Do you exhaust yourself trying to protect everyone else's wellbeing while ignoring your own needs? Have you become so skilled at silencing your body's signals that you only notice them when you're completely depleted? What if your nervous system is desperately trying to tell you something that could free you from these depleting patterns of self-sacrifice?
"Once you can reduce your emotions to biological processes, it's so liberating because then it means that you're not broken, you're not defected, you don't need to be fixed, you just need to tend to yourself," explained Nahid de Belgeonne, author and somatic movement educator when we interviewed her for this podcast.
Nahid explains that our nervous system is constantly communicating through our body, sending signals about what we need. "Once upon a time, the paradigm was we thought we were a brain with a body, but we're actually a body with a brain," she explains. "There's more signals coming up from the body into the brain. But of course with decades and decades of marketing and propaganda, we're groomed to mistrust our feelings."
What's especially interesting is that many of our "good girl" behaviors are actually nervous system responses trying to keep us safe. These protective patterns – the constant need to safeguard others, seek approval, and maintain perfection – aren't character flaws or personal failures. They're deeply ingrained nervous system responses that once helped us survive. But as Nahid's work reveals, this compliance exacts a heavy toll on our mental and physical health. She consistently sees this pattern in her practice: women maintaining a polished exterior while quietly falling apart, sacrificing their authentic selves and genuine presence in life to maintain these protective patterns.
Nahid recommends these steps to soothe your nervous system and access your authentic self:
Breath Regulation: Practice breathing at 5 breaths per minute (6 seconds in, 6 seconds out) to bring your brain, lungs, and heart into coherence. This pattern is particularly powerful because it creates an even pace of oxygen intake and carbon dioxide release that's deeply soothing for the body. While most people in Western countries breathe 12-22 times per minute, slowing to just 5 breaths acts like a remote control for the brain, immediately calming even the most distressed person.
Movement Exploration: Use primal movements like rocking and rolling to help your nervous system feel safe and grounded. These pre-language patterns tap into deep, natural soothing mechanisms that we used as babies before we could speak. When you're feeling overwhelmed or disconnected, these simple movements can help release tension and create new neural pathways for responding to stress. Just like a baby exploring movement for the first time, approach these patterns with curiosity rather than trying to perfect them.
Spatial Awareness: Connect with your physical location through floor contact or back support. This gives your nervous system clear signals about safety and stability. Your brain sits in what Nahid calls a "black box," receiving information only through your sensory systems. When you're stressed or anxious, lying on the floor or pressing your back against a wall helps your extensor muscles release and signals to your brain that you're safe. This simple practice can ground you anywhere – from your living room to a busy train station.
Time Anchoring: Align with natural rhythms through consistent meal times and exposure to morning/evening light to help regulate your system. Your nervous system responds powerfully to these daily markers, using them to organize your internal processes. Morning light exposure signals wakeful energy, while evening walks at dusk help prepare your body for rest. Regular meal timing further reinforces these natural patterns, creating a stable foundation for your nervous system.
"This work is not performative," explains Nahid. "It's about getting curious about all the many different ways you could do something. Your nervous system will choose the easiest way once you've given it lots of different possibilities."
This approach helps create what Nahid calls "a very deeply confident core" - not through artificial self-belief, but through genuine self-trust and internal cooperation. Unlike the surface-level confidence we try to manufacture through positive affirmations or forced self-belief, this work cultivates a natural emergence of our authentic Self-energy. When we slow down to listen to our body's signals, explore movement with curiosity rather than judgment, and honor our nervous system's needs, we create space for our natural wisdom to emerge.
As Nahid explains, this is about moving from a performative facade to embodied presence, where all parts of us – body, mind, and nervous system – are working in harmony rather than constantly overriding each other. This integration allows us to access a deeper kind of confidence that doesn't need to be maintained or defended, but simply exists as part of our natural state when we're fully present and regulated.
Remember: Your nervous system is like a toddler that needs soothing, feeding, and rest. When you learn to listen and respond to its needs with curiosity and compassion, you create space for your authentic self to emerge naturally.
For more of Nahid’s wonderful work, be sure to grab her book Soothe: The Book Your Nervous System Has Been Yearning For and check out her retreats and online programs here: www.thehumanmethod.co.uk.
Please note: We are mindful that ‘girl’ and ‘woman’ are socially constructed ideas of gender that can fall painfully short of defining the fabulous complexity of who we each are. If these words resonate with part of how you have previously or currently identified yourself, we’d love to hear about your lived experiences.
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