Why you cant "Just stop and relax"

If you haven’t been able to “just stop and relax” when you planned to (and Xmas "holidays" was full of Doing all the things) or the thought of relaxing generally freaks you out and feels unpleasant when you do, quite possibly this is because your body/nervous system doesn't know how, or doesn't know it's safe to come out of active-stress mode.

Rather than trying to will yourself to slow down (making new year's resolutions to meditate or do less), go to more counseling to talk about your feelings, drinking calming teas or even getting your colleagues or family to support you to do less (all of which can be wonderful, by the way), ... if you learn how to communicate with your nervous system, and create an embodied feeling of safety, your will brain create hormones of relaxation rather than stress for you. This is important, because no matter how much determination you apply or chamomile tea you drink, if your nervous system (in your reptilian brain) is in "activate and stress" mode, your underlying state will be fast and revving and you won't get the rest and integration you need for healthy balance (crucial for digestion, proper sleep, integration of life's events etc). And you certainly won't be able to "just stop and relax".

So how do you communicate with your nervous system and get it to "know" it's safe to slow down and relax? Well, a big key is that your nervous system speaks in the language of sensation in your body. So we want to create a curious attitude and willingness to be with what is happening in your body and then gently allow the stress response to unravel. There's a few things that will need to happen for this.

1. Start with a resource (something that feels good for you). Take a few (or many) moments to focus on pleasant or "better than" things in your environment or internally inside you. This could be noticing the tree outside your window and the beautiful way the light touches the leaves as they sway, or noticing the feeling of warmth in your belly after your favorite cup of tea. The important piece here is to notice how you are touched by these pleasant things. How do you know that you know this is pleasant to you? (Hint: there will be some change in your body or feeling state.. it could sound like "my eyes soften around the edges and I feel a smile on the corner of my mouth", "I feel calmer inside" or "there's a spreading, heavy warmth in my torso and it feels steady and happy").

This step is about Taking In something pleasant as a way to signal to the animal (reptilian) part of you that you are somewhere safe. Your brain won't tend to make room to focus on pleasant things when you are under high stress, so when you consciously choose to include and Feel pleasant things in your awareness, it helps you begin to come out of "threat and activate" mode.

2. This will also bring you into more contact with your inner experience, and you'll likely start to feel some of the sensations of busy-ness as well. Which probably won't feel as nice!

This is where most people feel agitation, electricity through the legs, they get more snappy, alert or anxious and start to try to do more things to make the agitated feelings go away.

Rather than getting up into motion like you normally do, I would invite you here to simply be curious about what's happening in your body. This is about building your capacity to tolerate and stay with your experience, rather than react to it. As you stay curious about the sensations of busy-ness, they will naturally start to shift. They may shift back into relaxation and opening (wonderful! you've just helped your nervous system to do a wave from relaxation to agitation and back again) or you may have images, feelings or sensations of a previously unprocessed stress come up.

3. This is where we would allow gentle expression. Often, when you find it hard to slow down it's because there is an unfinished stress response being held in your body - usually to fight or to flee. This may be caused by a one-off event - like your client being rude and abrasive and you felt you had to stay professional and nice (when you really wanted to throttle them) - or it might be an accumulation of many moments of held back response - like having an angry parent who made it feel unsafe to sit down and relax in their presence.

Either way, your body is lovingly holding this stress for you until you make the space for it to unravel and express in a triumphant way. This could look like subtly feeling the tensing in your jaw and flash of anger in your eyes. It could sound like growling "fuck offff!", it could look like standing up and saying "I dont like it!" with a hand held out as a boundary.

To be clear, this is not a cathartic process, making a lot of noise and sound, but about allowing your healthy fight or flight response to be felt inside your body. The slower and smaller we go with this, the more the brain can register the expression (and flag that stress as dealt with so it doesn't need to keep putting it in front of you).

Your body is just looking for that triumphant feeling of "I responded in a way that feels good for me". When it has that feeling, it will naturally, organically move into a lovely deep rest and digest state, as it stops producing cortisol and adrenaline. This can feel like spreading warmth and peace. It can feel like a weight and groundedness coming into your body and a lack of speedy thinking and feeling in the body. Clients will sometimes report never having felt so relaxed (this is the other branch of their nervous system - the parasympathetic branch - doing some wonderful balancing out for you).

Sometimes, what is under the chronic "go-go-go" state is stress, but also a quality of freeze, where you go numb as we start exploring your inner state. This is all totally fine. We would simply move between the pleasant, present moment awareness, the numb feeling and allow more and more of the stress sensations under that to move and be felt (which will feel a lot like "thawing out"). Eventually the numbness would move into more awareness of the stress (electricity in the legs or arms, tension in muscles, more sensation of fear or aliveness) and then ability to let it move through and "complete" its expression.

Depending on whether your ongoing stress state was caused by recent or rare events, or by repeated and early (childhood) experiences will depend on how many times we want to revisit this gentle but profound process. But either way, addressing your "too busy to stop" state via the nervous system will naturally, organically (without needing will-power, calming tea or even other's external actions) shift your state into a natural rest and digest and give you the room to feel safe to slow down, to be in your body and to enjoy the simple moment.

I use this process as part of my 3.5month Reset program for successful female entrepreneurs who have taken on too much responsibility and find themselves exhausted and over-stretched. You learn how to release the stress in your body so your base state is more grounded and resilient, and so you can regulate your nervous system to gracefully manage your emotional, mental and physical state. We also build healthy, courageous boundaries to get you back your time and energy so you can be of service in the ways you love without burning out. You learn a simple and profound communication tool which invites support from others in an empowered and connected way so you're not "doing all the things for all the people". And we bring your internal feeling of wellbeing up to match your external success.

This program is perfect for you if you are motivated to be more present and do life differently this year, if you're just a little bit (or a lot) woo-woo, and if you have already done some inner growth work (like counseling, self development workshops etc). This program is highly effective and based on the latest neuroscience (coming from my training in Somatic Experiencing, Expressive Attachment therapy, Essence Coaching and Voice Dialogue), and it's also based in a love of spirit and a willingness for magic to happen in all ways.

If this sounds good to you, simply book in for a short- no obligation 15min call to see if you're a fit for the program here https://bit.ly/3EUVECk

Much love! Amanda