Ep 58: What Nervous System Regulation Actually Means
Everyone is talking about nervous system regulation, but what does that actually mean?
In this episode, I wanted to take the mystery out of one of the biggest wellness buzzwords and explain it in a way that's practical, not overly scientific, and not something that only therapists or coaches can understand.
Your nervous system isn't working against you. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep you safe.
The challenge is that your brain doesn't always know the difference between what's dangerous and what's simply unfamiliar. That means the very things you want most: a new career, healthier relationships, starting a business, traveling, resting, even choosing yourself, can feel unsafe simply because they're new.
I share why your body responds this way, how your childhood experiences shape your nervous system's capacity, and why pushing through discomfort often isn't the answer.
Throughout the episode, I also walk through personal examples from my own life, including struggling with sleep, regulating my nervous system with an episode of Law & Order, navigating the demands of hosting co-working, and completely rethinking how I launch my business so it actually feels peaceful instead of overwhelming.
At the heart of it all is one simple practice:
Learning how to listen to your body.
Because maybe nervous system regulation isn't really about regulating anything at all.
Maybe it's simply about paying attention.
Chapters
(00:00) Nervous System Regulation
(01:06) How Your Nervous System Keeps You Safe
(04:32) Fear of Travel & Feeling Safe
(05:52) How to Regulate in the Moment
(09:18) What Does Dysregulated Mean?
(10:23) Sleep, Stress & Nervous System Recovery
(14:20) There’s No “Right” Way to Regulate
(17:40) Overwhelm, Capacity & Asking for Support
(19:53) Body Listening & Emotional Awareness
(20:59) Business Anxiety & Nervous System Capacity
(23:07) Authentic Marketing Without Pressure
(26:49) Growing Your Capacity Without Burnout
In this episode, I discuss:
What your nervous system actually is
Why unfamiliar experiences feel dangerous
How childhood experiences shape your safety threshold
The difference between being dysregulated and simply having emotions
Why recovery, not perfection, is the sign of a healthy nervous system
Practical questions to ask yourself when anxiety or discomfort shows up
Why "pushing through" isn't always the healthiest response
How I redesigned my business to work with my nervous system instead of against it
Why listening to your body may be the greatest form of self-trust
Resources:
Find me on Threads: @AshaWilkersonEsq
If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Leave a review, share it with someone who needs it, or send me a message on Threads.
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Asha (00:01.592)
Hey there! I hope you are having a fantastic day wherever you are, doing whatever you are doing right now. And today I want to talk about the buzzwords nervous system. I want to give a little bit more explanation to what your nervous system is and how it functions, and not in a super scientific way, but in a way that actually allows you to do something with it. Because from what I've noticed and what I've heard,
Everybody talks about nervous system regulation, but we don't even know really what that means. And then so people say, I'm regulating my nervous system, and we're still like, okay, cool, yeah, me too, but also what? What are we doing? So I have been working with people around nervous system regulation, and there's also kind of a trend away from using the phrase nervous system revol what is it? Nervous system regulation because because it's not
super well defined, but I'm gonna give it my best shot here that I have learned through myself, but also through working with other people. So let me give you a little bit of background on your nervous system. Your nervous system is an internal protection mechanism, it is wired into you as part of your design as a human being, and it is the subconscious part of your brain and your body.
That does anything that it can to keep you safe. And as we are growing as children and into adolescence and then adulthood, there are experiences that help to calibrate our nervous system. And they may calibrate it that we have a really flexible, expansive nervous system where we feel often regulated, feel good in a number of different circumstances, or maybe.
If our childhood was a little more unstable or filled with a little more dramatics, our nervous system may have a smaller range in which it feels safe. But your nervous system is a mechanism that your body has developed, that everybody's body has, that says it is safe to keep going, or it's not safe and we need to pull back. But what has happened.
Asha (02:27.348)
Over the years is our very smart lizard brains have not quite evolved, even though other parts of our brains have evolved. So our our lizard brain, the simplest mechanism that we have that's trying to keep us alive, basically says that anything that is unfamiliar is unsafe. And the reason why is because again, your brain is trying to do
everything that it can to keep you safe. And so when something becomes familiar, whether it's actually good for you or not, your brain doesn't have to think about it. It recognizes what it is, it already knows how to deal with it. And so this says, okay, this is safe for me. And anything that is unfamiliar, unpredictable, it's new, gets categorized as unsafe and your body, the physiological responses in your body, which meaning the physical responses in your body,
Or your brain are like, mm-mm, we're not going there. And you in your conscious mind probably haven't identified, this is unsafe or this is increasing or encroaching upon my capacity. You're probably thinking, I really want to do this thing, but somehow I just can't do it. Or I keep sabotaging myself or I keep talk about getting talking about getting started and never actually do.
So you understand now that your nervous system is this internal subconscious mechanism that is designed to keep you alive at all costs. And through our experiences, our nervous system sets or learns a limit for what is considered safe. And we begin to operate with that in our subconscious based on past data.
That when we get older, maybe we want to try something new or different, we come across that limit and we have to work with our nervous system to increase our limit, our safety limit. So, what does this actually look like? Let me give you an example. Let's say you are someone who at your age now you really want to travel. You see all of the videos on Instagram and on
Asha (04:47.32)
TikTok and you hear people talking about going across the world to Bali or going to Portugal or wherever, and you're like, Yeah, I would love to do that, but I just I could never. I'm too scared. Maybe if you think back to some point in childhood, maybe there was some story that you heard or some experience that you had where you learned that travel wasn't safe.
Maybe somebody got into an accident along the way, or maybe your parents or your grandparents told stories that it was better to stay home for whatever reason. Could have been a safety thing, could have been their own fear, could have been their own trauma. But somewhere in your childhood, you learned or your limit for travel got set by what was familiar to you. So now that you were wanting to travel the world because your friends are going on these group trips and you see all these beautiful pictures.
But when you think about you actually getting on the plane and you crossing an ocean and you exploring in a new place, your body's like, nope, nuh-uh, can't do it, and you never buy a ticket. What would you do? How would you begin to address your nervous system in that example? My first suggestion would be to literally stop and take a deep breath and see if you can identify what about the situation.
actually brings up a feeling. Because often we label something as fear or just discomfort, but it's a little more nuanced than that. And the more specific you can be about what the actual feeling is, it'll be easier to get back to the original experience that created your limit. So let's say you remember hearing your grandmother talk about somebody getting
Carjacked when I don't know, back at home or something like that. And so you remember, so the feeling that you're feeling is like it's not safe to travel. you people get carjacked, somebody might come and take my stuff. So then you go back to a memory. okay, I remember my grandmother talking about this. And then you can actually say, Okay, in this moment, how am I feeling? What do I need?
Asha (07:10.978)
Where am I feeling it in my body and what does that need? Am I feeling my heart beat faster when I think about it? Okay, what do I need? Can I put my hand over my chest and take a couple of deep breaths? Do I need to talk to somebody about this? Do I need to go for a walk? Do I need to write about what I'm feeling? What do I need in this moment? And sometimes just identifying this feeling will allow it to already dissipate because your feeling is just trying to get your attention. It's just trying to communicate with you.
The emotion, the thing that's coming up. It's just trying to communicate with you. And then once you've identified, okay, there's this story here. Well, now maybe you can do a little bit of investigation to see how accurate that story is. And to see if you were going to decide to go and travel anyway, or you want to figure out how you could plan a trip and feel really good about it, then you can also ask yourself, this is
This is what I want to do. What do I actually need to feel safe about this? Maybe I need to go with a group. Maybe I need to have an itinerary already planned. Maybe I need to go with a travel group where I'm not making any of the decisions, but I know that there will be other people there who can help me and who will be there with me. Maybe I need to learn the language of the local of the country. Maybe I need to do more research.
And then when you have more information that specifically addresses the feeling that's coming up in your body, you will start to notice that the feeling begins to disappear. It begins to dissipate because all that feeling is really asking you is to stay safe. And oftentimes, when you have more information and when you can put some parameters and protection mechanisms around you, you will feel.
Safe even when the thing is not familiar. So that's that's one way you can do it. That's an example through travel. I noticed for myself this past week that I was really dysregulated. I felt really dysregulated. What does dysregulated mean? So another piece of background: the sign of a healthy nervous system doesn't mean you don't feel anxiety, it doesn't mean that you never feel angry, it doesn't mean that you
Asha (09:34.402)
Don't have a reaction when someone says something to you. The sign of a healthy nervous system really is how quickly can you recover from the emotions that take you off track? How quickly can you get back to center, get back to your equilibrium, get back to your balance? So it's not necessarily the sign, it's not a bad sign when you have emotions. Emotions are just information. The healthiness of it, or I think of it as like,
The elasticity of your nervous system, how quickly can you come back to the center? Because you're human, you're gonna have emotions, and you should because you are responding to the environment around you, and your emotions are trying to keep you safe. So if your emotions are no longer responding to the environment around you, are you alive? What's happening in there? Okay. So I felt dysregulated because what was I feeling? I was feeling.
Almost like a physical how do I even explain that? You know, okay, this is what was really happening. I wasn't getting enough sleep. I had had a couple of nights of like five, maybe six hours of sleep, and it didn't all come in one sleep session. So, you know, if you've ever woken up really early for a flight and you feel like you're kind of moving for a f through a fog or something, or you have a couple days.
Of not sleeping, and you just feel kind of off. Like I felt that way. I didn't feel all the way present in my body. I felt a little kind of floaty, not quite anxious, but not settled. And I was I was feeling that way as I would was getting out of bed. And I thought, okay, what's going on here? And I recognized pretty quickly actually that it was coming because I was not sleeping well.
But in order to recognize it, I had to actually slow down. I literally stopped, stood in my kitchen, took a deep breath, and said, Okay, what's going on? I feel off, but what what is it that I'm feeling? And then I could pretty quickly trace back to the cause of that feeling. And sometimes it's not always so obvious, so it's important to give yourself some space just to see what comes up. So I rec recognized that I wasn't sleeping very well and I was feeling kind of flighty.
Asha (11:58.358)
And then first I was just gonna keep going. I need to get on the computer. I need to do this, I need to do that. And I thought, you know what? This feeling, one, it doesn't feel good, but two, I also know that I don't need to just push past this feeling. And I asked myself, what do I need right now? And I don't know if you all are old Law and Order fans, but and actually someone just asked me if they're still producing new shows, and I have no idea. But I used to love Law and Order as a kid. It is my go-to show even now, and I go through seasons of watching Law and Order.
I think because it's so predictable and because I've also seen all of the old episodes of Law and Order, I know how they're gonna turn out. And I think just the way that the show is made, it changes scenes, but it doesn't have these like s spikes in volume like other shows are. And I can't stand like a kind of a dumb comedy show. I like to be able to figure out what's going on in the show. All that to say, Law and Order
Is my jam, has been my jam for a long time. And so I thought to myself, you know, I feel like I could use a lot an episode of Law and Order right now. This is like at nine o'clock in the morning. I don't I first of all I barely watch TV. And if I do, it's gonna be in the evening and often not before I'm going to sleep because I want to sleep better and TV doesn't help me sleep better at all. But I thought, let me just turn on this episode of Law and Order and just sit here, drink some water.
And just give myself this 40 minutes or 42 minutes, however long the episode is, to just be here. And I thought, this is so funny. I'm regulating my nervous system at 9 a.m. with Law and Order of all things. But it was something that with listening to my body, I knew that I would feel more present and just literally more grounded because I was just going to sit on the sofa and watch the show and allow myself to just.
Have this time for myself so that I I wasn't thinking about what I needed to do, when I needed to get up and leave, all of that stuff. So that was a way that I regulated my nervous system this week as well. Probably unconventional, but hey, it worked. So I hope that that helps you understand what nervous system regulation can actually look like. And I and I
Asha (14:19.426)
Hope it takes the mystery out of nervous system regulation. There really is, in my opinion, I'm not a psychologist, but in my opinion, there isn't a right or a wrong way to regulate your nervous system. It literally is what is going to bring you back to center. And in any given moment, it may look like something different. I have another example from this week. again, has to do with lack of sleep.
And we have co-working at Asha's Place on Wednesdays, which is a great activity. On Tuesday nights, we have Salsa. And so I close at Salsa around 11:15. I'm usually out of there by 11:30. But then by the time I get home and I calm down, it's like one o'clock in the morning and I'm finally turning out the light to go to sleep.
And then I just don't sleep well. So I'll wake up at 6 45 in the morning and I'm still tired, but I can't fall back to sleep for another hour, hour and a half. And then by that time, it's time to get up and head back to the studio to open the doors for co-working. So that Tuesday into Wednesday transition is really, really hard for me. And it's been hard for me for a while, but I've been actually really too stubborn to ask for help, to ask for someone to open the studio for me on Wednesday morning. Cause in my head, I'm like.
It's 10 a.m. And in the US, 10 a.m. is not early at all. 10 a.m. is not early. I would have done 50 million things by 10 a.m. before I left the US when I was still living in the US. But there's something about Portugal that makes it really early for me. I'm probably also sleeping differently than I did back in the US as well. But it just but I'm just in a different place. I just don't want to leave the house before 10 a.m.
Let alone have to be someplace by 10 a.m. in Portugal. That's not the life I'm living right now. That's not the type of time I'm on. So it's a tough transition for me. This week again, I went to bed around one after I'd like come down from the high of Cuban Salsa. And then I woke up I think around six because I don't know why. I just didn't get enough sleep. Couldn't go back to sleep. Got to the studio.
Asha (16:34.71)
And then it was a great day because we had about 12 people who were coming for co-working. And so that was amazing, the highest number we ever had. But one of the things that I offer for co-working is matcha. It's matcha and co-working. And I offer coffee and tea as well. But because I'm the host, I'm the one who's making the matcha and the tea and setting up the tables. And I also oftentimes have video calls.
That I do on Wednesdays because I can do that when there are other people around. And I felt like I could not get into, I couldn't settle in. I couldn't drop into a rhythm because every time I would get started, there would be an interruption somewhere. A beautiful interruption. I want people to be there. I want people to feel like they can ask me for things. So it's not a complaint at all. But I realized at midway through the day that I had not had enough sleep.
To be the host that I wanted to be, so that the requirements of hosting in a way that I wanted to host were actually too much for me on Wednesday. I needed to have more sleep, but because I was in charge and didn't ask anybody to take over for me, I just fought through the feeling unbalanced. It's not something I recommend. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.
But I would suggest getting some help when you feel like that, particularly if you're a parent, you've got kids, particularly young kids, like you need nervous system regulation just as much as they do. Or if you're going through a business launch or a parent has passed away, or whatever it is, life is just happening. Allow yourself to get the support that you need. So at some point I had a call in the afternoon and I walked into the massage room because no one was there to take the call.
And the lights were off, and I noticed immediately how good it felt to be in that dark room. It wasn't pitch black, y'all, because it it was still daylight out and there's a window there. But it felt so good to be away from everybody for a few minutes, even though I was on the phone call, and to be in this room without the lights on. It just felt great. I was like, yeah, I need to sit here for a few minutes. So I took the call with no lights on.
Asha (18:57.642)
in the massage room by myself. And then after the call, I just allowed myself to sit there for a few minutes until I felt a little bit better. Like I just needed to calm down a little bit. And yeah, I don't think I was visibly agitated, but just paying attention to my body and paying attention to how I was feeling, I was too much was being asked of me for my capacity that day because I hadn't slept.
So, me stepping into the quiet dark room and giving myself an extra 10 minutes to just sit by myself was a way that I could regulate my nervous system because I started to come back into my body. So that's another example for you. So, what is nervous system regulation? We should probably call it something different, something really practical, like body listening.
It's listening to your body when your body is speaking to you. And if you are a high-achieving person or a former athlete or anybody who's just learned to push through things, you probably have learned to ignore the conversation that your body is trying to have with you. But at this age, and if you're listening to this, it's probably because you can relate to some of the stuff that I'm talking about. You don't need to push.
Through anything, you actually need to do a better job of listening to your body. And that is your superpower because your emotions are a part of your system. Your emotions are a part of your internal GPS and compass. And so when you listen to them, when you notice how you are feeling.
Then it will tell you how to drive your car, your body. It will tell you which direction to go and how to get there. Most importantly, how to get there. Okay, I thought I was end this, but I have one more example. One last example that I think will be helpful. I told this today to the group of people that I'm training to teach RESET. We're gonna have more RESET instructors coming up soon. but I was talking about launching in my business.
Asha (21:13.182)
And which launching just means offering my offerings, having a dedicated time to try and get sales. And historically it had always felt really uncomfortable to me because it was like this big push for a finite period of time. And if people didn't sign up or not enough people signed up, it would feel like this this big failure.
And I didn't want to launch. I didn't want to do it anymore because it never felt good. But, you know, and there are ways you can do a business. You don't have to go through a launch period. But for my business, it kind of makes sense to do a launch until I get enough people coming in regularly and have it set up enough that people can enroll on a regular basis instead of three or four times throughout the year. So I was like, okay, I gotta do a launch, but it just makes me anxious. Everything from like,
You gotta write these emails. You need to put a timer on things. You need to do all this backend stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it just felt like so much. And then finally I asked myself the question: if you could do this in a way that actually felt good to you, what would it look like? Or maybe even before that was what compac what capacity do I have to actually handle this?
How am I feeling? What is my body or what is my nervous system ready for? Maybe it's I'm I've I'm in an email program where this lady sends like, I don't know, 50 to 100 emails during the launch period, and that's her thing. That makes me anxious. I almost cussed. That makes me really anxious because I don't like getting that many emails. So for me to send somebody
Else that really emails really doesn't make sense because that's not how that doesn't feel good to me as the reader. So I actually don't want to do that to somebody else. And then I thought, okay, for me, launching feels like I'm asking, I'm asking, I'm asking, I'm begging people to sign up with me. Well, how could I do this in a way that doesn't feel like I'm begging someone to sign up with me? So the adjustments that I made were that I would write my sales emails.
Asha (23:37.952)
like a month ahead of time. And now I give them to my VA to schedule. And sometimes I'll schedule too, but it happens well in advance. And then I create my course platform or whatever it is, but I do it with time. None of this stuff has to be rushed because I'm planning early enough that I have time. And I decided that when I'm writing my emails, I'm going to decide how many I want to send and I'm going to be really comfortable with each
Email. Like I'm not gonna just send it because I think I have to. I'm just going to send the ones that actually feel really good. And for me, actually, it feels better when I'm not I don't want to say begging for the sale because that's subjective to everybody, but when it for me, it feels much better for me to share with you what is available and then to give you an invitation to make a choice.
Like this is what's available, and not to be so pushy on the sales, not to be so salesy. I had a business coach of have had a few that are like, be salesy, be salesy. I hate that, y'all. It's just not, it's not me. I don't want to be salesy. I have my own issues around it, but I think also just part of my human design, it's just not part of that. It's just not how I'm wired. So to be salesy feels really inauthentic and makes me feel uncomfortable. But
When I'm sharing with you what's going on and I'm telling you that there's a way that you can join if you would like to, totally up to you, no pressure. That feels way better because now I feel like I'm giving you the choice as opposed to trying to convince you to sign up. And maybe that's a it's a subtle thing, but it's an important thing because it might be subtle as the reader, but it is really big internally for me. So I've made all of these changes.
To the way that I go about a launch. And on the outside, you probably have no idea, but on the inside, I feel so much better. So instead of just following the script or the pattern of what the expectation is, I'm actually asking myself what feels good to me. And I'm noticing when there's an activity that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Asha (26:04.066)
where it taps on my nervous system. And I'm asking myself, is this because it's not aligned or because I'm just reaching my capacity? If I want to post on social media, which I don't really, but if I want to post on Instagram about my sales, how could I do this in a way that feels like peace in my nervous system? The solution for me is to have somebody else do it. I'm not doing it. Cause when I think about posting every day,
It just makes me anxious and ugh. It's just not for me. Might be for you, it's not for me. And that's totally fine. So, again, all that to say, nervous system regulation is essentially just body listening. Your nervous system is designed to keep you safe, and your brain cannot distinguish between what's an actual threat and something that is just unfamiliar.
And because it's easier and more efficient for your brain to just categorize everything as unfamiliar as dangerous, then that's what it does. So when you're trying to grow in different areas, do new things, and your body is like, wait, it's starting to freak out. Just understand that's because you're hitting the limit with your nervous system. And so, how do you grow your capacity? You actually ask yourself, what am I feeling?
What do I need to feel more comfortable right now in this moment? And how could I reach my goal feeling peaceful? How can I reach my goal feeling good? How can I reach my goal in a way that doesn't shock my nervous system, that I'm going against my own survival instincts, but in a way that allows me to grow into the person that can do this and to feel good about it? All right, I'm really curious to know how this lands for you.
Please leave a comment on Spotify or find me on Threads and let me know what you think. My handle on Threads is @ashawilkersonesq, and I will talk to y'all soon.