Until about the age of 7 we don’t have the ability to reject any ideas or beliefs that we’re exposed to. Our baby brains haven’t developed that kind of filtering yet. So our early years are marinating in the beliefs of our caregivers about who we are and what we’re capable of in this world, what we should and shouldn’t do. By the age of 7 are well and truly programmed with all kinds of micro cultural expectations around health, wealth, education and behavior. For many people that micro culture includes identity pathologies and socially acceptable addictions like food and alcohol but also the emotional energy of stress and over commitment on one side and victimhood on the other. Our Work IN today is how to use the 3 things we’re always trying to let go of in yoga; judgment, expectation and attachment to defy definitions and expand our health beyond what the eyes can see and break our stress addiction.

Hypervigilance is a common stress and trauma response where it feels like you’re always on high alert. It’s also one of those things that opens the door to self medicating because when we can’t self regulate our nervous system we often turn to external chemical regulation. Our work IN today is how hypervigilance as a stress response can lead to socially acceptable addiction and natural ways we can self regulate for ourselves and our students.

We might be in an adapted or more accurately a maladapted state. In other words your nervous system, brain and body have conspired to keep you safe and help you survive based on your experiences in the world. And because the brain lives in a dark cave and only has memories to make decisions with, it doesn’t always make the best choices. The only choices it gives you are fight, flight or freeze. And those can end up looking like anxiety, hypervigilance and depression. How can we balance these perfectly rational moods for better mental, physical and emotional health?

What I’d like to highlight in today’s episode has to do with how our hypervigilant state of protection prevents us from emotionally connecting and bonding with the people who we are trying to protect. Especially our kids but this also applies to pretty much any relationship.

For fitness professionals who are always on the go, always trying to be better at their job, you’d think integrating self care to avoid burnout or help us recover from the physical demands of our career would be a no brainer. Unfortunately just like with so many others who work in helping professions, we tend to be last on our own list if we make it on at all. And this leads to the inevitable physical, mental and emotional burnout…