Your Nervous System Isn’t Broken: Why You React, Shut Down, and Still Deserve to Feel Safe
You know those days when everything feels too much —
the noise, the mess, the endless needs —
and no matter how many deep breaths you take, your body just won’t calm down?
You start wondering, What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I handle life better?
Here’s the truth:
There’s nothing wrong with you.
Your nervous system is just doing its job.
We Don’t Live in Calm Mode — We Live in Survival Mode
Your nervous system’s job isn’t to keep you peaceful.
It’s to keep you safe.
It’s constantly scanning for cues of danger or safety — in your environment, your relationships, even your own thoughts.
And when it senses too much stress, uncertainty, or emotional intensity, it flips into survival mode.
That can look like:
Fight: snapping, yelling, trying to control everything.
Flight: over-functioning, staying busy, cleaning, scrolling.
Freeze: shutting down, numbing out, disconnecting.
None of these reactions mean you’re broken.
They mean your body is trying to protect you — the only way it knows how.
Motherhood often turns the volume up on all of it, because your nervous system isn’t just tracking your safety anymore. It’s tracking everyone else’s too.
The Myth of Constant Calm
We’ve been sold a lie: that healing means staying calm all the time.
That if we meditate enough, journal enough, or “think positive,” we’ll finally reach some permanent state of peace.
But your nervous system doesn’t work like that.
It’s designed to move.
It expands and contracts.
Energizes and rests.
Feels and releases.
Trying to stay calm forever is like asking your heart to only exhale.
Regulation isn’t about being still — it’s about knowing how to return to yourself after you’ve been thrown off course.
Why You Feel Like You’re Always “On”
When you’ve lived in stress for too long, your body starts believing that being “on” is safer than relaxing.
It normalizes the tension.
So even when life finally slows down, your system doesn’t trust it.
You sit down, and your body whispers, Don’t relax — something’s coming.
That’s not failure.
That’s your nervous system confusing stillness with danger.
And you can gently teach it otherwise — one breath, one tap, one safe moment at a time.
A Bit of Science (Made Simple)
When your brain senses a threat — a screaming toddler, a messy kitchen, an unresolved fight — your amygdala sends a danger signal to the rest of your body.
Adrenaline and cortisol flood your system.
Your heart rate rises, muscles tense, your breath shortens.
This all happens before your logical brain can catch up — which is why you “snap” or “shut down” before you can stop yourself.
It’s not lack of self-control. It’s biology.
EFT tapping, breathwork, and other somatic practices help because they send bottom-up signals to the brain that say, “We’re safe now. You can relax.”
Regulation Isn’t Always Pretty
We often imagine regulation as calm and graceful — sitting quietly, meditating, maybe lighting a candle.
But real regulation?
Sometimes it’s messy, loud, and wild.
The other day, I had so much energy in my body I couldn’t shake it.
It felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin.
In that moment, tapping wasn’t the answer — my body needed to move.
So I put on music.
I started dropping my heels into the floor — feeling the vibration move up my legs.
I shook my arms and head until they tingled.
Then I grabbed a pillow from the couch and started hitting it, using my voice — letting sound, breath, and energy move through me instead of bottling it up.
That’s not losing control.
That’s what release looks like.
That’s your body saying: “I need to discharge this before I can rest.”
Regulation isn’t about quieting everything down — it’s about letting what’s inside have somewhere safe to go.
Sometimes that looks like tapping.
Sometimes that looks like shaking, stomping, crying, or hitting a pillow until you can finally breathe again.
Your nervous system doesn’t want perfection.
It wants permission.
The Beauty of the Ebb and Flow
You weren’t meant to feel happy or calm all the time.
You were meant to feel.
Your nervous system, like the ocean, moves in waves — moments of chaos and moments of calm.
You don’t have to chase one or avoid the other.
You just have to trust that both belong.
When you stop fighting the ebb and flow, you stop pathologizing your humanity.
Because the goal isn’t constant calm.
It’s capacity — the ability to move through the waves and return to yourself without shame.
A Practice for When It Feels Like Too Much
The next time you feel like you’re spinning — snapping, escaping, or shutting down — try this:
Pause. Place one hand on your heart, one under your ribs.
Notice. What is my body trying to do for me right now? Protect me? Slow me down? Keep me safe?
Breathe. In through the nose, slow exhale through the mouth.
Choose what’s needed.
If the energy is high, move it: shake, stomp, sing, hit a pillow, dance it out.
If the energy is low, soothe it: tap gently, breathe deeply, wrap yourself in a blanket.
Then whisper to your body:
“You don’t have to hold it all.”
“It’s safe to soften.”
That moment of awareness — that tiny act of permission — is regulation.
You Don’t Need to Be Happy All the Time
You’re not broken for being overwhelmed.
You’re not failing because you still react.
You’re human — living in a body that’s constantly balancing between safety and survival.
The goal isn’t to erase those waves.
It’s to trust yourself to ride them.
Because real regulation isn’t calm — it’s connection.
It’s the knowing that even when your system is activated, you’re still safe to feel.
So let it move.
Let it be messy.
Let it be real.
You can cry, shake, yell, tap, breathe — and still be healing.
You can fall apart and come home to yourself in the same breath.
Your nervous system isn’t broken.
It’s brilliantly alive.