Episode #408 – Build a Burnout Proof Life with Michelle Grosser

Cherylanne Skolnicki:

I am Cherylanne Skolnicki, and this is Brilliant Balance, the show for those of us who still dare to want it all, who have big dreams and bold ambitions, I think we deserve to have a big full life and the freedom to enjoy it. So let’s design our next chapter together for brilliance, not burnout. Each week I’ll bring ideas, insight, and a fresh perspective to keep you growing into a life that feels as good as it looks brilliant. Balance your life your way. Now let’s get started. This is episode 408 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast, and today we’re building a burnout proof life with Michelle Grosser. So my guest today is someone who truly embodies the idea of transformation from the inside out. Michelle Grosser spent years balancing a really full plate. She was a trial attorney, a law school professor, a mom of two daughters, and the primary caretaker in her home.

And from the outside it looked like she was managing it all, but on the inside she was burning out deeply. And it wasn’t until her body finally forced her to slow down with things like anxiety and brain fog and fatigue and gut issues that she really realized something had to change. And what followed was a radical pivot. Michelle started studying somatic healing, nervous system regulation, and the root causes of high achiever burnout. And she became a certified master life coach, a nervous system strategist, and the host of her podcast Alive and Well, where she helps women unwind from the patterns that lead to chronic stress and depletion. Today Michelle teaches high performing women how to live what she calls a burnout proof life. I love this idea one where presence, peace and power can coexist. So if you’ve ever felt like you’re doing all the right things, but still teetering on the edge of exhaustion, this conversation is your invitation to try a different way. Let’s dive in. Michelle, welcome to the Brilliant Balance Show.

Michelle Grosser:

Oh my goodness, thanks so much for having me. It’s really good to be here.

CS:

So for those who are just getting to know you and to know your work, can you tell us a little bit about your journey? I actually love it when you start with like little Michelle, like what were you, like, how did kind of the path lead to a law career? And then we’ll get into the pivot.

MG:

Oh, this is so good. So I’m the oldest daughter of five children. And I think just that what we know about birth order and family dynamics probably explains a lot. But through that whole thing I, I grew up and really started to develop a rigid personality pattern. So the more I learned about personality patterns, I see myself in that, which meant that, you know, rules were very important to me and having structure and the tasks list and you know, getting the, add a girl from the achievements and the accolades and top of my class and all of these things, not overtly by my parents, I think mm-hmm <affirmative>. But kind of like, right. Like they had, they had no ill intent. They didn’t try to like form me into this, into this person who was like so stressed out about doing all the things right. But it just happened over time.

And I think that, you know, I went to college and then I graduated from undergrad in 2008 when, you know, the economy was doing what it was doing then. And I was actually working for Harley Davidson. I’m like, man, you know what? I really love school and I’m really good at it. I’m gonna go to law school. Um, and there were no lawyers in my family. And I think by the grace of God, I was so naive that I didn’t even study for the bar, not the bar exam for the LSAT entrance exam showed up, took it, got into law school. And I think in that journey, never once stopped to ask if this is actually something that mm-hmm. I enjoy or I’m interested

CS:

Just the next rung on the achievement ladder. Sure.

MG:

Oh yeah. And that’s what I’m supposed to do, right? Sure. This is what’s next. Until I got to a place where I had, you know, the seven figure downtown law practice, I had two babies, I had a happy marriage, I had the house and the suburbs with the lawn and the pool. And I just sat there and I’m like, why can I not enjoy any of this <laugh>? Right? Like, is this, is this what I’m cha like this what I’m chasing? Right? Right. So, you know, you, you read a little bit of my story, but my body is really what was like, you’re gonna keep ignoring all the mental and emotional symptoms of burnout. Um, we are gonna step in and just shut you down. And it did and it stopped me in my tracks and I had to really take a look at, I think how I saw the world and myself in it.

All these different paradigms I had around, you know, what’s strong and what’s weak, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad, what’s, what’s productive and not productive, what’s, you know, high achieving and what’s lazy or all these different things I just had to take, take a look at and really understand one, the science and biology around my nervous system because ultimately that’s what was just shot and so dysregulated and then how can I build like, kind of re like it’s a lifestyle thing. Sure. It wasn’t overnight. It’s like how can I restructure this whole thing so that it feels sustainable and I can get back to joy and peace and presence and all the things I, all

CS:

The good things.

MG:

Good.

CS:

So you had, it sounds like you got sick, like you had a lot of physical symptoms showing up that you were not necessarily piecing together. Yeah.

Can you just name what a couple of those were? Because I think people might recognize these as like some of the symptoms of burnout

MG:

For sure. I think the physical ones are a lot of things that I think we also can chalk up to. Just like, oh well that’s just stress or that’s just raising kids while working or what have you. Like I just had chronic migraines and headaches. Um, muscle tension and fatigue. Like my shoulders and neck were causing so much pain that I was interfering with my day-to-day insomnia. Right. Sometimes it was trouble falling asleep. Oftentimes it was trouble staying asleep. A lot of gut issues. Our gut is our second brain. Second

CS:

Brain. Sure.

MG:

Exactly. So just so many issues around my gut health, my skin and my hair started to fall out. Right. My skin just looked dull and, and I just didn’t like my energy was shot. And those are kind of on the physical side what I was experiencing. But then everything just mentally and emotionally, the anxiety just being irritable and edgy. Right. Um, having a really hard time slowing down, I was always busy. Always go, go, go. Kind of this restless energy that’s really, yeah. And you know what’s

CS:

Wild as you’re saying this is we, everyone’s talking about menopause and perimenopause and I think the experts who I’ve had on the show and those that I’ve talked to, a lot of the symptoms that you just described, I could have a perimenopause expert on saying, okay, look, I just named all these things. They’re symptoms of perimenopause. I could have somebody on talking about eating disorders. They’re symptoms of malnutrition. Yeah. You are describing them as symptoms of burnout and I think it’s, they’re all true, right? Yes. They’re all true. So diagnostically figuring out like what is underneath this collection of symptoms that I would argue so many of our listeners are gonna have, they’re gonna be like, I recognize myself in this. Yes. We gotta go get some help with what is underneath these symptoms. Because you know, I feel the same way about kind of you describe a collection of symptoms and it gets labeled as depression. Right. But actually what’s underneath that is what matters the most. So I know we’re gonna get into this, I just think it’s like a bit of a PSA that it’s such a wide collection of things that are real that we experience and we have to get at what is the root cause and that’s where you can start to kind of move some levers around and get some relief. Right.

MG:

That’s so true. And I think, you know what, the first thing I actually did was I started working with a functional medicine practitioner and had all my labs run and everything ’cause the same thing. I’m like, certainly there’s a supplement or like fix something I needed to do something’s all off. And that was true and what I understand and now, right, and what you’re mentioning about kind of getting to the root of it is that learning how to regulate our nervous system. So both shifting our state mm-hmm <affirmative>. And shifting our traits, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Both of those state change and trait change are going to help regardless of what’s going on. Right. That’s right in your body. Right.

CS:

It’s kind underneath all of it. It’s gonna be helpful. That’s right. So I like that you have entered this work when you decided like, not only am I gonna get myself in order, but then I’m actually gonna go get, help other people get themselves in order. Like it became sounds like such an unlocking for you that you were ready to shift your career in this direction. Correct.

MG:

Yes.

CS:

Okay. So when you do that, ’cause I wanna get into the teaching part of this, you not only can focus, can help people get themselves out of burnout sort of recovery, but also prevent it. Like, I loved this phrase of a burnout proof life. Yeah. How do you actually create like the, the foundational practices that allow you to never get to burnout? So what does that really mean to you? How is that different than like recovering from burnout?

MG:

Yeah. Well I think one is, I mean it’s prophylactic, right? It’s like what are we doing on the front end to get ahead of this thing? Yes. How are we setting ourselves up for success, right? Our systems, our habits, our routines, our mindsets so that we can show up in our best way with our most energy. And I think there’s so many lies we’re believing <laugh> things we tell ourselves, right? Or that just like culture, what have you like is put puts on us that we can really take a look at. And the other thing I think is that we tend to overcomplicate and think we need to add. And so much of creating a burnout proof life is actually addition by subtraction. Right? So give

CS:

Us an example

MG:

Like, yeah. So for example, we think that I need to have this 10 step morning routine or I really need to, I dunno, whatever it’s, let’s just take that for an example. Or all of these things that we feel like are shoulds, right? I should be doing this or I should be doing that. I actually should be exercising a lot more. I actually should. And the truth of the matter is that most of us are already doing too much. Too much. Right? Mostly of the things that don’t actually move the needle and make us feel better. And we’ll find that we actually can 10 x are healing and see an ROI on what we’re doing so much more quickly when we’re stripping stuff away, right? Because the version of me that is vibrant, right? And joy filled and present, like she’s already in there. I actually don’t need to go out on the outside and get some stuff need to uncover, do some stuff I need.

Yeah. I need to like strip away everything that I’ve taken on over the last 39 years. Right? That’s just kind of hindering her from emerging. It’s this law of emergence. So instead of this morning routine, right? That let’s, let’s just say for example, and let’s just be realistic, you have a four step morning routine that you feel like, man, if I can just do this, my day is so much better. Right? And I have to get up at a certain time to my alarm, regardless of if I’ve had, you know, sick kids during the night or someone that, you know, whatever’s happened. And then I have to make sure that, you know, this meal is prepped or in the house. And I think on an ideal day to have these things that support us and make us feel good is awesome. And what I have plan discovered plan. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. Is that, wow. What does it look like if I can actually pivot and it doesn’t like throw my whole morning off. That’s right.

CS:

Yeah. What does it look like? Flexibility to say, yeah, look, there’s a plan A, that’s kind of the ideal state, and then there’s gotta be a plan B, C, and D that I can go to without beating myself up if they are plan a’s not gonna work that day for whatever reason

MG:

That mm-hmm <affirmative>. That’s right. And I think we can get so caught up in it, you know, this is, I guess really getting into the work that I do is that all of that planning and the systems and the routines and the habits and all this stuff we put on ourselves, it’s all neck up. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? It’s all like top down, top in

CS:

Your head. Yep.

MG:

It’s all what’s going on in our head. And because of that we’ve become so disconnected from our body. Like what would would it look like if you woke up tomorrow morning and before you even got outta bed, you were just like, how do I feel? How do I feel? Right? What does my body need today? Do I need to go like, run some sprints in the driveway? Is that like the energy that needs to be released? Or do I actually just need to like crawl out of bed and sit on the floor and stretch this morning? Right. Instead of always having to hit this like super structured workout that I might have previously. So I guess big picture, learning how to tune in right? With ourselves and our bodies and what we actually need. Learning how to set boundaries around those things and communicate them.

Learning how to optimize. And I say that I, I kind of like, be careful right? Blink a little bit with that word. Yeah. But like the thi like how are we nourishing, right? Our bodies, minds and spirits. Yes. How are we, how are we moving our bodies? There’s so many things I think we can just reevaluate what we’re looking at. Um, and those are like big picture foundational things. And then I also teach kind of like the in the moment things, right? When we notice that we’re feeling a little bit anxious or wired or ir irritable or edgy or what have you. Or if we notice, man, is this burnout sneaking and like I just feel kind of disconnected and withdrawn today. I’m having a hard time like dialing it in today and focusing. Yeah. What are things that we can do in the moment to help either upregulate or downregulate the state of our nervous system?

CS:

Yeah. Oh listen, we are kindreds. People who’ve been around a while are gonna be like, okay, this is, I always love it when we have fresh language, new lens on topics that we have come to over and over again as a community of practice. So this is gonna be so good because hopefully I’m gonna learn some things that I have not thought about. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I wanna talk about a couple of different angles. I really wanna look at daily habits. Like what are a few of your favorite. And notice knowing that they’ll be different for everyone. Kind of science backed things that women can do to support their nervous system at the level of like daily practice. And then I also wanna really talk about emotional regulation. And I had a guest very recently that we were talking about how to think about emotions like weather and how to manage those weather systems. So maybe we can dovetail those ideas, but let’s talk daily habits first. What are like one or two of your favorites that really help kind of be supportive to the nervous system? I like your word prophylactic. And avoid burnout. Like truly prevent getting to that place by maybe building resilience.

MG:

Yes. Okay. I love this. I have three. Okay. That if I hit ’em every day and a lot of them will like, I do ’em together. So I’m like, man, I just knocked out two, two birds with limestone. Two. Yes. Okay. And these are, these are the big picture. These are the foundation. These are like, man, if we can just get into a routine of doing these from a nervous system perspective. Massive impact in growing our capacity. Okay. The first one, we gotta move our body. There’s like just no way around it. When we are in a stress response physiologically, right? Every cell in our body is primed for movement. If you even think about the term fight or or flight, it’s like our body wants to move, it wants to run or it wants to fight. And all day long, we either try to suppress all of that energy or we sit at our desk all day or what have you.

So moving our body is the fastest way to signal to our nervous system. I hear you. I’m responding. Right. Which allows, if you think of that kind of activation as like a loop, when we move, it closes that stress cycle loop, right? Yep. And then our body feels safe enough Okay. Can stand down, shift back to a place where we feel so much more regulated. So movement is number one. The second is stillness. We have to have some sort of space for some sort of stillness practice. And I’m not talking even about a meditation practice or like, you know, some elaborate thing that require con Yeah. Um, and not even that really I’m talking about can you build in 10 minutes of your day where you’re not consuming information or being stimulated, right? Where your brain is not taking stuff in. So like, on your commute, can you, I don’t know, like have 10 minutes of silence before you turn on the podcast or the music or the news. You know, while you’re folding laundry, do you need to have a TV show playing in the background or can you just do it in silence in stillness? Can you go for a walk without your earbuds? Right?

CS:

Can just put yourself, so for you, stillness is not about physical stillness. ’cause I immediately thought about when you said stillness, I thought about bringing your body to stillness. You’re talking about bringing your mind, removing input. So I wanna kind be blank slate or at least lessening the input to your mind. Yeah. So I actually think we’ve talked about this a lot. Like the quiet walk where you can hear your feet crunching on the gravel is like, that’s a stillness practice in that you’re not trying to kind of consume, you’re, you’re limiting the amount of stimulus coming in.

MG:

Yeah, that’s right. Anything

CS:

You do to close your eyes is gonna limit all the visual inputs that are coming at you. Okay, got

MG:

It. A hundred percent. Yep. Exactly right. So that’s the second one. And then the third one is play. So play

CS:

Movement, stillness and play

MG:

Movement, stillness and play. Yep. And play in and of itself. If you think about it, just you from an evolutionary perspective, if we were under threat, there was no time to play <laugh>. So when we are playing, we are signaling to our systems, right? That everything’s copacetic. We’re all good, everyone’s safe. Yeah. And, and, and then we can do all the things that we do in that state, rest and digest. And what is play? You know, play is whatever that thing is that you can like get lost in and lose track of time. Right. It doesn’t, it could be playing with your kids, but it could be baking or playing an instrument or you know, gardening, pulling out your paint, gardening. Exactly. But man, if you can make space on the regular to just do that, to play however it looks for you. Huge in, in growing your window of tolerance and your capacity. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

CS:

Did you know that beyond hosting this podcast, I also directly support women leaders at the intersection of work and life As a member of bold, you get direct access to me, the women on my team, and a peer group of exceptional women who are rewriting the rules and redefining what it means to have it all together. Go to brilliant balance.com/bold to learn more and apply for your spot. Today we talked a little bit about pleasure without purpose as like a definition for play. Like you’re not trying to accomplish something, it’s not productive, it’s just you’re doing it because it’s pleasurable. Like you like to ski because you like to ski, not because anybody’s life gets better when you do it.

MG:

That’s right. It’s not a means to an end. Right? Right,

CS:

Right. I think that’s a really simple way for people. ’cause different things categorize as play for different people, right? For some of us, I don’t know, some form of exercise is going to feel like play and for someone else it’s gonna feel like work. So I think it’s important that it’s, that’s a really kind of defined by the individual element. So I love these, those daily habits are prevention systems. Think about them as how you can increase your resilience, you can increase your capacity to manage life by doing those things. And then when we think about emotional regulation, I mean obviously if our nervous system is regulated, our emotions will likely be better regulated. But what practices do you have in mind to really strengthen emotional regulation?

MG:

Okay. So talk to me what you mean about emotional regulation. Does that mean not feeling certain things or, or having more,

CS:

Not having an outsized reaction based on your emotions.

MG:

Okay. I think the first thing here from a somatic perspective is to start to notice your somatic cues, right? So when we experience emotions, it’s not, again, it’s not just in our head. There’s a whole biological chain of events that happens when these emotions arise, right? When we’re something happens and an emotion is, is triggered within us and certain neurotransmitters are released. So notice what that looks like for you. Yeah. So

CS:

Let’s work with an example of like, okay, uh, a lot of women who listen to the show have kids. Let’s say that your child does something, they’re being defiant, they’re not doing what you want them to do, and you start to feel yourself getting frustrated, angry, feeling like you’re out of control. Like, walk us through that as a case study.

MG:

Okay? So let’s say that’s happening and that happens to me often, right? Every other plan and I start to notice, yeah, what, what does my body do to start to communicate to me that it’s starting to feel triggered or dysregulated or being sent into this fight or flight state. So for me, my somatic cues are that my jaw will clench and my tongue will kind of press to the roof of my mouth, right? My shoulders will start to kind of tense and creep up by my ears. My voice lowers my, the cadence of my speech lowers. And I might say something like, go put your shoes on, right? It’s like, that’s when you know that mom’s like mm-hmm <affirmative>. Oh, getting there. But for you it might look different, right? Yeah. Maybe your voice gets really loud and you start to speak faster. Maybe you notice your heart starts to race, maybe your palms clench or they, they get clammy, right? May like whatever it is, just start to notice how your body starts to communicate with you. Hey, we’re getting activated here, right? Because awareness always precedes choice. Yes. I first have to have the awareness and then I can act on it and do something about, I

CS:

Picture like the, the, like the thermostat is going up. Like what are your cues that it’s going up and you’re like, if I don’t do something to turn this down, it’s gonna pop.

MG:

Yes. Yeah. I think of it sometimes like a, even like a stoplight system, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. A day to dam act in green. And then when that starts happening, it’s like, oh, yellow light. These are the cues before you get to red light. Okay. Exactly. Cool. Okay. So I noticed that, and I have a couple options in that moment. One, I can ignore my somatic cues. Most of us aren’t aware of them. Right? And then we get to a point where we probably do, we snap or we yell or scream or say something or you know, where maybe even to us we’re like, whoa, where did that come from? Even to me, that felt disproportionate to what I was experiencing, right? But the alternative is that we actually, so when we experience or feel any emotions, especially the uncomfortable ones, there’s two things we can do that starts to rise up, right? Frustration, anger, annoyance, what have you. We can greet it with judgment, shove it right back down where it came from, and just suppress it. Right? Take a deep breath, which is often an act of suppression, <laugh>, and try to just go on with our day. Right. Try to stay calm. Try

CS:

To kind of never let him see you sweat.

MG:

Never. Yeah. And never let him see you sweat. Just push through it, you know? And don’t cry and life goes on. Exactly. And what does that do? I mean, we can talk about that. There’s a, again, a whole cascade of things that happen when we suppress those emotions in our body. But the other option is when that starts to come up, instead of greeting it with judgment, we greet it with compassion. Right? And it’s like, it seems so subtle <laugh>, but it’s so powerful, again, coming back to safety, that our body feels safe enough to actually feel, express and release these emotions instead of us recycling them. Right? So sometimes it’s appropriate in the moment for me to express and release frustration or anger or, you know, what, what big, whatever big emotion is coming up. I think sometimes, you know, a lot of the women that I work with are like, yeah, I get angry. Like, I have no problem. Like I can get frustrated, I can get angry. And I’m like, awesome. Tell me what you do when you’re angry. Right? And so often it’s still neck up stuff, right? Well, you know, I can like talk about it or I can like explain and, and like, that’s, that’s great. Now I

CS:

Wanna like

MG:

Slam a door. Sally <laugh>. Yeah.

CS:

Like I’m

MG:

Gonna like throw something, grab a pillow, yell at, so yeah. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? So, so somatically some tools and techniques that I teach when it comes to that are like wall pushes. Mm-hmm. Like can you just like be like, I’m gonna go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back <laugh> against this wall, I noticed mm-hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. And go find a wall and just push all your energy into that wall while you’re breathing and you can scream and grunt and groan. And I promise you greeting that with compassion instead of judgment and allowing that cycle to like peak and like ebb and flow, right. 90 seconds maybe that it takes for that to actually course through your body, right? And, and then and the neurotransmitters to kind of resolve and release and, and you’re good. Where we get stuck is when we don’t somatically release the emotions and we stay in our head, right? I can’t believe she did this. He’s so I’m raising kids that are, you know, what have you and the story that loop keeps going and we never actually connect with the emotion and allow it to release. Um, so just pause, pause

CS:

For a second because I think if, if people took nothing else away than this little kind of vignette on anger, I think you will change people’s lives with this. So let’s just for the listener thinking like you’re in that moment, you’re in the kitchen and your kid is doing something that you’re just infuriated by and, and you can feel all these, whatever your version of these bodily cues are happening and you know that the next thing that’s gonna happen is you’re gonna lose it and you’re gonna scream and rant and there’s, they’re gonna scream back and there’s gonna be this whole thing happening that no one’s proud of and no one’s happy happened. Right? But the anger was justified. That is a legitimate emotion for you to feel that frustration was legitimate. And what Michelle is suggesting is where can you channel it so that it moves through you instead of you saying, uh, you’re not welcome here, get back inside. ’cause guess what? You’re curtained around with you at that point or unleashing it on this kid who also probably doesn’t deserve that torrent of emotion coming at them. So this is the edge to me, Michelle is like it’s, we we’re getting trained. I think it’s getting out there and the zeitgeist, like it’s all emotions are valid and we have to feel them. Yeah, yeah. But the techniques to move them through so that they can be expressed and released, like, I’m gonna let go of it in a way that’s safe if we’re talking about anger. Yeah. Right. Or in a way that’s not like deeply embarrassing if we’re talking about like sadness or, or embarrassment. Yeah. Like people might cry and think, I don’t wanna do that in front of my boss.

MG:

Yes. Right. Right.

CS:

This would be a great way for me to release this emotion, but I don’t wanna sit in front of my boss and like, yeah. So I think you are giving us a great one for anger, but I expect there’s probably a whole litany of these that you teach depending on what is the emotion.

MG:

Yeah, there are. And I guess one, so that’s like the ideal in the moment if you have the space. But you’re right, if you’re in the boardroom, if I’m at the grocery store right, and I’m like feeling that coming up, I can’t have a temper tantrum there with my kid. Right. I can’t, it’s probably not appropriate for me to sit across from someone that I work with and to just have, you know, a meltdown and start, and start crying there on the spot. But what we can do in those moments is we can acknowledge the emotion that’s there two seconds. Right? Whoa, Michelle, you’re, I can feel how angry I am right now just acknowledging it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Just that somatically has a, has a huge impact. And then what I teach is that you can kind of make a date with those emotions. And I stay in the moment. I’m like, I can’t feel this right now, but when I get home and my kids are in bed and you know, everything’s cleaned up at nine 30, I’m just gonna go grab a pillow in my bed and I’m just gonna like slam it onto my bed and let some of that out until I feel a shift. Right. And that’s, I think

CS:

This is a radical idea to people that you can schedule the processing of this emotion. Mary Hyatt was on my podcast a million years ago and she talked about this, like she, her phrase was, put it on ice. I love that. And she’s like, I’m gonna put this on ice. And I had to come back to it. And I think that’s a lot of us are good at like, okay, I gotta shove it down and then I’m never coming back to it. Right. But the, the concept of coming back to it with purpose, like I’m gonna take it out of that box and I’m gonna deal with it later, seems like it’s not even possible. It seems like if you don’t do it right, then you’re gonna miss it.

MG:

It’s a form of hygiene.

CS:

Fascinating.

MG:

Yeah. And we are in and out beings, right? Like the thing like, I dunno whatever I eat in and out, breathe in and out, drink in and out. Same is true with our emotions. <laugh>, we, we consume, IE experience these things. There’s all these right things running through my body in these moments. Adrenaline, cortisol, what have you. I need to have practices, experience them on the daily practices on the daily to flush them out.

CS:

Fantastic. I think that’s so fantastic. I, we also had a meditation expert a million years ago and she talked about kind of the shower for your insides that meditation was like showering your insides and getting all that kind of gunk that’s built up out and releasing it. And that, when you said hygiene practice, it reminds me of like, it look, it’s in there. How are we going to get it out? What are the practices that allow us to move it through? And so many of these practices are somatic. I mean yoga is uh, something that yes, I learned a long time ago. I couldn’t explain why it worked when it started working. I just knew that yoga day, I used to say yoga days are my best days and I really couldn’t figure out why. Mm-hmm. But then as I’ve learned more about this over the years, I’m like, oh, this is why, because you were letting go of all the stuff that wasn’t serving you and then you had this kind of like fresh slate to go into the day with. Yeah. It’s

MG:

Fascinating. And just think about the big three we talked about. Yes. When you’re doing yoga, you’re moving your body, you’re in stillness, <laugh>, and it’s enjoyable for you. Yes. Yes.

CS:

Especially if you’re trying to do something silly like a headstand or a handstand or you know, you’re falling down constantly. So we talked about some daily habits, those big three movement, stillness and play. We’ve talked about a very practical practice for returning to emotional regulation, like a state of like, I’ve allowed it to move through me and I haven’t taken any actions that I’m not proud of, right. As a result of it. Yeah. I think that there’s a big piece here of burnout proof in your life that’s like giving yourself permission maybe to adopt some of these practices, to try some things that you haven’t done before. Um, maybe hold some boundaries that you haven’t held. So when you really think about this nervous system, I, you call yourself a nervous system strategist, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Say a little bit more about how you tie all this together for these high achieving women you work with so that they can stay in control, I guess, of the way that they’re nervous so that they’re not like being strung out by their nervous system, but they have a stronger sense of control.

MG:

Yeah. Okay. So I think when we distill it, what I help women strategize to do is to have access to their prefrontal cortex. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? That part of their brain that like when they are in boss mode and when they are able to like see all the moving parts and manage it and be a step ahead and think so creatively and problem solve and brainstorm and you know, whether that’s in, in the workspace or in parenting or in marriage, the place that allows us to, you know, consider other options and then pursue risks, right? From a really grounded place. Like all of these awesome things that we wanna be able to do higher ordered language, right? We can only do that when we have access to our prefrontal cortex. Our prefrontal cortex is only online when we are in a place or the state, a ventral vagal state, which is the state where we say we feel quote unquote regulated when we feel like we’re in a fight or flight response.

And that shows up in so many ways. So often that part of our brain is literally offline because it’s too slow, right? It’s a wonderful part of my brain. But if I’m about to like touch a hot stove or if I see my kid running to a busy street, that’s not the time for me to like weigh pros and cons, right? That part of my brain is way too slow. It gets bypassed and I’m sent into this stress response and then I’m just operating from instinct and fear and all of these different things that come forth. So it’s really all the things you talked about, but, but daily practices, boundaries, coping mechanisms, right? How are we coping with stress? Like what’s your pattern when you start to feel overwhelmed? We all have them, right? Whether we realize it or not, how are we taking care of our physical body? I’m trying to think just the kind of paradigms and mindsets that we hold so we can create this place where we spend most of our time. Our baseline is regulated access to that prefrontal cortex. We’re designed to experience the ups and downs. Yes. And absolutely we’ll never be nor do we wanna be calm all the time. But do you have the flexibility and the resilience to experience the highs and lows and be confident and trust that you know how to get yourself back to this place? Yeah. At baseline. Yeah.

CS:

It’s so I, I think that a lot of people’s wheels are gonna be turning and I’m confident they’re gonna wanna know where they can go to get more. I think this is a deep well of expertise. I think a lot of us got in introduced to this work, maybe through therapy. If people have a good therapist who’s teaching them some of these tools, I think people who have children, particularly neurodivergent children anywhere in that world, have really been introduced to these tools because emotional regulation can be so challenging within certain diagnoses. So I know in my community, those are often the women who I hear that have some access to this. And for other people who have not kind of had to go and get the training, this is a black box of information. Like they do not know. So I think where if someone feels inspired or intrigued by what they’ve heard you share so far today, where should they go to learn more from you or from other resources that you can point them to.

MG:

Yeah, thanks. So if you already listen to podcasts, and this is interesting. My podcast is called Alive and well, two episodes a week and that’s pretty much all we talk about, right? Nervous system strategies to live work and and and really feel and show up well. And then I have a free guide, great 17 pages. There’s really good like background information I think for just to get like a foundational understanding of your nervous system. But then there’s also three somatic practices there and there’s a link to a guided breathwork practice. So you can kind of start to play around with some of these things and see what seems to make an impact and help your nervous system shift states. Um, so you can pick that up@michellegrosser.com. It’s just my name slash reset.

CS:

Amazing. And we will link that directly in the show notes. So sometimes it’s just easier to click than it is to remember all that in your head and type and spell names. I have a name that’s impossible, right? So I think those tools are so powerful and I’m just gonna encourage you as the listener if this, whether this is your first or your 500th introduction to this material. I promise you there is always more like another application scenario, another layer that you can kind of take through this. There’s things you can teach to your kids, to your spouse, to your colleagues that are so helpful in helping people stay in their right mind. Like when Michelle’s talking about your prefrontal cortex, we’re talking about that logical thinking mind as opposed to like your emotional reactive mind. And we want to be more, have more access to that more often.

I mean, who doesn’t, right? Then we wanna model that for the people around us. So I think there’s just been, I really appreciate Michelle, the practical nature of what you’re able to share when you can break these down to memorable things like movement, stillness, and play, right? When you can give people this visual of pressing against the wall in the bathroom to kind of push that anger somewhere, that it’s not locked in your body. Those are takeaways that I think people will have in their minds that they can really go and apply. So thanks for being with us today. I learned a lot and I’m so glad you were here.

MG:

Oh my goodness. Thanks for having me. So grateful.

CS:

Okay, that is all for today my friends. Till next time, let’s be brilliant.