31. Staying On Edge? 5 Revelations to Find Your Peace

The first thing is understanding why you're living on the edge in the first place.

Living on the edge is not a personality trait, and for the longest time I thought it was.

It is actually the nervous system's position, and it has a very specific cause in the life of a stay-at-home mom.

Because your nervous system is designed to stay alert in environments that feel unpredictable or demanding- Your environment with the constant noise, constant needs, constant interruptions, and constant mental load registers to your nervous system.

There is no shutdown.

There is no peace.

There's no rest.

You have constantly gotta be ready for anything.

There's this demand, this way your body is always ready to brace for impact.

Your nervous system is doing its job.

I- it- it was designed to do this, to protect you.

It just never gets the signal that it's safe to come down.

The feeling of being on the edge is not anxiety, something I thought it was for me at that time, because it does feel similar to anxiety.

It is an overactive protection response when it has never been given permission to rest.

So we're going to move from this position of our nervous system just being all wound up, ready for anything to happen, to identifying what is keeping you in this position, in this can't relax, always tensed out sp- the noise, the touching, the visual chaos, the house- the house is full of kids, the house is full of noise, the mental load, the constant remembering, planning, anticipating, managing.

All of these things contribute to your nervous system ramping itself up and keeping it revved at that high-speed intensity, where you just can't relax.

You spend the whole day giving emotionally, giving of yourself, giving of every part of you to your children, and generally your family needs, and you don't get anything poured back into you.

So at some point, you're, like, living off of adrenaline to a certain degree.

There are days that all of that is hitting you all at once, and unfortunately, that just kinda keeps your nervous system on high.

As I said earlier, you don't really learn how to bring it back down.

So I would like you to ask yourself, be really, really honest with yourself, where is on the edge, where is that feeling for you right now? Where do you find it showing up in your body? Is it in tight shoulders? Is it in having a clenched jaw? Do you tend to have shallow breathing? Is it in your mind, the thoughts are looping around over and over again, and they won't slow down or stop? Is it in your emotions where you feel that you're so emotional, either over-the-top angry, over-the-top emotional, over-the-top sensitive? Just where is all that edge feeling in your body right now? Take the time to recognize and name it.

So I feel my jaw clenching when I'm feeling ner- you know, uh, on the edge.

I feel like my head cannot stop thinking of all these different thoughts when I'm on the edge.

One of the things that you can do, especially when you catch yourself doing these physical things, tight shoulders, clenched jaw, is breathing.

I know it sounds so simple, but it is extremely valuable.