Why You Feel So Overwhelmed (It’s Your Nervous System, NOT You!)

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, reactive, or like something is “wrong” with you…this episode will completely change how you see yourself. In this episode, I share an interview I gave diving into the truth about emotional regulation, nervous system healing, and the real reason so many high-achieving moms feel stuck, burnt out, or constantly on edge.

Here’s the reframe most women have never been taught:
You’re not broken.
You’re not failing.
Your nervous system is doing exactly what it was wired to do.

The problem? Most of us were never taught how to work with our nervous system—only how to push through, perform, and suppress.

This episode is your permission slip to stop fighting yourself and finally understand what your body has been trying to tell you all along—because when you feel safe in your own body, EVERYTHING changes.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• What emotional regulation actually means. (It’s NOT staying calm all the time!)
• You don’t need to fix your life. You need to feel safe in it.
• Most high-achieving women are operating from trauma responses.
• Your body is constantly sending signals, you’ve just been trained to ignore them.
• Trying to avoid discomfort is what keeps you stuck.
• You can feel calm, even when your life is crazy chaotic!

FOR SO MUCH MORE:

Join the next round of my 6-week program, Moms Made NewTM so stress no longer sabotages you—or your relationships: https://momsmadenew.com 

Book a free consult to learn more about working with Dr. Amber 1:1: https://tidycal.com/solutionsforsimplicity/free-consult)

HOMEWORK:

Share your thoughts with me via email through the link in the show notes or DM me on Instagram @solutionsforsimplicity. 

COMING UP NEXT:

Join me back next Tuesday at 5am Eastern to keep unpacking the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy.

Loving this podcast? Please help it get found by more listeners by taking quick minute to leave a rating & review in Apple Podcasts. Take a screenshot of your text review before you submit it, then email that to help@solutionsforsimplicity.com and I'll send you my powerful Happy Mom Protocol™ (a $297 value) FOR FREE!

CONNECT WITH AMBER: Website | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn 

Ready to finally get to the root of your problems and change your life FOR GOOD? Book your free 60-minute consult to learn more about working 1:1 with Dr. Amber.

Transcript

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The goal of emotional regulation is not a flat line where you're calm and stable and undisturbed all of the time. Emotional regulation is allowing yourself to get activated when your nervous system perceives a real threat to make sure your nervous system is accurate in that perception and then respond accordingly, not respond disproportionately because of wounds and protective adaptations. Welcome to more time for mom. where overwhelmed moms get science-backed strategies to overcome the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy. I'm your host, Dr. Amber Curtis. Ready to make more time for you? Let's dive in. Over the past few episodes, we have talked a lot about stress, one of the main themes of this podcast. I was laughing to myself the other day because I never sought out to become a stress expert. It's only because stress has repeatedly taken such an extreme toll on me that I finally had it and started digging and digging for answers that have now made a world of difference and it's what I love sharing with you. It is never too late to recognize your stress patterns, reprogram your nervous system, heal your hidden wounds, and repair the relationships that stress has sabotaged, especially the one with yourself. I am telling you, everything, everything changes when you do this. To that point, you are about to hear an interview I gave outlining why it is so crucial that women learn to understand their nervous system and default stress responses. It is a must listen, but let me hopefully whet your appetite by giving you a few of the top takeaways up front. Number one, you don't need to fix your life. You need to feel safe in it. 2. Most high-achieving women are operating from trauma responses. 3. Your body is constantly sending you signals. You've just been trained to ignore them, and you will never overcome your stress until you learn to hear its messages. Number four, trying to fix or escape discomfort is what's keeping you stuck. And number five, you can feel calm even when your life is chaotic. If this or truly any of my episodes resonate with you, you have got to get into my Mom's Made New program. where I teach you the six most powerful life coaching skills to better understand your brain and body so stress no longer dictates or derails your life. Doors to the next round are just about to open for three days only. So go to MomsMadeNew.com or check out the link in the show notes. On with the interview. Hey, Dr. Curtis, welcome to the Owning Her Authority Summit. But I should say welcome back because you've been in I think every summit I've had. It's been so fun to collaborate. So welcome, Amber. Thank you so much. I'm so thrilled to be here. And I love that if anyone has been following along on your summits, as they should have been, they will maybe notice quite a transformation and evolution in what I'm talking about now versus some of the things I was really promoting in the past. And I love that this is what we do, right? We live, we learn, we grow, and then we can't wait to shout from the rooftops what is making a difference for us. Yes, I love that so much. Yeah, I think this, like, this permission to evolve is so needed. And all that to say that, friends, for you listening, you don't need us to give you permission. But if you're in a season where you're like, I do actually need somebody to give me permission, then this is your permission sled, this whole conversation about just owning your evolution, giving yourself that agency back and getting to learn from two women who are no stranger to reinventing ourselves, to giving ourselves permission to continue learning and growing. So Amber, I would love to hear for anybody who's listening who maybe hasn't heard some of our past conversations and they don't know your story. Can you just tell us a little bit about who you are, what you're all about, maybe a little bit of that evolution story that you've gone through in the last couple of years and who is it that you support and serve in this work that you do? you I am a crazy person in the sense that I just love doing all the things. As we will get into, I now realize how much of that is actually rooted in a trauma response. But there is now, even after years of healing, this deep, multi-passionate desire to be a wife, be a mom, share what I've learned the hard way, and through years of research as a certified life coach, I am also a professor by day. I have over 15 years experience as a behavioral science professor and I love, I'm a nerd about neuroscience, ecology, why we do what we do, and I love helping overwhelmed women get to the root of their stress. and really realize why all of the standard productivity, time management, and even mindset hacks don't actually help. They only go so far. I spent many years trying to find the thing that was going to help me balance my life and do it all so perfectly. And as I look back, I was just really trying to avoid discomfort. I thought something was wrong with me. Anytime my life was messy, I took every quote-unquote failure so personally. All of that was spilling over into who I was able to be at home. So, of course, having kids. I have four young boys. And There is nothing like having children to bring you face to face with your deepest wounds and honestly the child you were not allowed to be. So that's the beginning of the healing journey I've been on, still in the thick of it, still evolving, but I just can't wait to get more into some of these huge realizations and tools that have made a world of difference for me. I love that so much. You guys can't see me because of the podcast, but I'm like madding along, like vigorously as Amber is sharing, because that's been so true for my journey as well in terms of parenting. So much of it has been reparenting my own inner child and learning what she needed and maybe didn't get at the time or giving myself permission to say like, okay, maybe this habit or this thing that you did was protective. when you were a child, but maybe things are different now. And what if you can let that response go? Or what if you can create this new opportunity for yourself? So I love that you've been really embracing this, the messiness of it, right? Like, which makes me giggle because my office right now, we're recording before the holidays, guys. My office is Santa's workshop. And like, there's literally stuff everywhere. And the theme, you can't see the other half of him. This is the beautiful inner work, right? It's not changing our circumstances. I spent so many years and I constantly work with women who have been led to believe they need everything outside of them to be a certain way in order for them to be okay. We need everybody else to feel good and happy. We need the house to be perfectly tidy and organized. We need our kids to be little angels and You know, we need everything to be calm and peaceful. And the real inner work is learning to find that and create that in yourself, even when your circumstances stay the same and chaos is swirling around you. It's a superpower. Yes, I love that. Well, and I love that a big part of what you're teaching, especially now, as you've moved through these recent evolutions, is learning to work with yourself, your body, your mind, your heart, all the things, instead of against it. And I, I find this so refreshing, because I think for a long time in this personal growth space, It almost felt like there was this underlying assumption that there was something wrong with us that needed fixing. And when you start off from the point of view of, like, there's something wrong with me, like, well, one, that feels shitty. And two, like, it's not a very empowered place to start from. No. What's that journey been like for you? Is that something that you kind of explored on your own and now you get to see it in the lives of the women that you work with? Like, what did that look like? As I look back on my journey, I can see these very clear dividing moments that changed and really unlocked or unleashed a whole new perspective for me. And so, you know, I was actually calculating a few weeks ago the number of different versions of myself I think I've been. Oh, I love that post. Yeah, I read that entire post and was like, Amber, this is So beautiful, it's so many golden nuggets, and it was so vulnerable. Well, and obviously I'm the same person. There is still each version inside of me, but the prior versions of me could never have known, let alone felt, in my body. What I now do so I mean first off was the innocent good little girl Who was just trying to make her parents happy there were a lot of hard things in my childhood Even though it was still really good. I think this is where a lot of women need permission to speak up and acknowledge that even if they had great parents who were well-intentioned and they know now as an adult how hard it is to be a parent and keep your composure or whatever else, even though we can appreciate what our parents were doing, We can also validate that things took a toll on us and that our little nervous systems began to interpret the world in a way that caused us to create these protective adaptations that then permeated the rest of our lives, just as you were saying. So I was first the good little girl that then turned into this crazy high achiever and really solidified my worth in my accomplishments. I feel like this is definitely what got me attention and praise from my parents or from teachers, from even my, my boyfriend, who is then now been my husband for almost 20 years. And it's like all the things that got me validation, again, they were they were rooted in doing, and they were, I now see, just this deep attempt to prove that I was enough. And then there came a time where I couldn't perform up to those same standards. A lot of big changes happened all at once the same year I became a mother. And I wanted so badly to be the perfect mom that I really set myself up for, we'll call it failure. And I know there's no such thing as failure, but again, that's how it felt to me at that time. Sparing all the dark details, I ended up suicidal with very severe postpartum depression. And then after getting help from that, rebounded enough to realize, like, life is just challenging. I want to be resilient. But I became convinced that the solution was managing my time, having the perfect planner, Implementing the perfect productivity strategy and i just been as much of the personal development and body content as i could. You can even go back on my youtube channel and see these hundreds of videos that i made sharing what i learned with the world because i was so sure that was the answer. And now I laugh, but again, I leave the videos up because they are what so many women are still looking for. And that is the segue to then start to uncover that while those things help, they don't solve the root problems. And so then I had a lot of really hard family things happen a couple years ago, losing a lot of loved ones, with my mother in particular passing away at the same time that I had just had my fourth baby. And I was so physically burnt out. very unfamiliar with the degree of guilt, not guilt, excuse me, the degree of grief that I felt. And I had also needed to go, I got to go and be with my mother in the week she was passing away, which then completely severed my connection with my fourth child. And I'm still kind of trying to repair and reconnect after all these years. There was just an overflow of emotions. And I had never learned how to actually process and feel my feelings. I still didn't in that moment. I jumped back into fix it mode. What's the solution? What's just going to take away the psychological and physical discomfort that I'm feeling? And in that moment, I found all the mindset advice. And you just need to be grateful and think positively and repeat these affirmations on a regular basis. And those are such well-intentioned pieces of advice. And I did all of that, but I still felt hollow inside. And I still continue to have a lot of stress in my daily life. I still continue to have these moments of what I call mom rage, where I would have bottled up my frustrations for so long that then all of a sudden I would just snap at my husband and kitten. And then I would feel so horribly guilty and ashamed. And then I would want to self-abandon all the more and just do that much more for other people as a way of saying, I'm sorry. I, again, like the mindset work wasn't sticking. It wasn't taking root in my mind. And I'm like, why is this not working? All the while, every time something quote unquote failed, or I felt like I wasn't good enough, what did I do? I took on something else. I added to the number of plates I was spinning as a way of trying to feel important, trying to be needed, trying to find my worth in what I was doing because that's how my brain had been wired from a young age. And it's only been in the last year and a half that I've now realized how much our nervous system plays into all of our life experiences, but then how the way our nervous system got wired in childhood continues to show up and affect us without us ever even realizing it in the present moment. So when you get triggered, when we can't handle our kids' emotions, right? When we are so stressed about the potential consequences of missing a work deadline or making someone upset, right? It is our default stress response coming out in those moments because our brain and nervous system are just continuing to act out. the past patterns of perceived threat that made us think our safety and our worth were at stake. And they're not, right? But we get to learn to create our own safety and then expand our capacity. So I have spent this year getting certified as a neurosomatic expert, which is just an empty lingo for understanding the brain, and the somatization, the way that emotional feelings take effect as physical symptoms in our body, how the brain and the body communicate, how to, again, like really work with neuroplasticity to help your brain realize you are safe and you can do so much, but you don't have to. And this is making my life. Some people are probably listening and thinking, I knew that, like, I don't have this problem. And to those people, I'm so in awe. I've also seen how much my journey resonates with many, many, many other people. And so, you know, all of my clients, they are so like me, they are typical eldest daughters. They have maybe been realizing as I have that we have high functioning anxiety. I never even knew that was a thing. But again, we've just slowly started to realize that all of the default tendencies we've taken on and we've acted out our entire life, right? Who we were. is all based on perceived threat, trying to seek other people's approval, trying to externalize our worth to outside sources. And it's so incredible to help women start to reclaim that, just as you were doing with all of your owning her authority work. I love it. Oh, I love that, Amber. Well, I really appreciate you walking us through those different versions of yourself, right? And also saying, like, they're all still inside of you, right? And I've done the same thing in writing my book, really. I looked back on my life up to that point and was really thinking about, like, these different chapters, no pun intended, of my life, right? I'm like, okay, this chapter and then this chapter. And what did I learn from that? And what did I pull forward with me? And what did and sometimes more importantly, what did I release and leave behind? And oh my gosh, I have so many notes for what you just shared. But I in particular, that the thing that one of the things that you said that I really appreciated was going into fix it mode, right? And feeling like If we weren't taught how to process these things that happen, right, these seasons of grief or challenges or, you know, whatever the thing is, we just go into fix-it mode. We just keep moving, moving, moving, moving, moving, and we never actually flow down. And for some of the people listening to this summit right now, and I used to be one of you, like the idea of slowing down, I was like, oh God, it gave me like hives. Right? Like, yeah, it shows up and you feel it. Yeah. And if it wasn't ever modeled for you, especially, you don't even know what that looks like. And I've actually learned from my husband, like how to relax. Like, and it's been such a gift getting to learn that and in adulthood now being like, you know what, like, I could read this book for 30 minutes and really enjoy it. And it's okay that my kitchen's a mess right now. But like, this is going to help me reset and come back to center and slow down and get the monkey chatter in my mind to go away. So I love that you touched on that. But one of the things I also appreciate, when you brought up the nervous system, the word I wrote down was awareness. That up until that point, if you don't have the awareness around it, you don't even know that it's something that you could start to lean into, right? But now that you have that, and you're starting to work with it instead of against it, I mean, I can see is just this beautiful shift in you and the way that you're showing up in the world and the content you're sharing and like, we started a podcast like it's so cool, like, when we really get to step into our authority, but we're doing it in a way that works with us and not like, There's nothing worse than feeling like you're hitting your head against a wall constantly. And sometimes we have to think about like, what season of life am I in? What does my body need? What does my mind need? And I love that you bring that up. So can you talk to us a little bit more about this idea of, I loved how you said at the very end, that you don't have to do all the things. And for us Elvis daughters, it's so hard to be like, wait, I should say no to this, quote, opportunity. It feels terrible initially in your body, but I also want to quickly mention that it is so unbelievably freeing. How do I even describe it? To realize that there is nothing wrong with you and becoming aware that you have a nervous system. Everybody kind of knows that they do, but the more you realize how the nervous system works and what its real purpose is and how your brain was designed and how your body is always just trying to send you gentle signals, but you've been trained to ignore and suppress them, right? When you realize all of that and you have language to then really apply to all of your past experiences, It's just so profound. And it's not about looking back to point fingers and blame at, you know, maybe our parents or these other traumatic circumstances. I work a lot with clients on this concept of complex trauma, healing from complex trauma. And it doesn't have to be a big traumatic event that made your brain get wired a certain way. In fact, the much more common situation is that we just kind of grew up in a high stress environment. an environment that our brain perceived as stressful. Whether it was actually stressful or not doesn't matter, right? It's all about what your brain is interpreting and then the protective adaptations it took on. So yes, this clarity is so, so freeing. And then we realize how, like we just start to become so much more aware of the sensations our body is offering us at all times. I know you and so many other women will resonate with this, where we have almost never stopped to listen to our bodies. We have trained ourselves to push through, to do the sleepless nights, to, I hate to say it, but I mean, I used to pop Advil on a very regular basis. I don't have time to have a headache. I don't have time to get sick. I've got to be on all the time, was what I thought. Yeah. Instead of realizing that every little ache, every piece of tension, every, um, butterfly in your stomach is a message that you're not feeling safe in that moment. And so we got to stop and ask ourselves, well, what, what does it take for me to feel safe? Who is responsible for my safety? And then we realized that wanting to do more and more. is just distracting ourselves from the real inner work that is going to create lasting peace and safety. I'm just having the most wonderful call with a client yesterday, and she's got so many young kids, and she gets so frustrated because she wakes up and wants to have time to get herself ready before the kids are all over her. And oh my goodness, that's my life too, right? And we were talking about very simple, practical strategies that she could implement to try and ensure that she would have that time. But I really got her thinking about how that's not going to solve the real inner sensations you feel in those moments, right? Our work, our opportunity. I don't love the word work because it feels hard and difficult, right? But the opportunity waiting for you is to Find your peace and calm, no matter what chaos is swirling around you, without making it wrong, without waiting or needing the chaos to change in order for you to feel better. And then showing up as the calm, stable presence that is going to help everyone else feel more calm as well. And it was so great because we landed on this phrase that you don't need a change of circumstances. You just need a change of heart. And so true, right? Because we actually have so many neurons in our heart and that many more in our gut. And really, like, the cutting edge science of all of this is so incredibly fascinating. I just love that we're living in a day and age where we get to be aware of what's happening under the hood. I love that so much. I love that we are equal nerds. This is the kind of stuff that I find absolutely fascinating. And I love that you've gone on this journey of becoming the neurosomatic expert that you are, because there's so much value for us to learn. And sometimes we need someone like you who can take the science and then put it in our vernacular, right? Not everybody can sit down and read the scholarly articles or whatever the case may be. Sometimes we need somebody to be like, OK, what does that mean in my actual life, practically speaking? And I think that's part of what you do so beautifully. As you were sharing that story about the client you were working with, the word came to mind for me of Keystone. I'm like, yeah, I live in Pennsylvania, where the Keystone State, so maybe it's just because I see it on the highway all the time. But this idea that the mom, especially for those who are listening who have chosen to be parents, you're kind of the Keystone when it comes to, at least in our family, like I'm the touchstone for the kids and the organizer of things and the creator of the magic. And if I don't care for myself, they feel that right they see that they experience that and it can feel I know it's like so tried to say like self-care isn't selfish but like it's not because you have like if you don't take like wild agency for your experience of life including caring for yourself and working with your nervous system instead of against it, like literally nobody else can do that for you. Nobody can be like, okay, it looks like you're feeling a little stressed, a little overwhelmed. Have you taken a moment to like shower today or like rest or like maybe don't drink that third cup of coffee because it's going to give you the jitters. And you know, like that's our responsibility. Can you, can you speak to that a little bit? Because I think So often we look outside of ourselves for the fix. And it seems to me that with a lot of this work, it's internal. And I find that time and time again with the podcasters that I talk to, we're all like, we bring you in with this thing that looks fun and exciting and maybe a little shiny. And then it's like, it's the inner work. And I want to tread so gently here because what I'm about to say can feel on the surface like added pressure. That is not my intention. If anything, I want you to be filled with such passion for accepting the opportunity to work on yourself. The great mission on my heart is to help mothers realize that they are the emotional regulators of their household. No one prepared us for motherhood, right? I know that each of us had our own version of feeling so caught off guard, maybe even slapped in the face by what a brutal reality motherhood is. It is the most wonderful thing in the world and it is the most confronting thing in the world because it brings up all of our triggers and all of these parts of us we didn't even know we had. Yeah. And the real truth is that one of the most fundamental needs every person has is that sense of love and belonging, right? The social connection, the social acceptance. And our children are looking for that from us, but we were never taught that for ourselves. If you grew up in my generation and certainly the generations prior, the parenting philosophies were so different. This kind of knowledge and wisdom was not available and it has taken a toll on us. It was ingrained in our nervous systems that our job was to keep our parents happy or mediate conflict and try and perform and so forth. What mothers get to do. is model for their children what it is like to take radical responsibility for your own happiness and not happiness in the fleeting. Oh, I'm so I feel so good and excited and positive. but more of that lasting, enduring joy, knowing that you don't need anyone or anything to be okay. You create those feelings for yourself, and you have full range of ability to feel and process every emotion, good or bad, positive or negative. We were trained from a young age that negative emotions are not allowed. They are so socially undesirable that they were shut down in us. We might've been ignored. We might've, you know, the classic refrain, um, you know, just dry your eyes, or I'll give you something to cry about. Like, we were not taught that emotions are okay. And so, because we never learned to tolerate hard emotions in our body, or even really good emotions in our body either, right? Like, we just are living, most women are living in this very narrow band of emotional expression. And they have been led to think it is wrong anytime they feel a negative emotion like anger, frustration, sadness, grief, guilt, like. Really, like we get this chance to learn how to feel and process emotions as the signals, the vibrations that they are in our body, calling us to learn a lesson and live a more deep, fulfilling human experience. We can't know the amazing. without the horrible. And the goal of emotional regulation is not a flat line where you're calm and stable and undisturbed all of the time. Emotional regulation is allowing yourself to get activated when your nervous system perceives a real threat to make sure your nervous system is accurate in that perception. And then, you know, respond accordingly, not respond disproportionately because of wounds and protective adaptations. And then also allow yourself to feel the deep despair of whatever comes your way as well, but be able to then integrate tools to modulate out of that and not get stuck in the dark place that I did years and years ago. No one ever taught us how to do this. And now, mothers need to know how to do it for themselves so they can model it for their children. Otherwise, we are just going to perpetuate the generational wounds to our children. where we are invalidating their emotions because they make us feel uncomfortable in our body, right? Yeah. How many women are like, you could feel it now as I describe it. Your child is screaming in the checkout line at the grocery store and you have all these eyes on you. You know, you assume they're thinking you're a horrible mother because your child is out of control. That's not what's actually happening inside the child's brain. And the child is looking to you to let them know you still love them for who they are, regardless of what they feel and that they can feel how they feel without losing connection from you. Yes. Right, that your love isn't conditional. Exactly. Exactly. But in order to give that to our children, we have to first cultivate it for ourselves and find our true worth in who we were made to be, right? Not in our purpose for, for productivity or performance or people pleasing any of those other things. Just you are amazing and incredible and so full of priceless worth by virtue of being born. Yeah. So when moms know how to do this, when you take radical responsibility for your own happiness, you're able to show up so different for your family. And then it doesn't mean that life is perfect and your kids never get upset or you don't still fight with your husband. Or you don't have stressful moments and things don't still feel out of control. They absolutely do. But you are different in the midst of it. And again, you get in and out of those things so much faster instead of getting stuck and making it mean that anything is wrong with you when they happen. And the reason all of this, I'm sorry, this is so long-winded, but you can tell. Oh, I love this. I'm so passionate about this. I'm nodding along. Repri, mom needs to hear this message. We have to do this, not just for ourselves, but because mothers' well-being, your mental, emotional, and physical health, is the number one predictor of your kids' future well-being. And each one of us is the walking evidence of that from our own parents. But research really does underscore that mothers play this unparalleled role as the emotional regulators of our home. And one incredible opportunity to evolve and love yourself and then be so full of love that you can't wait to pour that out to the world, especially in your own home. Again, this is a podcast, you can't see my face. But man, I'm just on fire to spread this message, and I'm really wanting every mother to hear it. So thank you for this opportunity to share it. Oh my gosh, I love this so much. Now I am like taking copious notes as you're sharing, because so much of this resonates. And I love this idea, you said, of radical responsibility for our happiness. It's just something really beautiful about giving yourself permission to be curious, giving yourself permission to say, like, I am inherently worthy of pursuing things that bring me happiness, that make me feel joyful, that give me this sense of fulfillment. Just for the sake of that, without that, you know, for those of us who were raised to believe that our worth was tied to our doing, our productivity, that can be so hard. to be like, but what's the end thing? You know, and it's like, what do you show for your time? Exactly. And it's like, no, it's it's the joy. It's the smile. It's the feeling of connection. Yeah, exactly. So, Amber, I'm curious, like, what would you say to the woman who hears this? And she's like, I hear you like. She's like, I don't want to parent maybe the way that I was parented. I don't want to continue perpetuating some of these things that are perceived as like, not beneficial for my kids or myself. But she just feels like, she's like, I don't even know where to start. There's so many recommendations online. There's like a million quote experts that tell you 25,000 different things to do, right? But the value of a summit to me is that you bring together very specific experts in very different fields and you get to listen to a bunch of episodes and you get to choose like one episode or two episodes a day where you're like, oh, that's what I'm going to implement from this. And I always tell people, I'm like, don't listen to every episode. It's like that drops in one day. Like that's too much. Just pick one. Just pick a couple that really resonate and then implement what you heard or implement the golden nugget that you took from that conversation. So for the woman who's like, Amber's episode spoke to me that just the title of it alone made me press play. Right. Where do you tell her to start if she feels like kind of overwhelmed by all of this? That's a good question. We start with acknowledging that we don't like how we have felt up to this point. Hmm. and getting curious, not judgmental, but curious about why we do what we do and why we think our problems are problems. How do we tend to respond when we get stressed? What are your triggers? What is your default response in that moment? And just start to notice your patterns. I am a statistics nerd and data driven and I wouldn't say other moms need to do this, but you can definitely track. what happens and how it feels in your body and how you respond and just trying to go through the day with eyes open, awareness of your default tendencies is going to bring you face to face with some of these protective adaptations that then you get to question Do you want to go into the past work of where did it come from and healing the wounds? And I highly recommend you do. But also, you don't need to dig around in the past to just start working on your nervous system now. There are so many neurosomatic tools that I love to share with women to help you just better integrate your brain and your body so that those messages being sent back and forth are interpreted accurately, clearly, and with the proper strength. We don't have to change our life with any specific tactic, We need to learn how to create safety and capacity in our nervous system. And we can, again, we can do that without directly healing past wounds, although that is so valuable. And I love to do that with women, but you can still start now to just really try and get in touch with these signals. So women are more than welcome to reach out if they want to learn more of what those are. And I know you're probably about to ask this, so I don't mean to jump the gun, but I am so passionate about other moms knowing the importance of this work. You put yourself at the very end of your to-do list, on the back burner. You want so badly for someone to notice and take care of you, but in the meantime, you are so busy taking care of everyone else that you don't even take care of yourself. You don't even allow yourself to have needs. Because you're trying so beautifully and selflessly to give to those you love. As I learned the hard way multiple times. that the cliche is so true but so trite, right? That you can't pour from an empty cup. But we enlarge our proverbial cup by expanding our capacity to hold all emotions and process through them with this nervous system work and then reach out to me because of course, I would love to work one-on-one or in any way that I can with another journey. Oh, I love that, Amber. Conversations like this are like pinch me moments where it's like, I can't believe I get to sit here, hear this from you in real time, and to get to learn from women like you who are not just like talking the talk, but also walking the walk, right? Like these are things that you have studied. These are things that you have taught. These are things that you have evaluated in your own life and implemented and tweaked and, you know, all the things. And I think there's There's so much value in getting to learn from women who are a few steps ahead of us on whatever journey that is, whether that's your nervous system regulation journey, whether that's your entrepreneurial journey, like your self-confidence journey, right? And I just like so appreciate having you to just reach a hand back to the woman that you used to be, usually only a handful of years before, and to be like, you're not alone. You don't have to do this by yourself. And like, you don't have to be an island. And so I love that. Yes, I know firsthand that there is nothing that fast tracks your transformation as much as sitting down with an outside objective. Yes. Source, especially someone that really is skilled and trained in things you are not right to help you see the world from a whole new perspective. And so I have a simple but signature process. To sit down and really get to the root of your stress, whatever it is. And I love helping women just kind of open their minds to a whole new way of thinking and then again start to incorporate this nervous system work. Because the reality is that every single nervous system is unique. All of the things that you could read or learn about the nervous system, they're really enlightening, but they might not actually be applicable to you. Every nervous system is an N of 1, as we say in the statistics world. There is no one that has had your experience, that has your brain patterns, that has your neurochemical composition. And that's just the beginning of some of the things I am trained and starting to pick up on and help bring to your attention. And again, offer some very simple, really helpful tools. I can't wait to get into it. My husband will be the first, he always is, the first to say that I am a wholly different person this year after doing this work myself. So yes, my honor and privilege. If you want to learn more about this work or talk more about your situation, so welcome to reach out. I love that so much. Oh my goodness. It's just amazing when you get to see people. in their zone of genius. And when you have conversations like this, and you're sharing the way that you do, I'm like, oh, yeah, Amber is doing exactly what she is supposed to be doing right in this season in her life on this earth. And it's just so beautiful. And Amber, for everybody who's listening, and they're like, I need to get connected with her. I want to tune into her podcast, follow her over on Instagram. Can you just tell us where are the places to find and connect with you? And again, friends, we're going to link to all this in the episode description. So just scroll on down to get connected. I would love to get connected further. My website is solutionsforsimplicity.com. I have the More Time for Mom podcast, and you can just go to moretimeformom.com to access that. I delve so much into all of this neuroscience and high-functioning anxiety and other big root dimensions to mom stress and overwhelm in the podcast, so tons of great free content there. And then on Instagram, I'm at solutions for simplicity. When I started my business, my goal was to help women simplify their lives. And that definitely still applies, but much less so in the standard, like minimalism organization sense kind of realm as in just having simplicity and peace of mind. I realized that all women are going to get to a point, whether they choose it and embrace it themselves or it is thrust upon them, but we will all reach a point in our life where what was working and serving us no longer is. And you can resist that, or you can really dive deep into who you are being invited to be moving forward, And we don't have the answers, but it's not about having the answers. It's about trusting ourselves. I'm just so grateful to you for lending your expertise, your wisdom, and your love to this event. So thank you so much for being here, sweet friend. Thank you, Kate. I'm so grateful. I know more than anyone how precious your time is, so the fact that you spent it listening to this podcast means the world. Make sure to subscribe, and if you got value out of this show, I would be so honored if you'd leave a review and share this episode with another busy mama who needs to hear it. We've got this.