About this show:
Jessica Maguire is back on the show and while the first show we did was about the nuts and bolts of the nervous system, this week is a powerful exploration of the human experience, our responses, the signals of dysregulation we can look out for in ourselves and others, and the power of helping someone else regulate or having someone who can do that for us, through grief, work, school and just about any of life’s challenges. Main topics this week are:
- The Grief journey
- Our Responses vs ‘who I am’
- Relationships – bringing our dysregulation with us!
- Clues to look for in your body and behaviors that point to dysregulation
- The Online World and its contribution to escalating dysregulation
- The nervous system dysregulation in the workplace and how it presents.
- Corrective experiences we can provide or seek out – what is truly ‘being there’ or having someone who is JUST ‘there’ and why is it so healing?
SUCH a powerful show. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we enoyed having it. Plus, Jess wrote a book! The Nervous System Reset is out now. Available in Booktopia for AU peeps and on Amazon US
Jessica (BHSci, MPhysio) is a seasoned expert in nervous system education with a Master’s in Physiotherapy, and extensive study into neuroscience and neurology, has helped thousands of students worldwide truly transform their nervous systems.
As usual, anywhere you find podcasts, you’ll find LOWTOXLIFE – even now on YouTube – I know, I know, it only took us 9 years. If you’re a visual person you can head over and subscribe.
Lots of Low Tox Love to you,
Alexx Stuart
Founder of Low Tox Life and the Low Tox movement
Join me on Insta @lowtoxlife
***
Thank you to this month’s show sponsors for helping you make your low tox swaps easier:
@ausclimate gives you 10% off their range for the whole of 2024, with brilliant Winix Air Purifiers, the best Dehumidifiers I’ve ever used and their new energy-efficient heating range. code LOWTOXLIFE https://bit.ly/ShopAusclimate
@therahealth Nordic Naturals have a reputation as one of the purest, best-tested fish oil supplements in the world and one we’ve had in our family for 16 years. A big thank you for sponsoring the show and growing bigger while staying good and true. https://bit.ly/4eJERnw
Be sure to join me on Instagram @lowtoxlife and tag me with your shares and AHAs of this week’s episode.
***
About Jessica Maguire:
Jessica Maguire (BHSci, MPhysio) is a seasoned expert in nervous system education with a Master’s in Physiotherapy, and extensive study into neuroscience and neurology, has helped thousands of students worldwide truly transform their nervous systems.
Biography
As the internationally published author of “Nervous System Reset”, a distinguished TEDx speaker and leading nervous system educator. Jessica stands out not just as a healthcare professional, but as a guiding force. Going beyond mere mindset strategies, Jessica empowers individuals to bring about lasting changes in both the brain and body. She excels at simplifying complex scientific concepts, providing clear, actionable steps that make it easy to enhance thoughts and advance physical well-being.
Connect with Jessica on the following platforms;
Website — https://www.jessicamaguire.com/the-nervous-system-reset
Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/repairing_the_nervous_system/
More about this month’s sponsors:
Thank you to this month’s sponsors for partnering with our show and helping you make your swaps with their special offer:
Ausclimate’s highly recommended range of WINIX Air Purifiers is the ideal solution for cleaner, healthier indoor air. Easy to use, reactive features and settings with a truly comprehensive 4-5 stages of purification, including Hospital Grade True HEPA Filtration and Winix’s unique PlasmaWave® technology. Perfect for smoke, dust, pets, viruses, bacteria, household odours, and allergies (covering a variety of allergens). Breathe easier, sleep better, and feel better. Winix; is the most complete air purifier on the market!
Offer: Ausclimate is now giving all Low Tox Life followers an EXTRA 10% OFF their already discounted prices. Simply enter the discount code of LOWTOXLIFE on check out via: https://www.ausclimate.com.au/
This discount can also be redeemed for over-the-phone orders verbally.
Website: www.ausclimate.com.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Ausclimate
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ausclimate
Something that has been a staple in our house for 15 years is Nordic Naturals. I’ve not been without it for 16 years. Genuinely. My naturopath had me on it during pregnancy, and since Seb was a little dude, our paediatrician has had him on the Arctic Cod Liver Oil for brain and immune support and so we both take our teaspoon at breakky like the great grandmas used to get their families to do. It’s a mainstay for me due to my family history that shows I benefit from added support for both brain and vascular systems as well as all the good lifestyle measures. It’s a great wellbeing all-rounder.
The Nordic Naturals Arctic Cod Liver Oil liquid is:
- Made from 100% wild Arctic cod (Skrei)
- No other fish oils or synthetic additives are ever used
- Has always been derived from sustainably sourced 100% wild Arctic cod, containing only naturally occurring vitamins and essential fats and nutrients, no other fish oils or synthetic additives are ever used.
- Every step of production from boat to bottle is managed by Nordic Naturals to ensure that their oils are of the highest quality, exceptionally fresh, stable, and effective. If you’ve smelt how gross rancid fish oil is from a cheap supermarket brand, you will know what the difference of a high-quality fish oil is! Rancid oil ingestion is never a great idea.
- They’re a great company that’s found a way to grow ‘good’ instead of grow and dilute quality which often happens.
Do you regularly take a fish oil? Have transparency and peace of mind on the quality front? If you don’t, Nordic Naturals is widely available to give a try, Alexx x
October 1-31st = 15% off Arctic Cod Liver oils at https://therahealth.com.au/
Find it for better prices at a retailer near you which can be located by using the Thera Health store locator – https://therahealth.com.au/store-locator/
***
Title show track, by LIOR.
Love the podcast music? You will hear excerpts from Lior’s track “Caught Up” – go check it out on iTunes or Spotify if you want to hear the whole song or album, Scattered Reflections. Co-written with Cameron Deyell, it’s a great song and I love the reflective energy of it – perfect for the show, right? Enjoy. Lior is always touring, so do check out his website. It is wonderful to hear him sing live, trust me.
Low Tox Club – The place to bring your low tox life to life.
Want to join a community of like minds and enjoy all the perks of being in the Low Tox Life inner circle such as an online membership platform, 50% off all our Low Tox courses, an awesome chat group, my monthly Q&A, and special guest star interviews for just $49AUD ($29USD/28EUR/23pounds) per YEAR? We have created a special place and set of resources to help you achieve your goals and it’s a wonderful place to be – MORE DETAILS AND REGISTRATION HERE.
***
If you would love reading like me or you just simply want to go through the full transcript, you can check below.
[Alexx Stuart] (0:00 – 5:12)The way you are responding to all sorts of situations might not be you, it may well be your nervous system, and if it’s dysregulated, then there’s a lot you can do. That is today’s show. Hello and welcome to the Lotox Life podcast.
I am Alexx Stuart, your host, founder of the Lotox Movement, and today is show 405, and I have the wonderful Jessica McGuire joining me back on the show. The first time Jess was on the show, you might know her as Repairing the Nervous System on Instagram. She is very generous with her content.
She has an incredible programme that I have referred many Lotoxes to over the years who have really benefited from it. But the first time we recorded, we did very much a nuts and bolts, what is the nervous system, what is the vagus nerve, a real 101 kind of show. So if you need that, definitely go check out the first one we did in the archives.
I’ve put the link in our show notes and you can always find those at lotoxlife.com forward slash podcast. But if you know what the nervous system is and dysregulation and the vagus nerve, and you know you want a more regulated life experience, or perhaps you want one for a family member, or you want to learn how to be better at just being there when other people are dysregulated, oh my gosh, today’s show is brilliant. We talk about dysregulation and how it shows up.
We broaden the definition of trauma because the body and sending messages to the brain often doesn’t know the difference between your traumatic car incident, often doesn’t know the difference between a really traumatic war zone, sexual assault, freak car accident, and an angry email from a colleague. Isn’t that mind-blowing that those two things can be perceived by the body at the same level of stress and imprint? So while it’s by no means a way of trying to minimise certain traumas or overblow others, it’s more about talking about hypervigilance and how it can show up in so many different ways, and how things like grief and workplace disagreements, relationship issues, a kid going through big things, how all these things can actually make us dysregulated, can contribute to it.
So it’s just such a good show. We unpack so many examples. Everyone will feel seen here, and we’ll be able to relate in some way, and I cannot wait to hear what you guys think.
Jess is an incredible physiotherapist, master of physio by trade, but went on through her own grief, which we start the show with today, to recognise a deep need for work on the nervous system, not just for her in her life and what that did for her, but of course for the clients she had presenting with chronic pain and chronic conditions. Awesome, awesome show. I’ll hook into it in a little minute.
I just want to remind you, of course, that we have Nordic Naturals Arctic Cod Liver Oil sponsoring the show for October, and Aussies have 15% off with the code LOTOXLIFE at therahealth, T-H-E-R-A, health.com.au. Did you know that 20% or thereabouts of fish oils on the market are rancid when tested by randomised trials? Oh my gosh, no thank you. And the way you can tell is, and I get this comment all the time, is this one really fishy?
That is actually a sign of rancidity. The fishier it is, the more likely it is to have oxidised and the less likely it is to be beneficial. Nordic Naturals have an absolutely incredible, stringent, independent testing programme that ensures the freshest, purest oil, free from heavy metals, PFAS, BPA, and a whole bunch of other nasties.
None of it’s in there and you don’t have rancidity. It hasn’t oxidised. So those beautiful omega-3s get to your brain, your heart, and all the wonderful places that it helps us be nice and healthy.
I adore this brand. We’ve used it for 16 years. So go check out therahealth.com.au if you want to give it a try. Here is the show with Jess. Enjoy. Hey, Jess, how are you?
Hello, Alex.
[Jessica Maguire] (5:12 – 5:13)I’m going great. [Alexx Stuart] (5:14 – 5:32)
I am thrilled to have you as a repeat guest on the show. And we’ve done that beautiful masterclass that we did for the members to kick off. I think it was 2023 last year together.
So it’s always just such a pleasure to chat. And of course we’re fellow TEDxers at the same event. That’s how we met.
[Jessica Maguire] (5:32 – 5:34)We are. Wasn’t that a good time? [Alexx Stuart] (5:34 – 5:50)
It was beautiful. You have a wow. You have a life experience that almost catapulted you into nervous system work.
And I wondered if you might share some of that with us to start.
[Jessica Maguire] (5:50 – 9:36)Sure. I’d love to. So I was, as you said, working as a physio for about a decade and I had my own clinic.
And, you know, a lot of the people that I was seeing that came in were dealing with chronic symptoms. And I’m sure, you know, your audience can relate to this. I know that it’s a similar crossover, but a lot of people were presenting with things like chronic pain, anxiety, gut issues.
And I really felt that I was only seeing what was above the surface of the water. And I’d learned a lot of interesting research around the brain-body connection, but it was often a challenge to explain this to people. Sometimes it felt like you were telling them their pain was all in their head.
And it was hard to put this really complex science into ways that people could understand it and also feel empowered to do something with it. So I had made a choice to close my clinic and actually take a bit of a sabbatical. And so I was going to study the mindfulness meditation teacher training programme as a certification with Jack Kornfeld and Tara Brock in the US.
And that was more to look at the communication between the brain and body. It was really aimed at people who were coaches or health professionals as well. So I was due to go close my clinic.
And then it was actually three weeks before I was due to fly. My brother, Sam, died by suicide. And so as you can imagine, it was a real shock to my system.
The only way I can sort of explain what it was like was that it felt like the ground was just falling out from underneath me. And it was an extremely difficult period for my parents too. And what made it even worse was that my younger brother, Luke, had died when I was four.
So it was the second sibling I was coming to terms with losing. But the concern that I felt for my parents was profound as well. With their encouragement, I still went to the US to study.
It was very much inspired by Sam and the challenges that he’d faced. But also, my parents were really aware of the area that I wanted to go, the work I wanted to do, and certainly said, no, go, we’ll be fine. You need to do this.
And it was really interesting, you know, because I learned so much on many different levels. But I think from, you know, grief has been taught has been described as soul work, because there comes this real surrendering over and over again, like this, you know, it’s it floors you. But one thing that I think I really learned about was the power of community and co regulation, because I arrived in the US and went into this training with 300 other people who were strangers, but just being in the room with my teachers and the other students, it was I just felt really held.
And, you know, they talk about it in Buddhist psychology is the power of the Sangha or community. It’s a true refuge. And I think that that’s something that we don’t have enough of.
[Alexx Stuart] (9:37 – 10:08)Could not agree more. So people, a sense of like, I actually even just had this mini feeling of it last night when I lent into hubby and we were just watching a movie together. I just thought, God, that just feels so safe and grounding, just like that.
And isn’t that beautiful? And like tuning into that, I don’t know that my nervous system of five years ago would have even been able to recognise what true safety felt like.
[Jessica Maguire] (10:09 – 10:58)Exactly. And it is it’s such a fast process that bypasses our thinking brain and moves us into regulation so fast. But even when we look at this as supporting members of our community, you know how we build that feeling of belonging to something and that that was such a beautiful place to land.
And I had I really got to know nervous system dysregulation. Well, like I say, this is where it was about learning to walk the talk. And I don’t think I would be able to teach the way I do now if I didn’t really know what it felt like to experience those, you know, complete periods of shutdown where you can’t you literally can’t get up off the couch.
[Alexx Stuart] (10:59 – 11:46)I often wonder if it’s part of this human experience, Jess, like making our mess, our message. As you know, I have held many like probably over 500 hours of interviews in my time so far. And I cannot tell you the amount of people who I would consider to be the brightest minds, best scientists, best doctors, best health professionals have these stories of pain and introspection that become that, you know, we make the mess our message.
And because you come from that unique place of I tried everything, nothing worked and then found this work to truly help myself and others. There’s something just so powerful and attractive to other humans about that as well, I think.
[Jessica Maguire] (11:47 – 15:25)I totally agree, Alex, and the commitment that you can bring people to that word, the authenticity, you know, it’s not about what can I put on? It’s really like my story, this is who I am. So I feel really fortunate to be able to do this work.
But it did take the painful lessons of, you know, trying the talk therapy and each time talking about Sam’s death or even Luke’s death. It was just this activating process where I would walk out feeling like I feel worse, like I feel more mobilised through my body and I’ve got no resources of what to do with this. And so I knew that it was going to take a deep dive into understanding more so how to work with what was coming up in the body.
And I knew from my like I cognitively knew that this was how to work with profound stress, shock, trauma and loss. But it was through that that I was like, right, this will be my practise. And sometimes I worked with other health professionals with body based therapies, but most of it I did by myself, but still leaned into the power of co-regulation and support and community.
And so I came back to Australia after quite some time away and the patients that I were working with, you know, they’d all gone through something similar. But, you know, I was at a stage then when I was I’d moved through most of that dysregulation and was really ready to support others. And this is the beauty of when you go through an experience like this, because you learn again and again how to be with this wider range of experience, then you’re ready to support others in a bigger way.
And so, you know, I was really looking at, OK, well, how can I get the feeling of co-regulation for my clients? Like I knew that it was important to listen and tune and all of those things, but I made that as like part of the treatment. You know, I was like, how can I really hear them?
How can I have them feeling like I’m working alongside of them, helping them find their own answers within? How can I support their nervous system? And then being aware that if I was moving out of this window of regulation, I could no longer regulate them.
So that meant changes in the day, you know, like creating those windows of time between patients, not seeing 18 patients a day. Do you think that made a difference? Let’s see.
I say my video clinic was like the place where I made every mistake, but it was a really good apprenticeship, the first one. And then I learned some big lessons. But it was from that process that and so many of my patients wanted to hear about the nervous system.
And I was like, I can do this on their own. This is what I did. So we started with live workshops, which sold out around Australia.
It was amazing. And then my husband just kept saying, you need to take this online. And I, of course, was going, if I work online, I’ve got to be with people.
[Alexx Stuart] (15:25 – 15:26)Yeah. [Jessica Maguire] (15:26 – 15:29)
You know how husbands do that annoying thing and then they’re right. [Alexx Stuart] (15:30 – 15:55)
They just cut through it all and just say one top line sentence like the male brain is so good at doing. And I mean, I know we can generalise and then that can be unhelpful as well. But I genuinely do admire that about male brain tendencies compared to but what if and you know, like we’re like in all the different what ifs and possibilities and but that’s our job as well.
And I think those biological difference actually complement each other.
[Jessica Maguire] (15:56 – 16:16)Yes, a thousand percent. We can give another perspective that they can’t. Exactly.
So he was right. And we did the masterclass first and then went to the programme. And now we’ve just done our nervous system certification course, which we’re teaching to other health professionals to really deliver nervous system informed care to them.
[Alexx Stuart] (16:18 – 16:58)So much to unpack from what you’ve just shared. OK, the first thing I want to unpack was when you came back and you started infusing the nervous system work with patients and you said as you started to talk about it, you realised that your chronic pain patients seemed to all have similar stories to you in one way or another. So was that really your first like, oh, my gosh, here is the link.
And and then I want to ask from that, how did you then start explaining the pain nervous system relationship differently so people didn’t think, oh, you’re just trying to tell me it’s all in my head?
[Jessica Maguire] (16:59 – 18:25)They’re really good questions. I think I realised more when I was overseas that I started to think about the patients and was like, oh, that’s what that was. You know, it’s as I was learning, people were coming to mind and I was seeing things in a new lens, if you like, like a new paradigm.
And that was really powerful because it was there was parts of it where I was like. They actually needed more of X, Y, Z, they needed, you know, but I think the part about the nervous system that’s amazing is. People see it or they can embody that they get that feeling of like, oh, that’s so this mobilisation, this rushing, this urgency, this feeling like the other shoe is going to draw the story like, you know, something really bad is going to happen.
My insomnia, the way that I’m being really reactive in relationships, that is all in one particular part of my nervous system. And it’s once you explain it and then somebody recognises it a few days later, it’s like a light bulb, you know, and they start to go, this isn’t me, it’s my nervous system responding. So you sort of give them that sense of freedom from being caught.
There’s a change in self, if you like.
[Alexx Stuart] (18:26 – 19:28)Yes. So can I ask you then, because this is often men from just talking to that many girlfriends over the years. This is just who I am, is often something men say.
And I often wonder whether that is because we haven’t allowed men to explore their complexities and responses and nervous system in the way women and girls and I would say LGBT would feel called and compelled to explore the nuances of who we are, how we are and how we react. I feel like men just had to be strong, get on with it. You know, like a lot of guys who are now adult men now really did grow up in those realities.
And so how does one go on a personal journey to feel even safe to explore? It’s not me, it’s my responses, man or woman for that matter, because of course that could be both.
[Jessica Maguire] (19:30 – 19:31)That’s a good question. [Alexx Stuart] (19:31 – 19:34)
Sorry, I’m just like, this is so interesting. [Jessica Maguire] (19:34 – 22:38)
It is. I think the way people typically come to nervous system work is they’re really suffering. Hey, you know, there’s like either physical pain or emotional pain and it’s likely being caused by traumatic stress, you know, and we think of trauma as, you know, the car accident, the abuse, some kind of war or tsunami and not to in any way minimise the pain that people have around that.
But what we’ve got to understand is that the same response through the brain and body happen if we lose control, agency, we feel powerless. So that could be anything, you know, that could be a business failing, that could be at the end of a relationship or a divorce. And when people feel stuck for so long, I think there’s a real openness to exploring different things.
What’s really interesting is like there’s no fixed sense of self. It’s this dynamic construct from what’s going on in the body and the way that the networks are created in the brain. And so if we look at this from the different states of the nervous system, sometimes we might be more of a protector, you know, like the to get it done.
I’m going to. And we feel that drive. We feel that sometimes externalising our behaviour.
So maybe when there’s been a behaviour like anger or yelling or, you know, the ongoing fighting in a relationship where we’re like this needs to change or my relationship is going to be very unhealthy. You know, that can be the start of learning something new. But there’s also the place inside of us that can feel really disowned or, you know, the one that needs to be protected.
And that can be a part where we feel so lost and hopeless, disconnected and vulnerable. And for a lot of people who feel the shame, I mean, anyone whose business is having a hard time is likely going to feel intense fear and shame. That in itself can be the place where the work begins.
So when we open up a community for a programme, the stories that come through just every time I will be feeling teary because you really hear the times that people have been through, like what you were saying, you know, it was me seeing other people’s stories, like people who’ve lost children, people who’ve lost family. And so there is a realisation that the old self can’t keep going that way. It’s more and more painful.
So I think that’s why this work is so highly transformative. And, you know, post-traumatic growth is a real thing.
[Alexx Stuart] (22:38 – 22:40)Yeah, it really is. [Jessica Maguire] (22:40 – 23:33)
People can have this expansion emotionally, spiritually, and it’s really feeding a new sense of self. Which brings a lot more freedom. And I think that’s to me what regulation is.
So as we widen that ability or that zone of our regulation, it’s not just to have a regulated nervous system. It means that we can love more fully because we can actually be present with the other person. I mean, we can’t be intimate with others if we can’t be intimate with our own inner world and what’s going on.
We have this freedom that comes when we’re not living in a survival state. So I would say people are often drawn to it from a traumatic stress, but it can be chronic too, but often traumatic stress.
[Alexx Stuart] (23:35 – 24:31)100%. And I always think like back to a massive breakup I had in my mid-twenties, one of those quarter-life crisis explosions where you leave the job and the relationship breaks down and it just all blows up. And it was one of my lowest moments in my life at that point.
And my bestie at the time gave me Khalil Gibran’s book, so 20-something spiritual awakening stuff. But I remember reading the quote from the sorrow chapter, the deeper the sorrow carved, the greater the joy could fill. And that has stayed with me for decades because you never feel the power of sorrow when you’re in the depths of it, but when you’re in the expansive rebirthing part, things open up that you could never have imagined experiencing.
And I often think of nervous system work in the same way.
[Jessica Maguire] (24:32 – 25:03)Yes, 1000%. And there is that part of surrendering to something. And there is often a stage of like, I have to let go of the old, like it’s not going to serve me anymore.
But I believe that it is extremely transformative for people. And it’s so hard when you’ve gone through something traumatic to have that hope because the nervous system is putting you into a sense that of hope.
[Alexx Stuart] (25:03 – 25:06)There is none. Yeah. And you are not safe. [Jessica Maguire] (25:06 – 26:25)
Yes. And this will never end is the other thing. But from what we learn, I think it’s the purpose that it brings.
So for a lot of the people that I get to teach, their pain becomes the purpose, like what you said with the people you’ve interviewed. There’s like, I want to live with more meaning. I want to do the work that is going to support others.
I think that’s such a beautiful thing, like the stories that people can share. You know, it was hearing other people’s stories that helped me through those hard times. When I lost Sam, it was probably three months after his death.
I was in France. I’d gone from the U.S. to Europe. And in France, I really spiralled because not many people were speaking English.
So I was like feeling isolated on top of the grief. And so I googled grief retreat in a moment of desperation and ended up seeing that in Colorado, there was a silent retreat that was all based on grief. Now, that probably sounds awful to so many people.
[Alexx Stuart] (26:26 – 26:32)Yeah, I know what we need to do. Just not talk at all. No touching, no hugging, no talking. [Jessica Maguire] (26:32 – 27:57)
And just not being in grief. But ironically, it worked out with when I was going back to the U.S. for more study. So I went and it was so beautiful to be amongst this community of people who understood my experience, even as we sat in silence.
And it turned out the woman that I shared the room with, even though we didn’t speak, she’d also lost her brother by suicide, which I found out at the end and invited me back to her family afterwards to meet her family. I met her children. It was just such a beautiful moment of connection that would never have happened.
And I think those are the moments like we as a society don’t support people who are grieving so well, you know, such a primal, messy thing. And I think it’s a response to that nervous system, right? It’s a processing and a metabolising that I think as a community, we could do more.
I mean, we pathologise it if it’s longer than 12 months. I mean, anyone who’s lost a child, how can you say, OK, I’m done. I just I find that so bizarre.
[Alexx Stuart] (27:57 – 28:39)Well, especially when our culture, a lot of our cultures in modern times don’t have frameworks for stepping through grief. I remember interviewing Amanda Gordon, who comes from the Jewish faith, and she was stepping through all the different protocols. I think it’s the first 40 days or something.
And I was like, wow, people are so held. I’ve never experienced anything like that. And losing grandma, auntie, first cousin to suicide.
And I just I think, wow, you know, we really aren’t set up to move through grief in a way that feels supportive and safe to grieve.
[Jessica Maguire] (28:40 – 28:55)Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more, Alex. I think it’s something culturally that you do see other cultures do it really well. But here it’s almost like the funeral’s over.
OK, we’re done now. And to imagine that.
[Alexx Stuart] (28:56 – 29:00)Yeah, absolutely ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous. [Jessica Maguire] (29:01 – 29:52)
I know. And then the avoidance, you know, around. Oh, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry. And it’s like. Do you want to hear how I really am?
You know, but I was lucky that I had really good friends that could sit in that space of the messiness and that community that I told you about where it was the initial training I ended up going back to again. And it was just I felt so supported and held. But, you know, this is this is why I think the beauty of us having our own nervous system that’s regulated, we can give that to other people when it’s not about finding the right words.
A lot of the time it’s just sitting there with someone. It’s not about what you say. It’s your presence, your energy, your your ability to attune to them as they show all of their hurt and mess with that grieving process.
[Alexx Stuart] (29:53 – 30:08)I often think that maybe it’s a reckoning for someone to realise they can’t actually sit with hurt. Yes. Yeah. [Jessica Maguire] (30:08 – 30:13)
Because we have a really positive, positive toxicity culture. [Alexx Stuart] (30:13 – 31:22)
Right. I was actually so shocked when and I’m certainly not comparing my experience with mould to losing a sibling to suicide. I’m not so I want to make that super clear.
Just sharing my own trauma. That’s all. And I was actually so shocked that I could be so sick and have moved house seven times in two years and have friends not know how to just check in.
I actually became too complicated for a lot of people in my close circles. And I’m like, wow, what a way to just pile on an already dysregulated nervous system. Let’s just leave them alone now and see how that works out for them.
And that’s not their fault. I’m coming back to my first statement. I think one of the best things we can do to tune in to ourselves to create more regulated and co-regulated dynamics is to go, can I sit with a friend in need when I can’t do a thing and I might not even understand it, but I can just let them be in pain next to me and that’s OK.
[Jessica Maguire] (31:23 – 33:50)Exactly. I 100 percent agree with you. And it’s interesting.
I was just reading some really interesting research on what we would say, we used to call it compassion fatigue, but there’s really no such thing as compassion fatigue. It’s actually empathy fatigue and our ability to be able to recognise what belongs to us and what belongs to somebody else and then fully support them means that we need to have this awareness of our own nervous system. So the example they used in this study was around a vet who their job was to euthanise animals.
So their families would come in and because that she’d euthanised her own animals, it was like being able to compassionately recognise that this was that family’s grief. This was that family’s sadness. It didn’t belong to her.
But if she had trained herself to be compassionate, it actually connected to networks in the body and brain to do with the vagus nerve, but also areas in the brain that were it was neurologically supportive. It was enriching as opposed to empathy, where we say it’s almost like projecting our own sadness, our own feelings like, oh, I could never cope with what they’re going through rather than just being able to say. Yes, I feel for this person and recognise that inside of ourselves, but that’s their grief, that’s their hurt and I and I care for them and I’m supporting for them.
But I think there’s a few things we either avoid altogether because we think we’re not going to be able to cope or there is that lack of myself and you, like empaths, what we would see there as well. So it’s interesting this knowing our nervous system. And I know we spoke to that.
We spoke about this last time about interception. That’s the ability to tune into what’s happening in our own body at the time. And it might be that we can only be present with somebody for an hour, but that’s that’s OK.
That’s enough, you know, just to sit there with them, hold them, support them. And then if we start to recognise, OK, this is a lot. I’m going to take care of myself now.
That’s OK. Yeah, I think it’s that awareness, isn’t it? It’s always with the awareness.
[Alexx Stuart] (33:51 – 34:02)Yeah, we do. And I think to also recognise that if we can’t even be with someone who’s suffering for a little bit, then there’s actually nervous system work to do on ourselves. [Jessica Maguire] (34:04 – 34:18)
Yes. Yeah. If we’re scared of, oh, I won’t know what to say or I don’t know how to show up.
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And that’s that’s a bigger picture.
You know, that’s like what role do I want to play in my community? It’s not.
[Alexx Stuart] (34:18 – 34:51)Yeah, it’s beyond just us for sure. It is. It absolutely is.
And I feel like even though we’ve moved on from you sharing that you also lost your other brother at four, I do want to come back to it because so often we can think we’ve moved on from certain things or through certain things enough to thrive and live our lives. And then something else happens and there’s actually cause for revisit. Now, you were four when your other brother, I don’t know his name, sorry.
[Jessica Maguire] (34:51 – 34:52)His name was Luke. [Alexx Stuart] (34:52 – 35:10)
Luke died. And so I’d imagine like you would have almost even not been able to connect to the events and feelings that you might have had as a little girl when he passed away. How did that show up for you as you grieved, Sam? [Jessica Maguire] (35:12 – 35:37)
Yeah, it’s such a good question, Alex. It was it was something that I’d had vague, what we call explicit memories, you know, I could I could see the time when he died as a memory. But then also if you look at research on memory, even that’s not so it could have it could have just been the story that I heard and thought or the photos in the albums of the time. [Alexx Stuart] (35:37 – 35:40)
I often think I confuse with. [Jessica Maguire] (35:40 – 40:23)
Yeah, exactly. And that’s been showing like that. We do do that.
But it was I was actually working through the hurt of what was coming up in my body. And I was doing it was in a partnered exercise. And I had this feeling of a like it was the loss of Sam, but there was something else there.
And it was almost like a feeling of a boulder, like a huge boulder sitting on my upper back. And it kind of wanted to floor me, which is very much dropping down into that nervous system state of the dorsal vagal collapse. So I could really feel that.
And as I sat with it, I had a visual that came up and it was opening up to the loss of my other brother as well. So what was so profound was that both kind of like there was Sam’s death, but that came to the surface to be processed. And it absolutely can, because we have implicit memories.
And so when something feels the same, it will activate the old situation. So essentially, people getting triggered by a trauma will be, you know, that is an implicit memory. So that can show up in bodily sensations.
It can show up in our heart rate, our belly. For me, I was seeing the visual clearly, which can happen as well as we enter into a state of dysregulation. So a lot of that I needed to process as the four-year-old self and also like the grief or the sadness around that my poor parents who I would felt them be different because they were grieving.
But as a four-year-old, you don’t get an understanding of parents being sad. And that’s that you internalise that as I’ve done something wrong. So there’s a lot of that shame to work through as well, because we almost immediately do that.
I mean, even as adults, and I love the analogy of the second arrow in Buddhist psychology, which is, you know, we have the initial pain, which is the arrow, and then we shoot ourselves again for having the pain, but with shame around it, and it happens so quick. So for me, a lot of that was pulling out the second arrow, coming to where the wound was and sitting with the first arrow. It was very difficult.
I am not going to lie that some days that amount of grieving was, that’s all I could do. It’s very, very challenging time. However, it does show that we have this capacity to change and really from processing those situations, I changed how I was, I’m going to say, I changed relationally that I wouldn’t immediately internalise things as my fault.
And that made a big difference in relationships then, because when we do that, and it’s so much of this happens below the conscious thought, but we get the same patterns showing up in relationships. So I met my now husband a year after Sam died, and maybe a little bit longer, but it was, that was a corrective experience, learning to form a relationship with these new insights that I’d gained. And he is to me what you explained with your husband, where you feel that deep sense of safety and trust.
And we hear a lot around being ready for relationships and having to be regulated. That’s so not true. We are never ready for, perfectly ready for a relationship.
I think it’s, we’re all going to have stuff that we bring with us to that. So yeah, it was, it was, I’m not going to lie, it was very painful, but also I would say it was highly transformative as well. You know, both through we can have the pain, but then often it is what creates that transformation to a new sense of self and new, and the networks to do with regulation and attack, they’re shared, they’re the same.
So what, when we regulate more, we’re always going to have healthier attachment.
[Alexx Stuart] (40:24 – 42:04)Love where this is going, Jess, because I wanted to ask you sort of for some let’s paint pictures, you know, in parent dynamics, in work dynamics, in relationship dynamics. And, and, you know, I encourage everybody to listen to the first show we did, which was a practical nuts and bolts, nervous system show definitions. Obviously your book really unpacks that certainly in the first half as well.
So I want to use this special time to really illustrate things and make people think, oh yeah, that shows up for me with that particular friend or in that relationship or this one, you know, or maybe parents stressing out that they’re not creating healthy attachment with their kids and, and responding to stuff ups that of course, kids are doing because they’re in like full practise mode and on their journey to becoming adults.
And we certainly don’t become experts the day we turn 18. Right. So can we start with parent child dynamics?
I know you have a bub and, and maybe talking about what we now know to be, especially helpful in, in co-regulation and attachment and how we could maybe recognise that perhaps there might be some work based on what was missing or unhelpful in our own childhoods. I mean, that’s the three hour seminar in itself. I get that, but even just a couple of examples.
[Jessica Maguire] (42:04 – 46:19)Yeah, sure. I love it because they’re the, nothing shows you your own nervous system more than your children, you know, they’re this mirror of like mom. Yeah.
But I think to know that the nervous system, it’s so relational and we often think, well, this is inside my body or my, you know, it’s connecting my body and brain, but it’s inside me. However, that is profoundly impacting other people. Like it’s through our voice, it’s through the expression in our eyes, it’s through our gestures and it’s also through how we listen.
And that’s the social engagement system of the vagus nerve connecting from the heart up to the face. So, you know, we’ll immediately see moms, and I do this all the time with babies talking, nursing, co-regulation, right. Yeah.
That just, that’s almost an instinctive thing. I think what we’re seeing is that big shift towards prioritising connection over looking at behaviours. You know, if I see when my daughter is really yelling out, I mean, I work and she’s with her dad a lot of the time, or when I get home, she is just, mama, and it’s that she needs that attachment and she won’t settle until I’ve stopped and given her that full presence, spent that time with her, let her have as much as she wants.
And then she’s happy. You know, it’s like, I got that connection with you. And we were talking about this before the call around sleep and, you know, she still sleeps next to us.
And I had this judgement of, oh, I probably shouldn’t have her in her own bed, but, you know, she sleeps well, my husband sleeps well, I sleep well. But there’s that part where before the day starts, she’s filled up. She’s already coming in with the full tank because she’s had that contact, the touch, the nurturing, you know, her love language is definitely touch, which I think we’ve got to look at this as, that’s our first sense of communication to develop is touch.
We all need lots of it. So that’s the biggest part, I think, with kids. And then, you know, people often assume that kids have a greater capacity for self-regulation than what they do.
I think that’s exactly what you said. Like, you know, they need, what we do is we put our mind in their mind. So as a child is focussing on something and we come in with them and we bring that attention and narrate what’s happening or we focus with them, you are literally creating those networks in the brain and body to do with self-regulation, to do with learning, like neuroplasticity takes place.
And if you look with kids, there is this serve and return, serve and return that builds regulation. Now, we can’t attune to one child all the time. And that’s the beauty of this good enough parenting coming through.
You don’t need to beat yourself up if it’s not perfect all the time. And I’m putting my hand up here and saying, this is, you know, I’m really learning this at the moment because there’s, you know, I’ve got people, students that I want to help. There’s things to do at work.
But I know that my daughter is well supported with her father and she doesn’t need my guilt coming in to change my own nervous system. She needs a present mama, which is about then, you know, letting yourself off the hook a bit as well with that. But to know that the attunement, so that is tuning into the mirroring that we do, the serve and return, the back and forth is literally what coats the vagus nerve to do with regulation, because for kids, it’s up until adolescence before they’re part of their vagus nerve to do with emotional regulation is fully formed.
[Alexx Stuart] (46:21 – 46:53)Yeah. And I think that can also be a really comforting thing to understand that if our preteens, tweens still, and even early teens are still flying off the handle, you think you start thinking, gosh, shouldn’t they be able to regulate that by now? Or, you know, they’ve played that many sports matches or run that many races.
Why are they still melting down at the end of it to, to really recognise that there are a lot of parts of their brain still forming and to just be with them in their pain. Exactly.
[Jessica Maguire] (46:53 – 47:55)I think, I think a lot of what we expect isn’t developmentally appropriate, like across the board. And like, you’re going to stop and go, especially like, I see Ivy do things and I’m like, wow, she can do that. Like this morning, she was breaking eggs into the bowl for me to have make it, make it normal.
Like she was, I was prepping. I remember those days. So sweet.
You’ve got to let them help. So like, otherwise it is just this power struggle, but, but then to realise like, yeah. And she might have been able to do it on one day, but the next day, you know, it’s this up and down and not, not trying to figure it all out.
Like, I think for me, I love the nervous system as a lens for behaviour, you know, like it’s like, oh wow, she’s really wound up. She needs this. I need to bring her down or she’s really down.
I need to bring her up to bring back into that zone. And I think that’s like all relationships, you know, if we see our partner and it’s not to, not to try and cover over their experience.
[Alexx Stuart] (47:55 – 48:13)Yeah. I was going to say, like, I know what you’re saying is not that you’re trying to deny where people are at, but it’s more about like recognising the balance of like a motorcycle turning. Right.
And you can then compliment in co-regulation.
[Jessica Maguire] (48:13 – 48:14)Exactly. [Alexx Stuart] (48:14 – 48:15)
Exactly. [Jessica Maguire] (48:15 – 49:01)
And, and prioritising that, like I said, with patients, you know, the, the, if, if the people around us are melting down, don’t want to jump in there with them. I mean, I think, I think Thich Nhat Hanh speaks about this so beautifully where he says when they were on the refugee boats and there were pirates and it was so scary, you know, coming to America. If one person stayed calm on the whole boat, then everyone was okay.
If there’s just one person. So I think it’s really our ability when people around us are having a difficult time. I think there’s a theme here, Alex.
Everyone should stay grounded and regulated.
[Alexx Stuart] (49:01 – 50:20)I totally. Oh, wow. It’s something I’ve been thinking about so much as someone who has been in the health conversation for 15 years now online.
And I see really intense favouritism for very black and white, very fear-based language rising to the top because of our negative biases and because it’s more profitable essentially for big tech. And I often feel like I have this duty to find the moderate guest, the nuanced people who can unpack things rather than just slapping on another layer of terrifying people that they’re doing the wrong thing, eating rice sometimes, or, you know, like, I think you could scare people about anything these days. And it seems to work better than saying, hey, this might work for you, but it might not.
Let’s figure out what the options are. That’s not profitable. And it breaks my heart because it then sort of shows us that the world we’re currently in is almost geared against us being regulated and feeling a sense of calm, flexible agency.
[Jessica Maguire] (50:21 – 50:49)I totally agree, Alex. I mean, the online space is so interesting when you look at the fear-based language that’s used. And, you know, as a health professional, it’s something I was so aware of because it showed, you know, the link to pain, the language that was used.
So we can look at that as top-down influences on our nervous system. And complexities don’t sell.
[Alexx Stuart] (50:50 – 50:50)I know. [Jessica Maguire] (50:51 – 52:09)
But this is like what, what, like, I love the complexities because it’s really about exactly what you said, but we need to go bigger. Like if it’s instead of looking at just biological, we look at biopsychosocial, like all the things instead of looking at, and I see it now, even with the vagus nerve where it’s like, well, how can I hack it? And it’s like, well, you know, it’s not really one nerve that you can just hack.
It’s like, it’s an ecosystem, but its job is to relay messages. And then it’s about how the whole flow of energy happens through your brain body system, which again, there isn’t like a little hack for your nervous system. And if we look at the practise of neuroplasticity, that’s repetition over time, things we do again and again, like we said, with grief, you don’t just have one process or one moment where you’re done.
It’s daily, you know, surrendering again and again to a new reality. So, yeah, I think it’s about being really aware of how social media or online time is used in health because, yeah, there’s some really interesting things now.
[Alexx Stuart] (52:09 – 53:31)And I agree, you could scare somebody about anything, including doing nervous system work. Yes, exactly. Okay.
So we talked a little bit there about just starting to bring your awareness to your child and a recognition that they’re forming and they literally just need you there and to prioritise connection with relationships. We’re obviously unpacking an entire lifetime’s worth of potential dysregulation and traumatic moments that we’ve experienced separately. And then we come together and join and we’re surprised that that doesn’t always work.
How can we find like, I often feel like the challenge with relationships, marriage, if you decide on that as well, is to almost work to find the journey closer together. Because I don’t believe that’s necessarily where we even start. We start quite much with a societal checklist.
Yeah, there’s chemistry and there’s all the things that get us there in the first place to saying the yes and having the ceremonies and all that jazz. But I genuinely feel like that’s where it begins, not where, um, things sort of wrap up on the intimacy front.
[Jessica Maguire] (53:32 – 55:14)Yeah. It’s, it’s so interesting how we come to relationships with these expectations of, you know, what another person’s going to bring to us. But what I would say from an attachment perspective and also a nervous system perspective is there’s this beautiful overlay of the two.
And so if we’re more anxious or mobilised or hyper aroused, we might find that when we are facing challenges or when we feel, say it’s early on in the piece and we’re dating and we might be finding ourselves anxious because somebody hasn’t texted us back. There can be more reactivity, more blame or criticism. You know, we, we externalise this behaviour at someone.
Um, and I would say this isn’t just romantic relationships. Like I’ve seen this in workplaces. Um, you know, the higher, the more anxious somebody is, the more blame there is everybody else.
And this is really somebody that would benefit from learning to resource themselves, you know, independently first. So more self-regulation and that’s hard, you know, if someone hasn’t texted back, if there’s this feeling of abandonment and a lot of that is coming from, I’ll be left, you know, I’ll, I’ll, um, I’m alone. And until we tune into ourselves in a really deeply embodied way, we can’t see the pattern in our nervous system happening.
[Alexx Stuart] (55:15 – 56:14)Right. So I’ll be left, I’ll be alone. That’s interesting.
Cause I’m then thinking of that in the work context and it’s like, um, I’ll be, I’ll be left out. I’ll be fired. I’ll be without a job.
And that will mean this. And like, so is yes. So is hypervigilance, one of our first clues, whether it’s about the text message or the meeting minutes, you didn’t get the CC on that you thought you should be across.
Um, is it about noticing that perhaps our response isn’t productive to either the situation or to our own health? Um, or isn’t even like, how do we even know? Okay.
Here’s the question. I’m like, I’m trying to unpack it. How do we even know that the response we’re having is perhaps not appropriate to the situation at hand and almost counterproductive to what we want the outcomes ultimately to be.
[Jessica Maguire] (56:15 – 57:01)One of my teachers spoke about, this is the sacred pause and the sacred pause is very important for not doing damage to relationships and your possibly a place at work. But I think for a lot of the time we see this reactivity and we go, Ooh, maybe I shouldn’t have said that or done that. Um, and the reactivity, you know, anger is, is another one that maps here, but we’ll see the behaviour first and that’s a portal.
Um, also if we’re really triggered, you know, it’s going to feel overwhelming. It’s going to be strong. It’s not the same as like an anger where we’re like that pissed me off and I’m going to take care of that.
You know, that’s a different.
[Alexx Stuart] (57:01 – 57:14)Ah, so there’s the linger and the, it’s staying with you. And then you’re having dinner with your family that night and the feeling about the 3pm meeting still there. And so that is what we can start to look for. [Jessica Maguire] (57:14 – 59:08)
Probably like being so worked up that you can’t even connect with your family. You can’t even, um, you know, you feel the heart pounding and, and it’s like, some people would be like, I feel like I’m climbing the walls, you know, like that really wound up feeling. And I think to recognise that the internal experience doesn’t match what’s happening externally, but often when we get pulled into an old trigger, we can’t.
We, we, we don’t see the big picture anymore. We’re just in this small tunnel vision, but if we repeatedly have this hyper-vigilance, you know, they’re against me, they’re trying to keep me out of something, um, or they’re not texting me back, you know, it’s dating it’s relationships. It’s I’m helping health professionals see their strategies for trying to find relational safety with their patients.
And they’re too nice. You know, there’s, we see it everywhere that we have a connection. So the other way it can go for the people who are more avoidant and they withdraw, isolate, they don’t want to go and see the friend is to step into the connection is to reach out is to, um, learn to find regulation with other people because, you know, in childhood, it’s likely they didn’t have that experience of an adult who could put their mind in their mind, who could sit with them through all their mess and tantrums and meltdowns and big emotions. Um, and that’s by, by finding somebody they can do that with, that’s a corrective experience as well. And we can see, so, so both of them will come in the moments that are really difficult and we’ll see the patterns, but again, as you said, it’s awareness to see that ourselves.
[Alexx Stuart] (59:08 – 1:00:04)Yeah. Wow. So much to unpack.
I could talk to you for another hour. I swear, Jess, I really could. But I will point our wonderful listeners to your gorgeous new book, the nervous system reset, which I really just want to flag here.
I know publishers choose titles, um, and, you know, they want like it to sound like it’s going to be this neatly packaged little book of success, but I also want to offer that is the type of book that really very much for me feels like the start of unpacking, um, the things we want to actually feel, um, more regulated responses to in our own lives. That that’s what really came out for me. Yes.
We learned the nuts and bolts and the, the, the body chemistry and, and how it all links. But at the same time, you know, there’s work to do for many of us, whether we know it yet or not.
[Jessica Maguire] (1:00:05 – 1:00:46)Yeah. It’s interesting. Once you say, and you have the awareness, then it’s realising that the transformation actually happens in the doing, you know, we can’t, we can’t, it’s like, we can’t learn the piano by reading about it.
We have to roll up our sleeves and practise and it’s through our relationships. It’s through our work. It’s through life that we get to practise this.
Um, and there’s no finish line, you know, it’s, we learn new things. We have new situations. So yeah, fascinating stuff, but, um, I think it’s, it’s what so many of us need from modern life is this ability to have the awareness and then guide ourselves back to regulation.
[Alexx Stuart] (1:00:47 – 1:03:45)Beautiful. Thanks Jess. Thanks Alex.
I hope you loved today’s show as much as I loved bringing it to you. I want to remind you that if you are someone who craves a low-tox community, that is judgement-free, full of empowerment, has health professionals and building health professionals that can support you as well as me in there answering questions multiple times a week, I want to invite you to join the low-tox club for the price of less than a cup of coffee a month. You have an annual membership for $49 Australian.
So it’s about $30 us or euro that allows you to have a member masterclass every single month with a health professional or global expert from the podcast, where we have them to ourselves for an hour to ask questions and deep dive further. You have the beautiful supportive chat group. You have Q and A’s with me, me answering questions.
We read books and talk about them and a whole bunch more. You can head to lowtoxlife.com, hit the explore tab and join the club is the very first option on that list. Of course, we have over 10 evergreen courses that you can jump into anytime, whether it’s navigating everyday low-tox swaps with our go low-tox signature course, whether you have kids and you’re wanting to know how to best support them with our low-tox kids course, whether you’re planning a family and looking at a healthy low-tox preconception journey, reducing inflammation, especially the chronic kind with our inflammation ninja course, many, many other courses. You can again, head to lowtoxlife.com, hit the courses tab and you’ll see all of the options, which includes a business course, my low-tox method programme. A lot of people don’t know, but I was doing a lot before starting low-tox life in 2009. And I was a business consultant across hospitality, health, retail and cosmetics. I have been in business consulting for a very long time.
So I absolutely adore helping people move into the low-tox space or develop their low-tox businesses. So that’s a way I can support you. And then of course, there’s our wonderful social media communities at lowtoxlife on Instagram.
And of course the website with over 250 gluten-free recipes, blogs, downloadable PDFs to help you navigate wanting to get rid of synthetic fragrances in your school or office. I could go on. So head to lowtoxlife.com, see what takes your interest or fancy. And thank you so much for being a part of our podcast community. I love, love, love reading your reviews. I appreciate every follow and subscribe.
And I want to just remind you to finish off that if there’s anything you heard that you found interesting from medical or scientific perspective, it is intended as education only, please always chat to a health professional who knows you and your situation best. I’ll see you next week. Bye.
