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Show Notes

In this episode, I’m out on a chilly spring walk in Anchorage, answering listener questions that have been waiting patiently (some for months 😅). We explore how nervous system work shows up in real life — from anxiety on solo outdoor walks, to navigating chronic pain and hypervigilance, to the very real stress of running a business.

We start with a question about anxiety in remote outdoor settings, unpacking how the nervous system responds to real risk — and how to work with that through both practical preparation and somatic tools like orienting, resourcing, and coregulation.

From there, we move into a nuanced conversation about chronic pain and hyper-awareness in the body — exploring how to approach somatic work without reinforcing hypervigilance, and how to build the skill of widening awareness to include more neutral or pleasant sensations.

We close with a question about business stress, perfectionism, and the feeling of never being “caught up.” I share how working with cycles — rather than constant output — has been essential in building a more sustainable and humane way of working.

This episode is a reminder that nervous system work isn’t separate from daily life — it’s woven into how we walk, work, create, and care for ourselves.

Timestamps

00:00 — Spring in Anchorage + listener Q&A intro
03:00 — Anxiety on solo outdoor walks
04:30 — Real risk vs. nervous system response
07:00 — Building skills + safety planning
09:30 — Hypervigilance + orienting toward safety
11:30 — Resourcing: internal + external supports
13:30 — Competent protector + coregulation
17:30 — Transition to question on chronic pain
18:30 — Hypervigilance in the body
21:30 — The “problem → fix” loop
23:00 — Widening awareness (zooming out)
24:30 — Loud vs. quiet sensations (pain vs. ease)
27:00 — Tracking neutral + pleasant sensations
29:00 — Why body scans can backfire
30:00 — Transition to business + stress question
31:00 — Entrepreneurship as a growth edge
33:00 — Working with cycles vs. constant output
35:00 — Creative cycles + completion
37:00 — Resting on the “backside of the wave”
38:30 — Perfectionism + letting things be enough
40:00 — Slowing down as a learned skill
41:30 — Future episode ideas + closing reflections

Resources

- Get all the information about Summer Strong here! 

Submit your questions for the Q&A [here]

Photos and links from this episode:
www.mindandmountain.co/podcast

Transcript:

Sarah 0:13
You, hello, co regulation conversations, hello. It's a chilly spring day in Anchorage today, gray and barely I've got my puffy jacket on. It's that time of spring where the what breadth of weather experiences that we're all having is just really impressive to me, how it can be so like wintery in Alaska and other northern places, and a lot of people I'm hearing from in other parts of the States at least, are having like full on summer mode. It's pretty impressive the swing. So today I am excited about this episode. I am going to answer some listener questions. I'm psyched for the questions that some of you have submitted. And I don't know what happened, but I don't know, forgot to check them or, yeah, didn't do a good job of following up on them. So there's some in here who have been asked at the very beginning of this podcast, which is, we're getting, we're half a year in so little celebration on that front too. Half a year in, and I figured out how to go and look at your questions, and there's some really good ones. So that's what I'm planning to do today, while I walk around the slightly sloppy, more than slightly the sloppy neighborhood that is anchorage in. We call it breakup season, when the snow is melting and turning everything into mush. And I wore tennis shoes, which I might be regretting. We'll see definitely some puddles to avoid. Okay, let's let me read this first question I

Sarah 3:07
Okay, this is from Sarah from Maine, and it says my anxiety kicks in on solar outdoor walks. When I'm somewhere without cell service or out in the boonies, my mind makes up all these stories about what could happen to me or my dog, and how I'd be doomed if she gets hurt, if an animal comes out of the woods and attacks us, etc. Why does my mind do this? Do practices like orienting help? Thank you. Okay, amazing. What a great question. I'm sure many of you are relating to this and so real and so relevant to many of us. So, okay, first off, there is like a real thing here, right? It's like you're not just making up, like your brain's not just inventing things out of nowhere. There are some real, real threats, real risks that happen in those kind of situations. It's not a risk free environment, right? Especially when you add the layer of not being in cell service and being out of contact with with people. I mean, it's funny, huh? Because, because the we for so many years of humanity, there was no way to get a hold of us. But like, we just didn't have the there was no technology for being in contact in real time very often. So it's kind of wild, if you think about evolutionarily, how our perception of how much communication we have with people has changed so fast. I mean, these like handheld cell phones, you know, is only in my freaking lifetime. It's so wild. Okay, I'm on mush now, walking on mush. Maybe you can hear it like soft snow. So I guess to your first question, Why does my brain do this? I would say, well, first off, it does that because it's reading some very real risk factors that have just increased from what your what normal, normal life now that you, you and your body live, that the risk that you're exposed to when you step out in the mountains and out of cell service, that like kind of threat level that your body, that you're exposed to is has increased by some factor. You know, it's hard to say how much. And like, there's a question about how accurate it is, like, maybe it's jumping up way more than you feel like it should, quote, unquote. I wonder if that's part of your question. You know. So I mean, as someone who spends a lot of time outside, and also, honestly, someone who lives with and is partnered with my husband, who's a outdoor Risk Management Professional safety instructor, guy thinks a lot about risk in the outdoors and how to mitigate it there. There's something to this concern that the body is having, nervous systems having and a like a realm of this, my response here would be to build a skill set around managing risk outdoors. And you probably already do have a version of this, whether you have you know medical skills, wilderness medical skills and map reading skills, and, I mean, it's the whole skill set of things that we build to be able to be outside, like, as we build, as we contribute skills to that bucket, that's what something that's going to help us, like, Actually, logistically manage things. Were they to go wrong?

Sarah 8:03
Even, you know, because just accidents happen and things sometimes do. So there's, there's, like, this route, like a branch of my answer, which is like, yeah, there's some real concerns here. So how are we going to mitigate those? Do we need to build some Is there a gap that I like, need to build some skills in? Or is there a plan, like, do I make a plan to have an in reach with me, or to get, honestly, I got the upgraded my iPhone so that I could get the satellite communication potential on the new, newer iPhones, and it's been a really nice extra layer of comms safety that has been helping Luke and I feel like we Have another layer of communication potential with us when we're remote, off the grid. So I don't know there's that whole range of, that whole branch of the question that I think is, is part of what we want to you know, we do what kind of for being responsible about doing stuff outside, we kind of need to have a plan for ourselves, to, like, set ourselves up for success, and that's one branch of it. So then, if that's there, or you're working on it, and you're still having a big nervous system response of hyper vigilance, or that feeling of being stressed, or the mental loop that you're describing, I wonder, okay, in that situation, I. I do think this is a place where nervous system work can come in and well, because there is like the other reality is there's no way to be perfectly prepared. So even if you do all the things on that first branch, there's still risk potential that we accept, I mean inside of all human life, if we're being honest with ourselves. So, right? So the fear is showing up there.

Sarah 10:47
Yeah, I would use orienting. I would use a lot of these tools that we've been talking through here, orienting in that if we imagine that your nervous system is activated inside of a stress response and feeling like it needs to be very vigilant about it's trying to orient. That's what hyper vigilance is. Is an attempt to orient. But it's orienting to threat. It's like, where's the threat? Somewhere, there's a threat here. So the little adjustment there is to use orienting, but try to orient. Use your that impulse to look for safety cues.

Sarah 11:37
Look for safety cues like a tree that catches your eye, or sounds of birds, I'm hearing some right now. And, yeah, see like, see how that what impact that experience might have. And we want to always be kind of noticing the body, the impact on the body along the way,

Sarah 12:13
orienting resourcing, looking for resourcing. One way to think about resourcing in this context, would be reminding yourself of the resources that you have access to, which would be all the things that were on that first branch. So it's like, look at these resources. I have a warm jacket with me. This is nice. I have, um, years of training in such and such. I have many like I have lots of years of experience of walking in these mountains, and I have strong ankles and the like the the recalling of the laundry list of the resources that You have inside yourself and and in your ecosystem. I Yeah, that's a way to use resourcing in the wild in these situations.

Sarah 13:37
Yeah. I mean, honestly, those are a few of mine. I also like go tos. Another that I lean on in those situations, personally is the competent protector practice, which I don't know that I have a I don't know that I have done a lot on that inside of the podcast, but a really nice exercise, and maybe you have already, like, a relationship with the, Like imagined or real connection with some like protector, person who could or animal like one of, one of the ones that I have, like, built a relationship with in my imagination over years. It's kind of a spiritual practice or and honestly, this feels like it is most likely like comes from indigenous traditions. I do not know the roots of this exercise, but it feels like very much like what I would associate with some of the like Alaskan. I. Are indigenous groups that are so wise at being able to connect with ancestors and healthy ancestors, and also with animal guides. So if you have a relationship with anything in the known just realms. One of mine is a like a Wolf, Wolf sister or a wolf pack that I imagine coming in to kind of accompany me or watch my back when I'm out in situations where I feel like I could use some extra protection, competent protection. That's a practice that's mostly designed to help. Well, I learned it through a teacher, Carmen Spagnola, who does attachment work, somatic attachment work. So yeah, it's not always easy to connect with a competent protector and feel good in that relationship if we have funky, like attachment stuff going on. But that is a practice that over time, as you build it can be really like helpful to call into your nervous system, basically, some way of, some type of CO regulation, is what one thing our nervous systems could really use in those moments when we're feeling vulnerable and alone, and in some ways we actually are. So don't gaslight your nervous system for its response. It's real, it's accurate. And then what are we going to do to help our nervous systems realize that even though that's true, we're still making like a reasonably irresponsible decision to be out here, it's really not as scary as it might be feeling. And yeah, so there's a way to this. Would be a way to tend to that feeling of aloneness and vulnerability through co regulation. So actually, you know, men, maybe any of the CO regulation strategies that I've talked about here on this podcast could also be really good for this. Like feeling like your body needs a relationship with some like needs to like be in connection with something like maybe in the forest or the trees or the land or the mountain or something out in the wild. Could be one of those co regulators too. Okay, gosh, that's a great fun question for me to answer. I wish you luck if you get to try this. If any of you actually try any of those and notice impacts, please circle back and let me know what you notice and are observing. I would really love to hear that. Okay, let's do the next one.

Sarah 18:12
This is from Stephanie. No wait, sorry, wrong one Stephanie's next first. I have one from Marie. Marie Marie says, I'm very interested in nervous system work and somatic work, in many ways, makes a lot of sense to me. That said, I have a long history of recurring, persistent pain, mainly what I believe to be neuroplastic pain. I have a tendency to be hyper vigilant about sensations in my body, and believe my nervous system often misinterprets sensations as threats, or goes looking for sensations to feel threatened by. If that makes sense, yes, it totally makes sense. Okay. Okay. More from Marie, I am trying to figure out how to approach the somatic work in a way that doesn't contribute to that hyper vigilance. The practice is very embodied, and I'm someone who is maybe a bit too embodied. Any suggestions? Thanks so much. Okay, Marie, yeah, what a great question. I'm so glad you put it in. And I am, again, almost certain that there are other people listening who relate big time. So you know what, I'm gonna get across this traffic bridge so I can get out of the out of the road noise, and then I'm gonna be right back. Okay, so Marie, you're so smart with your question, and I really okay. I personally connect to this a lot. As well because of, yeah, the way that my nervous system has been my whole life. I think maybe I don't know, and this has essentially been a big piece of what my personal work has been on over the last chunk of years, since I got into the somatic realm, and I think why I was really drawn to it too. So not exactly my version isn't exactly pain, more like problems, like the sense that, like, something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong. And with when, when some of what the body's reading is is actually pain, physical pain that's next level, that is really challenging, challenging place to be in a body. So, yeah, first off, I'm just really feeling for you in that experience and yeah, kind of just wanting to take a moment to hold that together. I

Sarah 21:28
yeah, I mean, one of the defaults that really we can get into with any type of healing, tending, work is that impulse to identify a problem and then go do something about it, go fix it. And it feels so important to me to try to notice that when it happens, because the the problem fix, problem fix like that, that thing is its own cycle that can be really intense to live inside of. So I wonder, just with what it feels like to have noticed a pattern and then to be here just kind of acknowledging it, holding it, holding space for it. I I just like seeing if it's okay to take a moment without taking action on a thing. And then the thing I would invite you into is, okay. The the big picture goal with, like, the skill that I want to try to build for you or with someone in this situation, is the skill of, like, zooming out and holding more, holding more like a wider perspective. It's really not an easy thing to do, so sometimes this requires the presence of a like supportive other who can help hold the steadiness of the container while this skill is built. But the what I'm talking about here is, well, let me give you a couple examples. I just walked by a really busy road, right with traffic noise, and that the traffic noise is, the volume is loud of it, so it's, it's noisy, and it it takes up it like you notice it when you're by it because of the noise. And also, let's say, I think there might have been there. Let's say there's also a bird song that's happening at the same time, but the bird is quieter because the track and the traffic is louder. And so there's a skill where in those situations where it's like, can you hear the bird song? Can you hear the quiet parts of of the experience in that your senses are having,

Sarah 24:49
in with pain stuff, with body stuff, that means we're trying to build the skill of listening to the quieter. Part of the embodied experience, which is usually what the more neutral to pleasant things. So to make this really tangible, this is a micro pain example compared comparatively, but hopefully it's illustrative when I am on a long hike, long back backpacking trip or a long ski, there's often a part of my body that is over it first, or there's like a joint that's unhappy gets to be unhappy at some point. And we're not done for the day. So we're still going. And of course, I'm doing all the things to like physically tend to it, like drinking water and food and those things. But there's a way I use nervous system skill, this nervous system work for that type of pain where the, let's say I have, like a a knee that's unhappy and sore, or an ankle. And the the game, you call it a game, the game of the strategy is to see if I can feel so that's that's loud, right? The discomfort in the joint is loud, like the traffic. And I'm going to see if I can. I mean, I can. I can definitely feel that, know that well. And I want to see if I can also get to know and feel the joint on the other side of the body, the joint that isn't in pain or is In less pain, less discomfort. And so we're building the ability to listen to the quieter parts of our experience, with the goal of not ignoring the pain, but zooming out enough to be able to notice that there's pain or discomfort. And there's this other thing, maybe it's warmth or ease or a little bit of space, or, you know, whatever sensations you come across.

Sarah 27:39
Yeah, I wonder if that will help. So, yeah, that would be looking for like any looking to try to come into the body through pleasure, so we're not just dropping in. That's actually why I don't really recommend body scans typically, because for people like you and I and others that relate here, this might be, this might be like, similar to a pattern inside of somatic experiencing is called Global high intensity activation, where the nervous system just kind of reads things as threats pretty often and stays in high activation because of that. And that's essentially what I've been personally working on, on untangling inside my own nervous system over the last handful of years. And I would say I successfully have. So that's amazing. And yeah, for people with that pattern, just asking to go into the body often will flare up like bring attention to all of the red flags that the body's noticed about what it's experiencing. And so we do have to be pretty skillful with it. And so yeah, the the key here would be going in through the tracking the pleasure pathway, going going into the body through pleasure or neutrality. If pleasure is too hard, too big of a word, something that's just or less bad, actually also works. Okay. So that's where I would have you start, Marie, yeah, thanks for your great question and keep us posted on how this exploration goes. Okay. Now I have a question from Stephanie. Stephanie says I would love to hear how you apply these principles to running a business, managing finances, tech challenges with Canva, getting stuff right time on a computer never actually getting enough done, goal setting, anxiety, getting Raine space. For decisions and having to spend so much time on social media and more. All of these things are stressors for me in my business, and my tendency is always to just fault myself for not keeping up. Okay, this is great. The question for me, yes and yes, that's so real. I mean, I love my business and the work it allows me to do in the world, and is definitely not for the faint of heart, to be an entrepreneur, to work for yourself and to try to build a creative life, It's been one of my biggest personal growth levers. And I love that, and everything you speak of just really also rings true. It's a big lift. And for sure, we'll find the parts of your well being, the parts of yourself that are unhealed in any way, and poke at them that feels like. So, I mean, thanks. I guess if we're the kind of people that like to learn and grow, which I am. I really, truly I am so I so I really do appreciate that about it, and try to embrace these kind of challenges, as does it sound too cheesy to be like learning opportunities? I mean, that seems a little bit cheesy, but I think it's true, and I feel like, for me, at least when I remember that, that it's a it's an opportunity and like a pointing at something that I could tend to better, kind of funny. It's like, related to what I was talking about with Marie just earlier, about not fixing things, because I do love to identify your problem and then, like, come up with a solution for it and work on it and see progress. I am the person I'm talking to in that answer to Marie too, of like, I do

Sarah 32:41
kind of get off on that problem identification and then taking, like, making something happen. So I guess what I'm saying here, though, is that there is does feel like an easier relationship to have with it to be in, like, appreciation of the growth potential and leaning into that rather than, you know, when we when We have capacity for it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, also hopefully opting out right sometimes, and just letting things be messy and imperfect sometimes too. I mean, okay, so one of my answers to your question is that the the work that I've done on cycles, coming into relationship with cycles feels super critical to me inside of entrepreneurial or business work or any type of creative work, because all of these things, you name, If we're doing them all, all at the same time, that's exhausting and depleting, and I can't imagine doing all of that. I mean, there's just no way we'd have capacity for all of it, right? But the the model, the coming into relationship with your own cycles, your own creative cycle, and the annual cycle of the seasons, and maybe the moon cycle, you know, like these, these cycles that are happening around us can really help make sense of like, when is the time to move on some of these things, and when is the time to pull back and rest and and collect ourselves and rejuvenate and you? To be nurtured and come up with some new ideas of, like, basically going inside for a while and then, and like, going internal for a while, and then going out and being external in that expansion contraction cycle, all of that stuff that feels like I don't know how I would have been able to run a business without that sense of, it's a sense of rhythm, right? It's a sense of sense of,

Sarah 35:38
I mean, I think to me, it almost feels also like decolonial or breaking out of the like steady growth trajectory, always doing more, always growing, like straight line growth cycle that we've maybe been taught in Western culture, and we're here, maybe trying to soften the relationship there and come into more like a cyclical rhythm. And when you talk about the sense of like, there's always more to do, and there's and there really is the the work of cycles and the nervous system lens on completing, completing a wave, completing a cycle and coming into a like a full completion of that, of that wave, I'm actually, I'm thinking mostly about creative cycles here, where you like, make something happen, gather up effort to make A thing happen, and then get it out the door. And then, even though it probably wasn't good enough, or, like, there's room for improvement and or there's more to do, we just did the first phase of it, maybe then there, there is a backside of that wave, like, of a creative cycle, wave where you put something on the world, and now you get to, like, let it be as it is, and rest a little bit and inside of that, like to actually pull that off. Well, we have to contend with perfectionism and the awareness that there's more to do, but we're not going to do it now, and the ability to feel like that was enough for now, even though it's not everything, and slow down and Get a rest like a backside of the wave, resting moment before another thing kicks up. That's been very helpful. And, yeah, I think kind of mission critical for any of us in these roles where there's just always more. I think about parents too, with that, not a parent, but it's just when I look at parents and their like, workloads with their own shit, and then also their family shit, it's like, it's so much I feel like that, those moments of like, can we just did a thing now we now we're gonna pause now. We're gonna just like, let that, let it be that's got to be something that everybody needs right more practice on that it's

Sarah 38:52
kind of counter cultural to do less when there's or to take a pause before we get into the Next thing, but oh my gosh, it feels so good when you do it. At least for me, it does. It might not always feel good, let me be honest, because it feels good to me now, after all this work to come out of this global high pattern, before my nervous system would have, like freaked out when I slowed down and paused because it didn't it only associated activation with safety, so deactivation actually felt like sketchy and uncomfortable and mind would race. So, yeah, yeah, that's that is the fruit of some significant labor on my part to be feeling as good about that as I do these days, but it is something that can be learned and practiced so and also, I do believe that. As we do more and more of that in as we model it for others, and make it be more of a normal thing culturally, then that'll just make it easier for other people to access it too. But we having, we're having to make a culture shift to normalize those kind of like slow down pauses or taking a break after you've done something, before you start a new thing, getting some space between these waves. Okay, there's so much more to say on that, but that feels complete for me now. I welcome more questions on this, if you'd like to hear Yeah, business is a whole topic, and I've been looking for reasons to like, share and share My thinking around small business and all of entrepreneurial stuff and online work and all of it so wellness industry, oh my gosh. Let me know what you want to talk more about on that for sure.

Sarah 41:19
Okay, here I have another suggestion from Stephanie that I'm just going to name because and put out there as future ideas. It's really good. The suggestion is to talk about the mindset modules from ski babes and summer strong. Which is a really fun idea I would love to do, like a series on the somatics of those mindset modules. So, yeah, I love that great suggestion. I'm definitely gonna see how I might be able to do that and where and, yeah, maybe an episode on the somatics of weakest link syndrome. I did do a mindset module on that inside of ski babes or summer strong. I don't remember which now, but it would be great to feels like a great idea to bring that back around that's such a good and relevant topic here, especially as we move into summer. Okay, amazing. Thank you for your questions. And yeah, I think I'm complete here. I am having like, a weird deja vu feeling, wondering if I actually had already answered some of those earlier questions. Well, if I had already, if I did, I'm gonna just blame perimenopause brain, because you can kind of blame anything you want on that, which is really handy, and hopefully that you you got some good new things out of the answers. I feel like I feel really satisfied with these answers that I gave today. So maybe they, hopefully there was something in it for you as well. Okay, thanks so much you all who put questions in and thank you all for listening and being a part of the community here. There's a helicopter flying overhead, so I'm going to say goodbye. You.