094 – Your Body is Your No-BS GPS

Sarah Tacy [00:00:00]:
Did you know our decision making and ability to connect with others, including our kids, is influenced by the state of our nervous system? When our nervous system feels well resourced, we are more likely to make heart based decisions instead of falling into protective trauma patterning. We will be more likely to connect with loved ones in creative and generative ways because we’ve met the hard emotions in ourselves first. And please hear what I’m saying too is that we can then meet our kids in their wide range of emotions in more fun and generative ways when we have resource ourselves to meet ourselves in these places as well. After feeling like I nearly disappeared postpartum, nervous system resourcing brought me back to life to fully experience joy, build meaningful relationships, strengthen my marriage, and embrace vulnerability. I would love to invite you and or someone you love to resource, a 4 month program designed for women who have navigated matrescence, that transformative threshold of caring for tiny humans, a threshold that can bring immense joy, but also make it challenging to recognize your own existence, let alone your preferences. My dream is to help us become well resourced, alive mothers, because this is the basis of familial and generational healing, but also because feeling embodied and alive is our birthright. The program starts January 6th, but I want to offer this opportunity to you before the holiday season so you can invest in yourself first. Check the link for more details.It would be a total honor to meet you in this journey.

Hello. Welcome. I’m Sarah Tacy, and this is Threshold Moments, a podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown, and the pull feels real. Together, we share our grief, laughter, love, and life saving tools. Join us.

Sarah Tacy [00:02:34]:
Hello, and welcome to Threshold Moments. This month, we’re taking extra time to talk about the nervous system, what it is, how it could help you through this holiday season, how it can help you through life in general. We are looking at the ways that the nervous system is here for you as an ally, as a best friend, as something that is reliable. But sometimes, maybe even often, the programming is outdated. So sometimes we’re living in present time, 2024, 2025, and our operating system is like a computer from 1989. And so we want to be able to update our operating systems into present time, into its highest function so that the virus protection from the computers back then are actually up to date with what is actually a threat, what is no longer a threat, and what is most useful for us now. So coming this January, I will be offering a 4 month program called Resource where we will you will receive daily videos that are 5 to 10 minutes for nervous system support, something to help bring you from your mind into your body, and then weekly calls to have experiential learning, Q and A, and time to map out your nervous system, where you find yourself and where you want to go. You can click the link below and get on the wait list. I would love for you, if this feels right to you, to invest in yourself first before the holidays, before taking care of everybody else and everything else that you would say like, Hey, I want to have this landing pad for myself on the other side of January.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:54]:
And instead of just going into new year’s resolutions, I want to just find layers of support for myself, for my nervous system, for my body. I want to feel well resourced. So this is why I am offering this information so that you can have this preparation financially, mentally, emotionally, if it’s something you’re into. Now today’s episode is called Your Body Is Your New BS GPS. And this is something that I put on my website in kind of a cheeky manner. And when I was on Amina Al Thay’s podcast, she asked me about this, Tell me more about your body being your no BS GPS. And in some ways it feels obvious, right? For any of you who have partaken in the hustle culture and the go, go, go, go, then collapse. And for me being, I was an athlete who had so many injuries until I eventually had an injury that made it impossible for me to take pride in playing through it.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:07]:
I just actually could barely walk and could barely sit and had to lay out on a reclining chair to watch practices. And yeah, I just felt everything stripped away. And back then I might say, Oh, my body is getting in the way of me doing the thing I wanna do. So if you’ve ever been really sick and you have a deadline or you throw out your back and you have so many things to do, it’s generally the worst timing when our bodies get out on us. And most likely it’s because we’ve been pushing so hard for so long. And so our bodies have no stake in what the ego has a stake in. Our bodies will not lie and say that they’re okay when they’re not okay. Our bodies will in fact, start shutting down to save themselves.

Sarah Tacy [00:07:11]:
And it’s very interesting in our culture where we will hear different spiritual paths. And I wouldn’t say that there’s nothing to this, but different spiritual paths. Like in yoga, we have the tapas, which is to really let something burn and to see that you can withstand something longer than you think you can. That was my experience with it. That might be, and not actually be like the whole story behind Tapas. It’s like letting it burn and having practice in the fire. And I think there’s something to that. And I know for me in basketball, there was an award for the most tenacious and I wanted it every time.

Sarah Tacy [00:07:49]:
And I was taught how to play through pain. So instead of listening to my body, I was taught how to override it. And the lessons, you know, the body often whispers at first, but then the lessons may come in sickness, injury. And I know some people that comes for immune dysfunctions, autoimmune, and even organ failure. So Amina Altai’s story is one of going so hard and, you know, being a huge success story. Her parents having moved here, having immigrants, parents who have moved here for what I understand for the possibility of a better life. And, and she, and she did that. She created this incredible life.

Sarah Tacy [00:08:36]:
And, and, and, and there was so much of her that went into taking care of others as part of her work. She’s writing a book that will come out this year called The Ambition Trap. And one day as she’s going to work, she gets a call from the doctors that says, immediately come to the hospital. You could have be having multiple organ failure. And so in this way, the body is the no BS GPS. For me, it looked also like me collapsing on the lacrosse field. Like literally putting my lacrosse stick under my ribs because my coach was like, there, if you can’t stand, I can’t put you in the field. And so I thought, Okay, if I can like hold myself up with my lacrosse stick, maybe she’ll put me in.

Sarah Tacy [00:09:26]:
And yeah, it turns out I had had mono for quite a long time and I had been trying to run through it and play through it. And I had had a fever. And by the time I went to the hospital, pretty severe liver damage. And so then time, time, time, time to recover. And the other part of the body being the no BS GPS is that sometimes the messages aren’t obvious. So I would say start small. If you’re listening to this and you’re like, I don’t know how to listen to my body. I don’t know what to trust.

Sarah Tacy [00:10:02]:
This is really big in our intuition rehab. And it may start off with, if you notice that you need water, if you feel the feeling of thirst, can you get up and go get a glass of water? Even if it might disturb your workflow or be in the middle of a meeting. There are times where we can say, Oh, I can totally push through this. But can we start to notice the smallest preferences that don’t create too much of a ripple effect in a way that would be uncomfortable for us and start there? I could say when you’re hungry, there’s a good chance that there might be some tightness in your stomach, but there may be things in your past that are tied up with food and our stomach is very, very attached to our emotions. So for me, I notice when I am starting to move up in activation towards looping, towards rumination in my mind, I will want chocolate to help me feel better or to if I’m feeling really low to kind of be a pick me up. And so I can even just use that that cue for my body of chocolate, that there’s some dysregulation and I can meet the dysregulation with chocolate. Totally. I still sometimes do.

Sarah Tacy [00:11:40]:
No big deal. I could also meet it with possibly a walk or taking time to take a few physiological breaths. There are many nervous system tools that we can go over in the course, but possibly on the podcast too. Maybe I’ll have a guest on for that or just teach you some of the things I know. I can take it as a cue and decide, is this the right soothing technique? So how do we trust our body and its messages, her messages, when some of the messages are from past imprint, past trauma physiology, a time when those patterns were created to help me get through something when I had less power and less choice. So when we come up with these things of, I don’t know how to trust my body. I don’t know what it’s trying to tell me. I would say the first thing we do is to try to find any semblance of regulation, any semblance of coherence, of resonance, of feeling embodied.

Sarah Tacy [00:13:05]:
So we look for tools to help us. If we’re in constant mobilization, is there anything to down regulate us? Does a pause work? Taking a few breaths, just checking in with a friend and saying, I noticed that I can barely stop. I’m moving so fast and I have this decision to make, and I know that there is a time limit on the decision. Would you help me pause? Can you speak to me slowly or listen to me fully? If you were to go for a walk in the woods, there’s so much science as to why a walk helps. And especially if you can find yourself walking in a place that feels safe, that your eyes are taking in new information every moment, and it is kind of washing your brain. New information, and it’s safe. New information, and it’s safe. And it helps to clear out some of the looping or rumination that is going off in our brain.

Sarah Tacy [00:14:25]:
And as we move our body, we have that sense of healthy flight, healthy mobilization to move energy. And so we get to have our mobilization, but the speed comes down just a little bit and our body gets included. So the mobilization is not just in the brain going faster, faster, faster, faster, sucking up energy, but in more of a regenerative movement. So as you begin to regulate and you begin to move constant mobilization of getting things done to do list into a more regulated mobilization where you are in your body, perhaps you even move to neutral. You are most likely going to be able to hear more of the whispers of your body. I once heard Michael Beckwith say the ego screams, the soul whispers. And I love this. And someone’s like, how do you know the difference between your ego and what your ego wants and what your soul wants? The ego screams, the soul whispers.

Sarah Tacy [00:15:43]:
I would add that what the soul wants is also not always the easiest answer. It often requires us to have enough regulation to make a pattern change or to have a hard conversation. So we must garner resources enough to have the hard conversation skills enough to make the new move. So here we come up with this idea of regulation again, to be able to hear the intuition, hear the body, hear your truth that often whispers and is often inconvenient, but leads towards your liberation. And then the resources to follow through. You may also find yourself in a place where things are often moving slow. It’s like this double bind that happens in the freeze territory where it’s, I can’t, I must. So in the fight territory, it’s like, I must, I can’t.

Sarah Tacy [00:16:54]:
And so like, you’re trying, you’re trying, you’re trying, and nothing’s moving and it feels stuck. And then the freeze one is like, I can’t. I must, but I don’t know how. So I can’t. And from here, it can be really hard to imagine anything different to see any way out. And I see my body is saying this isn’t working, but I have literally no idea what else. And so the regulation we might ask for in order to hear even more clarity from the body, other than just the message of not here, not this might be little bits, baby bits of mobilization. Maybe baby bits of a breath practice, a slow yoga practice, a dance practice that may have a variety of speeds to just keep resourcing yourself so that the answer can reveal itself over time.

Sarah Tacy [00:18:06]:
I have often found myself in a place where I think that I should be able to get an answer from my body right away. I’ll give you a present time example. We have to make a pretty big decision with an architect. We have already invested with this person, with this company, and it is clear that it is not a good fit. And we really wanna honor their creative process. And it really doesn’t align with many of our desires financially, time wise, final vision. And there’s another option and leaving these people and having the hard conversation feels so hard. But I want to say before I even was clear that we needed to leave them, I, I was unclear.

Sarah Tacy [00:19:06]:
We had actually 2 options and I’m weighing them back and forth. And I’m asking my parents, what would you do? And I’m checking in with my husband, hoping that he has a clear answer. Have you ever done this where you’re just like check-in with all the people and then checking in with a contractor? What would you do? But in the end, the only person who’s gonna really know is you, in this case, me. And I’m doing the thing where like, okay, if I listen to my body so this is the, this is what you will most likely hear on the interwebs. Ask yourself a question. And when you give 2 different options, notice which one your body expands for, and notice which one it contracts around. And I will say for me, sometimes that’s not so obvious. Sometimes the truth is that I could live with either outcome and sometimes I feel so stressed and pressured around it that I’m not truly regulated to be able to get a clear outcome.

Sarah Tacy [00:20:17]:
And so giving myself even a day can be wildly helpful. So what I did is I wrote the question and I put it under my pillow and I asked my subconscious that part of me, that knows that part of me, that lives in all the cells in my body, because our mind is truly non local. And our linear brain that we access when we’re in beta waves during the day can really only see from a very narrow perspective. And when we’re in a state of stress, that perspective narrows even more and our creative outlook narrows even more. And so by asking a question and then letting it go and knowing that my mind itself cannot answer this question, Please help me to see clearly, to feel clearly. I feel it in my body. And the next morning I woke up and I woke up having these conversations with these, these architects, these people, and they were conversations about ending and they were our whys and our hows, but it was clear. My intuition was clear and my body was clear.

Sarah Tacy [00:21:48]:
And when I went back and forth this next day of these various options, and when I really go back and forth of like, okay, we’re definitely staying with them. When I go into that, we’re definitely staying with them. I get to notice what happens in my body. Yeah. Yeah. We would be good with that. We could totally do that. That would but then I can like notice in the smallest little crevices of my stomach.

Sarah Tacy [00:22:14]:
Sometimes my heart, these little contractions, these things that I have practiced so hard to override as an athlete, to push through, to be stronger then. And then when we lean into the other option, I could feel more excitement, more space for creativity. But this other option that may not be as creative in the end, keep leaning in to go, oh, yeah. Like, I have that creativity, and I have that vision in me that I can weave into it. And then I had to have the hard conversation. Oh, my God. It probably doesn’t sound that hard to you. I’m guessing.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:06]:
I don’t know. Have you ever had to have a conversation where you end a relationship? It could be romantic. It could be a friendship. It could be a business relationship. It could be somebody who works for you. Oh, those are so hard for me because I really wanna be liked and I really wanna keep the peace. But nervous system work truly is about building our capacity to one, hear the wisdom in our bodies, to feel those sensations of contraction and expansion, even if it takes a few days to get clear on what your body is saying. It’s about hearing that wisdom and then having the capacity to follow through.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:52]:
Resourcing ourselves enough, think about layers of support to be able to have the hard conversations. And this is how we build the lives that we want to live is by noticing that we have a preference. Our body is not just our brains. Our bodies actually have a preference. And the screaming preferences you hear, the fear that you sometimes feel. That is an old nervous system pattern that is trying to protect you. So the way to know whether it is an old nervous system pattern that is trying to protect you is if it’s wrapped in fear. If you can locate a young one within you, and if you notice that you’re dysregulated in a situation that may not call for that level of dysregulation.

Sarah Tacy [00:24:58]:
Right? If a lion were chasing you, of course, dysregulation makes sense. Please run. It’s on purpose. It’s life saving. Otherwise, take time. Go to the things that you know, resource you. You don’t necessarily need a nervous system course to learn about the things that resource you. You could.

Sarah Tacy [00:25:21]:
It’s helpful to have extra tools. It could be a lifeline. But I’m guessing you also already know some things that feel really good and stabilizing. And if you prioritize that over your to do list, over the checklist, and you’ll have greater access to your body as a no BS GPS. And you’ll be able to differentiate the old savior patterns that are in there and that were in there for life saving reasons that came when you were young and your present time adult self and her capacity to make updated decisions that include the health of your body, that include the desires of your soul, that include healthy relationships. I’ll say one more thing before I sign out here, which is that sometimes you may be blessed enough to go to a retreat or a summit or a huge ceremony where you are blown open in a way that feels so good. Everybody is jumping up and down. They’re dancing.

Sarah Tacy [00:26:54]:
There are motivational speakers. There are people who talk to you about their thresholds and getting to the other side, and you can do it too. And you see all that is possible. And this is really important and beautiful. You see all that is possible. And you wonder, will I be able to maintain this when I go home? And then you get home. And all the demands that were not there while you were at the summit at the ceremony are waiting for you. And the 100 of men or women who were in the same frequency in the same field of possibility are not surrounding you, and you can feel a collapse.

Sarah Tacy [00:27:41]:
And I would say, hold on to the vision. Listen to the wisdom of your body’s collapse. If this has ever happened, one is showing you your destination and the other is asking you to get some tools to take small steps because the terrain is unknown and therefore to the nervous system, when terrain is unknown, it is unsafe. So you must show your body through small steps if possible, that this familiar way can be updated to optimal. And every time you take a small step and survive it, it updates your system to say, Oh, I can have hard conversations. I survived that. And after the conversation, you may feel liberation, but you may also feel a contraction first and your body recalibrates and then you do it again. And contraction and expansion and contraction and expansion and contraction.

Sarah Tacy [00:28:55]:
You may hear a voice that will tell you that you’re failing, that this is dysregulation. This is normal. So my prayer to you, to me, is that we resource ourselves again and again, that we have so much grace and understanding that having expansion and contraction is totally normal. And having a life cycle that has parts where we are on top of the world and other parts where we are in the whole is totally normal. Lastly, I might leave you with this idea that journaling and writing has been studied as being a wildly useful tool. That generally as we write, it is both down regulating, if we’re in a hyper place or up regulating, if we’re in a hypo freeze space. It creates space for movement and creates a space for our brain to get everything out on paper, and we can start asking questions of the subconscious and seeing what comes up. So we have movement, we have writing, we have getting out in nature.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:18]:
We have get reaching out to a friend. And again, I believe that you have your ways for regulation, for resourcing. I love the idea of resourcing even more than regulation. I love the idea of layers of support. Utilize these to hear your body’s messages. Your body will win in the end. Its whispers can turn to screams. But here I offer you both this podcast and so many free podcasts that you can listen to as resources and this program coming up in January as you enter the new year of like, how can we keep resourcing ourselves and nourishing ourselves and creating layers of support and healthy relationships so that we can keep hearing the wisdom of our bodies and the direction that our soul wants to go and have the capacity and the courage to follow it.

Sarah Tacy [00:31:15]:
Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for tuning in. It’s been such a pleasure. If you’re looking for added support, I’m offering a program that’s totally free called 21 days of untapped support. It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacey.com.

Sarah Tacy [00:31:42]:
And if you love this episode, please subscribe and like. Apparently, it’s wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you scroll down to the bottom. Subscribe, rate, maybe say a thing or 2. If you’re not feeling it, don’t do it. It’s totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.

Sarah Tacy [00:32:11]:
Are you ready to build capacity for stress, joy, and vitality? Go from foggy to focused? Break free from anxiety and apathy? Your nervous system plays a crucial role in your relationship and decision making. By learning to resource your nervous system, you can make heart centered choices, respond to challenges with ease and grace, build stronger, more fulfilling relationships. If you’re interested, I invite you to join our 4 month resourced program. It’s for women who have been through matrescence, that threshold of mothering tiny humans, and come experience the transformative power of a well resourced nervous system. It begins January 6th. You’ll learn practical tools to calm, awaken, and support your body, connect with your emotions, cultivate deeper, more authentic relationships, and create generative and regulating practices that you can do with your kids. Join now, if this speaks to your heart, if this speaks to your deepest desires of what you want to move into in this next phase of your life.