Balancing Our Nervous System While Deconstructing and Building New Beliefs

In this episode of "Leaving the Church to Find God," host Melissa Whittington delves into the critical importance of regulating your nervous system, particularly when deconstructing belief systems and forming new neural pathways. Melissa explores how our nervous system impacts our thoughts, emotions, and overall well-being, and why managing it is essential for personal growth. Learn practical techniques for calming your mind and body, and discover how childhood experiences, such as religious teachings, shape limiting beliefs.

Melissa shares personal anecdotes and scientific insights into how neural pathways are formed and reinforced, the evolutionary purpose of these pathways, and how they can hinder or help us in times of change. The episode also provides practical strategies for nervous system regulation, including breathing exercises, grounding techniques, mindfulness practices, and more.

Discover more about Melissa’s journey and connect with her:

• Website: leavingthechurchtofindgod.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/authenticorbust
• Instagram: instagram.com/authenticallymeli
• YouTube: YouTube.com/DiaryofanAuthenticLife

Find the meditation for balancing your nervous system here.

Chapter Markers:

1. Introduction and Overview (00:00 - 02:00)
2. Understanding the Nervous System (02:01 - 07:00)
3. Deconstructing Belief Systems (07:01 - 12:00)
4. Formation and Reinforcement of Neural Pathways (12:01 - 18:00)
5. Evolutionary Purpose of Neural Pathways (18:01 - 22:00)
6. Practical Techniques for Nervous System Regulation (22:01 - 30:00)
7. Personal Anecdotes and Reflections (30:01 - 35:00)
8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts (35:01 - End)

Transcript

1:14

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Aloha everyone, welcome back to the God Pod. I am so happy to have you here today. I am going to talk about something that is really important. Aloha everybody, welcome back. I'm so happy to be here with you today. This is going to be kind of a last minute episode. I was planning to do something different for this week, but yesterday I had an experience that was really powerful and I wanted to share it with you here today. It just felt like the natural way to go in this conversation. So I'm going to talk about regulating our nervous system, especially while we're deconstructing belief systems and building new neural pathways. It's an essential aspect of personal growth and transformation. So here we go, let's get started. So yesterday I noticed, okay so the past, I don't know if you follow politics or not, I follow enough. I do stay involved, I don't put my head in the sand. I try to keep a balance of being involved and trusting that everything is working out as it's meant to be. But I do feel like in that, just in life in general, trusting that everything's working out as it's meant to be also includes action. And right now I personally feel like it's very important to actively be involved, especially now that there's so much hope. And this hope has really had me hope scrolling, they call it, on threads, which if you haven't done it, highly recommend, way better than doom scrolling. But I've also been on the news more and been more witness to the vitriol and the arguing and the back and forth and that has had me feeling dysregulated. So I noticed yesterday, it was kind of building and I was putting band-aids on it by stopping and doing a meditation here and there, which you know we do, but it's never really truly the answer. And yesterday I got to, not meditation, but putting band-aids on things, let me be clear. But yesterday I got to a point where there was just really nothing left to do but commit to regulating my nervous system. I was so shot out. For me, it feels like there's a traffic jam or sometimes a car crash in my brain that like trickles out into the rest of my body. So what is the nervous system? Just for a little groundwork here, the autonomic nervous system, it's a part of our peripheral nervous system and that controls our bodily functions. It makes our heart beat, it makes our liver, liver, it makes our kidney, kidney without us thinking about it, right? It just happens. That part, that nervous system has two main branches, the sympathetic nervous system and that prepares the body for fight or flight responses and the parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes our rest and digest functions. So when we face stress or significant change, our SNS, the sympathetic nervous system, can become overactive. This can lead us to feeling anxious, tension, overwhelmed, exhaustion, and that's when the nervous system regulation comes in. So by engaging our parasympathetic nervous system, we can bring our body back into a state of balance and calm. So what we do a lot of here is deconstructing belief systems and that involves questioning and dismantling deeply held beliefs, often beliefs that were instilled in us from a very young age or at birth. And for all of us, it's distilled, it's, you know, instilled in us through media, through our contact with society. There's indoctrination everywhere, not just in the church, but especially those of us who were indoctrinated into these high control religions. The process of dismantling these beliefs, it can be very emotionally and mentally challenging and it can bring up feelings of fear, uncertainty, loss, grief. These emotional responses, they can activate our sympathetic nervous system and it makes it difficult for us to think clearly and move forward. So that's, you know, I, I, when I come up with these things, it's really what's coming through me. I didn't think of it, but when I, when I get these realizations or these inspirations, then there's always the after thinking of like, oh yeah, it makes sense why I'm feeling inspired to talk about this with my podcast friends. So I'm going to get into the neural pathways for a minute, just build a little more groundwork before we go into how this applies to us and what we can do about it. So the neural pathways are formed. A neural pathway is a connection in our brain that forms as a result of our experiences paired with emotions. When we have a significant experience, especially one that involves strong emotions, our brain creates a pathway that helps us remember and respond to similar situations in the future. So think about this, like you're walking a path, you come on a green, a field full of green grass and you choose a path. So you walk down a path and then the grass is going to get beaten down a little bit and it makes a bit of an obvious path. So next time you come to that situation, you're going to go down that path that's already laid, which makes it more of a path, right? And every time you come up on the situation, your brain is going to go down that same path, which is further instilling this like pathway, right? And it makes it a deeper and deeper pathway. I don't know another word to use for that, but it's got to be down the grass. You can see it, you know what I mean? And that's what happens with our brains. Like we'll have an experience that again, is paired with an emotion, especially when it's paired with a strong emotion. And that creates, informs this neural pathway that we're most likely going to continue to repeat throughout our lives unless we make a conscious choice to rebuild that neural pathway. So the reason we have these is like they evolved to help us survive by allowing us to quickly respond to situations based on past experiences. For our ancestors, this meant remembering which plants were safe to eat or which animals were dangerous and how to find shelter. These pathways ensured quick and efficient responses that were crucial for our survival. So for example, if an early human encountered like a dangerous predator and survived it, the intense fear and adrenaline from that experience would form a neural pathway. And then the next time they saw or heard something similar to that, their brain would quickly trigger a fight or flight response or freeze, let's not forget that one, which increases the chance of survival. Sometimes the freeze does, but that response increases our chances of survival, right? But in our modern world, these same pathways can hinder our growth and change. The pathways formed by fear, especially those related to deeply ingrained beliefs, can keep us stuck in old patterns that no longer serve us. When we try to adopt a new belief or behavior, we're essentially trying to override these old pathways and create new ones. This actually takes physical energy. I don't know if you've like tried to learn a new language or think of or start a new job. Like when you're learning new things, it's, it's, you, you usually feel tired and hungry afterwards. And that's because your brain is using glucose to physically form these new neural pathways. It is a physical exercise, even though our body may not necessarily be moving a lot. It does take energy. And a lot of times it's not given enough credit, but forming these new neural pathways, like what we're doing together here in podcast, it does take energy and it can feel very taxing if we're not filling our cup and caring for ourselves along the way. So like imagine a child, like, is it hard to imagine for many of us, but learning about religion and the concept of hell, if this learning is paired with fear and the threat of displeasing God, then a strong neural pathway is going to be formed there. That pathway helps us remember the lesson and the associated fear, reinforcing the behavior that the religion was trying to encourage. Some other examples of how we form limited beliefs, like negative feedback, a child repeatedly told that they're not good at something. They're going to form a belief that they're incapable and that's going to limit their willingness to try new things throughout their lives. Social rejection, experiencing rejection or bullying, it can lead to beliefs about not being worthy or likable, and that will affect social interactions and self-esteem, which of course is going to begat more of that further, like trotting that path, right? Further deepening that neural pathway. Traumatic events, experiences like accidents or natural disasters or abuse that can create a strong neural pathway that's linked to fear, anxiety, and hypervigilance. Cultural norms, growing up in a culture with rigid gender roles or expectations that can form neural pathways that limit an individual's perception of what they can achieve or what they can become. Think about this, girls and the patriarchy, like even those of us who are aware of it, like have this deeply ingrained belief that we have to be nice or pleasant to get anywhere. That is a cultural norm, right? So with this in mind, I'm going to give you a second. I'm going to take a breath and I want you to contemplate your own experiences. How do you feel when your nervous system is dysregulated? What techniques have you found helpful in bringing yourself back to a state of common balance? It's interesting to me to observe how toddlers and babies naturally regulate themselves, like they may rock back and forth or suck their thumbs or hum to themselves. These actions are their innate ways of keeping their body safe and calm. However, as we grow older, we're often criticized for these behaviors and told to stop. This criticism can cause us to lose touch with our natural self-regulation techniques. It disembodies us. It leaves us less equipped to handle stress and anxiety as adults. So think about a time when you felt overwhelmed or anxious. What do you do to help yourself feel better? What techniques have you found that helped bring yourself back into a state of calm or balance? For people, a lot of neurodivergent people, stimming. I'm sure you've heard of stimming. Oh, everybody does some sort of stim, but for especially people with like ADHD, you can get really overstimulated and stimming is really helpful. I know my teacher, I had a teacher once who literally said she hated me. I was in the first grade, but one of the things that really bothered her was that I was always tapping my pencil or clicking a pen and that completely drove her nuts apparently. But I was stimming. I was trying to calm my nervous system and that kind of criticism like disembodies us because then we don't know what to do. We don't have a place to go. We don't have a way to deal with that or to cope with that stress that we're currently feeling. So what are some ways that you stim? Like there's all these little like the bubble toys. I don't even know what they're called or the fidget spinners. You know, we have all these ways. I remember a little embarrassing, but I went through a phase in like seventh grade where I was sucking my thumb again and I didn't even realize it. Like I would find myself in class and stuff and I would be so embarrassed, but I would like sucking my thumb. And now understanding what I was dealing with in my life at the time, yeah, that totally makes sense, but I was so embarrassed about it. But that's just such a natural thing for our body to regulate. Like even babies that do it in the womb, it's just just that sucking is a natural way for us to calm, to calm ourselves. There's connections like in the tongue and through the body and the vagal nerve and it's all intentional whether we realize it or not. Like it's intentional through our body, right? So yeah, this is happening. We're breaking down old belief systems. That can feel really scary, especially when you haven't built new belief systems to replace them with. That leaves you feeling shaky without a foundation and it's natural to our bodies. It's natural to our humans to feel really afraid of that, but it's not hopeless. And the great thing is, is once you form a new neural pathway, it's easier to go down that pathway. And there's actually videos of this on YouTube. I encourage you to like look one up. It's so cool. You can actually see these things in your brain, like moving around and finding a new attachment and how they form this new attachment. It's just fascinating how that happens, like that it is possible. But once you form that new attachment, it's easier to go down that new attachment. So yes, I will 100% recognize this process can be very exhausting. It can be really hard. And I will, can also confirm that it's a better heart than continuing to stay in those same neural pathways that are not serving us, right? So I'm going to give you some techniques as always. I don't start, I don't, I don't bring out the problem without some solutions. And I actually went a little above and beyond guys. Please be proud of me. You don't need to be. I'm proud of myself, but I actually made you a YouTube video for calming your nervous system. It's a, it's a 10 minute meditation that just gets you back in your body. It's I, I'm really excited about it. I want to do more of these and they'll get better and better, hopefully, but I'm going to link it in the details of this episode. And I might upload it as a bonus episode too, just so that you have it handy, but you can also find it on YouTube and take your 10 minutes whenever you're feeling dysregulated. So I just wanted to make it easier for you, but also I'm going to share with you some other exercises. So a breathing, breathing exercises can be really helpful for this. You can practice deep breathing, such as like diaphragmatic breathing, which is like when you breathe in your belly actually expands instead of contracts. That means you're breathing into your diaphragm. Y'all don't need to hear this. Most of y'all grew up in the choir. You know what breathing into your diaphragm is just saying, but if you don't diaphragmatic breathing can be really helpful. There's a four, seven, eight breath technique. That's really helpful, which is breathing in for four seconds, holding for seven seconds, breathing out for eight seconds, and then repeating that. Another one is the box breath, which is breathing in for four seconds, holding for four seconds, breathing out for four seconds, holding for four seconds. That's the box, right? And you just repeat that. This will activate your parasympathetic nervous system and naturally cause your body to relax. You don't have to go into your head for this. The, the answer is not going into your mind. Your brain is already doing all the work it needs to do by building these neural pathways. So our job is to just be conscious and be embodied and be present to get ourselves through this. Another really helpful thing is grounding techniques. So you can use grounding exercises such as standing barefoot on the earth, focus on the sensation of your feet touching the ground using grounding objects like stones or crystals. I have my fluorite, which is very grounding. My mentor brought me these two beautiful fluorite crystals, which I love, and I keep them with me when I need to stay grounded. Um, I feel it's really helpful. They're also great for helping with concentration. So me and my ADHD brain really, really appreciates that, um, all the help I can get. But yeah, grounding is something I do all the time when I'm feeling dysregulated, get barefoot and go stand on the earth. That's all we need to do. And the cool thing is, is that it doesn't even take very long, like literally just a couple of minutes with this will feel so much better. Um, I also like to just lay on the ground, put down a towel or whatever, but rubber, any kind of rubber is going to block that, those waves of energy. So you don't want to put like a rubber yoga mat underneath you. You can put a blanket or towel, something like that, but leave those unnatural fibers out of the picture. And, um, just lay on the earth, let, let the earth hold you, let it give you energy and literally ground you. Right. Another way is through mindfulness and meditation practices, regular mindfulness. We've talked about this, um, in another episode, if you haven't heard it, go look for our episode on mindfulness. It's just a few episodes back and, um, meditation practices, they can help calm the mind and the body of course. And there's apps that help with this. And again, like I find so many meditations on YouTube. I love YouTube as a resource. Um, I actually don't pay for like Hulu or anything like that, but I do pay for YouTube because I use it for meditations. And the last thing you want is a commercial popping up in the middle of your meditation. Right. Um, I also like to use it to help me sleep. I'll go on there and get the sound baths and, and that'll help me get to sleep sometimes. And I don't want any advertising going into my subconscious while I'm sleeping. But, um, that's another thing though, sound baths, man, sound baths can be so grounding for the nervous system. It's something about that vibration that it just, it just brings you into an alignment in a way that is so profound. I love sound baths, um, physical movement and exercise, right? Incorporating regular physical activity into your routine. There is nothing better for the brain than regular exercise. And when I say exercise, I'm not saying go to the gym and work your buns off. I believe that personally for the sake of our nervous system, we need to earn our workouts, not our food. Um, we need food to survive, but for a workout, you know, it's really important to have your adrenals feeling good to have your nervous system feeling balanced or a heavy workout can actually increase your cortisol and adrenaline, which is the opposite of what you need to calm your nervous system is actually going to activate your nervous system and make it worse. So before doing any heavy workouts, it's important to have good nutrition in your body, proper sleep to feel rested. If you are forcing yourself to go work out, it means that your body doesn't have what it needs to do it. So there are other ways to get physical movement. I love yoga. I'm just because it feels so good. It feels so good. It is so grounding for me in all the ways, body, mind, spirit. That's what yoga means. It's the union, right? So it's great for that. Um, a gentle walk, especially if you're in nature, but if you're not, that's fine too. That can really help regulate the nervous system. Tai Chi is supposed to be good for that. I have not tried it yet, but I am always been interested. Um, even like there's these amazing somatic exercises. Maybe I'll put a link. I have this app that I use called better.me and we're better me, but it is a somatic exercises and it's really gentle. Like sometimes it's just putting your hand on your belly and one hand on your heart and swaying back and forth. It can be other movements. It's all about like getting trauma and stuff out of the nervous system. So these somatic movements are so good for this. It's so good for balancing that part of ourself. Um, yeah, I think I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to connect a link in the description because this app is my favorite for somatic exercises and has been the most helpful, but you can probably find them on YouTube too. Um, you know, YouTube's great. I love YouTube. So, um, another is getting good sleep. Ensure you're getting quality sleep, man. Your brain's gotta rest. That's when it does it. Well, it's still working, but in a different way, right? But rest makes sleep a priority. Create a relaxing bedtime routine. Limit your screen time before bed. Maintain a consistent schedule. All of these things will help you sleep better. If you feel really tired when you wake up in the morning, I'm just going to go off on a side here. If you always like feel like you're tired when you wake up, it's shocking how many people actually have sleep apnea. Um, it's worth doing a sleep study. It's really easy. You take this little device home. It's not a big deal at all. You don't have to sit there with people staring at you. In most cases, you just take this little thing home. It'll monitor your sleep. You may be waking up repeatedly throughout the night and not even realizing it. This happened with me. I was, um, a couple of years ago, my mom was in the hospital. I happened to be on the mainland at the same time. So I was staying at the hospital with her overnight. And she tells me it's funny because I was watching her, but apparently I was waking her up with sleep apnea and just waking up, like gasping for air and not even realizing it. And I feel like I've done this my whole life. Like I, um, just get really relaxed and stop breathing. I don't know what it is, but, um, doing something about that has been life-changing. So make sure you're getting good sleep. However, whatever that means for you, make sure you're getting good sleep, nutrition and hydration, eat a balanced diet, rich and whole foods, stay hydrated, avoid excessive caffeine and sugar. All of those things can exacerbate anxiety. Having good nutritious whole foods in your body calms the nervous system because it feels safe. It knows that it's not going to starve. Um, that's one of the best things I've done for myself. And even if the by-product of it was, is actually been losing a lot of weight. But when I really started battling with long COVID, which for those of you who know me, it was like a very long three year battle. But when I really started battling with the long COVID intuitively, I just knew that I had to give my body what it needed. And so I started eating a lot of really nutrient dense foods, a lot of raw milk, a lot of meats, um, foods that have like a lot of natural fats in them. And yes, I put on a lot of weight, but I also knew that it was an investment into my nervous system and it worked. There came a point when my body became regulated and without any effort, the weight just started coming off naturally. And now, you know, after dieting, since I've been 10 years old, you know, I'm at a point in my life where that's just not something that would even cross my mind. I eat when my body asks for, I rest when I'm tired and that's working for me. It's getting me in my healthiest body ever, which is just happening naturally because being hypervigilant about our food and dieting is also a stressor, especially when our bodies are built to survive. And, um, having that like restriction does not make you feel safe. So I'm not telling you how to eat or what to do, but in the world of nervous system, if what you're focusing on is your nervous system is balancing your nervous system, um, it's important to have a healthy nutrient rich diet, social connection and support. You cannot underestimate this. This doesn't mean being with people for the sake of not being alone, but connecting with supportive friends, connecting with supportive family, or even a therapist. Um, social support is crucial for emotional wellbeing and for our nervous system regulation. If you think about this again, like from this point of evolution, we had to stick together to survive. Somebody had to watch the kids while somebody else went to go find the food or sticking together in numbers made us less vulnerable to predators. You know, there's so many ways in which we depend on community to survive. So when we don't have that communion in any way, but the more of it we have, the more our nervous system just regulates on its own. Right? So these are a lot of ways. This is a lot of stuff, guys. There's no, you're not alone in this. And I would love to hear from you. If you need more suggestions, I might start throwing some up, some up on social. This kind of feels like the theme right now. Um, but if you need some more suggestions, hit me up, like, feel free to comment, feel free to reach out. All of my information is always in the details of the podcast. Also, you know, it's easy leaving the church to find god.com is going to lead you straight to the podcast page and you can find me there. Um, any, like, let me know what you need. I'm here for you. We're in this together. I'm not just going to throw you out to the wolves and say, fix this and not give you any way to do it. So I just want to, um, just give you that, you know, wrapping things up, regulating your nervous system. It's essential during periods of significant change, such as deconstructing belief systems and building new neural pathways. By caring for our nervous system, we can navigate these transformations with greater ease and resilience. I really appreciate you all tuning in today. Again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Join my Facebook group authentic or bust. That is a fun way to share your experiences and to create community. And again, I've created this meditation for you on YouTube. I'll link it in the details and, or you can just find it by going to my YouTube channel diary of an authentic life. And I just want to thank you for tuning in. Thanks for being here with me. I hope you got something out of this and until next time, stay curious, stay kind and stay authentic.