How to Start Regulating Your Nervous System: My Journey from Survival Mode to Safety
After living in chronic survival mode for 37 years and finally finding my way out, I'm sharing the practices that brought my nervous system back to balance—and how you can start healing yours too.
What Survival Mode Actually Feels Like
To be in survival mode is to live in constant hypervigilance. Your mind races through worst-case scenarios, especially the ones that threaten your safety. Your brain stays switched on while you keep running from your body. Your heart closes up, disconnected from the Divine and the magic constantly swirling around you.
I know this intimately. I lived it.
My Story: When Your Body Says "Enough"
My nervous system dysregulation didn't start recently—it began at birth. From the moment I entered this world in Thailand, my life was marked by violence, chaos, starvation, and abandonment. Traumatic experiences layered throughout my childhood, combined with deep ancestral wounds that desperately needed healing.
Then, after I opened my business, I went through a major awakening. I realized I had been living in an identity that wasn't my true self—I was performing as the person everyone around me wanted me to be. The weight of that realization, combined with everything I'd already been carrying, was devastating.
Imagine holding heartbreak while simultaneously trying to figure out how to survive financially. There's no space to grieve in peace when your basic stability feels threatened. Life became extremely uncertain. I was exhausted—not just physically, but spiritually depleted. I was running a business while my entire sense of self was crumbling.
I tried to do "all the right things." I joined a gym. I meditated. I increased my protein intake and go to talking therapy for the first time in my life. But instead of helping, these well-intentioned changes backfired spectacularly. They triggered my nervous system even more, pushing me deeper into fight-or-flight.
The Breaking Point
Last summer, everything came to a head.
My entire body became inflamed. The exhaustion was unlike anything I'd ever experienced—even breathing felt difficult. Getting out of bed became an act of will I couldn't always muster. My whole body felt like it was on fire. The pain in my hands and throughout my entire body was so severe I couldn't even lift a pen.
I did what we're taught to do—I went to a regular doctor. They ran tests and gave me diagnoses: rheumatoid arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. They handed me prescriptions for pills that would "manage" my symptoms.
But something in me knew this wasn't the answer. These diagnoses were just labels for what my body was expressing—they weren't addressing the root cause. I could feel, deep in my bones, that this inflammation, this nerve pain, this complete shutdown wasn't a disease to be managed with medication. It was my body screaming a message I'd been ignoring for 37 years.
I decided not to take the pills.
Instead, I chose to listen. Really listen.
For someone with a high pain tolerance, this was different. This was nerve pain—a level of suffering that made everything else pale in comparison. My body had forced me into complete stillness, and I finally understood why.
I had no appetite. When you're chronically stressed and depressed, your desire to nourish yourself disappears. You lose the instinct to care for your own body.
I spent hours lying in bed, sometimes processing feelings, sometimes too frozen to do anything at all. Walks stopped. Texts from friends and family went unanswered for weeks.
My body had forced me into complete stillness.
And that's when I finally understood: this was my body's desperate attempt to communicate. It was saying, in the only language it had left, "We cannot continue like this. The pills won't fix what needs to heal. You need to go deeper."
That realization became the catalyst for everything that followed.
What I Learned About Nervous System Regulation
Here’s what I discovered on my journey back to safety:
Your body is always speaking
Survival mode is an intelligent response to trauma. Your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do: protect you. The problem is when it gets stuck there, unable to recognize that the danger has passed. Every ache, craving, burst of energy of foggy moment is a message. The problem? Most of us never taught how to listen to our body.
“Doing all the right things” doesn’t work if they’re not right for YOUR nervous system.
Exercise, nutrition, productivity—all wonderful things. But when your nervous system is dysregulated, these can actually be additional stressors. What helped me wasn’t doing more. It was learning to do less, and to do it with intention.
Regulation isn’t about controlling your body—it’s about listening to it.
For years, I ran from my body’s signals. I pushed through. I overrode the messages. Healing began when I finally stopped running and started listening—learning how to interpret what my body is saying and respond with clarity instead of confusion.
How to Begin Regulating Your Nervous System
If you’re reading this and seeing yourself in my story, here’s where to start:
1. Acknowledge Where You Are
Stop trying to “positive think” your way out of dysregulation. Your nervous system needs validation, not bypassing. Say it out loud: “My body has been through a lot. It makes sense that I feel this way.”
2. Prioritize Safety Signals
Your nervous system needs to feel safe before it can heal. This looks like:
Creating predictable routines
Surrounding yourself with people who feel calm and grounding
Reducing exposure to chaos, even “productive” chaos
Giving yourself permission to say no
3. Work with Your Body, Not Against It
Instead of forcing workouts, try gentle movement like walking, stretching, or restorative yoga. Instead of pushing through exhaustion, rest. Actually rest. Your body isn’t lazy—it’s healing.
4. Engage Your Vagus Nerve
This is your body’s built-in reset button. Simple practices that activate it:
Deep, diaphragmatic slow breathing (inhale for 4 through your nose and exhale for 6 repeat for several minutes)
Humming or singing
Cold water on your face
Gentle self-massage, especially on your neck, jaw, and behind your ear
Professional nervous system facial and body work (this became transformative for me)
5. Release What’s Stored in Your Fascia
Trauma and stress don’t just live in your mind—they’re held in your connective tissue. Somatic practices like buccal massage, myofascial release, and intentional bodywork help release what you’ve been carrying.
Here’s something extraordinary: I had completed my fascia release training just before my body completely broke down. At the time, I didn’t realize the significance. But as I learned about how emotional trauma gets trapped in our fascia—literally stored in the connective tissue throughout our body—everything started making sense.
The pain I was experiencing wasn’t just physical inflammation. It was decades of unprocessed trauma, ancestral wounds, and survival responses that my fascia had been holding onto. My body was screaming because it could no longer contain what I’d been storing.
When I finally began receiving the support my body was asking for, everything changed. I found Dr. Hu in Palm Coast for nervous system-informed acupuncture (shout out to Dr. Hu!), my good friend and amazing kind human Katie Koss of The Skin Witch for healing facial work, my friend Danielle of Jellyfish Massage for intuitive bodywork and my dear friend Achara for IFS therapy work that helped me process the emotional layers beneath the physical pain. As I experienced buccal massage releasing my jaw and bodywork addressing the fascia throughout my entire body where tension had been living for years, something profound shifted.
Years of stored emotion began to surface and release. My face and body had been holding what I couldn't process. The fascia was finally letting go and my inflammation started to disappeared.
This discovery didn't just transform my own healing—it completely changed how I work with clients. I now understand that when we release fascia, we're not simply relieving physical tension. We're creating space for emotional healing that's been waiting, sometimes for decades, to finally happen.
6. Nourish Yourself Like You Matter
Your gut needs digestive support and stress management. When appetite disappears or bloating after meals, random puffiness throughout the day. Your guts doesn’t just digest food; it digests your emotions, stress, and daily experiences. when overwhelmed, it creates physical backup. Stress depletes gastric functioning and juices. start small. Smoothies. Warm soups. Foods that feel gentle and nourishing. You’re not just feeding your body—you’re sending the message that you deserve to be cared for.
7. Move Your Lymphatic System
Gentle movement, dry brushing, staying hydrated, and lymphatic massage all support your body’s natural detoxification. When your nervous system is dysregulated, toxins get stuck. Help them move out.
8. Allow the Emotions
Fascia holds emotional tension. When you start regulating your nervous system, feelings will surface. Grief, anger, sadness—they’ve been waiting. Let them come. Journal, cry, scream into a pillow, move your body. This is healing, not falling apart.
9. Be Patient with Your Timeline
I spent 37 years in survival mode. Healing didn’t happen overnight. Some days I felt progress. Other days I felt like I was back at square one. Both are part of the process. Your nervous system is rewiring itself. That takes time.
10. Seek Support
You don’t have to do this alone. Whether it’s therapy, somatic bodywork, trusted friends, or practitioners who understand nervous system healing—find your support system. I couldn’t have done this without the people and practices that held me.
Where I Am Now
I won’t tell you I’m “healed” or that I never struggle anymore. That would be a lie.
But I will tell you this: I’m no longer in survival mode. My body feels like a safe place to live. I can feel joy again. I can rest without guilt. I can sense when my nervous system is activating and I have tools to bring myself back to regulation.
The chronic pain that once made it impossible to hold a pen? Gone. The inflammation that kept me bedridden? Resolved. The exhaustion that felt spiritual? Lifted.
My nervous system learned that it’s safe to be here. And yours can too.
Your Invitation
If you’re reading this and your body is screaming for help, please listen. You don’t have to wait until you’re bedridden with nerve pain to start caring for your nervous system.
Start small. Choose one practice from this list. Give yourself permission to heal at your own pace.
And if you’re local to me and seeking support through nervous system-informed facial and bodywork, I’d be honored to hold space for your healing. My work combines professional skincare with somatic techniques designed to help your body finally feel safe enough to release what it’s been holding.
You deserve to feel safe in your own body. You deserve to regulate. You deserve to heal.
What’s one small step you can take today to support your nervous system? I’d love to hear from you. 💙