerve to your brain that says, I’m okay right now, I’m okay. But you can also tap, and so I’m gonna do just a little bit of tapping, right? And I…
tends to do brief tapping, which is just around the eyes and so, and on the collarbone. And so if you’re listening to this and not watching it, you can come over to YouTube and you can watch me or you can just listen to me. So I tend to, when this comes up, like for instance with the walk thing, I start to, I talk to myself, right? So I say, that right there is overwhelmed. I’m feeling overwhelmed right now. So I’m tapping at the inside point of my eyebrow.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (14:09.592)
Feeling overwhelmed is a completely normal human emotion. Then I tap on the side. Even though I feel overwhelmed, I can love and accept myself right now. I know that I am safe in this moment underneath the eye. And in fact, I’m open to coming back to regulation. I’m open to feeling something different in the moment. Overwhelmed isn’t who I am, it’s something I’m experiencing right now. At the collarbone.
I accept myself compassionately, I’m willing to let this go, and I’m open to believing something different in this moment. And then I squeeze my wrist, I wiggle my toes, and oftentimes do that a few times. And it allows me to talk through what’s happening, to describe what’s happening in my body, to accept the emotion, to process it. And then the emotion moves through me, and I’m no longer reacting. I’m actually working with myself. So.
As you move through the rest of the season, you might start to ask yourself, what is my CPU usage at? What percentage do I have access to? What would it look like to regulate myself and move a little closer to that? Your nervous system is behind everything. Once you learn how to work with it, even just a little bit, your reactions will make sense, your self-talk will soften, your relationships will stabilize, your decisions will get cleaner and clearer. You will start to feel more like yourself more of the time.
And again, we’re not going for 100%, 100 % of the time. That’s totally unrealistic. What you’re going for is slightly more regulated, slightly more of the time. And any shift you can make will feel so much better in your life. If this is something that sounds interesting to you, there are two different ways you can go deeper. One is you can join me inside the Life Lab. We have weekly somatic sessions, we do coaching, we work through this, and you also get to understand the beliefs that are behind it. But then I also have a mini class called the five minute shift. And the five minute shift
explains this again in another little, you know, a 30 minute class. It explains what is happening. You get a sheet to work through and you also have a video where you get to process with me in real time. And people who use it love it, right? You actually use it. You can just buy it and not use it. But if you buy it and you use it, it will change how you work with emotions in the moment and you will get to the place where you can process an emotion in about 60 to 90 seconds.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (16:27.514)
So that’s called the five minute shift. We’ll link it in the show notes. And again, if you feel called to coach together, come join me. Even if you don’t want to do any of those and you just want to keep listening, you’re here. Congratulate yourself for doing this work, for being here. And recognize that your life will start to get easier when your system starts to feel safer. Not when anything outside of you changes, but when your inside starts to feel safer. You have the power to shift it even a little bit, even in every single little moment. Okay.
Thanks for being here. really appreciate you. I hope that your December is going swimmingly and I will see you the next time I see you. Bye.
