Do You Need To Press LIfe’s Pause Button|162

How do we know when we need to press the pause button on life when we are just moving too fast? How do we become aware that our nervous system is on hyperdrive and we just need to slow down? Or are you someone over here going, my nervous system… Why the hell do I need to worry about that? Well, we are going to chat about that, because your nervous system plays a very important role in our bodies and we need to regulate it now and again. 

Dr. Amanda Chan is a chiropractor who focuses on Neuro-Optimization. Her tools and strategies aim to help people regulate and optimize their nervous systems. She is really focused on how we can better listen to our nervous system and how we can regulate our nervous system. She also runs a program called Neuro-Optimization which is her prime focus that gives people tools and exercises to help us optimize and regulate our nervous system.

I bet you are wondering… Why should people give a shit about your nervous system?
Well.. you should care about it because you take it with you wherever you go! It’s always with you!  I think for a lot of people, it’s like stress, oh I can handle stress because stress isn’t sitting in front of you waving its hand. So for a lot of people, our nervousness just exists, like our heart pumping. It’s just a thing. And it doesn’t really come into play until IT DOES!  With many health issues, people really don’t notice them.  You don’t know how much your big toe does for you until you stub it and then you cannot use it. This is like your nervous system!

At what point, did you say there is something more here and we need to look into this nervous system issue?
I have always thought we were not just physical beings. When people come in for neck and back pain, the pain isn’t one aspect of them.  Emotionally what is going on, mentally what is going on? People in the winter throw their backs out a lot, and they come in and I don’t ask how much they were lifting, but what were you thinking about inside your head while you were shoveling? If you are thinking negatively in your head and your back goes out, who is to say what caused it? It’s probably a layer of them! So many of us discount the thoughts. Or say they don’t know what they were thinking about.  But we need to dive into that to see deeper into what is going on.

Part of our culture and what we have been ingrained into our nervous system is to go go go. It goes back to in utero.  The Universe, God, and Nature prepare your body to come into the world.  You develop your nervous system based on the family you are going to come into.  If you hear screaming and yelling, you develop a nervous system to keep you aligned with parents who are like that. If there is a lot of stress when pregnant, those stress hormones become ingrained in you.  It is about adaptability and what it can do when needed.  We need to be in the right nervous system at the right time, that is when the magic occurs.

How do you start to connect or process that part of your body that just says, “I need a minute to relax, to sit, to slow down, to do nothing?”
Check where your ears are in relation to your shoulders. If they are high up, that is a sign that things are not going smoothly at the moment.  Stress isn’t always bad, but it depends on what your nervous system is adapting to stress at the moment. Are you curled up in a ball? Or is it going to make you a better person in the end? What do we do from there? How do we take steps from that angle?

I have a lot of clients I ask to press pause and so many can’t.  So many are out of body with everything. I was that person too though! And I was totally out of regulation myself!

I fought it hard, but journaling was one of the ways that taught me to process through everything. But what can we tell people to help them press pause and just slow down?

Part of the fear people have is that we will miss stuff if we are not doing everything. Especially with women… Society tells us if we don’t do all these things we will miss everything else.  But here is the thing.. the magic happens in the pause!!!

If we could just take a minute to just pause, even if it’s to see what is going RIGHT in my life we would just feel better and be more aware. As we move, we are JUST looking at the shit. Why not stop and look at the good too! Life is about the moments and the pause. It’s not about the GO.  With that go, go, go  it’s the sympathetic nervous system and you will get a different answer if you were in your parasympathetic nervous system because you have access to different parts of the brain.

For a lot of my clients I talk to them about their digestion and ask about it. For me digestion is a signal. Even if you do not acknowledge stress, digestion is a good key to something going on. If you are saying you are bloated all the time and dairy doesn’t agree with me,  there is something in our digestions going on that you are bypassing. These constant stressful situations can be causing issues that you may think are food related.  A lot of people on the weight loss journey are doing everything and they are just not losing weight. They are eating right and working out and still not losing weight. It’s not what you are eating, it’s what is eating you!  It could be stress, so let’s stop and acknowledge where you are right now.

How do people start to just become aware of themselves? And just be like, “Ok, something is happening. I don’t know what it is but I need to have this presence in mind.”

Everybody is a little different and for you, you need to know or have these signs that my thoughts are starting to increase, my shoulders are coming up to my ears, I feel this in my chest, my thoughts are uneasy. That is where you are heading. Your body is trying to alert you all along the way until it sounds like a fire alarm. You need to see where you are when you are relaxed vs where you are after breakfast, lunch, dinner, check in throughout the day so you know and have the awareness so you can see in the moment that something is happening already.

How many of you know what it is like to feel fully relaxed?
I am talking about a relaxed vacation. But not on a beach, but on a Tuesday at 10am… can we feel that vs always feeling like we are waking up and always on level 10? How do I start to get myself back into a calm mind? Start with breathing.  Monitor the breathing. This will give you an idea of what is going on. If your thoughts are a mile a minute, bringing yourself back to your breath will help you calm it down. Breath for calming is through the nose and out through the mouth. All meditation and ancient philosophies are showing people how breath can change your state. So use your breath to bring your state back down. We need to give ourselves time to breathe.  We have to give ourselves time for ourselves on a daily basis. Because we cannot give from an empty cup. As women we try to give, but don’t give to ourselves. Give yourself a few minutes a day to just breathe.

Workshop about beliefs and nervous systems.
My family of origin believes that hard work is how you do it, everything is a struggle and we don’t speak up about ourselves. This is what we are exposed to in utero and then I see this as I grow up. It now becomes a belief. If it’s not hard then it aint gonna happen…. Negative limiting beliefs were constantly piling on me. The nervous system is always looking for danger.  How can we shift from this? I like to use IS THIS TRUE?

If hard work was necessarily the key to success, then everyone who works hard would be successful and a millionaire and they are not. Hard work is definitely a component of it, but it does not have to be the only way. So start saying is this true? Every thought that you can become aware of, is this true?

So many of us have to come to the point on our own, that rock bottom point. If I am hearing this for a while and I just feel like I can’t anymore. What are some ways I can start to right the ship? How do I start to say a lot of these things up here that once drove me are driving me in the wrong direction?

It’s that pause…  It’s okay, let’s put the brakes on some things right now and give me space. Try and build some space into yourself.  If you are doing a million things at once, maybe cut them to half a million.  In that space. Maybe it doesn’t have to be this hard.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  So many people you will attract into your life when you are ready for it. But you need that pause so that it can come to you.

Certainty is one of those top 5 human needs, but I have also heard people need uncertainty.  As certain as I am if I hustle and struggle I am not going to get anywhere.. At least I know the path. When people go down that uncertain path.. Is that also a pause or do you go to a point and then freak out?  Uncertainty is great because you are building new neurons in your head. Making new connections in your nervous system at that time. You may see something you’ve never seen before. If you just veer off a little bit… you are seeing different surroundings and that starts to change.

Limiting Beliefs; Dr. Amanda teaches a course on taking these limiting beliefs and nervous systems and having a way to get them in sync with each other. How did you come up with this?

A lot of people need it!! I see people in my office and sometimes I don’t see them for a while, so I needed to develop a way that people had access to this work if they were not able to come into the office.  I teach the online program so people can still journal, meditate, do yoga, take their pause, even if it’s a little time every day and not have to come all the way here. These tools are for themselves so they can use them whenever they want.  As soon as you know the tools, whenever you find yourself in a challenge, you say I have the right tools for the job. It’s an empowerment thing.

Who is your ideal target for this course?
Someone who has come to a point in their life that they realize something needs to change. What is currently going on cannot continue for them.  Some people decide “Ok, I am going to make a difference, I am going to make a change”, and that’s when they enter the course. Some people come in because they fear something happening to them (motivated by fear).  Others come in motivated by desire, something they want, the life they want to live.  We have people on both spectrums so we just start at where we are.

It’s all about giving you the tools that you need in order to create your own transformation!

I feel like my ladies fall into 2 camps. Some who say they totally get us. And others who say pause? Are you kidding me? I have goals and I have to hit them! Can you speak on that more?

We all have dualities. You live in polarity, on opposite poles. The ying the yang, the masculine and the feminine. There has to be one or the other. If the masculine is always going and you aren’t spending time in the feminine, which is being. Feminine is also the receiving. How can you receive everything you have been doing. You are going and going, great the goal is there but you keep doing and you do not receive!!

If I am always moving, how do I receive the goods??? For all the shit you are doing, if I don’t stop and assess, how do I know I got it? For all those women who say it’s never enough.. How the hell do you know if you don’t stop?? You might have gotten everything you wanted, but you weren’t aware of it because you weren’t “there” to receive it.

Our nervous system is like an alarm. We all have alarm clocks. Some of us are conscious about setting it and some of us are like meh I have an alarm. The goal here is to consciously set it.  And like an alarm system. It’s scanning for you to help protect you from yourself. Or mentally self-imposed dangers. So listen to that alarm clock.  When it tells you to pause, slow down and do it.

LINKS

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/kimbarnesjeffersoncoach

Facebook Group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitgirlmagic/

Website:
https://kimbarnesjefferson.com/

Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fit-girl-magic-healthy-living-for-women-over-40/id1476883661

Surely Non-Alcoholic Wines:
https://www.drinksurely.com/?platform=grin&link_id=1038770&token=92sy8rfAhv84FGFe5D9Ui5GVtIk62anS&contact_id=ab3efb78-c462-47b9-8da4-356cbc23a89e&attribution_window=30

Dr. Amanda Chan Website & Course:
https://optimizemyhealing.com/workshops-2/

Dr. Amanda Chan Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/neurooptimization

Dr. Amanda Chan Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/dr.amandachan/