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You Make Sense
How to Actualize the Life You're Wanting
00:57:18
Do you ever feel like there’s an invisible wall holding you back from the life you desire? In this episode, Sarah explores why achieving our goals can feel so difficult—even when we’re putting in the effort. The key to unlocking our full potential lies in understanding and befriending our autonomic nervous system, which shapes our entire experience and the ease in which we’re able to take steps forward. By viewing the nervous system as a vehicle, Sarah shares practical strategies for how to guide your nervous system down roads that lead to your deepest desires. Through the power of nervous system regulation, parts work, and safe connection, it’s possible to get unstuck and tangibly move toward a more full, expansive life.
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Hi, I'm Sarah, and welcome to youo Makesense. I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner, an expert on trauma resolution, attachment parts work, and nervous system regulation. This podcast is a manual to understanding your human experience so that you can navigate the world with freedom, ease, empowerment, and create the life that you desire. Remember, you make sense all parts always. So, in this episode, we're going to talk about how to begin actualizing the life that we want. And the number one most important thing to focus on when we're doing this is to begin understanding and befriending the system that is responsible either for our stuckness or our ability to live the life we're desiring. And that is our autonomic nervous system. I say this a lot, but it's the foundation of all healing. It's also the foundation of living a happy, joyful, fully congruent life. And when I say congruent, I simply mean a life that really is aligned with our deepest desires and where we feel called to. And I can tell you, as somebody who tried for a very long time, you know, a decade in my career alone, to will my way towards the life I wanted. That does not work. So if you're listening and you have tried to do that in your own life, or maybe you're doing that right now, and you find that you're hitting up against this invisible wall, that's what I used to call the stuckness I experienced. That isn't because the life you want isn't for you. And it certainly isn't because it's not possible or because you aren't trying hard enough. It is likely because you have yet to befriend the system responsible for that stuckness, which, again, is our autonomic nervous system. So one way, and you've heard me say this in previous episodes that I describe, the autonomic nervous system is like a vehicle. And if you don't understand this vehicle that you inhabit, then it takes over on cruise control, and it's like you go in the backseat of the vehicle. Now, this autonomic nervous system, its number one job is to keep you safe and alive at all costs. So if it has to choose between you feeling fulfilled or you being safe, it will always, 10 out of 10 times, choose your safety because it loves you so much. And so, see this vehicle, it has different roads of life that it can take that are in front of us. And so we have the roads of safety, safety that your nervous system distinguishes as safe. We have roads of familiarity, and then we have the roads that we deeply desire the most. So when I say roads of safety, those are roads that your nervous system has decided are going to have the least amount of threat or possibility of danger for you. Now, how is it deciding that? Well, inside of us, we've talked about this in previous episodes, we all have this internal database that has every lived experience you've ever had inside of it. And your nervous system has this thing called neuroception. It's simply a threat detector, and it's the one that's deciding what is safe for you or not in your life. So if we have things in that database that weren't safe in the past, it's going to want to avoid those things and go towards things that have higher levels of relative safety for us. So let's say that in the past, it wasn't safe to connect with other people. People were dangerous to us, or people made us feel like we were less than we didn't belong, et cetera. Maybe that's in the database. So when it sees different roads in front of us and roads of maybe connecting with new community, it's going to say, I don't think that we should go down those roads. Because historically speaking, belonging wasn't something that was safe for us, or people weren't entirely safe. So a road of safety there might be. I really don't have a lot of people in my life, and even though I'm feeling really lonely, it feels too intolerable to actually step towards the thing, the people and the things that I'm desiring. So I'm going to take this road of safety, which is maybe isolation and maybe you have a pet, but there isn't really a lot of connection going on. So that would be a road of safety. Essentially, what it's doing is saying, let's do the opposite of what we experienced in the past. So we all have those roads of safety. Another example of that might be maybe I grew up in a home where finances weren't always coming in. I grew up in poverty, or maybe even just my caregivers were always talking about how there wasn't going to be enough. And that created a level of lacking of safety in my own system and inside of my home. So my nervous system's gonna say, well, we need to take a real road of safety around finances, which means we're not gonna take a lot of risk. So that might mean that I'm not going to leave that job that's not really supporting me because I have a steady that comes in and I can count on it. And I have a 401k and I've got health insurance. So I'm going to take that road of safety because I never want to feel the out of control feeling of not having enough like I experienced in the past. So you get the idea. Those are the roads of safety. Then we have the roads of familiarity. So the way that our nervous system works is it likes what it knows. The reason being is because it can predict what to do if it understands what's coming its way. And so for every single one of us, we've all experienced things in the past that perhaps weren't safe for us or caused us challenges in our lives, right? And our nervous system found a way to navigate that dynamic. And so it said, although that wasn't comfortable and maybe it was really even quite painful, I know the way to operate in that situation, which means I can ensure your survival inside of it. So for example, let's say that in the past I grew up in a home, a childhood home, this is our family of origin, where I had a role of caretaking everyone else. And when I was caretaking everyone else, I received love and it gave me a sense of value and self worth. And when I played that role, everything worked, meaning I continued to belong inside of that dynamic. I received love and it gave me a sense of value. So what happens in our adult lives is when we're looking for romantic partnership, let's say our nervous system says, I know that road of familiarity, so let's go down that road because I know exactly what to do in order to survive in it and even thrive in it. Now those roads of familiarity can cause us a lot of pain because essentially we're habituating similar patterns in the past. And at the same time our nervous system knows how to navigate them and therefore we'll choose going down those roads. Example of this might be, let's say I grew up in a home where there was a lot of chaos that happened. So there was always maybe arguing or things were very up and down all of the time. And I learned how to navigate chaos quite well. So roads of familiarity that might look like in my adult life that I find myself in work environments like joining companies that are always really hectic and maybe a little bit toxic. There's just like so much going on all of the time. Or I might choose a career where I am in a lot of chronic lacking of safety, like being a first responder. So my system has learned to thrive in chaos. Therefore I'm going to call in those kind of chaotic experiences. Not because I want to be in chaos, but because my nervous system has a blueprint for how to navigate it. So then we have these last section of roads, and those are the roads of our deepest desires. And so here's the thing about the roads of our deepest desires. More often than not, the things that you are desiring most in your life are things that were either dangerous or inhibited in the past. And so, and I've. I've worked with so many thousands of people at this point, and of course working with myself, and I have always and consistently found this to be true. That wherein lies our greatest desires, or wherein lies our greatest callings, in our lives lies our greatest healing. So let's say in terms of purpose, you're currently in a 9 to 5 job, and that's a road of safety for your nervous system. So what begins to happen as we are in those roads of safety for long periods of time is that our life force energy begins to dwindle. Life force energy is our ability to feel deeply connected to self and world around us. It's our ability to experience awe, wonder, creativity, and really, truly full aliveness. Now, if we are not in congruency internally and externally, meaning what I feel inside is reflected externally in my life, if that's not happening, our life force energy begins to dwindle. And so what can happen in these roads of safety is that we start to feel like we're sleepwalking through life. I just don't feel inspired anymore. I actually start to feel a lot of pain because I'm not fully expressed as a human. And every living thing, by the way, wants to be fully expressed, right? Like a flower blooming wants to fully be itself. And an elephant that's born into the world wants to experience what it's like to be a matriarchal elephant eventually, if it's female. Do you get the idea? So we want to be fully expressed. And when that doesn't happen, and by the way, the only reason that's not happening is because our nervous system is taking these roads of safety or familiarity anyway, we're in that 9 to 5 job and we start to just feel. People say this a lot, like I'm dead inside. I just don't feel inspired. I feel like I'm going through the motions. And then I use things to numb because it's so overwhelming. So I'm drinking a lot, or I'm using food to numb, or I'm distracting myself in a particular way. So all of that begins to happen. Right. And let's say that that road of desire, the roads of my deepest soul calling, is to actually start a company maybe of my own. And that might require me, let's say, like going back to school first before I start the company. So as I'm going to do that, go down this road of my deepest desires that might require me to leave that 9 to 5 job, my nervous system is going to say, wait a second, I don't know if that's safe because now I have much less of a handle on things and I can't predict the future as much as I can when you're going down those roads of safety. So we will butt up against this. As I try to go down that road of my truest desire, my nervous system is going to take the steering wheel and say, I don't think that's a good idea. Idea. So I apply to maybe, you know, that master's program and I might even get in. But then I find myself avoiding it and not being able to sign up and missing the deadline. Why is that happening? Because my nervous system is saying, I do not think that it's safe for you to leave this job. I don't think it's safe to not have those finances come in. I also don't think it's safe to go towards that direction that I know it's going to lead you to. Because when you finish school, guess what's going to happen. You're going to then probably be seen more in the world because you're going to now take action that's going to be embodying your purpose. And that might mean again, making mistakes. That might mean using your voice and it certainly will require you to be seen. So as we go to try to take those roads of our deepest desire, our nervous system is going to stop us in our tracks in the form of avoidance, self sabotage, and also resistance. Another example of this is I might really have a deep desire to go down a new road in terms of a romantic relationship. So we're really able to feel into that like, you know, I really want to have a partnership where that person is no longer avoidant or elusive. Because maybe I have a pattern of choosing people who don't fully commit. Maybe they do that in a pretty big way where they're not available at all or they're sort of wishy washy. One foot in, one foot out, one foot in, one foot out. And I just don't want to be in that pattern anymore. And I really desire to have a partner who's steady like a rock and keeps showing up and is available for me. Remember, our nervous systems either like the roads of safety or the roads of familiarity. Roads of familiarity it likes because it knows how to navigate those situations, even if it feels like that's a landmine of sorts. It knows how to go around the landmines or how to navigate the experience. So guess what occurs as I perhaps call in a partner whom is really steady and is not one foot in, one foot out. What can happen is your nervous system says, I don't know this road and I've never gone down it before. And I don't yet have the capacity to tolerate that kind of experience where I'm being seen this much because I'm used to being invisible. I'm also not used to tolerating someone who's consistently there. The MO that I have is that I mobilize through my sympathetic nervous system and an anxious attachment. And I become whatever they need me to be in order for them to love me, in order to get them to stay. That's what I know. This I don't know. And therefore our nervous systems will be resistant to it and may even push it away. And so herein lies the struggle that so many of us experience. We are chronically and consistently going down those roads of safety or roads of familiarity. We might get really clear on the roads of our deepest desire. But I can tell you there is no amount of willing your way towards those roads or envision them and meditation or trying to manifest them that is going to work. The only thing that works is beginning to get into the driver's seat of your own nervous system, that vehicle inside of you. And from that place, we gently and slowly show our nervous systems. Hey, these roads that we have never gone down before are actually safe. We're not going to go down that road at 80 miles an hour because your nervous system is going to say, absolutely not. We're going to get in a car crash and it will put on the auto brake. You remember in driver's ed where the teacher had a pedal in the passenger seat and they could put the brake on, it's like that your nervous system is going to take over and say, nope, we're not doing that. But if we drive nice and slowly with two hands on the wheel and we show our nervous system, hey, I know you don't think this is safe. I can assure you that it is. But I need to show you because our nervous systems don't take our word for it. They need actual data that that which was either inhibited or dangerous, is now safe for us. So another really important thing to understand Is that our nervous systems don't just avoid things that were historically dangerous for us. They also avoid things that they don't yet know. And something that I don't think is talked about enough. Is that the good things that we desire in life have a energetic charge to them. Meaning there's quite a big embodied experience. And somatically, of what it's like to experience them. For example, one of the deepest desires of human beings Is to be deeply seen and known. It's a primary need that we all have. But for many of us, we came into the world and our caregivers, for whatever reason, Were not able to do that for us. A lot of us had loving caregivers. And for some reason they didn't realize that we are our own unique being. Yes, we come from them, but we are certainly not them. We are an entirely different experience or different expression of consciousness and of life. And. But what happens is a lot of us have caregivers whom projected onto us. Either the things that were not actualized in their own life or how they think we should operate in the world. So the result of that is they don't fully see us and who we are in our difference and uniqueness that makes us who we are. So when it comes to the roads of our deepest desires, the things that we really want the most. More often than not, those things have flavorings of past experiences. That were once either dangerous or inhibited for us. So, for example, if in the past it wasn't safe to use my voice, to take up space, to be fully seen, to be vulnerable, to lean on others, to make mistakes. And of course, a variety of other things. If those things weren't safe in the past, then what's going to happen is as I step towards the thing I want the most, My nervous system is going to stop me in my tracks. Because the thing I want the most often has a flavoring of that. So let's go into some examples of what that looks like. So let's say my nervous system is really familiarized with having partners who don't fully see me. They're either distracted, or maybe they lack empathy. Or they're unavailable in a particular way. That's really known to my nervous system. Now, when I come into a relationship with someone who is more regulated in their nervous system. They have an ability to attune and empathize. And they are consistent and steady in their desire to choose me. That means that they are going to see a lot more of me than I am historically used to. And here's the thing, that's my deepest desire, right? To be deeply seen and known. But as that person is consistently seeing me, my nervous system is saying, I'm not used to this level of exposure. And so it can actually feel overwhelming. And this is a confusing process because we can think like, why is this occurring? This is exactly what I want. And yet I notice that it's actually dysregulating me, or I notice that I'm pulling away or I'm picking a fight, or I'm doing something to get them to stop seeing me. And so I just want to name here as, as we go down these rows of our deepest desires, that is the name of the game. That's what it's going to be like. It's building our capacity and toleration for the good. And the more that my nervous system sees, oh, it's actually safe to be this seen, nothing bad happens. It's actually safe to be this known. Nothing bad happens. The more that we do that, the more that our nervous system says, oh, this is safe and this is okay. The result of that is now that I go towards this stepping, you know, into that, deeper into that relationship. It happens with ease instead of my nervous system getting in the way. So I just want to name that because it can be a very confusing experience for people. Why is this occurring that I'm finding myself dysregulated or not feeling good around the thing that I want? And that is all about capacity building in our nervous system. So we're going to talk about a step by step process on how to do that and how to actualize these desires in our lives. If you're thinking, okay, how do I step towards the things that I want, just know that's about to come. But I just want to explain one more really important thing in terms of stepping into the life that we're desiring and the current life that we're living today. So every single human being on the planet is currently living a life that their nervous system has capacity for or that their nervous system has decided is safe. And if we aren't again in the driver's seat of our nervous system, that means for most people out there, and I just want to normalize this for you, that most people are living a small, smaller life than they feel called to. For me, I used to call this a beautiful prison that I was trapped inside of for a long time. The prison was not beautiful. It Was a dark and scary place. And through a lot of healing, all of a sudden it's like I, you know, reconstructed what this prison looked like and now it was this incredibly beautiful house that was decorated exactly as I liked it, and it even had some animals in it. And it was really beautiful. And yet I was trapped inside of it. And it's like looking out the window, seeing a life that you really want, you know, like traveling more or a family or partnership, or feeling like you're doing what the universe called you here to do and feeling fully alive and free and all of the things. I could look out the window and see it, but I was trapped in that beautiful prison and what a painful place that is to be. And for many of us, that's where we are. And so another reason why this is happening alongside of our nervous system is because we all have parts or versions of ourselves. If you've done any work in internal family systems, which is an incredible modality on parts or inner child work, those are by the way, really interchangeable and the same thing with different verbiage or language. And the concept of this is that we have our adult self, our truest self. That is the part of us that is able to navigate challenge, that is the part of us that is connected to our soul or higher self, whatever you call that. We have that version of ourself, but we also have these younger parts. And when we've experienced traumas in the past that aren't resolved, it's like those younger parts are stuck at that point in time in life that they experience the challenge they experienced. So if those parts have not yet been reparented by us and rescued from the past, then they're going to look out that window with us and they're going to say, oh my gosh. And you want to step out into the world and you want to try to belong to other people. Well, everybody where I am at 6 years old has made me feel like I don't belong. And everybody abandoned me. I don't want to go out there as six years old and be abandoned again. That was way too much. And so what happens is if we don't understand that we have these parts that are showing up in our lives, it's almost like we are asking that, that six year old to go out and do this thing for us. Almost like a, like, like they're a human shield. We're saying, you go out and I'll be behind you. And so of course no 6 year old has the capacity to navigate coming into community on their own. Right. They need a caregiver to help support them in that process and most importantly to protect them. So if we don't understand that that's occurring and those parts are being reminded of past experiences, then when I go to try to step towards that thing, that younger 6 year old's gonna show up and say, oh my gosh, this is really scary. I can't do this because I couldn't do it back then because it wasn't safe back then. And I'm really worried that the same thing's gonna happen now. And if we don't know they're there, then what happens is our nervous system comes in as their primary protector every single time. You can guarantee that if you are not protecting your younger parts, your nervous system will always in the form of dysregulation or stuckness and being trapped in that beautiful because they love those parts of you so much. So none of this is happening because you inherently are not able to step into the life that you want. It's not happening because you aren't trying hard enough. It's happening because a, your nervous systems like the roads of safety and familiarity. They do not like the roads they don't know and they certainly don't like roads that they think could be dangerous. And the second thing is that our younger parts are showing up, up because more often than not those roads of deepest desire are reminding the younger parts of things that were dangerous or inhibited for them. And then it's like a six year old, a two year old, an eight year old, a ten year old, whatever is being asked to step into what they think could be danger. And so again and again, this is why so many of us are finding ourselves stuck, unable to actualize the life that we want want. Another thing that's really important to name when I said that we're all living the life that our nervous systems currently have, have the capacity for, is that, you know, I don't have the capacity to hold the life that I'm going to be living five years from now. The life I'm going to be living five years from now is going to require greater exposure than I am currently experiencing. It's going to require greater risk than I'm currently experiencing and a number of other things, things, much more of them than I am currently experiencing in my life. And so if I was to get those things today, if I was to experience them right now, they would be overwhelming for my parts and my nervous system. And therefore what would transpire is I would find a way to protect myself from them and to push them away. This is true for every single living being, not just human beings, everything that's alive. So, for example, if you look at nature, and we use nature a lot here as a teacher, think about a tree seedling that's being rooted. Now, if that seedling did not take the time to spread its roots before it sprouted, it would topple over. And as it began to grow, if it said, oh, my gosh, I should be growing faster. Why am I growing so slow? I need to get going here. And let's say the trunk of its tree started to grow 10 times faster than nature has planned. You know, the divine and highly intelligent course of nature has planned. If we sped that up 10 times faster, what would happen is it wouldn't have the root system to support it, and it would fall, and then it, you know, wouldn't be able to survive that. And so the natural unfolding of things, the natural unfolding of nature, is also the rhythm that we are meant to follow. And the more that we follow that inherent rhythm inside of us, and we begin to step towards the things that we want at a pace that is tolerable for our nervous system. That's the working with our nervous system. All of the sudden, we arrive at where we're going. Have you ever looked at, like, a tree in the spring when, like, there's just a tiny bud, and you look up at the tree in your yard and you're like, ugh, the tree is so pretty in the summer. Maybe I'm the only one that does that, but I'm like, oh, you poor tree, you're probably cold. Maybe you don't think that, but I don't. And all of a sudden, I don't know what happens. And in, like, a week, I look up and there's leaves. They've arrived. And then I look up in another week and there's flowers blossoming. And then I look up in another week, and there's three nests in the tree. And then I look up in another week, and the leaves are starting to change color. So this is the natural progress. Every. It seems like nothing is happening at times, but so much is occurring. And then it opens. And that is the natural rhythm that we are meant to follow in terms of stepping into the life we desire. So all that is to say, you most certainly aren't behind. You are right on time. So before I get to the practical application of this work and how we actually do it, I just want to first talk about where we can find ourselves hitting roadblocks or what we tend to try, that doesn't work. The reason I like to name those things is because, oh my gosh, we can feel so alone in that experience and then we feel like, ugh, maybe there's something wrong with me or maybe this isn't for me. So I just want to talk about what those things can look like. And one more important thing to say about those roads of our deepest desires. You know you're onto something if you're finding yourself stuck, unable to step towards it, or you know you're onto something if it's not easy to step towards the thing that you're trying to get to. That is all the a clue that you are likely going towards the right direction. We just have to work with our nervous systems. So here's a couple of the things that a lot of us try. By the way, I tried all of these things in terms of my effort to embody the life that I am here to live. Number one is muscling through. So many of us do this and our culture, we're finally getting away from that. But our culture and a lot of self help has told us to override our nervous system and push through. Because that's what muscling through actually is. It's trying to override this highly intelligent system living in our bodies. And that system, the oldest part of it by the way, is 500 million years old. You cannot out muscle it. It loves you too much to allow you to step towards something that it does not yet know is safe. So when we try to muscle through, I am not listening to my nervous system that's trying to talk to me and saying it's. At first it talks to me kind of, you know, low key and it says, hey, I don't think that's safe. And if I'm not listening to that and I try to push through more, more and more and more and more, it's going to get louder and louder and louder until it stops me in my tracks. And that's an exhausting battle. I did that in so many areas of my life. Like in my purpose, for example, I tried to muscle through and I would literally punish myself and force myself to sit at a computer like, like eight hours a day trying to start my company. And I would have like 15 tabs open and like where do you start with? And do I need to hire somebody? And I don't know how I'm gonna hire someone cause I don't have income coming in and do I start with a website. I don't know how to create a website. Do I do that? Should I take another course? Like, just in this incredible overwhelm, trying to push through? And what my nervous system would do is say, absolutely not. No way. That's too much exposure. And it would stop me in my tracks in the form of something called my state of freeze, where I had all this energy inside. I have to, I have to, I have to. And then I feel like I couldn't, but I have to, but I can't. But I have to, but I can't. But I have to, but I can't. And I would have anxiety, but then I would feel blank and I couldn't think, and I would punish myself and make myself sit in that chair. I did that, literally everybody, for, like, years. And what I can tell you is there is no amount of muscling through that's going to work. All that it does is it leaves you in an internal war with your nervous system, and it will lend you, or lead you rather, to incredible exhaustion and eventually burnout from that place. So muscling through that does not work. That is an experience of overriding our nervous system. And what we have to do is actually work with this system instead of trying to push through. Another thing that we can tend to do is set unobtainable goals. Really common that we do this. So we think about a place that we want to be in our lives and we say, okay, okay, in the next three months. That's my goal. But I'm approaching that all from a cognitive place, meaning in my. From my thinking brain. And maybe that's a nice idea that, yeah, I would really like to leave my job in three months and start that business. That's the goal three months from now. But I also have two kids at home, and I'm the primary breadwinner, and we don't have a lot of savings. But I'm gonna leave the job in three months because I need to get going on my purpose. So here's the thing. That is likely a step that is beyond what your nervous system thinks is safe for you, because your nervous system is going to look at all those data points and say, okay, if you leave your job and you have kids at home and you are the primary breadwinner, what's going to happen? We might not have financial income that's going to be able to support us, to be okay. And then it even looks to that database and it says, and based on my past experience, I had caregivers who said, you know, who were afraid and said, you have to take the safe route because that other stuff doesn't work out. Or maybe they talked about finances not working out. So for all of those reasons, my nervous system's gonna say, no way, that's way too fast. And so what happens is, remember, your nervous system is stronger than you. So you try to get towards that goal and your nervous system's going to get louder in the form of dysregulation. It's gonna say, nope, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. If we don't listen, that absolutely not eventually becomes self sabotage. So setting unobtainable goals sets us up for our stuckness. And then secondarily speaking, it sets us up for internalizing that and feeling like something's wrong with us or creating a hopelessness. So that's something that so many of us do. I, I've done that so many times in my life. I've shared this in other episodes, but I did that around writing a book. I thought to myself, like, I'll do this. It's the first time I'm ever doing it. I'll do it in six months. I actually thought I would do it in five months. Months, which is such an unattainable goal. I have never done this before. That is way more exposure than my nervous system was currently acquainted with. And then what transpires is if you try to push in, in that sequence of time, you're just going to exacerbate the dysregulation, which is of course what I, what, what happened to me, what I experienced. The more that we set attainable goals, the faster the work goes. So a couple other things that we try to do. A lot of the time, we try to do it in isolation. So if you grew up in an at home or an experience where you were given the message that it is a virtue and a celebration of strength to not need help, like to be hyper independent. If you got love or affirmation from doing that, then guess what's going to occur. Your nervous system is going to be oriented to, to life that way where I don't ask for help because doing it on my own is what makes me strong. Or maybe you were neglected in your childhood, so your system didn't even have the opportunity. So what happens is, as we are going to step towards this really challenging thing. Because by the way, going down those roads of your deepest desires is one of the most challenging things you can do in your life. That's why most human beings are not living the Life that they feel fully called to because they. This is so incredibly hard. Takes a lot of work to do this. So if I am, you know, doing one of the most challenging things that we can do, which is to regulate our nervous systems and to step into the life that we want, if I'm trying to do that in isolation, I am going to make everything harder. Because human beings are social creatures. We need other living beings to support us in order for our nervous systems to come into regulation. And having safe connection makes us feel safe inside. So the more that we can come into dynamics or communities where not only the people are safe, they're consistent and available for us, and they wholly and completely believe in the desires of our soul, not only for us, but with us. When we have that, it changes everything for so many of us. We try to do it alone and are doing it alone. We slow down the process, we exacerbate the dysregulation. And also, you remember I talked about those younger parts. And oftentimes that means the younger parts either are all alone or they only have us. And when they also have community, everything goes faster too. And the last thing that I want to name that we tend to do that doesn't work, is we compare ourselves to other people that are further down the road. This is such a common thing to do. So I want to use nature as our teacher in terms of this dynamic too. So imagine that there's this like big, giant, beautiful sequoia tree and next to it there is a seedling which is a sequoia tree. You know it is meant to be a sequoia tree. It is going to be a sequoia tree. It already is a sequoia tree. It's just not a fully matured one yet. Maybe it's five years old versus we've got a thousand year old tree next to it. That five year old sequoia tree is not consistently looking to the thousand year old tree and saying, oh my gosh, you're so much better than me. I can't believe I'm not where you are. I must really suck or there must be something wrong with me. And it also doesn't say, maybe I won't become my own version of that. It knows like it knows like it knows it already is the thousand year old sequoia tree. And it also knows I have something that that thousand year sequoia tree doesn't have yet. I can still move more freely in the wind. I'm closer to the earth. I can see what's going on down here and feel the vibration of it more fully, you know. You know, all the other benefits that it has that it's not going to have forever. And from that place, it can be fully content with where it is. And also see the shifts that are happening as huge. Because what a lot of time happens for us is as we're growing and shifting and we get to a new place, we're still comparing ourselves to someone else. And so even though some big shift happened in our lives, we're like, yeah, but I'm not them. Yeah, but I'm not there. And all of that slows down the process, too. So there's one last thing I want to explain that so many of us tend to do when it comes to embodying the life that we want. I want you to imagine that there's the Grand Canyon in front of you, and on one side you are standing, and you're standing on the earth's surface, and you're looking to the other side. And of course, there's no bridge right across the Grand Canyon. Hopefully, that never happens. And on the other side, other side are the things that you desire. Now, on the other side, it's the full embodiment of those things, so they are fully expressed. So for a lot of us, we use manifestation work as a way to try to step into the life that we desire. But we can get into trouble here because what we're really doing is we're envisioning that other side of the Grand Canyon where all the things we want are complete or they're. They're fully expressed and embodied. The issue is we are over here on the other side of the Grand Canyon. So what we do is we bring those things to life, we feel into them, and then we sit down in our living room or at our desk or at our office that we're currently working at, and we think, oh, my gosh, I'm over here. The thing I want is way over there, and I have no bridge to get me there. And of course, the bridge to get us there is working with our nervous system. And when we do that, we build a bridge, plank by plank, to get to where we want to go. But we. But without that work, we'll find ourselves in this really helpless and hopeless place of seeing and feeling where we are seeing on the other side of the Grand Canyon, the things that we want and not knowing how to get there. And people can spend decades and decades in that place, which just exacerbates the stuckness that we experience. So I want to talk now about what do we do about all of these things. My hope is that it's all making sense for you. You and really validating not only your experience, but validating your deepest desires and the truth that they are for you. So, number one, the thing that we really need to focus on is trusting nature's process and our capacity building within our own nervous system. Meaning the slower that we go, the faster that we go. Trying to will our way towards the things that we want doesn't work. So in order to do that, we, number one, have to understand our nervous system. We have lots of episodes on that. Second, we have to befriend it and begin regulating it. We also have episodes on that that you can listen to. And then what we must do as we are building our capacity is we must do something that I call tolerable steps. Now, a tolerable step has two distinct features. Number one, it doesn't feel good. Good. And number two, I can complete the step. Now, the reason it doesn't feel good is because I am stretching my nervous system. I am essentially stepping towards something that my nervous system does not think is safe for me. And so what's really important is when we find ourselves feeling dysregulated and anxious or concerned or overwhelmed or shut down as we take a step that we don't want to make, that mean that the steps isn't right for us. In fact, that's kind of a clue that is that we're right on track and we're going in the right direction. But the second feature is that we can complete it. And that means the step is small enough that our nervous system is not taking the steering wheel and instead it's allowing us to be in the driver's seat. So we have to actually play with this and try things out. If you can't complete the step, that means it's too big. We need to make it smaller. And it is these incremental small steps that lead us to. To the life that we're desiring. We live in a culture where we just see the end result of a lot of people's experiences. And from that place we can think, well, we should just be able to leap there. No. Every single person, myself included, the only way that I've gotten anywhere that I'm going is through these incremental tolerable steps again and again and again. Every time you take a tolerable step, it shows your nervous system. That which was dangerous or inhibited is actually safe for us. Us. And as we're doing this, we're also stretching our nervous system, not stressing it. That's really important. If you take a step that's too big, you're going to stress your nervous system and it's going to take over on cruise control and stop you in your tracks. So those tolerable steps are absolutely vital. Another thing is coming into safe community and connection. If you want to go faster, the way to do that is by being in safe community with others who see you, fully understand you, and support and believe wholly in your deepest desires. And of course, we can do that in our friendships. We can do that inside of group programs. That's one of the reasons that I have group programs is because it creates, like an incubator, it creates the conditions necessary for that to happen. Two other things. One is we must anchor in our adult self in order to take the steps forward that we want in our lives. So much of the time. As we go to take a step forward, a younger part shows up and says, oh my gosh, this is so scary. I don't think we can do this. And if we aren't aware of that, our nervous system will stop us in the form of dysregulation, avoidance, self sabotage, and a variety of other things. So it is paramount that we understand our parts. We have episodes on that too. We get into the driver's seat of our experience, and it's adult us that takes the steering wheel and takes a step forward. We have to protect those younger parts. And part of parenting them is not only being soft and loving, but also being a ferocious protector. So we must, we must, we must do that. And again, we have an episode, many episodes on parts where you can learn more about that. And then lastly, it's really important that we begin honoring our no when we overwhelm our nervous system or we override our nervous system and we aren't listening to it. And we are reflexively saying yes because we feel like if we say no, we might miss an opportunity. Or we should say yes because we're going to hurt, hurt someone if we say no. The more that we do that, the less our nervous system actually has capacity to step towards the things that we deeply desire. So we have to build our capacity for saying, actually, no, I don't have space for that right now because I have to reserve that energy or space for this forward step. And that is not a selfish thing to do at all. Because when you are living your true right life, it is always a gift to the world. The fully expressed version of you is a gift to everybody around you and that ripples out into others whom you don't even know. So honoring that no is absolutely paramount. When we can begin doing that, we are nourishing our nervous system, nourishing ourselves, and then it allows us to have the energy needed in order for us to do the work that's necessary to embody the life we are here to live. We're all living the size life that our nervous system currently has the capacity for. So whether you're living a smaller life than you desire or you're fully embodying the life of your dreams, this is determined by what's going on in your nervous system. So if you're wanting to expand into the life that you're desiring, I'm hosting a three day live event called the Expansion Experience where I'm going to equip you with the somatic tools necessary to get you there and show you how to harness the power of your nervous system to make it all happen. Right now, I'm on the set of my podcast, you Make Sense. And I have to tell you that two years ago, I didn't have the capacity to do what I'm doing today. And by the way, I don't have the capacity to hold the life that I'm going to be living two years from now. The way that I got to where I am and the way that I will get to where I'm going is by incrementally working with my nervous system to build my capacity. And exactly what I've done in my own life, I'm going to show you how to do in yours so you can live the life you are here to live. So if you're feeling stuck in your life or perhaps again and again, no matter how hard you try or effort, you keep hitting up against this invisible wall. I want you to know that invisible wall actually has a name and it's called your autonomic nervous system. I. I was there in my own life. I spent so many years trying to will my way towards the things that I desired and there was no amount of efforting that got me there. But I can tell you that the work we are going to do in Expansion Experience is the key to unlocking the life you are desiring. And science confirms that for us too. I hope to see you inside this three day event. So let's get to the questions that we have for this episode. Hi Sarah, I absolutely love your podcast and your content. My question is about stepping towards the life that you want. I know you Mentioned to take small, tolerable steps to increase your capacity. What do you do when you get to a point where you need to take some bigger steps that feel really scary and feel out of your current capacity? Or what do you do when an external situation comes up that pushes you out of your capacity and you don't want to run away from that external situation? How do you stay and increase your capacity in a situation that feels very overwhelming? Thank you. This is such a great question. And there's really two parts of it. The first part that I want to name is when it's time to leave the nest. So as we're doing this work, we're consistently building our capacity, building our capacity. And I think of that like you're a little bird that has hatched and you're in a nest and you're adjusting to the world and the sounds and all the things, and you're growing. Right? And that's a part of capacity building. And there is a moment where that bird has to see if it's going to be able to fly. It hasn't flown. It's done all this work in terms of its development so that it has the capacity to fly, but it hasn't done it yet. It doesn't have the lived experience. So for us, as we are stepping into the life that we desire, there's going to be these incremental steps. Incremental steps, Incremental steps. Incremental steps. And then you have to do this public speaking thing for a hundred people. And you haven't done it before, right? I've done all this preparatory work, but I haven't done that thing. And so just know that that is a part of the process too, that we're going to reach these moments of flying out of the nest or traveling alone for the first time, or again, you fill in the blank of whatever it is that you want to do. And whether that's the process or something unexpected arrives for us, it is really important when we get to that juncture that we are doing additional things to support ourselves and our parts to be able to take that leap. Otherwise our nervous system will stop us in our tracks. So, you know, nobody heals in isolation. It's not possible. I am every single week, by the way, seeing how many people do. I see two to three people a week that I work with to support me as I continue to jump out of nests and take bigger steps in my life. And you don't have to be doing that much, but I just want to let you behind the curtain here that that's what I'm doing in order to support me for those bigger steps. And so a couple of really important things to lean on. Number one, we have to come into safe connection and community. The more that you have that around you, the more your nervous system and your parts are going to feel safe to take that step forward. I think of it like a safe community does this thing for us where it's like we're standing in the middle of a circle and they're surrounding us. And so as we take that leap, we have that force field of protection and also belief in us. And so whether if you're saying, I don't really have people in my life who see me, there are so many wonderful ways that we can come into safe connection. My company has programs running all the time that you could come join. And inside of those live spaces are going to be other people just like you who have the capacity and the desire to do for you what they also need for themselves. And we mutually, in a mutually reciprocal way, do that for each other. So that is really vital coming into that second. It is really important that we anchor in our adult selves again and again and again, because what's going to happen is our younger parts are going to show up and say, oh, my gosh, this is so dangerous. It's not safe, it's not safe, it's not safe. Let's go back into that beautiful prison. The more you're anchored in adult you, the more you will be able to take those steps and listen to some of the episodes I have on parts work. One really simple exercise that you can do is continue and consistently marinate in what it's like to be adult you. You think of one moment where you have felt capable and able and bring that to life again, again, again, again. And then we use that experience when we need to jump out of the nest. So I am anchor back into that as my adult self and take the step from that place. You can also bring in, either literally or in your imagination, people in your life who have been safe to you or have seen you fully. And it doesn't even mean need to be people that you know like. I talk a lot on this podcast about Mr. Rogers saving my life in a pretty profound way. I used to use him all the time. Your spiritual practice, bring that in. And all of these things are what will allow you to take those bigger steps. So let's go to the next question we have today. Hi, Sarah and Rachel and the entire team. It's Hannah I've had a Sarah moment in therapy this week where my therapist was like, hannah, why are you not dating? And this comes after months and months of debating how I need to be alone a lot these days, but deep connection. But I'm also just so uncomfortable going on dates. So I'm trying to do tolerable steps like joining a book club. And I know or hope that I'm on the right track and things just take time. But a question my therapist also asked was how we can make this waiting more tolerable. And I also had no answer to this. Do you have any idea? I appreciate to hear your thoughts. Greetings from Vienna. This is such a wonderful question, and it's something that so many of us butt up against. Remember, the things we desire most in life are going to be things that remind our nervous system of historically unsafe experiences or things that were inhibited. And so this goes back to just like I answered in the last question, the jumping out of the nest, right? To begin dating, to actually go on the date, that's like the jumping out of the nest, right? And. And there is not going to be a day where it's not scary. I really want to name that, and I want to normalize this. For anybody whom, you know, relationships in the past weren't safe. Maybe your past relationship was not a safe one. Your nervous system's going to say, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. So when you're out there on a first date, everybody in the world who's experienced that, that is going on a first date tonight is going to have their nervous system say, I don't know if this is safe. I don't know if this is safe. And we experience. Experience that as dysregulation. So I just want to normalize that. For us, the work really is we must come to the aid of those younger parts that feel like they're going to be exposed and harmed or hurt like they were in the past. So I really want you to lean on parts work here. How do I anchor an adult me and let that younger part know I am here? Including the part from, like last year, maybe if they were betrayed. I am here now, and no one is going to see you or be exposed to you until I've decided they are safe. And that really supports those parts to calm down and regulate, which then allows us to take the steps forward that we are desiring Something that I talked about my own dating experience here on this podcast, and I know this, Diane, and this Person, I think, likely listened to them. That's why they're saying the question, the way that they did is that I know this process myself personally. And what we want to do along with parenting those parts is, secondarily speaking, we want to really ventrally bookend. Which means before you go on a date or a second date or third date or whatever, really anchoring into the highest experiences of safety and regulation that you can. For me, that would mean I might facetime a friend before somebody who really registers as safe for me and my nurse nervous system in my parts are reminded, oh, there's somebody here who sees me, there's somebody here who is available for me, there's someone who believes in me, there's someone who sees me, all the things. And that created more regulation, which made the flying out of the nest more tolerable. And it doesn't mean that it felt great, but it was tolerable so that we could complete it. And the more that we do this, the more our nervous system sees, oh, this is actually safe. But I just want to normalize. You go out into the world, and it seems like everybody's so relaxed. Relaxed and regulated. No, everyone's so good at masking. So remembering I'm not alone in this is a really important part of the process, too. Let's get to the last question we have for this episode. My question is, when you are trying to bridge the gap between where you are currently and where you want to be, and you're trying the modalities that have worked for you in the past but aren't currently working, what might the problem be? I understand the basics of the nervous system, the ladder, polyvagal theory, navigation of that. But why does it feel so challenging to bridge that gap? And what might be missing when you're seeking to bridge the gap further? Intellectually, why do we know what we need to do, but physically, somatically, we are unable to execute on what we intellectually know. So this is a common thing that so many of us get into. We are really clear on what we want, and we also intellectually know how to get there, or we know a route to get there. The issue is that the protective system responsible for either your ability to get there or the experience of being stuck, which is your autonomic nervous system, is subcortical, which means it's not connected to your prefrontal cortex or thinking brain. And that means that as you try to rationalize your way towards something, your nervous system literally can't hear you. You. It has no idea what you're saying whatsoever, you're not speaking its language. The language of our nervous systems is show, not tell. It's also referred to as sematics. I think of it as show, not tell. Because this nervous system needs not just information. You saying that's safe for me now? Can't really hear that. And it also doesn't believe it. It needs data points. So the more that we collect disconfirming experiences, which is simply an, an experience of the thing that was once dangerous is actually safe and we collect these incrementally through tolerable steps, the more my nervous system says, oh, maybe that thing is safe. So that is a really important part of the process. Another thing that I find is missing a lot when it comes to stepping into the life that we desire is doing somatic parts work. It really is imperative in terms of stepping into the life that we desire. Because what's going to happen is the things you want the most most are going to remind. Remember I said it reminds your nervous system of things that were dangerous in the past. And when that happens, it's as if that younger part, at whatever numeric age they were at, gets reactivated in our embodied experience. And so it's as if we're asking that young self to try to actualize the life that we're desiring. They cannot and nor would it be safe for a six year old to go on a date, right? Or to travel the world, world alone or to leave a job. It's not even safe for them to have a job. So my point is, if we're finding ourselves stuck, it's usually because those younger parts and the protective parts are running the show. The more that we work with those parts and actually protect them in a way that nobody else did and hear them and see them in the way that no one else did. And take the driver's seat. It's like they go in the back seat and now I'm driving. And because of that they feel a sense of safety and wherever we are, there is safety for them. So if that means like I'm going to travel more in the world or I'm going to start this company, as long as we're there, they're safe and just as if we had our own children, right? As long as we're there, they are safe. And so that work is really important in terms of embodying the life that we desire. So I just want everybody to know, listening. The desires of your soul are for you and it is your healing. Specifically working with your nervous system and your parts that get you there.