(#82) The Strength in Stillness: Nervous System Regulation Through Stillness, Rest, and Self-Compassion

What if true strength isn’t about pushing harder—but learning how to soften, rest, and listen to your body?

In this soul-soothing episode of Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women, Rae explores how softness and stillness are not weaknesses, but powerful somatic tools for nervous system regulation, emotional resilience, and inner trust. If you're tired of the hustle, overachieving, or people-pleasing your way through life, this is your invitation to reclaim presence and strength on your own terms.

You’ll hear about:

🌱 What “somatic strength” actually feels like in the body

🌱 The nervous system’s capacity for both activation and gentleness

🌱 How to identify where rest feels most accessible (and why that matters)

🌱 Real examples of shifting from burnout to embodiment

🌱 Somatic tools for nervous system regulation: sighing, humming, swaying, breathwork

🌱 A permission slip to rest (plus a poem to anchor the reminder)

🌱 Why women are often taught to survive through tension—and how we can begin to unravel that

This episode is a reminder that healing doesn’t always mean doing more. Sometimes, it looks like placing a hand over your heart, breathing deeply, and simply being with yourself.

🧘‍♀️ Mentioned: Upcoming events — check the events calendar here.

Poem by Nicola on Instagram

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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to the podcast.
If you are new here, I'm Rae,I'm a somatic coach and
breathwork facilitator, and ifyou aren't new here, I'm so glad
that you're tuning in fortoday's episode.
So one front desk item beforewe dive in.
There are a few differentevents that I'll be hosting over
the upcoming months.

(00:24):
So there are two in June andone in September and another one
in October.
So if you want to check out anyof the events, I'll leave a
link in the show notes and youcan kind of dive into each one
and see if one speaks to you andif it does, I hope to see you
at an event upcoming soon.

(00:45):
So for today's topic, we'regoing to be talking about the
nervous system and how we canfind a sense of strength and
presence and power, like aninner power, when we allow
ourselves the permission topause, the permission to relax

(01:08):
and find this kind of softnessand gentleness in being with
ourselves and allowing the bodyto really find that place of
stillness.
So before we dive in, I want toinvite us to take a moment to
pause and if you are driving, ofcourse do not close your eyes,

(01:28):
but if you aren't, feel free to.
You know, take a moment here toclose your eyes.
I'm going to just take threedeep breaths.
So I'm going to invite you totake a deep breath in through
the nose and out through themouth, taking one more deep
breath in through the nose andout through the mouth and taking

(01:58):
one more deep breath, just likethat, at your pace and as we
move into today's episode.
That's kind of just a littletaste of what it feels like when

(02:22):
we allow ourselves thepermission, the time to pause
and be still.
And oftentimes in our culture weare defined by how much
strength or force we can putinto our day-to-day lives, and

(02:42):
that can look like doing more.
That can look like staying verybusy, powering through, never
allowing ourselves to rest.
It can look like a lot of forceand just a lot of like forward
momentum instead of reallyfeeling present, really feeling
grounded and really feeling thesafety really to feel still.

(03:05):
But what if this conditioningthat we've received around force
and strength and power, what ifthat strength was accessible
but was more quiet?
What if you could still bestrong and powerful but also

(03:26):
have this deep, quiet power?
And society and conditioningmay have raised us to believe
that the harder we push and themore that we force and making
things happen throughcontrolling things is a way to

(03:46):
be strong and be powerful, and Ishared a little bit about this
on previous episodes, but I knowfor myself.
Previously I received a lot oflove and praise through
performance as an athlete, andthere was a lot of.
When you're an athlete, it'slike how hard can you push to

(04:08):
succeed?
And it was a lot of ignoringthe body and ignoring, um, yeah,
your needs really, because yourgoal was really forced or I
mean, was really focused arounda lot of force and pushing.
But there is another option.
There is another option when itcomes to the relationships that

(04:29):
we have with ourselves and ourbodies and a way of being
somatically resilient.
So being resilient in the body,that is really allowing
yourself, yeah, the presence, tobe still and to rest, and it
can show up as how we meetourselves with compassion,

(04:52):
understanding emotion, havingboundaries, communicating our
needs.
All of these things can takeawareness, stillness and
gentleness.
There isn't much force when itcomes to being
self-compassionate.
It's a very like tender, gentleenergy and it means that our

(05:14):
nervous systems can really havethe capacity to access and
process an activation, somethingthat's arising, and also be
gentle and soft and experiencethe whole range of the human
emotion and sensation andfeeling.
So what does feeling?

(05:38):
Stillness, presence, gentleness.
What does it feel like in thebody?
And it can feel and look like alot of different things.
It can look like checking inwith your heart, checking in
with how your heart feels today,how your heart is showing up
today, maybe opening your heart.
It can look like grounding yourfeet into the earth, so really

(06:00):
feeling the bottom of the solesof your feet on the earth, on
the ground, and you can sendyour energy even down into the
earth if that feels good.
It can look like taking a fewgentle breaths, so, just like we
did in the beginning of thisepisode, it looked like taking a
few deep breaths, allowingyourself to pause.
It can look like relaxing yourjaw, so a lot of our tension can

(06:25):
be held in the jaw.
It's one of my favorite cues ina meditation or a breath work.
It's like oh yeah, I forgotthat I was clenching my mouth.
I should release that.
It can look like cultivatingsafety in the nervous system, in
the body, to be fully withyourself, fully with your

(06:47):
experience, without the need tochange or prove anything.
So what does your nervoussystem need to feel like it can
relax, to feel like it can be atease, to feel like it can
exhale and where in your bodydoes rest feel most accessible?

(07:09):
And where in your body doesrest feel most accessible, so
does it feel like you can reallyrelax when you're in the chest,
like in the shoulders, in thebelly, and sometimes if you move
towards where things are tenseand send it some awareness and

(07:29):
some breath, it can become morerelaxed.
And maybe that is one of yourmore relaxed places somatically
in the body.
So kind of checking in,checking in with the body and
how it feels.
And oftentimes many women havebeen taught to survive really
through people pleasing, throughmasking or through pushing and
overachieving, and it can bereally challenging to shift from

(07:52):
these patterns.
They could be patterns thatwe've had for a very long time
and maybe we're just coming intoawareness with them now, and so
shifting from these patternscan look like again really
getting in touch with the body,regulating your nervous system.
It can also look like saying nomore often, so really setting

(08:13):
boundaries with love in acompassionate way.
It can look like lettingyourself emotionally release
through crying.
So emotional release crying insociety is definitely seen as
like a form of weakness or ifsomething is wrong, but crying

(08:33):
and emotional release isactually a form of nervous
system regulation, trying toself-regulate the body, and it
can look like rest, so restingwhen you need to.
And there is a poem that I wantto read you from this woman who
you may have heard of.
She's her name is Nicola JaneHobbs and she's writing a book

(08:58):
called the Relaxed Woman.
I don't think it came out yet,but she is popular on Instagram
and she writes a lot about restand what it's like to be a
relaxed woman.
So she has a lot of differentkind of like poetry pieces that
you can pick from if you do goto her page, but I just picked

(09:18):
one.
It was hard to choose, but Ipicked one.
So this is called how to Restwhen there is no Time to Rest.
So if you're feeling likeoverwhelmed, your schedule is is
packed.
This poem is for you how torest when there is no time to
rest.
Slowly moisturize your face,slowly peel an orange, look at
the clouds, look at the moon,look at the flowers.

(09:41):
Going through the cracks inyour pavement, feel the ground
beneath your feet, smellsomething.
Stretch your arms overhead.
Smile softly, let your gazewiden, wash up the dishes to
your favorite songs, savor thefirst sip of coffee, turn your
face towards the sun, speak onesentence of self-compassion.

(10:03):
Let your belly expand as youinhale.
Exhale as if you've beenblowing through a straw.
Change into cozy clothing, lieon the floor for one minute and
let the earth hold you, humgently, touch something alive a
leaf, a tree, a dandelion, aloved one, your pulse, your

(10:24):
breath, your heart.
And I love this little poem byNicole.
And can you allow yourself torest?
Can you allow yourself thepermission to pause to find some
stillness?
In the poem that she writes,she yeah, she talks about these
like micro moments.

(10:45):
So oftentimes, when it comes tofeeling burnt out or pushing
past our limits, we can be sofar past what our nervous system
capacity is.
It's like complete overwhelm.
And I love that she talks aboutthese tiny, tiny moments.
It's like it's the small thingsthat can bring us that sense of

(11:06):
stillness, that sense of restand rejuvenation.
Us that sense of stillness,that sense of rest and
rejuvenation, and I can alsoshare.
For me, in terms of allowingmyself the ability to relax,
this has been like a lifelonglesson and I'm very used to
having my schedule jam-packedwith things, and it's something
that I still work on finding,like that balance between what

(11:32):
my yeah, what my capacity is andhow much stimulation I want and
how much I have and and thingslike that.
So I found that this lesson inparticular has been so impactful
in terms of understanding evenanxiety and emotions and what's
coming up, because when youallow yourself the stillness and

(11:55):
the rest, you're reallyallowing yourself to pause and
be in your body and from thatplace there's so much more
information there for us toreceive, from this place of
relaxation.
So when it comes to, yeah,tending to your nervous system
and listening to your body, youreally just want to move at your
pace.
You want to check in with you,know each part of your

(12:17):
experience the mind, the body,the heart, the soul, how
everything might be feeling andshowing up, and see what it's
communicating to you.
But really asking, askingyourself, what does my nervous
system need, what does my bodyneed?
And if I were to invite alittle bit of softness into my
day, into my moment, what wouldit look like for me?

(12:39):
And how could I make some timefor true rest, true relaxation,
true restoring the, the body formyself today or this week, and
that is what we have for today'sepisode.
So I hope that you enjoyedtoday's episode all about rest
and stillness and presence, andif any of this spoke to you, all

(13:05):
of the events that are upcomingwould be, you know, a great
extension of what we talkedabout today.
So definitely check out theshow notes, check out some of
those events.
I hope to see you at anupcoming event and, yeah, I hope
you have an incredible rest ofyour day, an incredible rest of
your week, and I will talk toyou soon.
Thank you for being here andtuning in to somatic healing for

(13:29):
wellness focused women podcast,if you were moved or inspired
by today's episode.
Thank you for being here andtuning in to Somatic Healing for
Wellness-Focused Women podcast,if you were moved or inspired
by today's episode.
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(13:51):
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