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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
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Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is all about signs of a dysregulated nervous system and how to regulate it. And I’m here with the host of The Calm Mom Podcast, Michelle Grosser, who is an attorney, a pastor, a nervous system expert, a certified master life coach, and the host of The Calm Mom Podcast. And through somatic and neuroscience-based modalities, she coaches women on discovering what is beneath the triggers of their emotions so they can begin their healing journey and find peace in the present. And she deeply believes that the most profound thing we can offer our children is our own healing. And in this episode, we go deep on the topic of nervous system dysregulation, and she provides some really practical things you can do in the moment when your nervous system is dysregulated, as well as help understanding what the somatic cues your body is giving you when you are dysregulated, as well as what to do in the various different responses. And I definitely learned a lot from this one, including that sometimes the best response for your nervous system is not to just immediately try to calm down and breathe. So lots of practical takeaways in this one, and let’s jump in with Michelle. Michelle, welcome. Thanks so much for being here.
Michelle: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Katie: I am excited for this conversation and our next conversation as well. I think these topics are especially relevant to moms because we’re starting to hear more about nervous system health and nervous system dysregulation. And I would say moms perhaps balance more factors that can lead to nervous system dysregulation than most. And so I think this is especially relevant. And because I think if we can give our kids a really strong foundation in this from a younger age, maybe they won’t be in their 30s or 40s or 50s trying to figure these things out like I know I was. So to start off, I guess let’s kind of jump in broad and define some terms. So can you explain what it means to have a dysregulated nervous system?
Michelle: Yeah, sure. So when we talk about having, let’s start with having a regulated nervous system. When we start with having a regulated nervous system, we’re not talking about being calm all the time. First of all, let’s just start with that disclaimer. There is no expectation when it comes to our health that we are calm all the time. So we can throw that out the window if that’s something that we’re chasing or feeling guilty about, particularly as moms. But our nervous system, when we talk about having a regulated nervous system or a healthy nervous system, what we’re talking about is a nervous system that is resilient. So what does that mean? That means that you are able to handle and manage the things that life is throwing at you, right? All of the ups and all of the downs. And you have a nervous system that can jump into action and respond appropriately for all of these different situations. However, you have a nervous system that knows how, when it’s safe and time and appropriate to come back down to baseline stress level, which is usually what we would refer to as like a regulated state.
So when we are dysregulated, we have a nervous system that is getting stuck in some sort of stress response. So maybe if you think about it, even on like an evolutionary scale, right, like thousands of years ago, when we were hit with some sort of external stressor. So maybe that was running from a lion or a tiger or a bear, we would jump into our sympathetic nervous system, which would bring all of this activating energy, and we would be able to run or fight that threat, right? That’s our fight or flight response. But eventually that threat would dissipate, and it would be gone, and we would run or we would fight and we would be able to process that with our family and maybe have a good meal and we would get a good night’s rest and we would return back to baseline stress level.
But now in 21st century with kids and work and constant stimulation, it’s not an actual threat that we’re being hit with, we’re being hit with the email or what we know all of the different things that are coming at us chronically. So our systems, we don’t know how to communicate to our systems or nervous system to bring it back to that baseline stress level. So we get stuck in that stress response. We’re stuck in fight or flight, we’re stuck in a freeze response and that’s manifesting as anxiety or feeling irritable or an edge or all these different things. And we just don’t know how to complete that loop. So when we’re stuck in a stress response, fight or flight, freeze, fawn, that’s what we would refer to as having a dysregulated nervous system.
Katie: Well, I think it’s so important that you brought up that having a regulated nervous system doesn’t mean we never experience states of stress. That would actually be, I believe, a sign of dysfunction if we never could experience stress. But it’s that inability to come back to baseline after or come back to parasympathetic after. I think that’s a really important distinction.
And like you said, I think another thing to understand here is that we’re we’ve adapted as humans, and we haven’t maybe perhaps quite adapted to our modern environment. And so even if we aren’t mentally feeling like we’re stressed or we don’t feel overwhelmed or burnout, our nervous system could still be getting signals of stress, which I’ve had guests on before. Talk about everything from artificial light to things in our food or our personal care to, you know, an endless list of things our nervous system can interpret as not healthy or a state of some kind of emergency. So that often used metaphor of being chased by a tiger. There’s a lot of modern tigers and we may not always mentally perceive them as a source of stress. So can you walk us through what are some of those factors to be aware of if we haven’t maybe considered just parts of our everyday lifestyle that could be nervous system stressors?
Michelle: Yes. Okay. So that’s a great distinction. So two things are kind of coming to mind. One is that we are familiar maybe with stressors in our life. Like we know that when we get, you know, a text from a certain someone that it does something to our physiology, or we know that if we’re dealing with financial stress or chronic health conditions or something like that, that we know that that can be stressful trying to get all the kids out the door in the morning, right? Like that can be a stressor on our systems. But once that stressor has resolved itself, we don’t necessarily deal with the stress that that has caused on our body.
So there’s a distinction between a stressor and then the stress or the toll that that takes on our body. So anything that can send us into a fight or flight response or some perceived stressor, and I think that’s to your point, right, is that we’ve evolved in so many ways. Our brain is not particularly adept at distinguishing between a real threat or a perceived threat, right? So our body is like a library. And through our whole life, it has been storing away all of these different life experiences. So it could be, you know, a time when you were in sixth grade and your dad yelled at you or a time you were in eighth grade and you were bullied or, you know, all these different things that your body is storing away because your nervous system’s number one function, always will be your safety and your protection and survival.
So your body is storing away all of these events to help protect you. And it’s constantly scanning for anything that looks remotely similar or sounds similar or feel similar or is a similar environment or similar scent, right? And when we experience it again, our nervous system will automatically just kind of shoot us back in time. And that can send us into a stress response where we’re not necessarily aware of like, hey, why, why was that so triggering? Or why was that, you know, that side eye from someone or that comment from my kid or them not being obedient in the way I wanted them to be obedient or whatever it was like, why does that evoke such a reaction from me? And that’s why, right? It’s like, it’s not actually what’s happening in the moment. It’s something that’s shooting you back from a long time ago that your nervous system is responding to.
And then there are so many other just environmental factors that are stressors that cause stress on our nervous system. So, yes, the amount of stimulation that we receive in our nervous system, especially as moms, right? All the dings and pings and all the different things we’re completely overextended. I think our bandwidth is, is at capacity in so many different ways. Our schedules are full with very little margin or white space. We don’t take enough time to play as women. And I’m not necessarily just talking about playing with our kids, but just exploring our passions and the things that light us up and fire us up. And that kind of play, moments for stillness are far and few in between. So all of these different things are really nourishing to our nervous system. And a lot of times when we’re just stuck in the day to day of motherhood, they can be really hard to come by.
Katie: That makes sense. Or even just, I know I have days where the number of times I hear the word mom by like 4 p.m., that becomes a stressor in and of itself. And you mentioned the four possible responses, which I believe were fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And I would love if you could explain a little bit more about each one because it seems like also the nervous system response can be so different in different people. And I know looking back through my own life, I had a pretty severe trauma in high school. And part of my response to that was I locked down a lot of emotions. So I never got angry or never yelled, never cried, never, and so from the outside, I looked very regulated. I was always very calm, but I was actually not, from a nervous system perspective, remotely regulated or healthy. So can you explain maybe the differences in what those responses would look like in people?
Michelle: Yeah, that’s great. So let’s go through the four of them. And I can relate to your story too, because in so many ways, especially before I started learning about the nervous system and doing this work, I was the kind of person who would really pride myself on being like, oh, I’m not one of those like dramatic, emotional women, or I’m not like, I don’t, right, like I don’t cry a lot. And I didn’t realize that that was a really, that was a protective measure that I had taken on over time, right? That was not serving me well. So on the outside, you’re right. You look very regulated. But on the inside, your emotional hygiene is so off. And that also causes stress on our system and dysregulation.
But let’s talk about the four stress responses. So the first two, fight or flight. Those are things that a lot of us have probably heard, right? I feel like I’m stuck in fight or flight or I’m in a fight or flight response. So those are when we’re in our sympathetic nervous system. And if you imagine the analogy of like the gas and brake on a car, when we’re in fight or flight, that’s like our body is pushing the gas pedal. That’s a lot of activating energy and it’s preparing our body to mobilize. So to meet the threat that it’s perceiving. So either to fight or to run. So practically, what does that feel like in our body? Well, that might feel like a difference in even our body temperature, right? Maybe our face gets red. Maybe our heart starts to beat faster. Maybe our breathing changes and it becomes more shallow and quick.
As far as emotionally, that can show up as feeling really anxious, or maybe it’s like anger and rage or irritability, or those are the moments when we’re in fight or flight that we might snap at our kids, or we just get this urge to like throw something or hit something, or we’re just, we have all of this energy worked up. So that’s fight or flight. Obviously, the distinction between the two with fight being more of this aggressive energy that might come out to others and then flight being this urge to just dip out and run away. I’m out of here kind of energy. And then fight or flight.
Freeze response is when we go back to the gas and the brake, that is our body just slamming on the brake. That’s not like a gentle slowdown. It’s not tapping on the brake. There’s such overwhelm to our system that the safest measure for survival, our body just says, you know what, we’re just going to shut down altogether and slam on the brake. And that sends us into what we call a dorsal vagal response. So when we’re in a freeze response, this shows up frequently if we’re feeling maybe stuck in like, stuck, first of all, but maybe also in procrastination. Maybe we have a hard time making decisions. Maybe it’s those afternoons when we’re on the couch and we know we got to put the laundry in the dryer. But we physically cannot feel like we can’t get off the couch. Maybe those are times when we feel really dissociated or spaced out. Like, I don’t know if you guys have ever had a time where your kids are telling you a story and then they’re like, mom, mom. And you’re like, yeah, what? Like, I totally was not there, right. Or we open the fridge and it’s like, I have no idea why I opened the fridge or we walk into a room and we’re forgetful. Why did I walk in here? So when we’re in that response, I can really feel like a disconnected, dissociated response, kind of like we’re doing life from the outside in.
And then the final response, a fawn response, is what we often refer to as people-pleasing. So that can be a response to stress. It’s a coping mechanism that we would have picked up over time, where if I can’t run or fight, right, fight or flight, or if I can’t freeze, then I’m just going to appease. And I’m going to give you everything you want, and I’m going to say yes. And if I’m just easy and can stay out of the way, that’s my best chance for survival and peace. Now, so much of this is unconscious, right? Like we talk through this and we’re like, oh yeah, like we’re not consciously deciding to do these things. These are conditioned patterns that we’ve picked up over time. When we’ve felt a stressor, a threat, and we’ve responded and it’s been successful, our body stores that away. And the next time we’re just conditioned, hey, I’m going to try this again. And it keeps getting reinforced. So even just growing awareness like you did about, wow, I notice that I’m in this kind of energy. And then having that awareness is a great starting point to be able to do something about it.
Katie: And I know we’re going to get to do a second follow-up episode that really goes deep on lifestyle of building good habits around this. But I would guess most people listening have had an experience and can relate to at least one, if not multiple of those things that you just said and those potential responses that can happen. I know I certainly can relate to most of them at different times in my life. And like we talked about, for moms, there is almost a constant barrage of inputs that need addressing. So it’s not that we can remove the inputs and we wouldn’t want to, especially when they’re related to our kids. But it does seem like, as you explain this, it becomes very important to first of all be aware of those responses and start just recognizing them. But I know from following you a little bit that there’s also a lot we can do in those moments even, even if we’re just addressing the acute moments, to start to maybe build a more positive, helpful pattern. So can you walk us through if a mom identifies with any of those responses you just talked about, what are some of those initial first responder steps we can take?
Michelle: Yeah, so that’s great. So yes. I’m excited to talk about some of the foundational things that we can do to increase our nervous system health overall because really that’s where we want to put a lot of our focus, right? But acutely there are, and they’re not really Band-aids, but there are things that we can do in the moment when we notice that we’re feeling like we’re in a dysregulated state to kind of help shift the state of our nervous system in that moment. So let’s kind of go through those four stress responses or maybe the main three even, and I can give you guys a couple in the moment tools that can be really helpful to bring safety and calm and regulation back to your system.
So when we’re talking about fight energy, if you notice you’re feeling irritable, on edge, you’re about to snap, right? Or maybe you have, that in your body is a lot of activating energy, right? Like the emotions like anger and rage and frustration have a really big energetic charge. So when we’re talking about emotion, we’re talking about energy in motion, right? It’s an energetic, there’s something going on in our body. So I think a lot of times when we’re feeling, especially that fight response, you know, maybe we can see things on Instagram or whatever that tell us like, you know, just take a couple of deep breaths or whatever it is. And like, I think there comes a point where that’s appropriate. But I think when we’re very quick to try to calm down in those moments, that the seeking of the calmness in that moment can actually in itself be a suppression tactic. Because if we’re so quick to try to just stuff this back down and push it back where it came from and not feel it and not let it release and just calm down and then go on with our day, all of that stuff is still in there, right?
So before we go to the deep breaths. Or before we go to the meditation or whatever it is, we have to allow ourselves to feel, process, and release all of those big emotions that come with that sympathetic energy. So with fight energy in particular, you’re going to have to move your body. You probably have to make some sounds. So some of my favorite things, when I noticed that rising up and my body is giving me somatic cues of like, okay, Michelle, you’re starting to get a little frustrated and activated here.
I’ll give you guys three things. One, I love to go in another room and find a corner. And I will just do some wall pushes, which is literally just standing, grounding my feet, putting my hands against a wall and pushing as hard as I can. And I will hold that. And sometimes I will grunt and moan and just let all of that anger and rage kind of flow through me and be grounded. And I’ll notice that if I do that for maybe a minute or two minutes. There’s a shift, right? And I can notice when that shift happens. Another thing, just an easy, like go to Amazon or Walmart, or if some of us already have them like a pool noodle, and you can just take the whole thing or you can cut it in half. But man, if you have a basement or a space with just a floor or go in your backyard and kind of smack that a few times and just allow some of that angry, activated energy to release in a healthy, productive, non-violent way, that can be awesome.
And then the same thing with verbalizing a lot of that energy and emotion. Sometimes I’ll just go sit in my car in the driveway and just scream and let some of that out. And then I do some deep breaths after, I’ll come back in. And man, I’m such a better mom and I’m in such a better place to show up, but I’ve got to let that out, right? Screaming into a pillow, even some pillow slams. Those are great ways in the moment to shift out of fight energy.
Flight energy. So a lot of times that will show up as anxiety, right? And when we’re stuck in a flight energy or freeze energy, a lot of times what’s happening there is that we’re stuck in the story of what’s going on. And we’re really stuck in our head. So maybe it’s the racing thoughts, or maybe it’s just a disconnection overall from our body if we’re in freeze. So in both of those responses, it’s really powerful to get out of our head and get into our body. So what are some ways that we can do that? We can do some good old-fashioned shaking. So it’s just what it sounds like, like just shaking your body out and letting some of that energy move, especially in the flight response. You can do some body tapping. So like putting your hand kind of like in a fist and just tapping your body up and down and bringing your awareness to the sensations of that internal world, what’s going on in your body. Dancing is one of my favorites, like put on your favorite song and just dance for a couple of minutes can be really powerful.
And then when you’re in freeze in particular because it’s a response that the protective measures is disconnecting you from your body, really reconnecting to the sensations of your body. So just a quick body scan wherever you are, right? And noticing like, wow, how’s the top of my head feeling? Is there tension around my eyebrows, my forehead right now? How’s my jaw feeling, right? Is my tongue pressed up against the roof of my mouth or does it feel relaxed? And just taking 30 seconds, a minute to go through your body can be really powerful and bringing you back into the present moment and out of that freeze response. A lot of things like the body tapping or even just going up and down your arms and legs and squeezing your body.
And then the last thing there is that temperature can be really powerful, temperature changes and bringing regulation to our system. So if you’re feeling like you’re in a freeze response and you’re feeling really disconnected or dissociated or burned out, man, just holding some ice cubes in your hands or rubbing them on the inside of your wrists or go to your freezer and grab like a bag of frozen peas or something and hold that on the back of your neck, your vagus nerve will be activated. And that’s the nerve that’s responsible for communicating a sense of calm and safety to your body. And you’ll likely notice a shift with that too.
Katie: That’s so interesting. And I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that trying to be calm when your nervous system is actually needing to express is actually a suppression tactic as well. And I love that you mentioned the somatic cues and learning to pay attention to those. Because like I said, when I was in, I guess what would have been kind of like a fawn and freeze response for a long time, I feel like I didn’t even experience probably the fight part until I actually started unraveling and releasing some of that. And then it was a strange experience to like figure out what to do with that energy and that response when I started to be able to feel it. I had one therapist one time, I’ve talked about this a little bit, that encouraged like kind of a rage type therapy. And her whole goal was just like, I want you to yell. And I was like, what? And at the first time it was like, ah, like it was, but then finally, once that energy was able to process, it was so much lighter. And I can think of another time when I had that in hindsight, that’s probably what that was. And I had to just go for a run. Like I ended up running like three miles and I’m not a distance runner. And so that was an odd experience, but I felt so much better after. So I love that you highlighted that the response is not always to like box breathe and get zen. Sometimes like pay attention to those somatic cues. How can someone know if something is a somatic cue versus some other type of response or how can we begin to pay attention to those better?
Michelle: Yeah. So that’s great. So our body is always communicating with us always. And it’s just a question of if we’re paying attention, right? Are we slowing down enough to notice what’s going on in our body? Because we have a million things going on and it’s like, we get a headache or we notice, you know, some tightness in our chest or something feels off with our gut. And it’s like, I’m just going to, you know, pop a couple Advil because I got the lunches to make and I got to get everyone or whatever it is. I got to get on with my day. And as a society, I think we’ve just become a people who doesn’t have time to kind of deal with this stuff. So we’re like, hey, I’m just going to ultimately, it’s like, I’m going to kill the messenger instead of listen to the message. And we’re just so quick to try to silence all of these communications that are coming from our body.
And our body is so wise and our body is, is trying to get our attention in so many different ways. And it’s not one of these communications where like, if we just don’t pay attention, it’s just going to go away. And it’s like, okay, cool. You’re not going to listen. I’ll just silence myself. It often tends to get louder, right? And more intense if we continue to ignore it. So some basic somatic cues, I think, are some common somatic cues that we notice, especially when we are holding stress or we’re in some sort of stress response, there is such a connection between our brain and our gut, right? Like there’s a reason why we call our gut our second brain.
So when we notice, if you’ve struggled with things like IBS, bloating, gas, all these different things that we can be quick, again, to try to medicate. So often that’s an indication that there’s something going on that needs to be dealt with or there’s stress or trauma that needs to be processed and released. Your body’s trying to get your attention. So gut issues are a big one. Muscle tension, achy joints, soreness. When you think about it, if you’re anticipating some sort of threat, what does your body do? It’ll brace, right? So a lot of us have been bracing for decades, probably. So we experience chronic tension and our neck and our shoulders and our back and our knees and our joints hurt. And all of that is likely an indication of being stuck in a dysregulated nervous system or a stress response.
Even some other nonverbal cues. Like ones I started noticing when I started noticing my own cues was like the minute I felt uncomfortable in a room, it was very hard for me to make eye contact. My arms would cross in front of me, right? All of this unconscious. But man, my body was communicating something to me that it didn’t feel safe there. The inflection in our voice, the rate at which we’re speaking and how it’s coming out. All of these things can be indications of our body sensing some sort of threat. The way in which we’re walking and moving, right? Is our gait strong and powerful and confident? Or are we moving really quickly? Are we moving really slowly?
And then there’s a lot of mental cues also. Things like brain fog that we experience or forgetfulness. These can all be cues, that there’s something going on beneath the surface causing some dysregulation that we have to deal with. And then the common things we think of like the racing heart when we feel nervous, right? Or the clammy sweaty hands or the shortness of breath. Just a general sense of like weight on our chest or on our shoulders are a lot of things that I hear women showing up with pretty frequently.
Katie: And as you were describing some of these, especially the responses, it made me think, I feel like kids are potentially better at listening to those cues or at least just letting their nervous system do what it needs to do without that mental override that we develop as adults because toddlers have tantrums, but then they’re totally fine. And I feel like as adults, we suppress those natural reactions, but it brought up the question. I know we’re going to go deep on the lifestyle side and building this from scratch from the beginning, but from a nervous system perspective, our kids also, of course, encounter things that can affect their nervous systems. So in the moment with our kids, are there things we can do with them to help them bring their nervous system back into regulation? I know modeling our own behavior, of course, always on the list because I do think mom’s mental and emotional and nervous system state does seem to ripple into the whole family. But when our kids experience something, are there any tools we can use to help them get back to baseline more quickly?
Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. So yes, modeling is first and foremost, number one. And I think just a quick comment on modeling is that so often we’ll want to model like the breathing or we’ll want to model like some of these other things, but it’s really hard for us to model like how do we cry in front of our kids or how do we express anger in front of our kids? So I’ve been growing in an awareness of like, hey, if I’m telling my kids that all of their emotions are okay and there’s no shame around crying or there’s no stigma or label I’m going to put around just anger in general or any of these other emotions, then I have to put my money where my mouth is and I have to actually let them see me experience some of these things in a healthy way. So I think that’s something that we can be mindful of.
And then as far with our children and the own regulation of their nervous system. I think first and foremost, it is just helping them grow in an awareness of what’s going on. So that I’m helping make that connection about what they’re noticing in their body. And one of the things that we have to understand most is that when we are in a fight or flight response or when our children are having a temper tantrum or however it’s manifesting for them, they are in survival brain. And it’s important for us to understand that at that point, they literally do not have access to the part of their brain where they can listen to what we’re explaining, right? Where they can see things from other perspectives, where they can calm themselves down and do all of these things. So we have to kind of approach it from a really realistic place.
The research is showing that we actually share a nervous system with our children until they’re about seven years old, which is fascinating to me. So, so much of how they’re going to regulate in those first seven years is really just co-regulating with us. So they’re going to feed off of our energy, just holding them. And then through their process of bringing an awareness of what’s going on in their body is really encouraging them to grow in comfort of sitting with that emotion, being with it, and riding the wave. When you talk about kids being really wise and able to express these things and have their temper tantrums, part of why they’re so good at it is because they don’t interrupt the process. The ways in which our body is created, it only takes about, I mean, the science shows it only takes about 30 to 90 seconds for us to complete the emotional loop if we don’t interrupt it. And as adults, we’re so quick at interrupting it because we get in the story or we feel like shame or this is crazy or why do I feel this way? And it interrupts the cycle, but our kids are so good. So if we allow them to sit and have their full temper tantrum or cry or scream or whatever it is they need to do without interrupting it, they’ll close that loop and they’ll be able to come back on their own to a place of regulation fairly quickly.
Something that I have been learning my own parenting, my kids now are five and seven was that early on before I really started doing this work, I didn’t realize how quick I was to try to soothe them out of their big emotions or distract them from their big emotions. Right. Here’s a toy or make a funny face. Like, don’t be sad. Or here’s a cracker or something like we want to give to soothe them. But we, I didn’t realize how much, well, there’s a couple of messages I was sending with that. One, I was telling them this is making me really uncomfortable. Right. So I need you to like stop and be happy now. I was also telling them, you know, when you experience big emotions like this, find a distraction or find something else, find some way out of it, which is really reinforcing coping mechanisms that probably aren’t great. And then third, I was taking away an opportunity for them to learn how to sit with discomfort. Because a lot of those big emotions, the reason why we avoid them is because they’re just not fun to experience. Right. But I can teach my two-year-old or three-year-old like, hey. You’re really angry right now. Let’s go in the backyard and stomp our feet together or whatever that looks like. And just be with the anger as uncomfortable as it might be for us to hold that space for them because that is a lifelong tool that they will take with them. There’s not a lot of repercussions to this at two or three years old. But man, like you’re saying, we want a generation who isn’t first learning how to deal with this stuff in their 30s and 40s and 50s.
Katie: That’s such a good point. And you’re right. I think that kids, if they don’t interrupt it, it passes so quickly. And I’ve done the same thing without realizing it too in the past with my kids. It’s just like, we want to give them comfort. And so we try to soothe, but you explained so well, the actual example that that’s giving. And I feel like there’s probably a thousand follow-up episodes we could do even just on that topic. But I also know you have a tremendous amount of incredible resources for helping people in detail, navigate a lot of these different scenarios and their own nervous system regulation. And like I said, we’re also going to do a whole nother podcast on the lifestyle habits around this, but for this episode, where can people find you and all of those resources to keep learning?
Michelle: Yeah, great. So the best place to find me and these resources is really on our podcast. It’s called The Calm Mom. And we do two episodes a week, really just resourcing moms around nervous system regulation, tools for anxiety, overwhelm, and burnout. And then a lot of the episodes also are around like, how can we teach these things to our children? How can we model them? How can we help our children learn how to regulate their nervous systems? And ultimately, a lot of that comes with emotional regulation and so many other things that we all want to be modeling and helping our little ones learn. So yeah, The Calm Mom podcast is the best place. And then you can find me on Instagram @michellegrosser.coach or my website, michellegrosser.com.
Katie: I will link to all of those in the show notes. But for this first episode, thank you so much for your time. I feel like, like I said in the beginning, this is such an important topic. And I love finding voices like yours in the world who are really helping people navigate this in an individual way. So thank you so much for the time today.
Michelle: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Katie: And thank you for listening. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
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