Are you bracing for chaos?

Calm can feel unsafe when we’ve trained our brain to live in chaos, so we stay busy while real progress stalls. We unpack “bracing for impact” and share simple ways to teach your nervous system that peace is safe too. 

• a client story about leaving chaos and feeling less productive 
• why familiar crisis mode can feel comfortable and “normal” 
• how bracing for what might go wrong blocks investing in what could go right 
• noticing the pattern and naming it out loud 
• checking whether there is a problem right now and returning to the present moment 
• separating what we control from what we cannot control, focusing on our thoughts 
• creating a bedroom “Zen Den” and making the bed as a daily calm cue 
• stopping scattered cleanup that feels like doom scrolling at home 
• a coaching mirror moment and the reset phrase “that’s old shit, let’s move” 
• moving anyway as a way to heal the pattern and model courage for family 

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Transcript

Busy But Not Productive

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Hey girl, it's Monday. Welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is inspired by a conversation that I had with a client of mine last week. It was so, so, so good. I cannot wait to share it with you. So we were talking about how she has removed herself from this situation, which was really particularly chaotic. She had thought, I'm going to be able to be so productive. I'm going to be able to do so much in my business. And she said to me, I don't know what I have been doing. I feel busy, but I haven't been productive at all. When I was busier, I was more productive in my business. How is this possible? And I'll

Why Chaos Feels Like Home

SPEAKER_00 1:20

tell you how possible that's possible because I've lived this myself. When you get used to a situation that's chaotic, when you get used to sort of being in that reacting to the chaos, reacting to the crisis of the day, when you get used to that, that feels comfortable. That feels normal. That actually feels safe. The calm feels more uncomfortable to you because you don't know it. And I often think of it in terms of like, let's say you live in Vancouver and you get used to all of the noise from a big city. So you get used to fire trucks and traffic and police cars and ambulances, and you get used to all of that. Then what would happen if you went to northern Saskatchewan in a cabin all on your own? And you would think when you're in Vancouver, you would think this peacefulness would be so great, but it's almost really hard to sleep because what you're used to is all of the chaos and the hustle and bustle. It takes a long time to sort of get used to that back home. And for me, just living in chaos quite a bit of my life and in response to crisis, either in my job or in my personal life or whatever, you know, I often felt like either I was in chaos or was bracing for it. And bracing for chaos is not productive. So whether it's a client who lives with someone with addictions, or whether it's a client who has a family member who has been very, very ill, or kids that are struggling in school, every single one of them has a big goal that they want to achieve. And they decide that once conditions are perfect, once the chaos is gone, they will take action, except they don't. And then they are pissed with themselves because they just can't get their shit together. This is why because our brains have decided that what is normal is chaos. So chaos feels more comfortable than peace. And it's not because we love the chaos, but it's because we understand it, we've practiced it, we know how to show up in that in that chaos. And a lot of times, some of us are very, very good at navigating that crisis. So it's familiar to us and we feel productive. Calm feels unfamiliar. Unfamiliar feels unsafe. So what do we do? We brace for chaos, we brace for what we know to come. And sometimes we even can create it. So what happens when we're always waiting for something to go wrong? We can never really fully invest in what could go right. We hesitate, we delay, we hold back, we don't fully enjoy our vacation or the calm. We don't celebrate wins, we find it hard to dream big because we're always thinking, like, yeah, but what's coming next? It's bracing for chaos. And we don't want to do that. So this is what we are going to do in response to it.

Notice The Pattern In Real Time

SPEAKER_00 4:49

First off, is you just want to notice it. As soon as you recognize it, it starts to take the power over you away. A friend of mine, I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before, but it's something I repeat over and over again. When you make something known to the universe, it ceases to be a problem. So speaking it out loud, recognizing that this is what you're doing, that's the first step. So then, number two is ask yourself if there's actually a problem in this moment. Eckertoli talks about there being peace in the now, power in the now. Like in this moment, right now, all you're doing is listening to this podcast. In this moment, right now, there's no issues. There might have been three seconds ago, and something might happen in the future. But if you're thinking about what happened before or worrying about what could happen in the future, you are not in peace. There is peace in this moment right now. Our brain loves borrowing yesterday's problems and tomorrow's problems, you know? It loves to sit there. And that's what's sort of like looking for potential chaos, right? So we want to try to get back into the moment, get back into this second right now. You also want to look at what are you in control of? Again, the serenity prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. The majority of time we are needing the wisdom. We are needing to know what is within our control and what is not within our control. And what is within our control is our thoughts. And the other thing is give your nervous system a space to be safe.

Build A Bedroom Zen Den

SPEAKER_00 6:44

The very first thing that I want you to do is I want you to go into your bedroom and create a Zen-Den. I want it to be as nice as humanly possible. I want you every single morning to make the bed because even just making the bed gives you a place to come back where your nervous system could just rest, relax. We want to train the nervous system to feel calm. Even if you do live in Vancouver, we want you to have a Zen-like cabin on the lake in your bedroom. We want to create a space where it does feel calm. And that doesn't mean your entire house. One of the things that I don't want you to do is look at your entire house, feel completely overwhelmed, and go and do 15 minutes in one room and 13 seconds in another room, and you're going from room to room to room to room to room, trying to clean up all of the clutter and all of the disarray that you have, because guess what? That doesn't actually feel productive at all. That just feels like doom scrolling in your house, you know? And so what you want to do is focus in on one area. And I love the bedroom because that's where we recharge and we regenerate and we want to be able to get a good night's sleep. That's where we're going to give your nervous system evidence that it's safe. In my bedroom, I try to always make the bed very first thing in the morning. It just feels good when I walk back in there and it feels like I've taken care of myself. But also over the bed, I have the hugest sign. It's like this big, huge white canvas with black lettering on it that says, give it to God and go to sleep. That's it. Give it to God and go to sleep. It is so simple. There's no like flowery, nothing on it. It's just white with black lettering. Give it to God and go to sleep. And that reminds me to let go. That reminds me and reminds my brain that there are things that I can't control. And bracing for impact is one that I can. I can stop bracing. So if you're bracing for impact too, I want you to know that you're not alone. I mean, I have done this for years, but I also want you to know that this is one of the biggest reasons that people stay stuck. It's not because you're not capable, it's because you're still living as though you're protecting yourself and protecting yourself from imaginary shit. It's really hard to see that pattern when you're inside it. But that's why, that's why I love coaching so much. Because sometimes all it takes is someone holding up a mirror and saying, okay, wait, can you see the pattern here? Because once you see it, then you get a choice, right? Once you see it, and either you or someone else makes it known to the universe. Now you have power to step outside

Old Shit, Let’s Move

SPEAKER_00 9:35

of it. When I recognized I was doing this myself, I was um starting a feng shui, it was like a five-day feng shui course, an hour a day. And I just started the course. I think I was on day two, and my son ended up with a very serious infection in hospital. I reached out to my coach and I'm like, what the fuck? This always happens to me. And as we worked through it, she said, Well, you've got two options, not do it. But if you didn't do the course, what would you do? Like for real. I mean, he was at the time he was 19, he didn't want me in the hospital with him all 24 hours a day, right? So I could have sat here and just braced for impact, started to worry, or I could have done the course. What I realized was it was just a pattern. So I started saying to her, every single time this happens, I'm just gonna say to myself, that's old shit, let's move. Like, that's old shit. That's old patterning, and I don't have to continue with it. That's old shit, let's move. That's why I love coaching because when I was able to speak to her about it, not my friends who, you know, were saying, Oh my gosh, is he okay? Just stop the course. You don't need to. Like everyone will understand. I didn't need that. What I needed was someone that was going to hold a mirror up to me and go, okay, what is your goal? What can you do? What are your choices? What do you wish to do? And when I could see that this was a pattern that I was falling into, I went, okay, old shit, let's move. And what happens when you move anyway, you start to heal that pattern. When you move anyway, you teach your nervous system that it doesn't have to stand guard every minute of every day. And that feels amazing. And also, not only will you be proud of yourself, but your family members will be proud of you too. And your kids, your husband, your family will be inspired because you have been able to move forward. It's just old shit. If you can move, I promise you, your brain can learn that peace is safe too.

Peace Can Be Safe Too

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you've had some laughs, maybe some ideals, and that you've been inspired to talk some type of life. If you feel so cold, I would love it if you're gonna go.