WEBVTT
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My healing journey.
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I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences, and tangible research-based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind, and reclaim your life.
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Thanks for being here.
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Now let's dive in.
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Quick note before we get into today's episode, this is part of my Back to the Basics series, which I am rerunning on the podcast right now.
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It originally aired in February 2025, and it is still the series that I hear back about the most.
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How it helped people finally make sense and see their anxiety and depression in a new helpful way.
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And since there's been a wave of new listeners joining lately, I wanted to bring this series back around.
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And for those of you who happen to be here the first time, I invite you to listen again through this series through the lens of where you are right now, because that's likely shifted over the last year and a half.
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And just curiously see what might land differently.
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And throughout the series, there's one quick correction.
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In the episodes, I may mention Rise, my membership.
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Well, in the last year and a half, RISE got a glow up and is now my regulated living membership.
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So same container, same work, just new name, new brand.
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All right, let's jump in.
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Welcome to part seven of my Back to the Basics series, where I am reviewing core concepts of what I mean when I say that we help people understand, approach, and heal anxiety and depression through a nervous system lens.
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And if you are wondering how many parts there will be to this series, probably 10-ish.
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Really, I am giving myself permission to keep going until this series really feels complete.
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Until someone can ask me, what are you all about?
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What makes your approach different from things I've tried before?
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How will I know if it's the right fit for me, if it could work for me?
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And my answer can be to spend some time listening to the Back to the Basic series.
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And if that resonates with you, then what we do is likely a good fit.
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And today's conversation is about proactive regulation.
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And this is really going to bring together a lot of what we've talked about and set the stage for some of the rest of the conversations in this series.
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Now, last week we talked about reactive regulation.
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So reactive regulation are the in the moment tools to support you, to help you regulate or resource when you find yourself in moments of dysregulation, anxiety, depression, activation, or shutdown.
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And so while reactive tools help us in the moment, proactive regulation helps us get out of constant survival mode.
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It helps us create a life that we don't have to hack our way out of.
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It creates a daily life where we aren't completely dependent on these reactive tools because life just feels better.
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And our clients do this by stepping into what we call more regulated living.
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So when I use this term regulated living, what I'm referring to is a long-term, multifaceted approach to getting out of chronic survival mode.
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Proactive regulation leads to regulated living.
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And when I talk about multifaceted, that's going to become really, really clear in all of the different areas that I reference and address in our conversation today.
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So this is all about creating sustainable habits that support a balanced nervous system so that you are not always on edge or defaulting to old patterns, so that you don't feel like you're constantly overreacting or underreacting.
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It is about patiently and compassionately working to identify and soften and change our old patterns of belief, behaviors, relationships that might no longer be serving us.
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Proactive regulation creates a more regulated life.
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This is the root cause, holistic approach to healing that makes the way that we work with our clients unique and strategic.
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This is about assessing and addressing what is causing your symptoms in the first place, not just in managing those symptoms.
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And part of taking this more proactive approach, we have to ask ourselves: do we think our symptoms are because of unresolved experiences or trauma from our past?
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Is it because of my current lifestyle habits, because of underlying health conditions?
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Is it that there's a lack of safe, fun, or quality relationships in my life?
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Is it that I have a perfectionist or a hyperproductive inner part that is constantly overcommitting and creating burnout for me?
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Is it that I have a lack of boundaries or emotional regulation skills?
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Because understanding the unique contributors to your symptoms will pave the road to your most effective and strategic path towards healing.
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Mental health looks different for everyone.
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The behind the scenes root cause contributing factors are different for everyone.
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And the solution, the path forward is also different and unique for everyone.
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So the first step to proactive regulation is by assessing your unique contributors.
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And we do this with our clients, with what I talked about in part four of this series, which is their stress bucket assessment.
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And in this assessment, we help our clients take an individualized look at their basic health habits.
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So things like sleep, movement, nutrition, hydration, energy levels.
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We help them take a look at their sense of connection or community, things like their ability to set boundaries, how seen or supported they feel, how safe they feel in their community, do they have access to support?
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We help them take a look at their environmental contributors, sensory load, clutter versus organization, time spent inside versus outside in nature, whether they seem to be impacted by seasonal changes, what does their digital environment look like?
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The quality or the quantity of content that they consume, the number of notifications they get in any given day.
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We help them look at their mindset or emotional load.
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How often do they feel rushed, have spiraling thoughts, compare themselves to others?
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What are the beliefs that they have about themselves, their capability or the world?
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Do they have avoidance patterns?
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We help them look at their daily life management, family things, household things, work things.
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What are your things?
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We also help them consider their past experiences that may still feel unresolved or the patterns and beliefs that are present today as a result of their past lived experiences.
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And then with our one-on-one clients, we also do comprehensive lab work to take a personalized health data-driven approach to assessing and addressing any possible underlying nutrient deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, metabolic issues, things that could be creating or exacerbating symptoms.
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And in this series, I have planned a full, full episode on the role that blood work can play in healing and why this is such a critical part of our approach as well.
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Now, what I want to do for a moment is actually to revisit the previously shared healing puzzle analogy.
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When it comes to proactive regulation, what we want with each of our clients, and in my opinion, what you need to create the most strategic path forward in your healing is to sit in front of your table with all of your puzzle pieces laid out in front of you.
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And like I said, this is what our stress bucket assessment combined with the blood work is designed to do.
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That's how we do it.
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I'm sure there are many other ways to create this snapshot for yourself or with another practitioner, but finding some way to put your puzzle pieces on the table in front of you.
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And then once those pieces are all laid out, we look at them and we ask, and what we support our clients in asking is what feels meaningful or accessible for me to take on right now?
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There is likely, if you are somebody who is struggling with anxiety and depression, there is likely going to be a lot of things on that table.
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A lot of things that you could choose.
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And we are big, big, big in reminding our clients there's not a right or wrong place to start.
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What feels meaningful or what feels accessible for you to take on right now?
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Let's try it.
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Let's move down that path.
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If we need to reconsider, no problem.
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We come back to that table and we pick a different piece.
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Or maybe we go down that path and that feels really helpful for us.
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It creates more capacity in our system.
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We have more stabilization.
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Okay, awesome.
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Let's come back to our table and choose the next most meaningful or accessible thing.
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So maybe it's creating better sleep habits.
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Maybe it's addressing a particular distressing relationship in your life.
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Maybe it is signing up for a weekly dance class to help you build community.
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Maybe it's starting to take your vitamin D supplement because your labs showed a need for it.
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And as you pick up one piece at a time, it's knowing that each thing you step towards and address lightens the overall stress load on your nervous system.
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Each thing that you do creates a little bit more capacity and stability within your system to take on the next thing.
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This process, this awareness and this framework for the fact that we need to engage in more regulated living.
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We need to take a more proactive approach to our healing.
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We cannot constantly be reacting to our symptoms if we want to not have these symptoms for the rest of our life.
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This gives you clarity, it gives you choice and it gives you direction in healing.
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You cannot expect to heal if you continue to carry around a bucket that is too heavy.
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And if we bring this conversation back to talking about the stress bucket, last week I talked about how reactive regulation is like poking holes in your bucket.
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Well, today we are talking about this more proactive long-term approach to healing, stress management, wellness, regulated living.
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And coming back to your bucket full of water, we do this by learning how to lower your daily stressors.
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So this flavor of proactive regulation is about avoiding putting so much stress on your system day to day, avoiding putting so much water in your bucket with lifestyle choices, your patterns, environments.
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Then we can lower your baseline stressors.
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So this flavor of proactive regulation is something we call inner work.
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It comes in so many different, so many different varieties.
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It could be boundary setting, doing some trauma healing work, mindset belief, or parts work.
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It could be like taking a chronic health condition and getting more care for that.
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So that's less of a load on your system.
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So this is where doing that assessment, what are your daily stressors?
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What are your baseline stressors?
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And then where do you want to start?
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And like I mentioned last week, I wish I could give you the perfect formula.
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I wish I could say, proactively do this and you're gonna get better.
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And while there are some universal standards for being human, which I will share with you in a moment, this approach, proactive regulation, is highly personalized to what is in your unique stress bucket and to what feels meaningful and accessible for you to address next in your healing.
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And ultimately, what our clients often say they love most about this process or this approach is that they finally see and create a clearer path forward in their healing journey.
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We work with so many clients who feel like they've tried it all.
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Many of our clients express to us that they've been in talk therapy for years.
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And while often it feels helpful week to week, they're not really sure where that work is leading them.
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Just last week, I had someone tell me, quote, I've been seeing the same therapist for over a year now.
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And while I think it feels helpful to talk to her week to week, I often leave sessions feeling underwhelmed, asking things like, Where is this going?
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Is this actually helping me to get better?
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What is the plan here?
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And she reflected back, what I love about your approach is that it sounds like I'd have much more of a structure.
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And she was exactly right.
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That's often what people say is the biggest difference that they feel between our program and other things that they've tried is that it provides a structure to their healing that feels helpful and really, really personal.
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When it comes to proactive regulation, where you start and where you go next entirely depends on your bucket, your capacity, your preference, your resources.
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But what I want to offer you in this conversation are some basic well-being standards.
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These are gonna be different research-supported standards and guidelines for things that contribute to your well-being.
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And as I go through this, I'm gonna offer an invitation for you to consider reflecting on what I'm saying and how your current habits or reality align or are misaligned with these guidelines.
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How many times are you saying yes?
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And how many times are you saying, uh, nope, nope, that's not, that's not my reality.
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That's not what I'm doing right now.
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And each place where you're answering no or where your answer falls out of alignment with these research-supported standards and guidelines for well-being, that provides you with an opportunity, an option, a choice point of somewhere that you can step into more proactive regulation.
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So let's start with a category I call body health.
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And I'm gonna position these research-supported standards as simple questions for you to answer.
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So, in this category of body health, do you currently get about eight hours of sleep most nights?
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Do you wake up feeling rested?
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Then with nutrition, is your nutrition mostly whole foods?
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Are you eating a protein-focused breakfast?
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Are you mindful of blood sugar regulation throughout the day?
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Have you been tested for any micronutrient deficiencies?
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And if so, are you addressing those?
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Are you hydrated?
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What's the quality of your water?
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A small change that my family made that feels like it's made a really big difference was that we got a quality water filter for our home drinking water.
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Then with body health, we also look at movement and exercise.
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So, what does that look like in your life?
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Are you getting between seven and 10,000 steps a day?
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Are you exercising four-ish days a week?
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You're getting your heart pumping.
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Are you doing strength training?
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Are you maybe actually stressing your body out by over-exercising?
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That was part of my reality for a number of years.
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But we also stress out our body by under-exercising.
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So, what does movement and exercise look like in your life?
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Do you have proper management for any chronic health conditions?
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That's a big contributor to our overall body health as well.
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Now, another category that we take a look at with our clients is their connection and community.
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So, asking, do you have a sense of purpose or belonging?
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Do you have relationships where you feel seen and supported?
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Can you connect to something bigger than yourself?
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Do you have people that you can call and rely on for help and support?
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My hope is that the answer to a lot of these is yes.
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But if you're somebody who's struggling with anxiety and depression, it doesn't surprise me one bit that your answers might trend more towards no.
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Remember, I believe that by assessing these things, your symptoms make sense.
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I don't actually think there's anything broken about you.
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So let's keep going.
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We also reflect on environments.
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So asking yourself, is your space organized instead of cluttered?
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Do you experience a manageable sensory load?
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Or is there sensory overload?
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Noise, smells, visual input, temperature changes.
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Do you have low or high use of exposure to fragrances?
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And I'm not talking about essential oils, but I want you to consider curiously over the next week or two, turning the labels around and reading the labels on your soaps, your lotions, your candles, your detergents, and see if the word fragrance is there.
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If so, I want you to know that this is a known endocrine or hormone disruptor.
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If you have wall plug-ins, those, oh, those are really, really, really toxic for us.
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And so maybe you decide that you want to over time just replace these household items with things that have no fragrance or essential oil fragrances to lower the tox load in your environment.
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When it comes to environment, my question for you is are you spending at least 30 minutes a day outside?
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We need that.
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We need that for so many reasons.
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Does your digital environment feel helpful or stressful?
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Then we can look at your mindset or emotional resilience.
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Do you have a resilient mindset?
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Do you generally believe that you can you can get things done?
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What's your self-talk sound like?
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Do you generally feel capable and good enough?
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Is what I'm really asking.
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Do you generally feel capable and good enough?
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Do you have the capacity to be with your emotions and then return back to regulation?
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Do you feel like you are living in the present or stuck running on old protective programming from the past?
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And when it comes to just daily life stressors, does your daily life feel manageable and sustainable?
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Is there room in your daily life for rest, play, creativity, or connection?
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Do you feel resourced enough that not everything falls on you?
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And now I want to invite you to take a really big deep breath, like truly, big breath in and out.
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Those questions might have felt confronting.
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Those questions might have felt validating.
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Those questions, there was not a right or wrong way for you to perceive those questions.
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But if as I read through those questions, you found yourself answering no a lot more than yes, then let me repeat myself to me.
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Your symptoms make sense.
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Your anxiety, your depression, your activation, and your shutdown makes perfect sense to me given your past lived experiences and your current life circumstances.
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When we do not get enough of the things that we need to be well, we should expect to be unwell.
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And that doesn't make you disordered.
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Unwell manifests in many different ways.
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And for a lot of us, it shows up as anxiety or depression.
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And proactive regulation is about cultivating your habits, your relationships, your environments, your mindset, your wellness to support health as a way to having good mental health.
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And over time, as we address and optimize these things, there's less water in our buckets.
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It decreases our threat load and it increases our overall capacity.
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Now, as you hear these things, please, please, please, please, please do not try to overhaul your life all at once.
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I promise it will set back your healing.
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You are listening to a podcast like this likely because your stress load is already too high.
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And change adds stress, at least at first.
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And this is why we want our clients taking strategic changes, making strategic changes in a supportive environment.
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It's really about 1% changes, tiny changes layered over time that make the biggest difference in our healing.
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And my invitation for you today is twofold.
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Number one, consider choosing one, one thing mentioned in this conversation to turn towards proactively to try to improve or optimize in your life.
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One thing that feels accessible or meaningful for you.
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And my second invitation is to consider the support that you might need long term to keep making these changes in your life, to keep stepping into more regulated living, because you are not meant to do and to figure this out alone.
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And if you have been listening to this podcast for weeks or months or even years now and find yourself resonating with a lot of what I say, but have found it hard to put into practice, to put into action in your life, then our one on one coaching program is likely a real Really good fit for you.
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And I invite you to book a completely free discovery call with me to learn more about that.
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Completely pressure free.
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Get your questions answered.
00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:10.319
Let's talk face to face.
00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:21.359
Let me hear your story, your struggles, and see if I even in just that short call can help you find some clarity, some strategy in your unique healing journey.
00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:33.440
Now, in closing, to kind of summarize and recap, proactive regulation is about creating sustainable change that addresses the root causes of your anxiety and depression.
00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:55.440
And by understanding your unique stress load, the unique contributors to your stress bucket, and then making intentional changes in your physical health, relationships, environment, internal system or parts, mindset, you can gradually build a life that supports your nervous system rather than constantly exhausting, overwhelming, or triggering it.
00:22:55.680 --> 00:23:01.759
And I want to remind you that healing, it's not about a perfect approach or fast transformation.
00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:06.640
In fact, this kind of healing, less is often more, and slower is faster.
00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:18.880
It is about taking consistent small steps on the backdrop of curiosity, self-compassion, and oftentimes with the appropriate support that we need.
00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:26.400
So our three key takeaways is number one, proactive regulation is essential for long-term healing.
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:34.960
It involves creating sustainable habits and addressing underlying causes to help us get out of this chronic survival mode loop.
00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:42.160
It moves us beyond needing or being completely dependent on these in-the-moment reactive tools.
00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:56.799
Number two, the most effective healing path is personalized and structured, focusing on what meaningful and accessible changes are there for you to make next.
00:23:57.359 --> 00:24:01.440
And number three, small consistent changes.
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Those 1% shifts, 1% improvements layered over time creates the most sustainable transformation when supported by the right guidance or within the right community spaces.
00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:20.079
And that wraps up our conversation today on proactive regulation.
00:24:20.400 --> 00:24:25.200
I just want to remind you that I don't make a dollar from this podcast.
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This really is my labor of love.
00:24:27.359 --> 00:24:34.400
And the one thing that I often ask in return for these efforts is first and foremost to share.
00:24:34.720 --> 00:24:42.160
Share these episodes, share these conversations, share this podcast with people who you feel like it could support.
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:45.279
That is how we have this ripple effect.
00:24:45.359 --> 00:24:53.440
That is how we invite the world to be a more healed place, is when we find these resources that feel helpful for us and we can share them with people in our lives.
00:24:53.759 --> 00:25:04.000
So reflect on today's conversation and can you think is there a friend, a family member, somebody in your life who might benefit from this conversation or this Back to Basics series?
00:25:04.240 --> 00:25:16.960
And if you haven't already, a reminder as well that what gets these tools and these conversations out to even more people who need them is when you leave a five-star rating and a written review as well.
00:25:17.119 --> 00:25:19.519
So as always, thank you for being here.
00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:25.680
And next week we're going to take that deep dive I talked about into a conversation about blood work.
00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:39.920
Blood work, the role it plays in healing, why and how we utilize it within our practice, and why I am inviting you to consider it being an integral part of your long term healing plan for anxiety and depression as well.
00:25:40.079 --> 00:25:45.599
So until then, sending absolutely, absolutely so much hope and healing your way.
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:01.120
My healing journey.
00:00:01.280 --> 00:00:14.800
I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences, and tangible research-based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind, and reclaim your life.
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Thanks for being here.
00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:17.519
Now let's dive in.
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Quick note before we get into today's episode, this is part of my Back to the Basics series, which I am rerunning on the podcast right now.
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It originally aired in February 2025, and it is still the series that I hear back about the most.
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How it helped people finally make sense and see their anxiety and depression in a new helpful way.
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And since there's been a wave of new listeners joining lately, I wanted to bring this series back around.
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And for those of you who happen to be here the first time, I invite you to listen again through this series through the lens of where you are right now, because that's likely shifted over the last year and a half.
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And just curiously see what might land differently.
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And throughout the series, there's one quick correction.
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In the episodes, I may mention Rise, my membership.
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Well, in the last year and a half, RISE got a glow up and is now my regulated living membership.
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So same container, same work, just new name, new brand.
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All right, let's jump in.
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Welcome to part seven of my Back to the Basics series, where I am reviewing core concepts of what I mean when I say that we help people understand, approach, and heal anxiety and depression through a nervous system lens.
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And if you are wondering how many parts there will be to this series, probably 10-ish.
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Really, I am giving myself permission to keep going until this series really feels complete.
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Until someone can ask me, what are you all about?
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What makes your approach different from things I've tried before?
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How will I know if it's the right fit for me, if it could work for me?
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And my answer can be to spend some time listening to the Back to the Basic series.
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And if that resonates with you, then what we do is likely a good fit.
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And today's conversation is about proactive regulation.
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And this is really going to bring together a lot of what we've talked about and set the stage for some of the rest of the conversations in this series.
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Now, last week we talked about reactive regulation.
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So reactive regulation are the in the moment tools to support you, to help you regulate or resource when you find yourself in moments of dysregulation, anxiety, depression, activation, or shutdown.
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And so while reactive tools help us in the moment, proactive regulation helps us get out of constant survival mode.
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It helps us create a life that we don't have to hack our way out of.
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It creates a daily life where we aren't completely dependent on these reactive tools because life just feels better.
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And our clients do this by stepping into what we call more regulated living.
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So when I use this term regulated living, what I'm referring to is a long-term, multifaceted approach to getting out of chronic survival mode.
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Proactive regulation leads to regulated living.
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And when I talk about multifaceted, that's going to become really, really clear in all of the different areas that I reference and address in our conversation today.
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So this is all about creating sustainable habits that support a balanced nervous system so that you are not always on edge or defaulting to old patterns, so that you don't feel like you're constantly overreacting or underreacting.
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It is about patiently and compassionately working to identify and soften and change our old patterns of belief, behaviors, relationships that might no longer be serving us.
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Proactive regulation creates a more regulated life.
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This is the root cause, holistic approach to healing that makes the way that we work with our clients unique and strategic.
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This is about assessing and addressing what is causing your symptoms in the first place, not just in managing those symptoms.
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And part of taking this more proactive approach, we have to ask ourselves: do we think our symptoms are because of unresolved experiences or trauma from our past?
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Is it because of my current lifestyle habits, because of underlying health conditions?
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Is it that there's a lack of safe, fun, or quality relationships in my life?
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Is it that I have a perfectionist or a hyperproductive inner part that is constantly overcommitting and creating burnout for me?
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Is it that I have a lack of boundaries or emotional regulation skills?
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Because understanding the unique contributors to your symptoms will pave the road to your most effective and strategic path towards healing.
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Mental health looks different for everyone.
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The behind the scenes root cause contributing factors are different for everyone.
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And the solution, the path forward is also different and unique for everyone.
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So the first step to proactive regulation is by assessing your unique contributors.
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And we do this with our clients, with what I talked about in part four of this series, which is their stress bucket assessment.
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And in this assessment, we help our clients take an individualized look at their basic health habits.
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So things like sleep, movement, nutrition, hydration, energy levels.
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We help them take a look at their sense of connection or community, things like their ability to set boundaries, how seen or supported they feel, how safe they feel in their community, do they have access to support?
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We help them take a look at their environmental contributors, sensory load, clutter versus organization, time spent inside versus outside in nature, whether they seem to be impacted by seasonal changes, what does their digital environment look like?
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The quality or the quantity of content that they consume, the number of notifications they get in any given day.
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We help them look at their mindset or emotional load.
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How often do they feel rushed, have spiraling thoughts, compare themselves to others?
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What are the beliefs that they have about themselves, their capability or the world?
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Do they have avoidance patterns?
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We help them look at their daily life management, family things, household things, work things.
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What are your things?
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We also help them consider their past experiences that may still feel unresolved or the patterns and beliefs that are present today as a result of their past lived experiences.
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And then with our one-on-one clients, we also do comprehensive lab work to take a personalized health data-driven approach to assessing and addressing any possible underlying nutrient deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, metabolic issues, things that could be creating or exacerbating symptoms.
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And in this series, I have planned a full, full episode on the role that blood work can play in healing and why this is such a critical part of our approach as well.
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Now, what I want to do for a moment is actually to revisit the previously shared healing puzzle analogy.
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When it comes to proactive regulation, what we want with each of our clients, and in my opinion, what you need to create the most strategic path forward in your healing is to sit in front of your table with all of your puzzle pieces laid out in front of you.
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And like I said, this is what our stress bucket assessment combined with the blood work is designed to do.
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That's how we do it.
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I'm sure there are many other ways to create this snapshot for yourself or with another practitioner, but finding some way to put your puzzle pieces on the table in front of you.
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And then once those pieces are all laid out, we look at them and we ask, and what we support our clients in asking is what feels meaningful or accessible for me to take on right now?
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There is likely, if you are somebody who is struggling with anxiety and depression, there is likely going to be a lot of things on that table.
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A lot of things that you could choose.
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And we are big, big, big in reminding our clients there's not a right or wrong place to start.
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What feels meaningful or what feels accessible for you to take on right now?
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Let's try it.
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Let's move down that path.
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If we need to reconsider, no problem.
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We come back to that table and we pick a different piece.
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Or maybe we go down that path and that feels really helpful for us.
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It creates more capacity in our system.
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We have more stabilization.
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Okay, awesome.
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Let's come back to our table and choose the next most meaningful or accessible thing.
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So maybe it's creating better sleep habits.
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Maybe it's addressing a particular distressing relationship in your life.
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Maybe it is signing up for a weekly dance class to help you build community.
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Maybe it's starting to take your vitamin D supplement because your labs showed a need for it.
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And as you pick up one piece at a time, it's knowing that each thing you step towards and address lightens the overall stress load on your nervous system.
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Each thing that you do creates a little bit more capacity and stability within your system to take on the next thing.
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This process, this awareness and this framework for the fact that we need to engage in more regulated living.
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We need to take a more proactive approach to our healing.
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We cannot constantly be reacting to our symptoms if we want to not have these symptoms for the rest of our life.
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This gives you clarity, it gives you choice and it gives you direction in healing.
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You cannot expect to heal if you continue to carry around a bucket that is too heavy.
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And if we bring this conversation back to talking about the stress bucket, last week I talked about how reactive regulation is like poking holes in your bucket.
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Well, today we are talking about this more proactive long-term approach to healing, stress management, wellness, regulated living.
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And coming back to your bucket full of water, we do this by learning how to lower your daily stressors.
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So this flavor of proactive regulation is about avoiding putting so much stress on your system day to day, avoiding putting so much water in your bucket with lifestyle choices, your patterns, environments.
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Then we can lower your baseline stressors.
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So this flavor of proactive regulation is something we call inner work.
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It comes in so many different, so many different varieties.
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It could be boundary setting, doing some trauma healing work, mindset belief, or parts work.
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It could be like taking a chronic health condition and getting more care for that.
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So that's less of a load on your system.
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So this is where doing that assessment, what are your daily stressors?
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What are your baseline stressors?
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And then where do you want to start?
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And like I mentioned last week, I wish I could give you the perfect formula.
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I wish I could say, proactively do this and you're gonna get better.
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And while there are some universal standards for being human, which I will share with you in a moment, this approach, proactive regulation, is highly personalized to what is in your unique stress bucket and to what feels meaningful and accessible for you to address next in your healing.
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And ultimately, what our clients often say they love most about this process or this approach is that they finally see and create a clearer path forward in their healing journey.
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We work with so many clients who feel like they've tried it all.
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Many of our clients express to us that they've been in talk therapy for years.
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And while often it feels helpful week to week, they're not really sure where that work is leading them.
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Just last week, I had someone tell me, quote, I've been seeing the same therapist for over a year now.
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And while I think it feels helpful to talk to her week to week, I often leave sessions feeling underwhelmed, asking things like, Where is this going?
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Is this actually helping me to get better?
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What is the plan here?
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And she reflected back, what I love about your approach is that it sounds like I'd have much more of a structure.
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And she was exactly right.
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That's often what people say is the biggest difference that they feel between our program and other things that they've tried is that it provides a structure to their healing that feels helpful and really, really personal.
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When it comes to proactive regulation, where you start and where you go next entirely depends on your bucket, your capacity, your preference, your resources.
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But what I want to offer you in this conversation are some basic well-being standards.
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These are gonna be different research-supported standards and guidelines for things that contribute to your well-being.
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And as I go through this, I'm gonna offer an invitation for you to consider reflecting on what I'm saying and how your current habits or reality align or are misaligned with these guidelines.
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How many times are you saying yes?
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And how many times are you saying, uh, nope, nope, that's not, that's not my reality.
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That's not what I'm doing right now.
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And each place where you're answering no or where your answer falls out of alignment with these research-supported standards and guidelines for well-being, that provides you with an opportunity, an option, a choice point of somewhere that you can step into more proactive regulation.
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So let's start with a category I call body health.
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And I'm gonna position these research-supported standards as simple questions for you to answer.
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So, in this category of body health, do you currently get about eight hours of sleep most nights?
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Do you wake up feeling rested?
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Then with nutrition, is your nutrition mostly whole foods?
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Are you eating a protein-focused breakfast?
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Are you mindful of blood sugar regulation throughout the day?
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Have you been tested for any micronutrient deficiencies?
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And if so, are you addressing those?
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Are you hydrated?
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What's the quality of your water?
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A small change that my family made that feels like it's made a really big difference was that we got a quality water filter for our home drinking water.
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Then with body health, we also look at movement and exercise.
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So, what does that look like in your life?
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Are you getting between seven and 10,000 steps a day?
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Are you exercising four-ish days a week?
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You're getting your heart pumping.
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Are you doing strength training?
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Are you maybe actually stressing your body out by over-exercising?
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That was part of my reality for a number of years.
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But we also stress out our body by under-exercising.
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So, what does movement and exercise look like in your life?
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Do you have proper management for any chronic health conditions?
00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:08.799
That's a big contributor to our overall body health as well.
00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:16.399
Now, another category that we take a look at with our clients is their connection and community.
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So, asking, do you have a sense of purpose or belonging?
00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:25.440
Do you have relationships where you feel seen and supported?
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Can you connect to something bigger than yourself?
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Do you have people that you can call and rely on for help and support?
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My hope is that the answer to a lot of these is yes.
00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:44.240
But if you're somebody who's struggling with anxiety and depression, it doesn't surprise me one bit that your answers might trend more towards no.
00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:50.159
Remember, I believe that by assessing these things, your symptoms make sense.
00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:52.879
I don't actually think there's anything broken about you.
00:16:53.120 --> 00:16:54.159
So let's keep going.
00:16:54.399 --> 00:16:58.000
We also reflect on environments.
00:16:58.159 --> 00:17:02.240
So asking yourself, is your space organized instead of cluttered?
00:17:02.559 --> 00:17:07.119
Do you experience a manageable sensory load?
00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:08.960
Or is there sensory overload?
00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:12.799
Noise, smells, visual input, temperature changes.
00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:17.680
Do you have low or high use of exposure to fragrances?
00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:32.720
And I'm not talking about essential oils, but I want you to consider curiously over the next week or two, turning the labels around and reading the labels on your soaps, your lotions, your candles, your detergents, and see if the word fragrance is there.
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If so, I want you to know that this is a known endocrine or hormone disruptor.
00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:45.519
If you have wall plug-ins, those, oh, those are really, really, really toxic for us.
00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:58.960
And so maybe you decide that you want to over time just replace these household items with things that have no fragrance or essential oil fragrances to lower the tox load in your environment.
00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:04.079
When it comes to environment, my question for you is are you spending at least 30 minutes a day outside?
00:18:05.039 --> 00:18:05.599
We need that.
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We need that for so many reasons.
00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:13.119
Does your digital environment feel helpful or stressful?
00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:17.119
Then we can look at your mindset or emotional resilience.
00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:19.519
Do you have a resilient mindset?
00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:23.200
Do you generally believe that you can you can get things done?
00:18:23.599 --> 00:18:25.359
What's your self-talk sound like?
00:18:25.920 --> 00:18:29.039
Do you generally feel capable and good enough?
00:18:29.279 --> 00:18:30.799
Is what I'm really asking.
00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:33.519
Do you generally feel capable and good enough?
00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:38.559
Do you have the capacity to be with your emotions and then return back to regulation?
00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:47.039
Do you feel like you are living in the present or stuck running on old protective programming from the past?
00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:53.440
And when it comes to just daily life stressors, does your daily life feel manageable and sustainable?
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Is there room in your daily life for rest, play, creativity, or connection?
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Do you feel resourced enough that not everything falls on you?
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And now I want to invite you to take a really big deep breath, like truly, big breath in and out.
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Those questions might have felt confronting.
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Those questions might have felt validating.
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Those questions, there was not a right or wrong way for you to perceive those questions.
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But if as I read through those questions, you found yourself answering no a lot more than yes, then let me repeat myself to me.
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Your symptoms make sense.
00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:45.039
Your anxiety, your depression, your activation, and your shutdown makes perfect sense to me given your past lived experiences and your current life circumstances.
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When we do not get enough of the things that we need to be well, we should expect to be unwell.
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And that doesn't make you disordered.
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Unwell manifests in many different ways.
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And for a lot of us, it shows up as anxiety or depression.
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And proactive regulation is about cultivating your habits, your relationships, your environments, your mindset, your wellness to support health as a way to having good mental health.
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And over time, as we address and optimize these things, there's less water in our buckets.
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It decreases our threat load and it increases our overall capacity.
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Now, as you hear these things, please, please, please, please, please do not try to overhaul your life all at once.
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I promise it will set back your healing.
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You are listening to a podcast like this likely because your stress load is already too high.
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And change adds stress, at least at first.
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And this is why we want our clients taking strategic changes, making strategic changes in a supportive environment.
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It's really about 1% changes, tiny changes layered over time that make the biggest difference in our healing.
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And my invitation for you today is twofold.
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Number one, consider choosing one, one thing mentioned in this conversation to turn towards proactively to try to improve or optimize in your life.
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One thing that feels accessible or meaningful for you.
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And my second invitation is to consider the support that you might need long term to keep making these changes in your life, to keep stepping into more regulated living, because you are not meant to do and to figure this out alone.
00:21:44.160 --> 00:22:01.839
And if you have been listening to this podcast for weeks or months or even years now and find yourself resonating with a lot of what I say, but have found it hard to put into practice, to put into action in your life, then our one on one coaching program is likely a real Really good fit for you.
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And I invite you to book a completely free discovery call with me to learn more about that.
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Completely pressure free.
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Get your questions answered.
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Let's talk face to face.
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Let me hear your story, your struggles, and see if I even in just that short call can help you find some clarity, some strategy in your unique healing journey.
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Now, in closing, to kind of summarize and recap, proactive regulation is about creating sustainable change that addresses the root causes of your anxiety and depression.
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And by understanding your unique stress load, the unique contributors to your stress bucket, and then making intentional changes in your physical health, relationships, environment, internal system or parts, mindset, you can gradually build a life that supports your nervous system rather than constantly exhausting, overwhelming, or triggering it.
00:22:55.680 --> 00:23:01.759
And I want to remind you that healing, it's not about a perfect approach or fast transformation.
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In fact, this kind of healing, less is often more, and slower is faster.
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It is about taking consistent small steps on the backdrop of curiosity, self-compassion, and oftentimes with the appropriate support that we need.
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So our three key takeaways is number one, proactive regulation is essential for long-term healing.
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It involves creating sustainable habits and addressing underlying causes to help us get out of this chronic survival mode loop.
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It moves us beyond needing or being completely dependent on these in-the-moment reactive tools.
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Number two, the most effective healing path is personalized and structured, focusing on what meaningful and accessible changes are there for you to make next.
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And number three, small consistent changes.
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Those 1% shifts, 1% improvements layered over time creates the most sustainable transformation when supported by the right guidance or within the right community spaces.
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And that wraps up our conversation today on proactive regulation.
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I just want to remind you that I don't make a dollar from this podcast.
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This really is my labor of love.
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And the one thing that I often ask in return for these efforts is first and foremost to share.
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Share these episodes, share these conversations, share this podcast with people who you feel like it could support.
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That is how we have this ripple effect.
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That is how we invite the world to be a more healed place, is when we find these resources that feel helpful for us and we can share them with people in our lives.
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So reflect on today's conversation and can you think is there a friend, a family member, somebody in your life who might benefit from this conversation or this Back to Basics series?
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And if you haven't already, a reminder as well that what gets these tools and these conversations out to even more people who need them is when you leave a five-star rating and a written review as well.
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So as always, thank you for being here.
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And next week we're going to take that deep dive I talked about into a conversation about blood work.
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Blood work, the role it plays in healing, why and how we utilize it within our practice, and why I am inviting you to consider it being an integral part of your long term healing plan for anxiety and depression as well.
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So until then, sending absolutely, absolutely so much hope and healing your way.
