What is up ? Hello there . My name is Jessica Paching Bunch , you can call me JPB , and this is Brain Body Resilience . This is a podcast dedicated to growth , human development and stressing a little bit less so you can go ahead and live a little bit more .
Hello friends and welcome back to the Brain Body Resilience podcast . I'm your host , jpb , and this is episode number 172 . Today's episode is inspired by a conversation that I was recently having with a friend . He said something like you teach people how to breathe and regulate so that they can reflect right . And yes , that is exactly it .
The self-regulation is only a part of the puzzle . It is the first part of the puzzle , because action and behavior change have to come next . If we want things to change , we have to do something different , and so we'll talk about why the order of those things is so important here in a second . A quick shout out to this person .
I am constantly impressed with their self-awareness and ability to feel things and then move on , to feel , process and then release , and this isn't something that I find easy .
I'm still learning to do this and I know for a lot of folks it's not easy , especially when it hasn't felt safe historically to feel things , express those feelings or have space to even consider what those feelings are .
And if we don't have the space inside of ourselves to process and reflect , it makes it really hard to do so , and the longer that we've been living in this constant state of internal turmoil , the harder it can be to see through the fog and we might need to learn or relearn to self-regulate , to be with ourselves enough to see what's happening and then process
so that we can reflect . And an aside here when we are in a constant state of chronic stress , we can't just expect to do a thing like breathwork or whatever other intervention tool , self-regulation , nervous system hygiene tool that we have one time and have it just like fix everything and we're good .
Sometimes it will give immediate relief because we're working with our shifting , our physiology and some tools are made for immediate intervention .
We practice , and the practice part is so important because we are practicing building a new way of communicating , like speaking a new language to ourselves , to our physiology , by practicing sending these new messages and then practicing listening to the responses .
This is how long-term change happens in our baseline state of being , our day-to-day and our ability to navigate future stresses as well and uncertainty with more clarity . This is why we practice nervous system hygiene , because you're not just a computer that you can program a command into and get the result you want .
You are constantly building and reinforcing a relationship with your physiology and so let's look at that the reason we regulate first is because it's how we work as humans .
So you have to be able to access your frontal lobe in order to have the ability to self-monitor and self-direct , in order to pay attention and direct where that attention is actually going and to process information , to make sense of that information , to practice cognitive flexibility or just changing your mind with new information , to reassess a situation or your
reaction to the situation , to be able to plan for the future how you will approach something or problem solve in that moment or again , thinking ahead . And when we are stuck in a threat state , an activated sympathetic state , there is another part of your brain that kind of takes over your limbic system .
And while I was thinking about this , I remember that Dr Dan Siegel's hand model of the brain is a great visual representation to help have something tangible to reference . So if you hold your hand up and then fold your thumb in to your palm and then close your hand like you have a fist over your thumb , that is the representation of your brain here .
Your fingers on top represent your cortex , the top parts of your brain . Then we have the thumb , which represents the limbic system , and in that is the amygdala , which deals with emotions , and kind of a guard or alarm center with that .
When that alarm sounds , there are signals sent to the hypothalamus and the pituitary glands , which communicate to the adrenal glands to send out chemical messengers like adrenaline and cortisol . This is the activation of your stress response system .
Okay , so then the palm under the thumb represents your brainstem and your wrist represents your spinal cord and connection to your body . So you see that there is no real separation between the brain and the body .
It's all connected , there's information constantly flowing back and forth , and so when you are in an elevated state , it's like you're blowing your top open and your fist .
If you open up , you can't see me , but I'm doing this , I'm trying to walk you along here , so you have your fist and then , if you open up your fist , your hand is open again , with your thumb in towards your palm .
You can see that your fingers , the cortex representation here , is not integrated with your limbic system , your thumb , and so they are not communicating well .
And so we need to regulate and bring a sense of safety with that parasympathetic input , which is what we do with breathing and movement and vagal activation , so that you can have better conversations between your rational self , your self-monitoring frontal lobe and then your fear activation limbic system .
They need to have great communication in order to navigate with more calm , more clarity , more kind of rational views and be able to reflect . And so only once you've done that can you begin to build awareness and reflect on the situation , your reaction and then what to do next . You have to regulate before you can reflect .
So now , reflection doesn't mean thinking about all the things that you fucked up or the ways that you feel like shit , or criticizing or judging . These only reactivate that threat state . So don't do that .
What reflection does is allow us to better build a better sense of self-awareness and deepen our understanding of ourselves and how we want to show up in the world . Reflecting on our experiences can assess what went well , what needs adjustment , and help to improve our problem-solving skills .
Without reflection , we will likely just continue to carry on as we always have , without questioning what it is that we do and why we do it , and then also consider if there's a better way to approach that in the future .
Self-reflection is important because this piece of the puzzle building not only self-awareness but that leads to resolve conflicts more constructively and build healthier relationships with both ourselves and those around us , and it's not always easy . A lot of these things are simple , but rarely easy .
It requires sitting with yourself , getting curious and resisting the urge to judge . It requires a level of courage and vulnerability . It is an intentional practice and one of my favorite reflection techniques is writing . It is a great reflection tool . This is why I make a practice of writing morning and night .
Not every morning , not every night , but I try to get some writing in each day , even if it's just a few sentences and even when all I have to say is I don't know what to say right now . Usually when I start with that , there's something else that pops into my head and then I write that down . So there's no structure or right or wrong way .
It's just writing what's in your head and heart . Because writing can help you clarify your thoughts and give words to your feelings , and sometimes this can be a slippery slope into self-deprecation and spiral into dune thinking . So try and keep it factual . Your reporting events , thoughts , feelings . There's no need to figure it out right now .
There's nothing to figure out . Sometimes just getting things out of your head and onto the paper is most useful . Other times . It can be useful to report these events objectively what happened , how did I feel , what are my thoughts and then reflect on what worked well and what didn't .
What made you feel at peace , what didn't , and remember , when doing this , to focus on what is in your control and that's you Period , how you choose to respond . That is it . So maybe this week my challenge to you is to take a few moments to breathe , long , slow , deep breaths and then write a bit . Maybe that will lead to some useful reflections .
And as I'm outlining this episode , I realize that I am terrible at talking about my services and how I actually work with people .
This is what we work with in the Manage your Stress Mentorship , which is a month-long mentorship to help kickstart your nervous system hygiene skills so that you can create the space and capacity to reflect on what is working and what is not , and then for more of a deep dive , the six-month deep dive we do just that .
We go deeper into first building and understanding of your body's processes so you can stop wondering what's wrong with you when it's just physiology doing what physiology does , and then build your toolkit to shift out of constant stress so that you can create the clarity , energy and ability to reflect , so you can stress less and live a little bit more .
All right , friends . That's it for today . Thank you for being here . Thank you for reaching out , tell me what lands , what episodes or have for words just stopped coming . Thank you for reaching out to tell me what lands and for the episode suggestions .
If you want to connect and haven't , you can find the links in the show notes always , or head to Instagram JPBBrainBodyResilience and message me there . I always love to connect . So this week , remember regulate before we can reflect .
We practice our nervous system hygiene tools and our nervous system practice so that we can have more clarity , more calm , more rational thoughts and problem solving when we are relating to ourselves and the world around us . Until next week we will do this again . I hope you have a beautiful week , peace .