Resetting Your Nervous System When You're Anxious, Hurting, or Just Powering Through | Johanna Franzel
Johanna Franzel, a somatic practitioner and author, guides listeners on regulating their nervous system and cultivating embodied awareness. She shares practices like 'inventory' and 'resource' to find calm, navigate chronic illness, and foster self-compassion.
Deep Dive Analysis
15 Topic Outline
Understanding Nervous System Over-Activation
The Challenge of Embodied Awareness
Johanna Franzel's Journey with Chronic Illness
Defining Somatic Practice and Embodied Awareness
Living with Chronic Illness and Honesty About Margins
Shifting Focus to What Is Well (Practice Resource)
Acceptance vs. Resignation and Body-Mind Connection
Spaciousness and Presence Without Scrutiny
The Inventory Practice for Grounding and Resource Building
The Power of Small Bodily Adjustments
Redefining Growth Beyond 'Healing' or 'Fixing'
Embodied Writing and Its Principles
Museum of Follies Practice for Levity
Cultivating an Inner Friend and Self-Compassion
The Concept of Unfixing Ourselves
6 Key Concepts
Losing Your Ground
A state where one loses touch with their physical body and internal experience, often getting stuck in mental analysis. This can lead to a fractured nervous system and a feeling of being disconnected from oneself.
Practice Resource
The intentional act of connecting with what feels good or brings one alive in the present moment. This is not a distraction, but a central focus to expand one's capacity for well-being and to cultivate a deeper internal connection.
Presence Without Scrutiny
A quality of attention that is open, wide-angled, and non-judgmental, applied to one's internal experience or interactions. It allows for unexpected insights or movements to arise without poking, over-analyzing, or imposing judgment.
Withstanding
The act of 'white-knuckling' through discomfort or ignoring subtle bodily signals of tension and unease. This habit can diminish one's capacity for presence and self-awareness, leading to unnecessary suffering.
Embodied Writing
A practice that integrates physical awareness, meditation, or breath exercises with free-form writing prompts. It is designed to deepen one's connection to their body and internal experience, allowing for creative discovery and self-reflection.
Unfixing Ourselves
A concept that challenges the idea of 'healing' as a permanent repair or locking something in place. Instead, it encourages fluidity, permission, and continuous adaptation in response to life's ever-changing circumstances, embracing movement as the signature of life.
8 Questions Answered
Our nervous systems have a physiological disposition to scan for threats, a survival mechanism that can be exacerbated by modern life's constant demands and fractured attention, leading to reactions disproportionate to the actual threat.
It requires practice to cultivate spaciousness and safety to listen to nuanced bodily signals, rather than just intellectualizing the concept. This involves tuning into senses beyond just 'fine' or 'hurt'.
The body provides direct signals about what feels better (e.g., stretching when compressed), making it a more immediate and supported path towards ease than purely mental approaches. It's a direct move towards what feels better.
By treating it like a toddler – being present and in the same room, but not scrutinizing or asking 'why' directly. This allows for unpredictable movement and insights to arise without judgment.
Connecting with things that bring you alive and feel good internally helps create spaciousness, makes it easier to be creative and kind to oneself, and introduces kinder internal voices, expanding what's possible.
When experiencing real anguish or chronic pain, one must first be honest about what's happening and start from that place of discomfort. Only after acknowledging the current state can one effectively connect with resources.
'Healing' often implies 'fixing' or a finish line, which can be cruel for chronic conditions that involve cycles of flares and non-flares. 'Growth' acknowledges continuous, non-linear adaptation and learning, embracing the ongoing process of life.
It's a practice that begins with noticing what feels good internally (the resource piece), which builds self-trust and creates fluidity. This allows kinder, more supportive voices to emerge over time, replacing the critical inner narrator.
10 Actionable Insights
1. Focus on What is Well
Actively center your attention on aspects of your life that feel good or are functioning well, even amidst chronic challenges, to widen your perspective on possibilities and connect with internal health.
2. Identify Personal Resources
Connect with things (places, moments, animals) that genuinely bring you alive and feel good internally. This ‘catalog’ can be used to map your life and access spaciousness, making it easier to be creative and kind to yourself.
3. Use the Inventory Practice for Calm
When feeling stressed, first ask yourself if you can ‘work less hard to be right where you are.’ Then, ground yourself by naming five things you see, four you touch, three you smell, two you hear, and one you taste. Finally, build resources by naming things you love to see, touch, smell, hear, and taste.
4. Practice Presence Without Scrutiny
Approach your internal experience and interactions with others with a ‘wide angle’ or ‘oblique attention,’ avoiding judgment or excessive questioning. This allows for unexpected insights or movements to arise without poking or over-analyzing.
5. Make Small Bodily Adjustments
Pay attention to subtle discomforts (e.g., tight hamstrings, ill-fitting clothes) and make small, immediate adjustments to avoid ‘withstanding’ discomfort. These small moves cumulatively lead to a more habitable and relaxed life.
6. Cultivate an Inner Friend
Develop an internal voice that is kind, supportive, and advocates for you, similar to a best friend. This practice helps to rewire your inner talk track from critical to compassionate, building self-trust and support.
7. Embrace Non-Linear Growth
Shift away from viewing personal development as ‘healing’ or ‘fixing’ towards ‘growth,’ recognizing that progress is not always linear and includes setbacks. This perspective encourages continuous adaptation and learning without the pressure of a ‘finish line.’
8. Self-Advocate with Clarity
When facing challenges like chronic illness, cultivate the capacity to clearly name your internal experience and needs, even when it differs from external assessments. This allows for effective self-advocacy without being aggressive.
9. Use Humor for Seriousness
Employ practices like ‘Museum of Follies’ to recall past embarrassing or ridiculous moments. This brings levity to current difficulties and helps break through ‘brittle seriousness’ or shame.
10. Cultivate Internal Ballast
Practice cultivating an internal sense of stability to navigate external threats and modern stressors, rather than solely relying on mental analysis. This helps regulate the nervous system and prevents feeling fractured.
8 Key Quotes
If you're alive, there's so much more health than there isn't. And so can you actually start to develop a connection to what it is in your life that brings you alive?
Johanna Franzel
It's a very direct move towards what feels better. The signal comes right in.
Johanna Franzel
Healing such as it is, I don't love that term... is less like I cross the finish line with this triumphant ribbon breaking across my chest and more like I, whatever I could summon to be okay with things that weren't okay, I no longer can. It's almost like growth by fatigue.
Johanna Franzel
If something moves, it's alive. Movement is the signature of life. And so in a lot of ways, like to fix something is to make it less alive.
Johanna Franzel
We're certainly not rewarded for feeling. And then I think we're given the instruction, listen to your body, and we have no idea where to start. The two settings are like, I'm either fine, or I hurt.
Johanna Franzel
Western medicine could keep me not dead, which was like, no shade, very important. It had very little to say about what it meant to really live in a body like mine.
Johanna Franzel
Beneath why is usually a kind of scrutiny that has some judgment in it.
Johanna Franzel
The voice in your head is an asshole.
Johanna Franzel
2 Protocols
Inventory Practice (for grounding and resource building)
Johanna Franzel- Ask: 'Is it possible to work less hard to be right where you are?' and make any immediate small adjustments (e.g., lower shoulders, place feet on floor).
- Orient to the present: Name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can smell, two things you can hear, and one thing you can taste.
- Invent resources: Name five things you love to see, four things you love to touch, three things you love to smell, two things you love to hear, and one thing you love to taste (these don't have to be in the room).
Withstanding Awareness and Adjustment Protocol
Johanna Franzel- Cultivate an expanded capacity for internal noticing by regularly connecting with what feels good (your 'resource').
- Pause to notice any places where you are 'withstanding' or accommodating discomfort (e.g., tight clothing, uncomfortable posture).
- Make real, present-time adjustments to ease the discomfort (e.g., loosen belt, stretch hamstrings, shift in seat).