095 – The Power of Curiosity in Nervous System Healing

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

Sarah Tacy [00:01:43]:
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.

Sarah Tacy [00:01:59]:
Hello. Welcome. I’m Sarah Tasey, 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. Hello, and welcome to Threshold Moments. Today, as we are exploring the nervous system, I am offering you a tool.

Sarah Tacy [00:02:40]:
I’m weaving in a podcast that I put as my 3rd episode in Threshold Moments, and I’m replaying it because I find it to be one of the most important things that we can resource our lives with. This episode is about the reticular activating system. And when I recorded it, I called it the reticular formation. Because when I first studied it in 2009, that is how it was written about in the scientific studies. But more recently, you will hear it called the reticular activating system, the RAS, in many corners of the world. Why do you wanna know about the reticular activating system, and why would this be useful for you? I think that if you want to break limited belief systems, then you want to understand the importance of asking great questions. I believe it’s Tony Robbins who says the quality of your life is directly related to the quality of the questions you ask. So this episode will describe the reticular activating system, but I will say this in brief that it is the part of your brain at the base of your brain stem that is filtering what information gets to make it up to your emotions and then to your conscious brain.

Sarah Tacy [00:04:05]:
There’s too much stimulus for everything to make it up. So if it feels important, it makes it up. And things that feel important are things that support our current belief systems or are shockingly and surprisingly new. If you put a Post It up on your refrigerator and it’s there every day and it reminds you about your self worth and your love, over time, you stop seeing it because it’s no longer new. If you wanna continue to be calcified in your belief system, similar to how social media works to pull in the things of like, oh, this is what she believes. We’ll give her more evidence that this is the truth. We’ll bring up more people who believe the same thing, and you get more and more sureed up in your one belief system. Now, if your belief system is that you can’t have a successful business and be present for your family, or that happiness isn’t actually possible because all you saw growing up was stress, then you will see and feel and experience all of the things that show that this is true.

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Now right in front of you, there may be another reality. Right in front of you, there may be a person who is happy, and you may begin to ask questions instead of that’s not possible, even like, is that possible? So the reticular activating system is like a bouncer, a gatekeeper that says, like, oh, okay. Now we’re gonna look for all things that show me that this might be possible, or now my ears are going to be open to hearing the mother at drop off talking about a reality in which she really loves being with her husband. I wouldn’t have even heard that before, but now my ears are picking up on new possibilities. My eyes, my body are feeling things in order to collect data around the question I have asked. One of our first reflexes when we are born is awe and wonder. And as we calcify into our belief systems, we can lose that awe and wonder. So as we make statements saying, show me, surprise and delight me, new realities begin to show themselves.

Sarah Tacy [00:06:38]:
And we get to go back into a place of curiosity, and we get to go back into a place of awe and wonder, and we get to open up to possibilities that are beyond what we saw growing up. And it’s not because there was nothing else evident, but growing up, the survival mechanisms are kicking in of what feels most important for survival. In your current time adult life, you get to know that there’s possibilities beyond survival and you get to start asking questions about that so that your brain can filter in more. This might be enough. You could end the episode right here and, or you can listen in to the rerun

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of the Gatekeeper of Possibilities. Remember stress is when we have more demands and resources. And one of your biggest resources is remembering to ask questions

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for the future you want to imagine and even staying open, which is a surprise and delight me, that there could be something even better than what you could imagine for yourself. Enjoy. I just kind of being reignited with my passion and my interest in the reticular formation, which is part of our brainstem. And now there is a lot of scientific jargon that I’m sure is actually super important. And I wanna just say I’m really happy that I am not a neuroscientist.

Sarah Tacy [00:08:35]:
What I learned about the reticular formation over 10 years ago, the most simplified version of what I took away to be uniquely interesting about it is the way that it sorts out information. If you can only imagine the amount of sensory information

Sarah Tacy [00:09:00]:
coming into our brain at every moment of the day, It would be wildly overwhelming if we had to process and think about every single thing that comes in. And so we have the reticular formation there that helps us bring in unique information. I remember my teacher, Dawn Stapleton, who was the founder along with Amba Stapleton of the Nosara Yoga Institute, would set up the room differently every couple of days so that if there was information he had these beautiful posters that he would draw. And if there was information that he wanted us to notice or drawings or a feeling he wanted to imbibe into the room, he would change the layout of

Sarah Tacy [00:09:52]:
the room, perhaps even the direction that we’re facing to garner our attention. And so that we would notice the new things. If a room is the same every time you go in, you start to not notice things anymore. I think that this is why when you buy a new house or you go into a new apartment, you see all the things that are off, all

Sarah Tacy [00:10:18]:
the things you would want to change. And if you let it go long enough, you can, kind of, stop being bothered by it. Right? There is there are those people who it’s gonna get on their nerve and they can’t stand it until it’s fixed. But there are a large majority of people who will stop noticing the scuff on the wall Because the reticular formation will eventually be like not

Sarah Tacy [00:10:43]:
important. There’s dinner that needs to be made. There’s a new schedule coming out for the kids or for your business. There are things that need to get done. A light went out. That’s new. But if a light

Sarah Tacy [00:10:57]:
is out for a long time again, it might just be like, I’ll get to that someday. So far, I’ve been okay without it being fixed.

Sarah Tacy [00:11:06]:
In the world I’m gonna say in the world of spirituality, in the world of manifesting, we are often taught to look for symbols or representations that things are going in the direction we want. So I like this this idea. Right? Because sometimes it’s hard for people to grasp the hold of

Sarah Tacy [00:11:29]:
we can man we can think of something and then we’re gonna create it. Think of it enough and then it will come into physical manifestation.

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For some people that feels really far fetched.

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And you could read Joe Dispenza’s work on quantum physics.

Sarah Tacy [00:11:48]:
And of course, he’s collecting other scientists’ work on quantum physics and how we can change the physical world with our thoughts. That’s one possibility. We could believe that there are spiritual entities that are trying to communicate with us and tell us things. That’s one possibility. Something that I think is more attainable and reachable for many is science. I happen to think science is also quite limited. You know, we know what we know through the lens that we can see it. And when we’re looking for signs, imagine that just because we’re looking for sign, just because we’re curious about something, we might actually see it more often even if it’s already been there, always been there.

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An example of this is if I am looking for

Sarah Tacy [00:12:45]:
I always say a red Jeep. I don’t know why this is my example.

Sarah Tacy [00:12:48]:
If I’m looking for a Jeep and I decide I want mine to be red and they say there aren’t many of them, and now I’m driving around Long Island, just kinda high population, and suddenly I see red Jeeps everywhere. And they seem like it’s they’re the most popular car. Or maybe it’s a certain model of a car. And now you’re seeing it everywhere. One might say, it’s a sign. It’s a sign. The red Jeep

Sarah Tacy [00:13:16]:
is for me. I’m seeing them everywhere. It must be a

Sarah Tacy [00:13:19]:
sign. I’m open to that. But, also, could it still be amazing if it’s just that you’ve said, I’m really interested in this thing.

Sarah Tacy [00:13:30]:
And then the world starts show you could say the world starts showing you more of it, or you could just also look at

Sarah Tacy [00:13:35]:
it as, like, now your brain is receptive to seeing the thing you want to see. Now this might be why we can

Sarah Tacy [00:13:43]:
be somewhat divisive in politics and opinions is that we start seeing more

Sarah Tacy [00:13:48]:
of the things that we want to see. But the part I really wanna bring forward,

Sarah Tacy [00:13:53]:
the part that I think is really exciting,

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is staying curious. So if we are clear I actually heard I heard Therese Dornland, who is a friend and a wise woman who lives now lives in Maine with us I say with us. She doesn’t live at our house, but she’s within a group of friends who said clarity prolonged clarity could also be a form of callousing. So to be kind of a wave between, to be titled between clarity and curiosity. Clarity and confusion could be a really beautiful thing. So

Sarah Tacy [00:14:37]:
when I’m either trying to manifest or when I am simply curious of an updated

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way, my curiosity alone will start to help me to see opportunities and things that already exist that have always been in front of me, or if they

Sarah Tacy [00:14:56]:
have not always been there that are in front of me that I would have otherwise missed.

Sarah Tacy [00:15:04]:
The two phrases that are specifically from Brigitte Bixens, the founder of Alchemical Alignment are Show Me and Surprise and Delight Me. Show me what it’s like to work with ease and financial abundance. Surprise and delight me with a business that is abundant and a family that is cohesive, happy, and healthy. Show me that they can both exist, coexist and feed one another. So that would be an example of show me or surprise and delight me. I had Amber Lilestrom on the podcast and we were talking about when she was young and everything was hard. And most of the people around her were unhappy and working really hard and unhappy. And And every now and then she would see somebody who seemed authentically happy and she started paying attention to those people.

Sarah Tacy [00:16:13]:
So here’s another one. I wonder. I wonder what those people do. I wonder if that’s normal or natural or possible. I wonder what those, how they were raised, how they have raised themselves, reparented themselves. I wonder, show me more people like that. May I be friends with people like that? What’s possible? So questions, I wonder. What’s possible? Just want to put it out

Sarah Tacy [00:16:48]:
there that asking the questions will allow us to see possibilities that we would have never seen before. I think so often as we move forward in life, we think we need to know the answers. I can certainly say for myself even now, oh, I would feel so good if I just knew the answer. There are a few things in life I’m like, oh, if I just knew the answer to this. Whenever I’m in a meditation or I’m journaling to myself, and sometimes I will journal from the Divine to myself, the answer is almost always to live into the question.

Sarah Tacy [00:17:26]:
Show me, surprise me, delight me with a life in which I am true to myself, in which I am serving the population that I want to serve, in which the work continues to ripple out. Show me my own healing In a way that doesn’t have to happen simply from suffering and learning from suffering, but show me healing from joy. Show me healing from joy. Show me that it’s possible to take great care of myself and have safety, risk, abundance, healthy relationships. Show me that slow can be safe. That fast can be healthy. If clarity is power, then curiosity is potential. Curiosity is where our soul and our humanity can dance.

Sarah Tacy [00:18:37]:
I have seen in my life, I have experienced in my life times in which I

Sarah Tacy [00:18:43]:
have received things. So now this goes into more of the topic of manifestation

Sarah Tacy [00:18:52]:
that seem and feel different than just asking

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the question and then receiving it because

Sarah Tacy [00:19:00]:
I am seeing something that was already there? So I want to put out the possibility, and maybe it’s not just a possibility since there’s science of the quantum physics of what happens when our brains start to fire in a certain way, start to put energy around something, not just in our bodies, but the energy that then is outside of our bodies. Quantum being that it could,

Sarah Tacy [00:19:24]:
you know, be in this time and space and affect another time and space. So an example I’ll give and a lot of this also comes down to non attachment. An example I’ll give so the first half

Sarah Tacy [00:19:38]:
of this little talk was really for those who

Sarah Tacy [00:19:41]:
are like, I can ground in science. And this next part is for anyone who might say, Anne, Anne, I wanna just feel into this manifestation thing. I have heard that manifestation comes from being in joy. This is terrible news. If you are in a place of deep fatigue and deep grieving, you need something new, you need something different, and someone says you have to be in joy. I would say

Sarah Tacy [00:20:14]:
that you could be in your grief and have a wave in which you are daydreaming, almost like escapism into a different possibility. You could be in your exhaustion and use escapism and or daydreaming into a different possibility. And as it’s a daydream, it might feel less necessary.

Sarah Tacy [00:20:40]:
Like I have to have this or else. As soon as we turn into the, I have to have this or

Sarah Tacy [00:20:47]:
else, all the energy of the manifestation seems to

Sarah Tacy [00:20:51]:
be

Sarah Tacy [00:20:51]:
blocked because what I think is processed is more of and more of the vision is what if I don’t have this? And the, what if I don’t have this creates a whole bunch of visions, both of like what we see in life, what we’re looking for, reticular formation wise. And then quantum physics wise is that we’re actually visioning more of what happens if we don’t have the thing, if it doesn’t work. So the non attachment is really leaning into the joy of the daydream with gratitude for what already is. So I’ll give you an example. I moved to Long Island.

Sarah Tacy [00:21:32]:
Actually, I hadn’t moved there yet. I was working in Long Island. I was working with professional athletes. I was 25, then I just turned 26. I was in a meditation. I quite literally heard the words. 1, the 1st week was, he’s not the one for you. I was with a boyfriend whom, at the time, I loved and things were going great.

Sarah Tacy [00:21:51]:
And so that was

Sarah Tacy [00:21:52]:
an interesting breakup. It was devastating. And it’s also really funny to say to someone, I heard a voice. I’ve probably lost

Sarah Tacy [00:22:00]:
1 third of the listeners by saying this out loud. So, right, that breakup happens. And then I just can’t wait to

Sarah Tacy [00:22:07]:
get back to New Hampshire. I pretty sure I have work lined up with UNH to work with their football team, University of New Hampshire, to work with their football team and their hockey team to help their athletes with using yoga therapeutics and some of

Sarah Tacy [00:22:22]:
the psychology that goes along with that. Super excited to get back up to New Hampshire. Long Island was not my place when I first moved there. It I did not jive, and I hear, stay. And at this time, I am living out of a room in a family’s home in which there was a great deal of dysfunction. So during this time, it was just in this family’s home that had a great deal of dysfunction. I would take my little Miata, which is like a little Tic Tac of a car that was a convertible, and I would drive to the end of a road. And at the end of the road was a bay.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:01]:
And I would look out at the bay and I would read my book and I would just enjoy and appreciate that time. And I would look over to these this row of houses that were on the water.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:11]:
And I would say, Wow, I wonder what that’s like. And even like, I bet that would be nice. With no thought of, oh, then I’m going to go live in these mansions on the water. And when I hear the the the voice of I’m to stay, I go to the gym owner and I say, hey. I know this sounds crazy. I know all the professional athletes are going back for the season. I have this feel that I’m supposed to stay here. How do you feel about that? It’s like, great.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:44]:
I’ve been meditating on that. I wanted you to stay. Great.

Sarah Tacy [00:23:48]:
And now I’m just trying to figure out what I’m gonna do about my living situation. I’m not desperate. It’s good enough. Like, I can find enough outlets outside of the home that I am

Sarah Tacy [00:23:59]:
fine. And one of my clients’ daughters, I also worked with this

Sarah Tacy [00:24:07]:
daughter, came to me and said, hey. My father will be out of the country. He was building an entire city in a different country. We have the stone cottage. We would love for you

Sarah Tacy [00:24:17]:
to stay there. And no. No. No.

Sarah Tacy [00:24:20]:
I can’t do that. Oh, we would freely appreciate it actually. So I was kind of house sitting for this house. And I get to the stone cottage, and it is not a cottage. It is a mansion. At that time, you know, 12, 15 years ago, I was going for 15,000 a month

Sarah Tacy [00:24:36]:
on the market for rental.

Sarah Tacy [00:24:38]:
So I can only imagine what it would be now. My little Miata, when I look out the window one day, just like 4 or 5 golf carts that were, you know, completely, like, had the rims and the wheels and the XM. I don’t know if you guys remember XM radio. They were nicer than my car. I just showed up outside. And so it took me a little while of living here and walking down to the beach

Sarah Tacy [00:25:01]:
to go, oh my gosh. I am living because of the way the roads went, it would have been slightly geographically confusing. I am living in the homes that I had looked up at and said, wouldn’t that be nice? And after a while, for the first time in my life, I felt a little lonely. And I journaled, man, I’m

Sarah Tacy [00:25:19]:
a little lonely. There’s this guy, Chris, down the road who I think is a really nice guy. It would be really fun to live with him in it was like another this my client owned all the houses on this road. And Chris was living in, like, a smaller house and was friends with the family.

Sarah Tacy [00:25:36]:
And I was like, I just I would love to pay rent and be in a place where I’m with somebody, like, with a friend. And the very next day, I get a call. Hey. There is this man who just went through a divorce. He needs a

Sarah Tacy [00:25:51]:
place to live. He wants to rent out the house. Can you be out in 2 days? And at first, I was like, oh my god. I can’t believe and he’s like, you could go move in with Chris.

Sarah Tacy [00:26:00]:
And so there have just been so many things in my life, especially with real estate, I guess, where to me, it feels a little bit bigger than just seeing something that couldn’t be seen before. So I just wanna say there is the aspect of simply asking. There is the aspect that we will be able to see things that we couldn’t see before, then there is the possibility of some consciousness greater than us that is working with us and that our words matter and that our thoughts matter and that the things that are aligned and meant to be will line up and come so that the clarity of our thoughts can have a huge impact. And tuning into our hearts and into the the desires that reside within us could be a huge part of living into the life that we want to live. So as we enter the new year, I would recommend

Sarah Tacy [00:27:06]:
just because it feels better to me.

Sarah Tacy [00:27:08]:
I’ll put this out there. What if instead of having a resolute resolution, you had some questions about possibilities that you ask the Universe, that you ask your brain to open up to. Show me, as Bridget would say, surprise and delight me. I wonder.

Sarah Tacy [00:27:35]:
I wonder. Show me how this is possible. And in that language too, it there you’re, you’re open to receiving something bigger, better, and better, more alignment than what you could perceive for yourself.

Sarah Tacy [00:27:53]:
The non attachment, as soon as we’re attached, we have to effort so much more and come up against so much more. It’s really hard to be, say, be unattached when you’re say wanting a home so bad, a job so bad, clients so bad, a baby so bad, good results on, on a test, on a health, on a health test.

Sarah Tacy [00:28:25]:
It’s hard not to be attached,

Sarah Tacy [00:28:28]:
but when possible, when there’s time to simply daydream and find joy in your daydreaming while also feeling into what is good now, what am I grateful for now?

Sarah Tacy [00:28:41]:
I used to walk around our house and I’m just kind of daydream into the renovations or what it could be. And at the same time, I was so in love with what our house already was. And then we were literally handed a house in a

Sarah Tacy [00:28:54]:
time where people had been looking in our town for many years. I’ve been looking in Cape Elizabeth for 2 years, 3 years. I can’t find anything. And a friend literally just, just look at this. And it

Sarah Tacy [00:29:04]:
had everything that I was daydreaming into.

Sarah Tacy [00:29:08]:
And it was almost hard to let go of our old house because even though it needed so much work, I had so much gratitude for it. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Here is to curiosity. Here is to clarity. Here is to layers of support to non attachment, to daydreaming, and to leaving space for the soul.

Sarah Tacy [00:29:38]:
So that as good as it might feel to

Sarah Tacy [00:29:40]:
our body to have clarity, that we can then pendulate back to curiosity.

Sarah Tacy [00:29:46]:
The soul loves a space for curiosity. The ego wants clarity, but the soul loves that space.

Sarah Tacy [00:29:54]:
Show me. Show me a feeling of safety. Show me a feeling of okay ness when I’m in a space of curiosity. Thank you so much. Talk to you next time. 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.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:25]:
It’s pretty awesome. It’s very easy. It’s very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacey.com. 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.

Sarah Tacy [00:30:46]:
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. 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.

Sarah Tacy [00:31:46]:
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.