What if your nervous system is paying attention to far more than you realise?

In this week's Inner Work, I reflect on my conversation with Health Psychologist Dr Sula Windgassen and explore the idea that our bodies are constantly taking in messages about safety, worth and belonging.

We consider what happens when we repeatedly dismiss our own feelings, stay silent when something doesn't sit right, or fill our environments with content that leaves us feeling "less than".

This isn't about dramatic life changes. It's about the small moments of self-advocacy, self-respect and self-compassion that can quietly reshape how we experience ourselves and the world around us.

Highlights

• 00:00 Your nervous system is always listening
• 00:32 The cost of invalidating yourself
• 01:01 Self-advocacy and safe relationships
• 02:06 Doomscrolling and protecting your nervous system
• 02:38 Retraining your algorithm
• 03:11 Final reflections

My Inner Work series is a space to pause and think more deeply about yourself. I explore where those roles come from… and whether they’re still serving you now.

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Sponsored by WriteUpp Smart Import

This episode is sponsored by WriteUpp. One of my favourite features is Smart Import, which allows client information from intake forms to populate securely into the system with a single click. Use code MARIANNE30 for a free 30-day trial and 30% off your first 6 months. Discover WriteUpp https://writeupp.com/?refid=142336

Hi, welcome to Inner Work. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent. I loved my chat with Dr. Sula Windgassen, the health psychologist. And what I've been left with is that idea that our nervous system is always listening. And some of the ideas from Bethel Vanderkolks, The Body Keeps the Score, are always with me to be honest. And this book is a lovely extension of that. But it's that idea that if we are constantly invalidating ourselves or not on our own team or saying mean things to ourselves or dismissing what happens to us and glossing over it to make other people's lives easier or better, but the detriment to ourselves, then I think that can potentially become problematic. And I think it can be small shifts. It might be just starting to think, actually, this is a safe relationship for me. And when that person said that, that didn't make me feel good.

And so maybe it's like older patterns that are causing me to stay silent. Maybe I can self-advocate. And I honestly believe that every time we do that, your body feels good about that and kind of breathes that sense of relief, that sense of sigh. So I think in the moment sometimes we don't always notice when that's happened, but if you find yourself kind of percolating it through and thinking about it, just be like, actually, could I go back and speak to that person and say, actually, when you said that or when that happened, I don't agree or that didn't make me feel good, I would empower you to be curious and to be a little bit courageous so long as the relationship you are doing that in is safe. Of course, coercive and controlling behaviour is a whole other thing. Your safety is always a priority.

If you find that kind of topic might be useful, please do check out my other video on coercive and controlling behaviour. But I think this idea of our nervous system always being there and always listening doesn't just crop up when we are actually with physically with people. I think it can also be the things that we might think about ourselves, the world and others. If you're always doomscrolling things that make you feel bad about yourself, then maybe we're doing a disservice to our nervous system. And some of the ideas I spoke about with Lily Silverton on a recent podcast episode was thinking about retraining your algorithm so that it starts to show you things that you do want. My phone often shows me cat videos, but I don't own a cat anymore, but they make me feel good. They make me feel good. So what could you start to weave in to your own algorithm which will make you feel certainly not less, that won't make you feel like you are coming up short?

Thank you so much for being here in inner work. I would love your thoughts and yeah, I will look forward to bringing you the next episode, which will be along next week. I'll see you very soon. Take care.