The Weekly Fill: The Place You CAN'T Heal

4 minute read | You want to get healthy, but what if what you're doing to get healthy is making you more unhealthy? Learn why you can't heal inside.

Have you heard that saying before? 

I don't argue. You can't heal in the same places that hurt you. But I want to be careful to clarify the 'environment' is not necessarily outside of you. It's equally, if not more, your internal environment. 

Of course, your physical environment does play a role in your health. I will never argue it doesn't. But when we stop here, we hand over our control to many situations that are out of our control.

Yes, you can move.

You can change your relationships.

You can switch jobs.

You can do a lot to change your physical environment.

But this only goes so far.

The pandemic proved that we don't have as much control of our environment as we had hoped. So does a strained marriage.

Honestly, I spent many years trying to change my husband. I believed that I would be happy and healthy if he could just be what I needed him to be. He was the problem. Not me. 

When I couldn't change him, we went to counseling, hoping someone else could. And when that didn't seem to work, mostly because she informed me I was equally part of the problem, I contemplated divorce.

The answer couldn't be to change myself. It was to escape the environment completely.

Of course, there is a time and a place when your environment is so unsafe that you must leave. I need you to hear me say if this is you, you need to get out of what harms you.

But I think for the majority, trading in your current situation for something new will never provide the healing you had hoped. The problems will persist no matter how far you try to run because they've never been about your external enviornment as much as they've been about your internal one.

Which brings me back to clarify the saying:

You can't heal in the same environment that made you sick. 

• You can't heal in the same internal environment that made you sick.

• You can't heal with the old beliefs about yourself that made you sick.

• You can't heal with the old mindset loops that made you sick.

• You can't heal with the old patterns and rhythms that made you sick.

• You can't heal living out the same lifestyle that got you here.

Something has to change, and that has to be an internal shift to provide your own safety.

A shift that happens when you learn how to regulate yourself regardless of what your spouse does or doesn't do, what is happening in the world, or what other people tell you to do.  

I know I sound overly dramatic, blaming my husband for all of my internal problems. But we all do it because the safest thing when your life feels overwhelming is to self-protect. Self-protection comes out by boosting your ego to unhealthy proportions, all in the name of survival. 

But the answer is not self-protection. And certainly, no one wants your ego to become inflated. The answer is self-regulation. 

Self-regulation is recognizing when you are getting pulled out of balance and becoming dysregulated and how to rebalance this. 

Inside the second podcast in the How You Heal series, I show you how to regulate your nervous system using affect regulation. 

When you learn to regulate your nervous system, you create internal safety no matter what is happening around you. It's here that you will experience health, proving it's an action, not an outcome. 

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Your Weekly Fill Reminder:

The internal health of your cells (ahem, energy level) can naturally shift your stress response. The higher your natural energy, the less stressed and dysregulated your nervous system will be. Think of it like a bank account.

When your bank account (energy threshold) is teetering around zero, there is no room for error and definitely no money to buy a new refrigerator in the chance it goes out. Leaving you to pick and choose priorities, knowing something will suffer.

Your body works the same way. The less energy you have, the more affected you will be by even the littlest stressors in life. But the healthier your energy flow, the more secure and regulated your nervous system will be, even if it feels like your entire life is burning down.

Pay attention to your energy levels and learn how to support your body.

Take this quiz to figure out how much energy you have and what to do to support your body to get more!

Your Weekly Action:

Life will always dysregulate you, always. We’re always working from a place of imperfection, which is why you can’t wait to start. Don’t fear this place, but take action regardless. Do something that helps you create balance, regain regulation, and energize your body.

It sounds more complicated than it is. Like all things in health, there are a million little ways, things so small they can feel insignificant, that help regulate your nervous system. Here are a few on my list.

• Listen to music

• Take a few deep breaths

• Sit in the sunshine

• Take a walk outside

• Stretch

• Take a hot bath

• Read a book

• Journal

• Call a friend

• Make a smoothie

• Drink a glass of water

• Take trace minerals

• Play a game with my kids

• Cuddle

• Hug someone

• Take a nap

• Create space to be alone

The key is putting them into practice. Stop working to change your body and live to support it!

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I’ll be back on Sunday sharing ten unique ways to regulate your nervous system + five things most people do daily that pull you out of balance!

In the meantime, check out this week’s podcast!

P.S. What would be on your list of things that help you regulate your nervous system? Leave a comment and give the gift of more ideas!