Jessica Maguire - Regulating Your Nervous System

In this episode of Let’s Talk Love, Robin sits down with Jessica Maguire to explore how our nervous system shapes our emotional well-being, relationships, and overall health. Jessica worked as a physiotherapist then transitioned to teaching a global community about the importance of and skills to regulate our nervous systems. Together, they discuss how childhood experiences influence adult relationships, why understanding bodily signals is key to emotional resilience, and how practical tools can help reset the nervous system. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone looking to navigate stress, deepen self-awareness, and cultivate healthier connections.

Takeaways:

• Understanding the nervous system is crucial for overall well-being.
• Grief can lead to a deeper understanding of our own nervous system.
• Interoception helps us tune into our bodily signals.
• Self-regulation involves listening to our inner voice and needs.
• Childhood experiences shape our adult relationships and attachment styles.
• The nervous system has a significant impact on chronic health conditions.
• Connection and safety are fundamental human needs.
• Emotions are influenced by signals from our body, not just our thoughts.
• Recognizing anxiety can empower us to respond differently.
• Healing from past trauma is possible through awareness and new experiences. 
• Your person is not everything to you; seek community support.
• Identify who supports your nervous system and well-being.
• Nervous system work involves both internal and external factors.
• We interact with others' nervous systems constantly.
• Healthy relationships require reciprocity and communication.
• Emotional granularity aids in better emotional regulation.
• Aligning actions with values can lead to fulfillment.

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Links:

Vagus Nerve Program - https://www.jessicamaguire.com/the-vagus-nerve-program

Website - https://www.jessicamaguire.com/

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Watch the podcast on YouTube: youtube.com/realloveready

Credits: the Let’s Talk Love Podcast is hosted by Robin Ducharme, recorded and edited by Maia Anstey, and transcribed by Otter.ai.

Transcript

Robin Ducharme | Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of Let's Talk. Love. I'm Robin Ducharme, and today we're joined by this beautiful human Jessica Maguire, Jessica, you're joining us from LA, but you're from Australia, and we're going to listen to your gorgeous accent for the next, I don't know, 55 minutes. Thank you for being with us, Jessica.

Jessica Maguire l Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you.

Robin Ducharme | So this week, I was learning a lot about the nervous system from you and your newest book called The Nervous System Reset. I would love it for you to talk about your journey on how you became, you know, such an expert in the nervous system. And you're doing, you're teaching people how to work with a nervous system, really. This is, this would be such an important conversation. So let's start. I know you were a physiotherapist, just start with and then you got into this. So, 

Jessica Maguire l Yeah it was an interesting time, actually. So as you said, I started out in clinic working as a physiotherapist, so I'd been working for about 10 years in private practice, and I was really seeing people come in with it was like a cluster of symptoms. So they would have, like persistent pain, they might have gut issues, anxiety, and sometimes there was, like relationship challenges in their life as well, and there was a instinct that there's more going on than what I see when the person walks in the door with pain.. And you know, it's it was challenging at the time, because the way that we were explaining things to people about persistent pain, chronic pain, could almost make people feel like it was all in their head, and they really wanted to understand this deeply, and so in 2017 I decided to close my clinic and spend some time researching. It was three weeks before I was due to head overseas that my older brother passed away, and so it was a real shock for me that that to lose Sam and and, you know, I'm still sad by that, but it's not, it's doesn't impact me the way it threw me into anxiety and shut down. And there was grief, but there was more than that, too, and I experienced firsthand what it was like to really feel those chronic periods of dysregulation, where we get stuck on high, we get stuck on low. And so I really spent 12 months not only learning this in a cognitive way, but embodying everything that I was learning, because I was the student, you know, I was, I was learning this for myself. And so when I came back to Australia, I started doing a lot of work with patients that was around the nervous system and vagus nerve stimulation. And then I decided to start running workshops, because my patients were just like, tell me more. And so we ran those right throughout Australia, and my husband said to me, you need to take this online so you can help people everywhere. And it's so funny, you know, I at first was like, oh, I just don't think you can do this work online. But it really took off. And so I started with the vagus nerve master class, and then we morphed that out to the vagus nerve program, which is really the collection of all my work, like it's looking at body, brain and the way they speak to each other. And now we have just finished off the end of last year, our first practitioner based training called the nervous system certification course. So 

Robin Ducharme | Wow

Jessica Maguire l It's from, yeah, it's been amazing. We've had, you know, doctors, pain specialists, yoga teachers, chiropractors, osteos, coaches, leaders who want to look at bringing nervous system informed care to their organizations or their clinics. So some it's really grown. And, you know, I could be more grateful to live my life's purpose based on this work. 

Robin l There's so much talk about the nervous system in our collective right now, and I but I don't think a lot of us understand. I mean, I when I read your book, I listened to your book, and I'm like, okay, I need to, I need to take the course. I need to go deeper, right? Because there is a lot of science, and I understand that, of course, it's the nervous system. So there's going to be how our brain works, how our nervous or, sorry, our spinal cord, with our vagus nerve, and down into our and then your gut science and our heart and all how all it's, it's, we're very it's so linked. How do you sim like there's no simple but there is, I'm sure there is, Jessica, how do you explain what our nervous system is and how it's so impactful on our overall well being?

Jessica l I love this question, Robin, and I love that you've acknowledged the complexity of it. Because I think when anything comes. Into the collective, there's the trend to simplify, and,

Robin l Yeah

Jessica l Simplifying, we lose so much, you know. And also, you know, to be I'll give you an example, right? If we want to talk about the nervous system, we're really looking at being trauma informed. And one of the things that I hear so much is based on, well, if you've got had a history of trauma, just do breath work. And it's kind of that simple,

Robin l Like, I learned a lot about you through in your book about breathing, because sometimes deep breath work is not the answer for getting you out of either a hot, cold or too hot or too cold state,

Jessica l Exactly. And like, you know, being here in LA and talking to people, and they saying, Well, I'm trying to use breath work, but I smell smoke, and it makes me panic. So it's just this

Robin l Of course

Jessica l It's just this level of nuance to it that we want to bring and I love the shades of gray. I love the complexities, because this is where people really learn for themselves how their nervous system works. So we can look at the nervous system as being so we call it the autonomic nervous system, which is the threat detection system we have in built now the amazing part is that not only is it helping us with facing challenges and threats, but it's also a system that regulates our organs. So that's why we see this connection between stress and a lot of chronic health conditions or the body being impacted by things like trauma. So if we if we go back to the way we used to talk about the nervous system. It was so simple, right? It was just like the sympathetic nervous system, which was the the accelerator or the gas in the car, and then the parasympathetic nervous system, which is like the break and that is a little bit outdated now. So what we then break the parasympathetic down into is having two breaks. And so we're thinking like, say, this is a car the branch of the vagus nerve that runs from our brain stem to our heart, which we call the ventral vagal branch. That's like putting down the branch the break with our foot, and then the branch of the vagus nerve that runs from our brain stem down to our touching every organ in our in our torso, that's more like pulling on the handbrake in the face of a challenge or threat. And so people freeze, collapse, feel stuck. They feel like this extreme procrastination and chronic fatigue when they face challenges. And this is what has really made us look at trauma in a different way, because the most common state to move into under traumatic stress is that shut down state. Yet as a society, we don't understand it well. So we might say, well, why didn't someone run away? Why didn't they get out of there if they were having such a hard time, why didn't they speak up or say something? 

Robin l Because they couldn't,

Jessica l Exactly, physiologically, they can't. And so it gives rise to these three different states. And by understanding the three different states where we can be in, like the gas is down or the accelerators down, and we're mobilized, and that's our sympathetic nervous system, then we can be in the state where our stress we can cope with and recover from, which is where we have the break with our foot. We might say that's our state of regulation, or being inside our window of regulation. And then we also have that state of immobilization, where it's a little bit like the handbrake is on and we're stuck. And that's a really useful and empowering framework for people to understand. Because when we say, well, oh, this is my nervous system responding in this way, it changes the story from being I'm just too anxious, I'm just too weak, lazy, sensitive, not, you know, whatever it is enough. So I think that really relieves a lot of suffering for people.

Robin l And so you talk about something, a word that I'd never heard before, called interoception. Am I saying that correctly Jessica,?

Jessica l You sure are 

Robin l Okay so. And as I was thinking about this more, while I was driving my driving home from my daughter from school, and I thought about it, I was like, how am I was like, how am I going to remember this word? Because I've been hearing it all week well as I've been listening to your book, but I'm thinking, it's like, it's like in it's like introspection, so like you're looking on the inside, right, interoception, but it's like the perception. So the way, and this is the other major, major learning that I got from you. There's so many, right? But it's like you're talking about head down, because our nervous system is it, is it is a combination of all the whole our whole being, from our head to our toes, right? But I would say more of my understanding is like it's more concentrated from your brain to your gut, where it's like you're really getting sent information from your brain. All those, all the mind, the thoughts and our our bodies, are giving us a lot of information. And so the way that I understand interoception is really tuning in, am I all in my head? Am I all in my or just like, where am I at? And so, right, it's either head down you're trying to do, trying to do, head down, body up, information, like, look at both, like, all of it in a practice, regular, conscious practice. 

Jessica l Yeah it's interesting, because we've come from a really, I mean to say, top down way that we've looked at how, 

Robin l Oh yes, 

Jessica l We so, I mean, we talk about it in mental health is only happening in the brain. But what is really interesting is, if we look at the vagus nerve and its role in helping us cope with and recover from stress, 80% of its communication runs from the body up to the brain, so sending all those messages like you said, from the gut up to the brain, and we think, you know so much around self help and looking after ourselves, we're looking at as though, if we can just change our thoughts, or if we can think

Robin l We're still in that mind, it's still we're still there with, like, change your thoughts, change your reality. Oh my gosh. Like, 

Jessica l Yeah

Robin l If I knew, if I could do that, I would be so, so 100% good, because I ruminate. For instance, it's like, how do I shut this off? 

Jessica l Exactly.Yeah, it's really true. And so what we see in the face of like, where there's chronic stress or traumatic stress, which is where the stress goes on and on and we don't get the chance to recover all the stress is too much, and we also don't get the chance to recover, is that it doesn't really help us that much to try and change our nervous system with our thoughts. We can change how we feel with you know, like perspective shift. Yes, that can be really helpful, but when we're in high levels of anxiety or in freeze or in shutdown, you know, we can't just be more positive like these are really powerful physiological shifts happening. And when you talk about interoception, this is our eight sensory system. So people have probably heard of those five out of facing senses, like our sight, our sound, our touch, our smell. And then we also have senses to do with our body position, called proprioception, the awareness of movement. And then we have our kinesthetic sense, like, that's, you know, knowing, oh, okay, my body's moving, but the vestibular senses, our seventh and that's the position of our head in space. And then our eighth sense is our interoception, which is being aware of what's happening inside of our body. And also it's the parts that we're not aware of. So a lot of interoceptive information we won't be aware of, and that's actually a good thing, because if you had to feel every single part of your food breaking down, you couldn't focus on anything you know, you'd be like, my stomach's making funny feelings. So there's a lot that isn't coming into our awareness, but it is impacting us, particularly to do is what state of our nervous system we move into. Now, what's interesting around interoception is that these bodily signals are the foundation of our emotions. So we sometimes think there's this one little area in our brain that's related to emotions. But that's not the case. It's actually the signals from our body. And then emotions are made by regions all over the brain and how that's all connected together, and then we can get a change in how we feel based on that. But what you're mentioning around nervous system work coming into the collective you know, I read a lot on self regulation, and I'm, I guess, interested in people's understanding of this, because sometimes it can feel a little bit like self regulation is being taught as suppressing what we feel, or that we're supposed to always be calm and centered, and, you know, like this flat line level, but really what self regulation is is our ability to listen to our inner voice and our bodily signals and then proactively manage our emotions, to take care of our needs and to express those in really empowering ways, whether that's I need, I'm noticing I'm thirsty, I need to get a drink. My husband's dumping everything onto me, and I feel really angry. I need to express this, 

Robin l Yeah,

Jessica l In a way that's going to change it. So, you know, it's not about shutting down. 

Robin l Yes it's like, what are our bodies, what is? What is our whole nervous system telling us so that we can make the right choice for us, moment by moment, 

Jessica l Exactly and exactly. 

Robin l I was thinking about that this morning. Okay, so I was texting my boyfriend, going, Okay, well, leaving a voice note, and I was like, I'm going to drop my daughter off, and then I'm gonna work out, and then I'm getting ready for a recording with Jessica. And I got home from dropping her off, and I did some interoception. Jessica, actually, what's better for me right now is not going downstairs to my gym, because I was planning to do like a peloton workout, and I was like, No, I'm going to walk the dog, and I need to get a few things from the grocery store, so I may as well, and I'm going to speed walk, take the dog. Like, I was just like, this is going to be the best thing for me. It was like, clear, really. It was like, that's, that's your form of like, movement is that you need movement, but it's outside, listening to the birds, getting fresh air, being in the cool air. And when I came home, I was like, I'm so glad that I listened to myself and made that decision. 

Jessica l Yes, I love that

Robin l Right?

Jessica l Yeah, that's

Robin l Because that's what it's really about

Jessica l It's it totally is, and that's really what it's about, is getting clear on what do I need right now, like you that was, you know, definitely from a physiological point of view. But I would say, you know, this goes all the time, like, I mean, there's, it's like, if we look at relationships, how much plays out from our past, whether that's through childhood wounds or through the relationship we had before, where we were hurt, and unless we have this awareness of being debated by the past. I'll sit with this first, and I still may need to have that conversation so it's a little bit like we sift through as well, because our nervous system is always changing through what we experience, which means that it learns through everything that happens to us now for me, if I look back after losing my brother, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop all the time, so my nervous system was like, oh, if you do this, you might have another shock, you know. And so coming into a new relationship when I met my husband 18 months later, I had to do like when there were feelings of like, oh, this isn't safe. That wasn't him. That was for me to say, okay, I need to sift through this as my own experience and have a have a corrective experience of what's actually happening today. And so by doing that, my nervous system learnt again that it was safe, and so this is our amazing ability to heal from our past, when we can tune in and recognize what's happening and have a new experience today so that that's how we will then respond in the future going forward. 

Robin l I really, I like that example. So me, this is a, you know, this, this podcast is called, lLet's Talk Love. And so so much of what we talk about is centered around our relationships. And so something you talk about is how there is, often, this is what you were saying, Jessica, right. There's often a link between our childhood, our attachment, that we learned, you know, from a young age, and how we relate in our relationships, and how our nervous system operates quite frequently, right, according to our attachment. Am I? Am I saying that correctly? 

Jessica l Yes

Robin l So what I recognized about myself is that it's like, How did I not even like sometimes you just need to hear it or read it right to get the light bulb moment. But I was like, okay, i my i have anxious attachment from from all my experiences being growing up, you know, from my childhood. And I realized even just through meeting my partner, it's like, even when we met, I had low grade anxiety. Maybe I have always lived with low grade anxiety, but it was definitely rearing its head very strongly because of my past relationship, and feeling so very unsafe in that relationship. And so when we first started, you know, in the first few months, there was things that would come up, and I wouldn't feel I'm like, and then I would take a step back, and I was able to be like, Is this what's going on me with him. Is this the reality, or is this my past? Is this my and I was able to to take that step back, right? And so with you, what what tools did you like? For me, it was just like, Okay, do not send that text, Robin, this is not about him. I don't think it is like I was just questioning myself, right? 

Jessica l Yes

Robin l And, and I did find myself. I'm gonna say two or three times, going like, that was my anxiety, speaking like, and I didn't send the text. So I'm like, Oh, I caught. That's good, you know, get myself on the pat of the back. But I don't know if I actually consciously used any tools, you know, yeah, teaching, yeah,

Jessica l Yeah. So I think what you have in what you're expressing is the awareness. And I think this is the power of nervous system work. So what was helpful for me was being able to recognize this is anxiety, like what you said. So there's, you know, flight energy that might may want me where I'm able to get out and be like, I need to like, be away. Or there could be that leaning in where you want that reassurance. And then 

Robin l That's what I was, I was, I was kind of going where I wanted the reassurance. But I'm like, do I need this right now? No, I don't think this is, like, what he needs to be providing me. I could provide this for myself,

Jessica l Right. Exactly. And then there's times where it's both, right? So this is, like, the complexity of it, where we might actually need something from them,

Robin l Right

Jessica l And then the other part is, I think for me, you know, I guess there was a there were times as well, where I would hear stories like, this, is never going to work out, I'll always be alone. And that was very much linked to that immobilization, state of hopelessness, you know, when. So, something that we teach with the nervous system is that our story follows the state we're in. So the story of anxiety, I'm not safe, hyper vigilance, I need to look out there to see if I'm okay, is very much linked with that sympathetic nervous system state, or what we might say is anxiously attached. But if we look at this through how younger years it may have been that we needed to look outside to say, well, am I safe? 

Robin l Yes I had to be on guard. Like, is situation okay? Right? I was Yeah. So that's what they call adapt. It you're adapting. And as an adult like we think this is the same, but it's not. Our behaviors are maladaptive. I no longer serve

Jessica l Exactly That's totally it. So if we say, well, I'm looking outside of me as a child to stay safe, and that's adaptive. And you know, that was what kept us safe, because we don't only want to be safe, we also want connection. You know, we need them both, and there's shared networks in our brain and body. So the vagus nerve has a branch that runs from the heart up to our face that's called the Social Engagement System, and so we literally move into the state of connection, which brings regulation. So that's that's a human need. We, even if we like time on our set by ourselves, we still long for that biological shift towards connection and safety. And so the interesting part, I think, is noticing what state we're in, which often comes through the story, and then it might look different what we use. So if we're noticing the anxiety, that's really helpful to have more of a self soothing type way of supporting our own nervous system. And I used a lot of interoception resources, so it was like, What's going on here? What are the sensations attuned to those? Can I bring the kinesthetic feeling of safety, love, belonging, soothing that I needed now that doing that repeatedly, I'm talking daily, was something that would have been the foundations for learning to experience safety, coming into connection after not feeling that, and then also the times where there was that hopelessness or I'll be alone. How can I then lean into belonging so that might look like getting involved in the community, reaching out to friends, going to a yoga class. And I think there's a tendency now to put everything onto our partner, you know, all our needs, like best friend, lover, coach,

Robin l Right. I know that has been it's just way too much like your person is not everything to you. That's not healthy. And I really, like you said that, Jessica, because it's like, I'm thinking, if, if there's something that I'm like, a little bit anxious about, it's like, I'm gonna call my friend right now, or I'm just gonna or hang out with my dog. I don't know there are other there's, there's other places, resources for you to branch like in your community, rather than with one person

Jessica l Exactly, especially if we feel alone, because it's not fair that if we feel so alone, that that one person is responsible for us feeling that sense of belonging. And so, you know, I think for me, it was really leaning into, well, who are the friends, who are the people, who are the what supports my nervous system and me, and that was amazing to look at over the initial year to two years of us first meeting how it was both like stepping in supporting myself, stepping in supporting myself as well. And this is the thing that I find so interesting with nervous system work, is like it's, yes, it's interoception, and what's happening inside of us. Part of supporting our nervous system is also looking at, well, what's happening outside of us, you know, what's in our environment? Who are the other people? Like it's, it's just as as much inside as outside, but we have a very hyper individualistic culture of well, my nervous system is me, and that's not really the case. We are in this feedback loop with people all the time.

Robin l And I think that's a great point you make, because when we are out in the world, we are constantly interacting with other people's nervous systems, other people's energy. And you talk about that in the book too. It's like, when you're spending time with somebody, the people are like, are you? Are you in a job, for instance, where you where you leave every day feeling completely drained? Well, I hope that you're listening to that, right? And maybe this book will give you that awareness, to even just be more aware. Like, is this a place that's or this interaction with that person? Is this, is this healthy? Is this? Is this a healthy place for me to be in? Like, I don't know. We're constantly being being given information about our outside world too. 

Jessica l Yeah and I think there's like, two parts to this, like, sometimes, you know, we can look at it as though, well, they're doing this to me. You know that environment is doing this to me, but there's also this. Is the beauty of the work around the nervous system is, yes, there is that environment, and what can I express to what do I need to acknowledge and then share to get my needs met in that environment. So I think this is where it's the same with relationships. You know, we know that when there's reciprocity, like the back and forth in communication and care, that those relationships are very nourishing for our nervous system. But let's say I was going through a divorce and you were supporting me, I might have no reciprocity for you, because no I need your support. Now that doesn't mean that the whole relationships one sided forever. It means that there's a chapter, but it's also okay for you to acknowledge okay. I can only spend an hour with this friend, because otherwise I'm going to get anxious. But I think sometimes what can end up happening is we avoid people who are having a hard time, because it's like, well, oh, it's going to be so overwhelming, and I don't know how to handle it. Rather than being yes, it might be challenging. I might notice some responses of my nervous system, but, you know, I can also go and support them for a small amount. And we really talked about this in our certification around the ability to stay in relation with somebody else and have that connection, or what we call co regulation, where we support them to come back to feeling safe and at home in their body again, if we're regulated, but also staying in relation to ourselves and our own nervous system. And so it's both. And this is where I think, even with like a workplace, rather than it being black and white, like, this is bad, this is good. It can be. This is a challenging environment at times. And in those moments, what I need to communicate to support myself is X, Y and Z. And then if we try that, and we don't get the support, or, you know, isn't receptive to that. That's where we have the opportunity to look at or am I going to be able to work and stay regulated? But again, you know, it's it's both ways. Like my my work is incredibly meaningful to me, but it can be really challenging as well. And so I guess there's this part where it's both a lot of the time, like what I was saying with relationships, where we are still in connection to others, still in connection to ourselves and and having that part of like, what can I change outside if I need to, and what do I need to look at? Or what is, what is mine to own in this as well?

Robin l So you have four ingredients for system a successful nervous system reset, and I don't expect you to go through all this and major debt. Jessica, but what? What can people that are listening do, like practical things daily or just to be aware of and then dive more into the tools that you give in your body? Talk around a reset. 

Jessica l So let's talk about the reset. What we're really looking about is often we have a set point of our nervous system that's a little bit like a thermostat in a house. And so if we look at what I was explaining before following a relationship, or you what you were explaining as well was around, we can get tuned to a more towards a particular state. So that might be, 

Robin l Yeah

Jessica l Okay, I'm I'm feeling more anxiety. And so in that case, what's happening is when we have had chronic stress or we've never quite felt that sense of regulation or deep safety in our bodies. It can mean that our we've had an initial stressor in the vagus nerve has somewhat relaxed off bringing that safety and regulation, but there's a sense of the sympathetic mobilization in our body, and so we want to bring more of that back  in, to hop from mobilization, more towards regulation, and to do those things. It's really looking at, okay, well, what down regulates my nervous system? And that can certainly be through movement, you know, the way that we notice, like what I was saying, the kinesthetic sense, but it's also a way for us to discharge the excess mobilization. So we can have adrenaline. We can have cortisol, if we if we're really anxious, that's there and and we've talked about we can use the breath in a bottom up way to change the heart and bring more of the vagus nerve back in. We can look at the gut. There's so much here, like you know, you were mentioning this before as well, but like this, ties in with the microbiome. It ties in with the food that we eat. You know, if we supporting our physiology with with enough the right foods, it could come to interoception. That's, that's my favorite, because it's really catching our nervous system early on and then proactively managing it so we can stop ourselves moving into dysregulation in the first place. For a lot of people who tend to shut down. You know, coming to that immobilization, there's often a disconnect from the body. So if we imagine the sensations of the body a little bit like a volume dial, it's like the volume is turned down and sensations are too quiet. So getting back in touch with bodily signals and sensations here are so great. And you know, we can use tools like myofascial balls. We can use that work to our gut with the with the, what we might call the enteric nervous system as well, so we can turn the volume up on sensations. And you know, for people who tend to notice they freeze or come out of their body. It's like, how do we connect back in with our body quickly, which can be as simple as using some like, really firm pressure over our joints and saying, These are my wrists. These are my wrists. You know, I'm backing my body. And we really love to use things with our students that you can use in the heat of the moment. It's not about sitting down to do a 30, 45, minute session. It's like, well, what can I use in the heat of the moment? Because that's really where our nervous system will learn the most. And finally, the biggest part is CO regulation. So who are the people that you can lean on to be that sense of regulation for you when times are challenging, ,

Robin l Yeah what you just said and what you did with just going like this, made me think of when my twin died, you know, I was just thrown into grief. You know, you share that about your brother, when your brother died, and it was, I kept leaving my body, and I was, I think, searching for him, you know, but I was clearly out of my body for long periods of time, and I was having panic attacks. I thought I was having a heart attack most the time, but it was anxiety, panic attacks, and one of my closest friends just said I called her like when I thought I was having a heart attack, you said, just breathe with me. We're gonna take you know, I don't know you just forget to breathe, right? And so, okay, that really helped. And then, you know, two hours later, she met me at my hotel, she gave me a foot massage, and just in her very calm voice was, bring me back into my body. What you remind me of when you're and, you know, just getting like you said, like, this could be taking some deep breaths, feeling, feeling your wrists. The solution is probably not to go for a run, right? You think because, because I have to say, this is kind of, I was reading that to you. I'm like, okay, Robin, this is, and I have to say I'm shifting myself. my my practice around this, because I'm that person. If I'm feeling anxious or I'm okay, it's time to do go to go do a boot camp workout, or, like, just sprint it out, do the hardest workout you can. To get rid of, like, you said, like, expel this energy. But more often, I probably needed to just do a yoga or just calm and ground myself and my mind, right? Get it getting back into like, not having to, I think the tool I was going searching for was not the best medicine.

Jessica l It's a good it's a really good point, because we talk about this in terms of the difference between what brings you true regulation and what can take us into a bit of an artificial regulation. And I can totally relate to what you're saying with the with the running. I think, you know, if we feel like this wound up, I've got to get rid of it. But sometimes it's actually about saying, Well, what is this here? What? What is here that needs my attention? And that's the difference between, like, attunement and trying to get rid of and we can talk about this almost in like, four steps, where it's four E's and the first E is emerge, where we let what's there come to the surface. The second E is experience. And this is the step that most people will skip, and they go straight to the third or the fourth. So the third we would look at as Express. Now, this is how does the body want to express this? This is how may I might I say something, and then the fourth is expelled. But I think what happens is we either skip the eMERGE, where we push it away, the fourth is like, straight to expel, but we still haven't actually experienced what's there. And so 

Robin l There's information there

Jessica l Totally. And you know, I find this with work where it's like, I have so much passion for this, and I'm like, I want to really be of service. I want to make an impact, and I need to sometimes slow down and say, Yeah, that's wonderful. And what's here? And then sometimes it's like, this frustration, well, I can't get to helping people as much as I want to, and then I've got to come back and sit with that frustration, let that move, and then it settles. And then it's like, okay, so now, what is it that you need to do? But if I kept driving and pushing from this frustration, it just creates suffering. And that's I feel like, where a lot of people might think that nervous system regulation is just about getting rid of what you feel, but it's really not. It's really about experiencing what's really there. 

Robin l Oh my goodness, yes, you You also go into really describing getting, getting more clear, going deeper, deeper. What is the true emotion? Right? Because, if you're just saying, I'm overwhelmed, what does that mean? Right? Like that overwhelm can be so many things and and then you're like, okay well, what's inside that overwhelm? Well, and it could be, like, it could be, it could be any number of things, yes, I'm okay. Now I'm feeling and feeling anxious. Okay, what is that anxiety? What's underneath that anxiety? And not feeling safe? What's underneath that unsafeness? I don't know, but you have an 

Jessica l No, that's it

Robin l Emotion, that emotion like, one of the tools you have is an emotion wheel, right? 

Jessica l Yes

Robin l So that we can really get more defined, like defining, how does that help us with with experiencing and going through the four E's defining the emotion more clearly?

Jessica l So it's it's called Emotional granularity, and 

Robin l That's right, emotional granularity. 

Jessica l There's really good research to show that the more granular people are with what they're experiencing, the better they are at regulating their emotions. So I think of this as, like, if you were an interior designer and you were coming to my house and I said, I want that wall blue, and you're like, Well, do you want dark blue? 

Robin l Like there's like, 50 shades of blue, right? So that's the

Jessica l Same with our emotions. And if we just say, I feel sad or I feel bad or I feel stressed. It doesn't give us this ability to go what's really going on, and like, what you were just saying, the perfect example of like, well, there's, I feel overwhelmed, I don't feel safe. And some of the times, it's that past story that's, you know, driving like, this is what's going to happen. Or there can be fear, and, you know, to have fear in so many different situations, number one makes sense to if we're going to, you know, do something that's a stretch for us, it's okay for it to be there, but until we can get down to like, Oh, I'm nervous. Okay, this could be an example. I'm nervous about coming to the States. This is a different experience. I want to make sure that what I'm doing here has an impact, and it's tied back to because I care. So my deeper intention is care about helping people. I care about connecting with the community here, right? How can I help people? So how can I connect with the community? So for me, this is a lot to do with intention and values, and if we don't keep sifting down, sometimes we run off in the wrong direction, you know, completely away from what it is that we truly want, until we have that clarity and granularity. So it does, it really helps us. 

Robin l So when you we go back to that example, Jessica, because I really like this, so you because you're just, just say, like, like, maybe you did feel fear, right? Some people would stop there, right? I'm just, I'm scared, and I'm just, maybe it's not worth it, and then you go down that whole rabbit hole of, like, we could all kind of be crippled by fear, sometimes, with moving forward, with change in our lives, right? Or or making that decision, some people are just unable to make decisions because it's like the fear is stopping them. But I really like how you bring up the values. What is this? How is this linked to, to, what? Why? 

Jessica l Yeah it's so important, isn't it? And if I if I look at the values that I've had over the years, they haven't really changed. I think the work I've always done has been about empowering people. I'm a big one for community. You know, I like to have an expansive way of being able to think about things, and so those values that I'm very much aware of I think it's really coming back to that well, like if I said for this, for me with work, now that I have a team, those values are so important. There are principles for how we make decisions. You know, it's a bit of a framework. But it is also for me personally, because I could say, well, in order to come here and have this time in the US to be impactful. What, What would I need to have happen? And so that would be really linked around community, because community is so important to me. But if I can say, all right, well, here's the fear, here's the nervousness, what I tend to find for myself happen. And what I've seen with students and people that work with me is, if we had the fear there, it's going to drive us to mobilization, right? So we're going to feel this. I've got to do something. There's that mobilizing energy. It could be anxiety, whatever it is. Now, if I can channel that in the right way, 

Robin l Yeah 

Jessica l And so, okay, there's fear because I care, because it's tied to me wanting to be make a difference while I'm here and connect with this community. Now, how do we connect with community? It's totally different to blindly say, I just feel scared. I'm fearful. What am I doing here? That's going to look like they're going to look like two totally different ways we take action. And so this is where this power really lies. Because if you imagine that over days and days of accumulated activity, how you communicate to others, how you bring people along with you, it's really how you know you will find not only are you really fulfilled with your work because you're acting and aligned with your deepest values, but if we want to say what success is to me, that's it, right? It's that I am living aligned with the values and I'm making a difference that that for me, would bring deep satisfaction to say that's what I came here to do.

Robin l Yeah, well, there's so much more to talk about, but I just hope everybody gets your book. It takes your course. Tell us about your course that you offer. 

Jessica l So we have the eight week vagus nerve program. It's for people who want to create change in their own nervous system and support themselves. We dive into all the things that we've spoken about today, like interoception. We look at the connection between the gut and the brain, the heart and the brain. We look a lot at co regulation and the social engagement system. We have live calls every week, and some of those are where we partner up to really work in depth with this, but I really love to connect with people every week on those calls and take people through the resources that were we're learning each week. So there's new ones for each state. So those who are working with other people and want to learn how to deliver nervous system informed care. We have a 12 week certification course, which starts at the end of March, and that is really about professional growth and helping other people who were in dysregulation. But it's actually there's a lot of personal growth in it as well. So it's really about how we connect with others, and how we be good co regulators for others. So we've touched on some of that today, about recognizing our limits, staying in relation with ourselves and others, rather than jumping into fix or rescue. And yeah, it's a lot of what I've learned over, I'm going to say 20 years now, yeah. 

Robin l Wow well, the work you're doing is is so good and important, and I'm looking forward to just keep continuing to learn more and practice the tools too, you know, because I think it's just so it's been, it's life, life changing when you are just more related to your nervous system 

Jessica l 1000 % it really is, yeah,

Robin l Well, I'm going to close our discussion with a closing blessing, with your with your, with the lessons I've learned from you this week. Jessica, may we map the territory of our internal world and understand what's happening in our remarkable brain body system. In doing so, we gain so much power and autonomy over our life and our health. May we understand our nervous system regulation is about building our ability to regulate and support ourselves in the face of challenges and then either adapting to or recovering from those challenges with minimum negative consequences for our well being. And may we know that regardless of how overwhelmed or out of control life may feel, it's more than possible to find your way back to a calmer, more balanced way of living. Thank you. Jessica Maguire

Jessica l Thank you so much for having me, Robin. That was beautiful.

Robin l I really enjoyed our conversation and blessings to you on your time in LA and I know you're helping the community there just by with all the work you're doing. So thank you.

Jessica l Thank you so much.