#139: The Antidote to Activated Nervous Systems with Maegan Megginson

In this episode of The Quiet Rebels® Podcast, I’m super excited to be joined by Maegan Megginson, to speak about how we can embody a more restful approach to business and intentionally take care of your nervous system in the process.

**TRIGGER WARNING: In this episode we do cover the topics of suicide and trauma, so please take care if these are sensitive topics for you my lovely.**

In this conversation, we discussed:

• What does an activated nervous system look and feel like?
• The distinction between having an activated nervous system and having a trauma response
• Feeling into GOOD bodily sensations
• The 3 Emotional Regulation Practices to use TODAY
• The Bonus Emotional Regulation Practice that we 100% advocate for

& more!

To learn more about Maegan and join her Deeply Rested email community, head to: https://maeganmegginson.com/newsletter/

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TRANSCRIPT

Mai-kee Tsang: Hello my lovelies, welcome back to the Quiet Rebels podcast. I am so so excited to be here with you today . Because we’re going to be talking about the antidote to activated nervous systems.

At the end of the day, even though we are business owners, we are still human beings. And so, life can happen sometimes. And when it does, sometimes our nervous systems will let us know when something is truly not right. And so, we often find ourselves We are in a struggle position where we’re trying to run a business, but our body is telling us, no, no, no, we need to actually look at the bigger picture and focus on what’s most important.

And that’s really being able to settle yourself in a much more grounded position. And that’s why I’ve got a special guest with me today, because we’re going to be talking about how to, again, have that antidote to activated nerve systems and developing an emotional regulation practice to help us do so.

And so that’s why I’m super excited to have the wonderful Maegan Megginson here with me today. Hey 

Maegan Megginson: Maegan. Thanks so much for coming on to the podcast. Oh, I am honored to be here and I’m very excited for this conversation. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Oh yes. So the thing is, what I love is that you are a licensed therapist and you also, you help other therapists especially to really have deeply rested and wildly successful lives.

And so could you tell us a bit more about your line of work and how we And how you really got into, yeah, how you got into this work in general, before we actually dive into all of the goodness. 

Maegan Megginson: I’d be happy to. Yes. So it’s true. I am a licensed therapist. And that’s how I started my career. Why am I straight out of college?

I went to grad school to become a therapist and spent the first decade plus of my professional life doing couples and sex therapy. I am no longer. Actively practicing with therapy clients, because I transitioned, I had a professional evolution where I realized that my calling as a therapist had come to a close.

That chapter was complete. And the direction I was really feeling called to move into was in supporting other mission driven business owners, people who have. Big hearts, big passions for making the world a better place and need someone to help them really balance the personal with the professional.

Now, how do we take exceptionally good care of ourselves while we’re taking exceptionally good care of the people in the rest of the world? So I’m really curious about the intersection of therapy Emotions, psychology, spirituality with what it takes to run a successful business on the capitalist playground.

Because I, I know at the end of the day, we also need to pay our bills, right? We need to pay our mortgage. We need to pay our teams well. So how do we do both? How do we take great care of ourselves while also running really successful businesses? Those are the conversations that get me out of bed in the morning.

Mai-kee Tsang: Oh, you, when, as soon as you mentioned capitalist playgrounds, like, oh yes, even though as much as we don’t want to, it’s still the game that we’ve got to play, but how do we do so in our own way? How do we make up our own games on this playground? 

Maegan Megginson: You got it right. Yeah. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Oh, I love this. I love this. All right.

So, all right. Take us back a bit more. I just, for those of us who actually, we kind of know what it means, but I would love to hear from you. What does it actually mean to have an activated NEF system? We probably have felt the sensations before, but it’s one of those things that sometimes we can’t pinpoint it, and until we’re aware of it, We won’t know what to look for.

So could you kind of just take us back to basics in that sense, please? 

Maegan Megginson: Yeah, I would love to. I would love to. Yeah, because especially if you don’t have a mental health background, there’s a lot of jargony words that are in the zeitgeist that you don’t actually know what they mean. Okay. I’m, you know, I’m activated.

What is that? I think I’m activated, but what does that, what does that really mean? So anytime you hear something and you don’t actually know what it means. Find out, you know, Google it, talk to your own therapist about it. It’s the more in depth you can understand these concepts and how they live in your own body, the better able you are going to be to take good care of yourself and to do what you need to do in your own business to make sure you are really well.

So anyways, that’s just like a disclaimer to this whole conversation is if we’re talking about something and you don’t understand it, empower yourself with knowledge, look it up, find out more. What does it mean to have an activated nervous system? So there’s actually two ways to experience an activated nervous system.

And the technical terms are hyperarousal and hypoarousal. So we’re most familiar with hyperarousal. This is when our nervous system gets activated and we get sort of spun up. Right, so we get really anxious, maybe we get sweaty, we start feeling panic, you might be hyperventilating, you might have a lot of energy in your body, nervousness, fear, you know, this is when like your heart is racing and you just, you feel like you need a Xanax.

You know, you’re just, you’re, you’re so stressed out. You’re so emotional. Everything feels like it’s running on high. You can feel that your body is not calm. Your body is not grounded. You are at the whim of your panic or your fear. That’s what it feels like to have a hyper aroused nervous system. Does that make sense?

Mm hmm. That’s the first type. That’s the way we’re most familiar with. But there’s another way to have a dysregulated nervous system, and that’s to be hypo aroused. Hypo arousal is the opposite. It’s when you feel yourself go into shutdown mode. You feel numb. You feel maybe really sleepy, like there’s nothing you can do, your body’s heavy, you just have to lay down and close your eyes.

Maybe you can’t feel your emotions at all. You are just completely disconnected from your body. A lot of people will describe this as feeling depressed. You know, I feel really depressed, I don’t want to get out of bed, I don’t have motivation or interest in doing anything. Versus hyper arousal, which feels more like anxiety.

So it’s thinking about like, am I feeling more on the anxious side of the spectrum or more on the depressed side of the spectrum? But either way, if you feel like you have lost your sense of connection to your body, a groundedness to the earth, then your nervous system is activated and it’s worth pausing to pay attention to what really is going on inside of your heart and soul.

Mai-kee Tsang: Okay, so the thing is, whenever I’ve heard about nervous system activation, I’ve always heard it through the lenses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. And so I’m curious is there some overlap here with the hyperarousal and hyperarousal or is it just another way to view it? 

Maegan Megginson: So the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn are trauma responses.

Right, so these are ways that our bodies are responding when something in our nervous system has become activated. So you can think of the trauma response as the way your body is responding to your nervous system being activated. But it’s helpful to kind of take one step back. Yes, knowing what your trauma response is, is incredibly useful when you’re trying to understand how to better navigate the world.

But if you don’t know how to identify when your nervous system is becoming dysregulated, you’re actually robbing yourself of the opportunity to choose a different type of response when Your nervous system is becoming dysregulated. So think of it like first, how can I identify when my body is getting dysregulated when my body is getting activated?

And second, can I become clear within myself about what kind of trauma response I tend to default to once my nervous system is in a more chaotic place? 

Mai-kee Tsang: Oh, okay. This makes so much more sense. So it’s just, it’s more like a, it sounds like it’s a layered process of really understanding yourself and being, coming aware of how you respond to external stimuli or maybe internal stimuli, perhaps.

That’s makes so much sense. 

Maegan Megginson: Yeah. And the reason that I want you to slow down and first, like, really learn How your body experiences dysregulation is because if you’re only operating based on your responses or your reactions, again, you’re robbing yourself of an ability to make changes in your body to soothe and calm and ground yourself before you are kind of off to the races, doing whatever kind of trauma response you learned to do in childhood.

Mai-kee Tsang: We want 

Maegan Megginson: to give you more. Opportunities to make different choices about how you operate in the world today. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Yes. Oh, don’t we all. So this is a bit more of a side note question. There has been some debate that I have been observing over the last couple of years, the difference between activation. and triggers.

And I’m curious if you had a particular take on that because some people use those terms interchangeably and I personally don’t interchange them because I think the word trigger is a bit more, you know, amplified of a response and activation is kind of like, Oh, something’s up. So I’m, so I’m just curious to hear from you.

Is there any particular distinction that you see between the two or are they terms that you personally use interchangeably? 

Maegan Megginson: Hmm. That’s a really interesting question. It sounds like in this case, you’re using the word trigger as a verb, right? Like I am triggered or I am activated. So I think, you know, I’ve, I’m just running this through real quick for me.

I think of trigger as an experience or it’s like, what is my trigger? Something happens that triggers me when a trigger is present in my environment. My nervous system becomes activated. So I do think there are some people that will use like I’m triggered and I am activated interchangeably, but I think a more helpful way to think about it is there are triggers in my environment that activate my nervous system.

And then, how is my nervous system getting activated? Do I tend to be activated into more hyper arousal where I’m in panic, fear, anxiety, or do I tend to get activated and shift into hypo arousal where I shut down, where I kind of cave in on myself? What are the triggers that activate these responses within my nervous system?

That’s how I think about it. 

 All that matters is, do you know how to recognize in your own body when something’s not quite right? Do you know the ways in which your body communicates to you that you’re not safe, that your boundaries have been violated, that an old memory or an old wound is present and needs to be healed?

You know, it’s like, the language is helpful when we’re trying to intellectually understand what is happening inside of us emotionally. And that’s great. It’s really helpful to have an intellectual understanding of what’s happening. But. The most important thing to understand is what this all feels like in my own body and the terms and the jargon Don’t matter if you know what you’re feeling in your body.

Mai-kee Tsang: You’re doing great Okay, that brings me to my next question. There are plenty of people out there who have never been given the opportunity or they weren’t in an environment that encouraged listening to our bodies. And so for someone who’s completely new to this, what would you advise them to do to, like, what cues could they look for in their bodies to start picking up what’s okay and what’s not okay for them?

Maegan Megginson: Yeah. Great question. So a simple place to start is to notice when you sigh. To notice when, imagine like you’re in your inbox. I find a lot of people get activated in their inboxes. ’cause there can be some really triggering things inside of the inbox, right? Oh yeah. . So when you’re going through your inbox, notice if, like, if you find yourself going, oh, oh, you know, if you hear yourself like, breathing heavy, big size, that’s a really good cue of like, oh.

Something’s happening in my body right now. That was weird. I just had this unintentional sigh. What was, what was that about? So listen, listen to this noises that you’re making can be a really nice entry point into a deeper body awareness. of what is happening for me when I’m in my head, on the computer, working, working, working.

What is the connection between my brain and my body? Listening to the size can be a really nice entry point if you’re just beginning to create that connection to your somatic sensations. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Hmm. Oh, now I’m just like looking back on my past few weeks. Have there been any significant sigh moments to get started with?

All right. So if sighs are one way to start recognizing these sensations, are there any others just for people to get started with? 

Maegan Megginson: If you feel really disconnected from your body, it might be helpful to, well, one, you could work with. A therapist who uses somatic practices. That’s like a great question to ask when you’re looking for a therapist.

Oh, I’m looking for a therapist who is body based because if you are really disconnected from your body and that’s something that you want to change in your relationship with yourself, you do not want to start working with a therapist who uses like cognitive behavioral therapy or something that really is about Your thoughts in your mind and your thinking brain, you want to make sure that you choose a therapist who focuses on the body in the work.

So that’s just a little pro tip. If you were looking for somebody to, to take you deeper into your own physical sensations, if you want to try to do this on your own, you could try a very simple meditation practice. You know, can you take 15 minutes a day to sit and close your eyes and breathe. And just see if you can notice, what do I feel in my body?

What do I feel? Does my, does my tummy grumbling, do I have a little tightness in my chest? Is my left pinky toe feeling scrunched in my shoe? You know, what am I feeling in my body? And in the beginning, you might not feel anything. It might take you a long time before you can feel something in your body.

But if you give yourself the persistent space to practice over and over again, I’m listening, I’m feeling, I’m listening, I’m feeling, eventually you’ll start to connect to your sensations. It happens. It’s great to do this when you’re upset. It’s a kind of a good place to start, right? If you were like, if you’re stressed, if you’re frustrated, if someone’s just like really pissed you off, sit down, close your eyes, breathe.

What am I feeling in my body right now? It’s a good way to start. And if you really, really, really are struggling with this, I highly recommend seeking out a therapist to help you do it. Especially if you have a complicated trauma history, if you have a lot of wounds in your past, you might find this particularly challenging to do, so just remember you don’t have to do it on your own.

Mai-kee Tsang: Yes, I highly advocate for having a therapist because I remember when I was training for my trauma conscious leadership program that we were talking about meditation and for some people that can actually be very triggering. because having their eyes closed was actually the worst thing that they could do and made them feel incredibly unsafe.

So for me personally, being able to meditate asks a lot of me and there is a reason why I have to that I actually, I do, I do martial arts and there’s one particular thing There’s a particular move in one of my belts where my legs get completely taken out in the sense that my legs get trapped and I literally can’t run away and I couldn’t understand why was I getting so upset by it because it’s just a move.

It’s just a move. And when I impacted with my therapist, she told me that my instinct when I’m in a environment where someone actually wants to hurt me, my instinct would be to run. And so when my legs are being trapped, it triggers me. 

Maegan Megginson: Yeah, that makes so much sense. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Doesn’t it? I was like, Oh my gosh. And then when I told my partner about it, that’s when she knew that she had to be extra encouraging and extra kind to me when we’re doing that because I don’t get a choice in terms of like whether I get to do it or not.

I have to do it because that’s the only way I can progress. But it’s just it’s just things like that. You just, sometimes you just don’t know until you’re in a situation where you’re kind of forced to look at it as like, Oh, why am I responding this way? This doesn’t make intellectual sense, but your body is saying something.

Maegan Megginson: That is right. Your body is always talking to you. Yes. Thank you so much for sharing this personal experience. It’s such a powerful example of how to listen to your body and how to get curious about what it all means. I would love to take a moment if it’s okay to introduce another concept here that I think might be helpful to listeners.

Because a lot of what we’re talking about or what I’m bringing into this conversation today is really intended for people who are not actively experiencing trauma symptoms. So there’s a difference between like, I am actively experiencing trauma symptoms and I really need professional mental health support to close up some of these wounds.

I have trauma because we all have trauma, but I’m doing okay for the most part, and I just want to kind of feel into how do I deepen my body awareness so that I can feel safer and more regulated inside of my business. Those are two very different experiences with two very different paths to healing. So a concept that might help you understand which of those camps you fall into is the concept of the window of tolerance.

And the window of tolerance basically is this idea that we are all capable of feeling discomfort to, to a certain degree, right? There’s a spectrum of human emotions that we’re all experiencing all the time. But there are two ends of the window, if you will. There’s a window on the left and a window on the right.

And at some point, we might cross over the threshold in either direction, crossing over the threshold is what happens when we go deep into hyper arousal or hypo arousal and start engaging in trauma responses. So you can think of it like going to the gym. Okay. So you go to the gym and let’s say you’re on the treadmill and you really want to push yourself today.

You really want to go. A half mile further than you went last time, or maybe you want to increase your speed a little bit on the treadmill. So you’re like, I’m going to push myself. You start to push yourself and it’s uncomfortable. It’s hard. You’re panting. Your muscles are straining, but you also know that your body is safe.

You know that you’re okay. You know, you can keep doing it. At some point, if you push yourself too far, you push yourself into injury. And that’s not okay, right? That’s being re wounded. That’s danger territory. As a business owner, you need to be able to identify, am I in my window of tolerance? Am I experiencing something right now that’s hard or challenging, but I’m okay?

I can work with this? Or am I getting pushed too far out of the threshold in either direction? And really what I need to do right now is prioritize my mental and emotional health, because I have trauma that is making it impossible for me to stay safe inside of my own body, inside of my business. So I, if you’re listening right now and you’re not sure, where am I, where am I on that spectrum?

I would really encourage you to get some support and understanding the answer to that because you never want to make decisions inside of your business that are just re traumatizing you over and over and over again. 

Mai-kee Tsang: I love that you mentioned this and you used the gym example, but as soon as you said about us as business owners looking at our own window of tolerance, I immediately thought of visibility because it’s the very reason why.

I have the methodology I do for sustainable visibility that really prioritizes safety first because I’ve had countless people over the years tell me, and they just so happen to be folks with who are neurodivergent, they’re highly sensitive people, or maybe they have, that they are ethnic minorities, like, a lot of people, particularly from these groups.

They tell me how when they are told to do X, Y, Z, to keep putting themselves out there, they often want to retreat. And they, intellectually understand that they need to be visible for their business, but they are just not showing up in the way that’s quote unquote consistent enough. And because of that, they have a lot of shame around it.

And then once I often share my methodology, they’re like, Oh, it’s actually okay. Right. It’s just kind of like, is not looking at someone else’s window of tolerance and being told that’s the only way to do things, but actually acknowledging our own windows. 

Maegan Megginson: Right. Oh my gosh, this is such A great example.

Yes, yes, yes. And I know your sustainable visibility is what brought us together in the first place. Cause I was like, yes, you’re onto something. Tell me more about it. Yeah. And I think this is a great moment to remind all of us that the capitalist playground that we’ve been trained to play within is not designed to tend to our emotional needs.

So a lot of the strategies and the things that a lot of people do to create tremendous success in their brands and in their businesses are literally not strategies that are trauma informed, right? Capitalism is toxic. It’s exploitative. It’s designed by its very nature to drain us of our life force energy and to push us beyond our limits as human beings.

So when you slow down to start Making choices within your business that tend to who you are emotionally, you are doing the rebellious act of creating new games on the playground of making your own rules for playing on the capitalist playground. It’s not easy, you know, being the leader of your own rebellion, as you know, we’re on the Quiet Rebellion podcast is not easy.

But it is the most compassionate and the most loving way that we can tend to ourselves as business owners. And every time we do this within ourselves, we are healing a little tiny wound in the broader collective. So I love reminding people that like, every time you do this, every time you rebel by taking great care of yourself as a business owner, you’re helping our entire collective community.

Change the rules for what it means to be successful in business. And that’s pretty frickin powerful. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Yes. All Ugh, just so much yes to that, because Has this been the case for you too, Megan? When you show up the way you do, and then you get emails, messages, DMs, from people telling you, Thank you for showing me what it can be like.

Mm hmm. Because I get these emails, oftentimes when I actually communicate my boundaries, people seem to like the way that I do, that I communicate my business boundaries for some reason. And they’re like, thank you for doing that. Because it makes me feel like I can do this as well, that I can put this in my autoresponder for my emails, or I can say no to a client that’s, you know, going into the Scope Creek territory.

And I, it’s just everything that you said about. Every time we do this, there is a little healing that happens and it ripples outwards and more and more people allow themselves to be okay with not being okay and telling people that and that they’re going to prioritize their mental and physical health.

Yeah, 

Maegan Megginson: it might mean that your business grows more slowly than people who are not making those choices. In fact, when I say it might, it probably definitely will. It’s like your business will grow most more slowly. You will be less profitable than the people who are, you know, continuing to tread the exploitative path.

And that’s okay. Like I want us to celebrate that. I want us to celebrate that. Yeah. You know what? I’m smaller. And I’m growing more slowly, but I’m doing it sustainably. I’m doing it safely. And I’m healing myself and the collective while I do all of that. That’s what I’m here for. That’s, that’s the payment that really matters to me at the end of the day.

Mai-kee Tsang: I’m so glad that you’ve acknowledged this because I think over the last couple of years, I’d say the last three years in particular, probably since COVID, to be honest, a lot of people have turned their focus into really taking care of themselves because of COVID. We saw the impact of the pandemic, right?

Mentally, physically, and many of us had losses and this, that, and the other. And I think it was kind of like a hard truth to admit, to acknowledge, that if we do choose this way of running our businesses that really center our safety, our capacity, that we do grow slower. Sometimes at first, sometimes we don’t know it can take off, but I think it’s, it’s kind of like a hard reality to, to face.

It’s like, Oh, if I do prioritize myself, though, my business won’t grow as fast as I want it to, it won’t grow as much as I need it to perhaps. And so like how, how have you found working with your clientele to kind of come to terms with that? And like kind of let go of like these, this past conditioning on the capitalist playground.

Maegan Megginson: Yes. Well, it’s, it’s a lifelong practice. So let’s say that, right. There’s no three step system for getting comfortable with the fact that choosing care, self care and community care means you will grow more slowly and make less money than someone who is choosing a more exploitative path. It’s lifelong deconditioning it’s lifelong learning.

So buckle up and find community. First of all, is one pro tip I can offer you find community, create community with business owners who are also having these conversations and are choosing care over fast growth and profit. You need community to be a part of this rebellion. You need to be surrounded by people who can support you on the hard days and give you the hard truth when you need to hear it and meet you with love when you need to be met with love.

It’s crucial. So find community. Can’t do it without community. Can’t say that enough, but to the broader question, excuse me, of like, how do we, how do we reframe this in our own minds? You know, how do we get. Okay. The idea that money isn’t the only way my business pays me. 

Mai-kee Tsang: This 

Maegan Megginson: is the work I do with my clients, which is to say, Hey, let’s actually unpack this and figure out what are your values?

What do you want out of your life? And how can we take those values and those desires and turn them all in to sources of revenue in your business? So I think to myself, I remind myself all the time. Hey, rest is revenue. Rest is revenue. Time is revenue. Creativity is revenue. Space to be with my family is revenue.

Vacation is revenue. These are all things that I’m generating within my business that I get to The bank account that is my life, you know, the bank account that is my body. So in order to get okay with the reality that when you’re choosing the sustainable path, you will most likely grow more slowly and not make as much money as people who choose the more, more exploitative path.

You have to expand the way you think about how your business is paying you as a business owner. If I’m only looking at the amount of money in my bank account, As the indicator of success or the metric of success in my business. And then I’m comparing that metric against what, you know, this dude over here made in his business.

I’m going to feel perpetually shitty about myself because I’m never going to measure up. Okay. If I say enough of that bullshit, I’m going to expand this lens and I’m going to look at how much money did I make? How much time did I take off? How many creative projects did I complete? How rested do I feel?

How many healthy meals did I make? How many days did I, was I able to tend to my physical health? How many days was I able to pick my kids up from school? When was I able to say yes to a family member in need because I had flexibility in my schedule, if I start opening that up and looking at all of the ways that I paid myself through the flexibility and financial support of my business.

To create the life I actually want to live. I realized that I’m actually one of the wealthiest people I know. Because true wealth is about a lot more than the amount of money you’re storing in the bank. 

Mai-kee Tsang: I love this entire conversation because I’ve heard of some people expanding the idea of revenue.

Like yourself. And oftentimes we, the first thing that we can often think of is money is, is the money in the bank. But when I started, I believe I had a guest on the show. Oh, I forgot. Oh, Hunter, Hunter 9 unwilling. And she talked about, she talked about this as well, that we have to look at, I think it’s when she was looking at expenses.

And then she’s like, it’s not just financial expenses. What about time expenses? What about, you know, Energetic expenses. And then when I really thought about a lot of the things that I think about when I say yes or no to an opportunity, I literally think how expensive is this? And I actually rarely think about the money that I always think, how expensive is this going to be on my mental health?

Because to me, my mental health by far is the most important thing in my life. You know, alongside loved ones and everything, but that’s because. I don’t think I’ve actually said this on a podcast before, but my mental health has been quite the journey, especially over the last 10 years, and I’ve gotten to some really dark moments where I was truly considering to leave this life.

Mm hmm. And that’s why I know that my mental health has to take priority, because I know where my mind can go. And I know what triggers it. I truly do. And to me, it’s really pressure. So when pressure, whether it’s external or self imposed, it’s It’s when it gets too much, I know that my mind will go to those places again.

And so that’s why exactly the dark places. And because I know that now, and because I’ve worked with therapists, multiple and multiple different types of healing modalities as well, I’ve really done my best to kind of keep that at bay. And so when the thought crosses my mind, which it only did after seven years.

Of one of my, of my last attempt of leaving that’s when I knew, okay, things need to change. And that was to me, that was actually during COVID it was during COVID because I actually technically on paper, I had a very successful business. It’s the most I ever earned in my business at that point, but the cost of it, right?

Was too much. Yeah. And so I love that you’re bringing this conversation to the table that rest is revenue and being able to say yes to family member need that that is revenue and to be able to say 

Maegan Megginson: yes to yourself when you are in need. Yes. Like these are all ways that we pay ourself. And I think there’s so many.

Beautifully wise things that you’re sharing here in your own story. One of which being, we have to know what our own needs are. We have to know what our triggers are and we have to know like, what do I need to be? Well, what do, what is important to me? And, and where can my business really. Act as a repetition of old patterns in my life.

Like, let me zoom out and say that in a different way. We all have the tendency to replicate old trauma stories than our present day reality, right? We’re really good at repeating patterns over and over again of repeating wounds over and over again. And as business owners, we often create businesses that.

Are playing out old patterns that, that keep us stuck, keep us stressed, keep us pressured, keep us feeling unwell. My favorite thing about being a business owner is that I get paid literally to heal my own wounds. Like I get, I’m getting paid to do my personal work. It’s such an honor. It’s such a privilege.

If you give yourself permission to do that one reframe that I like to offer that might help you people listening, do this for yourself. Is that your business is for you, not your clients, your business is for you, not your clients, your clients get to be beneficiaries of your business, your clients benefit from the work that you do inside of your business, but the business itself, it’s for you, the business exists to help you heal your business exists to support you and your family, your business exists to help you bring your dreams and visions into the world.

Transcribed Your business is for you. And if you’re stuck on the hamster wheel of thinking that your business exists to serve other people and that your business exists to serve your bank account by making money, you are robbing yourself of an incredible opportunity to heal all of the wounds. That are following you around in your life.

You have to give yourself permission to change the way you think about the purpose of your business. And this is really big work. But it is totally transformative if you do it, because then you can do all of the things we’re talking about here. You can invest in your own healing. You can use your business as a playground to help you create the life that you really want to live.

And as a result, you’ll do better client work. You’ll have more reach. You’ll have more impact. You’ll, you’ll do more magic in the world. If the work that you’re doing is coming from a healed, whole loving place inside of yourself.

Mai-kee Tsang: I wish I had met you at the very start of my business, because I, I think. You’re, you’re the only person I’ve ever spoken to who said that outright, that your business is for you, because what are we told over and over again is that we need to keep serving, keep serving, keep serving. And actually I have a guest coming up on the podcast talking about how having the service based mindset and by service based, I don’t mean simply being a service provider.

I mean, literally having that, that mindset where constant. being of constant service to your client, whether it’s through a product, whether it’s through a service is actually robbing you of your true leadership potential. And so to hear you say this, thank you. Yeah, it’s going to be amazing. But I love that you really, I think, For those who are listening, who have secretly always wanted to have their business work purely for them, I’d imagine there is a sense of, like, a sigh of relief, the good kind of sigh.

That’s right, yeah. Yeah, the good sigh of relief, like, oh, it’s actually okay for me to want a business that truly does support what I need. 

Maegan Megginson: And so I hope it gives you the biggest sigh of relief and that you listen to that sigh as a sign from your body that this is the path you should pursue. Because in all the way we’ve, we’re talking a lot today about the ways your body tells you when something is not right, but let’s counterbalance that with the reminder that your body is also really good at telling you when something is exactly on point.

Mai-kee Tsang: Yes, I can really attest to that because I literally had a conversation with a business peer of mine yesterday and she introduced an opportunity to me about how I can branch my own work even in the corporate world and how to apply a lot of my being like creating safer spaces and how to apply that to a workplace, to a team.

And when she talked to me about it. There was something inside my body that just lit up. It felt like it was beaming out of my chest, like almost as if I’d grown a sun in the middle of my chest that was just beaming. And I felt so light, I felt so happy, I felt almost a release, and that’s when I knew.

This is something that I need, that I need to look at because I’ve thought about it the other year probably a year ago, two years ago, and there’s a reason why it’s circled back. So I love that you’re also encouraging us to also look at the good signs when our body had literally changed how it feels from within when there is something good in front of you as well.

That’s right. You 

Maegan Megginson: can think of your body as a compass. Thanks. Yes. Right. Your body is a compass. It’s guiding you where you need to go and it’s guiding you away from the places that aren’t serving you or are actively harming you. And we tune into that compass again by knowing what are the signs in my body that I’m getting activated, that I’m being triggered, that I’m on to the right thing.

And it can be hard to talk about this on things like podcasts because Everybody’s different. Every body is different. So the way My body tells me something is right is different from the way your body tells you something is right. So there’s no checklist. You know, I can’t give you a lead magnet PDF to help you listen to your body.

Only you can learn how to listen to your body and to discern what sensations mean. What information for you on your own personal journey. It’s, it’s different person to person. And I just, I want us all to embrace that and celebrate that and stop trying, like you were saying earlier, to match our experience to the other people we see on Instagram.

It’s not helpful. I love that. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Every, everybody’s different, but quite literally everybody is different. Very true. All right, Megan. So we have spoken a lot about how to initially become aware. Thank you when something is up, when our nervous systems are activated, whether it be hypo arousal or hyper arousal.

And we’ve also, you know, just discussed the counterbalance of like, you know, actually what bodily sensations may you have when things are also good. So I would love to kind of dive in a little bit about the next step. What happens after the awareness, what can we do with that information from our bodies so that we can actually start that.

Of course, we’re going Like, you and I both advocate for the fact that, yes, please, get additional help if you really feel that’s going to be the most supportive for you. But for those who either aren’t in that position yet, or they are simply curious about what they can do on their own, do you have any steps, any practices that we could take away today from this interview about how we can start emotionally regulating ourselves?

Maegan Megginson: Yes, absolutely. I’m going to give you three suggestions today. Some are a little more clear cut than others but we’re going to give you three suggestions that you, and think of these suggestions as seeds that were scattering into the garden of your mind. Some seeds will germinate and bloom into something really incredible for you on your journey.

And some seeds won’t, they won’t take, that’s not a problem. It’s not a problem. You don’t need every single suggestion you can find on the internet, right? So part of this is about discernment, listening, feeling into your body, asking yourself, which of these suggestions is going to be helpful for me.

That’s my disclaimer going into this. Now before we look at the suggestions, let’s just do a quick reminder. What’s the process here? The first thing that we want to do is get to the point where we can notice when our nervous systems are activated inside of our own bodies. Do I feel myself getting spun up into anxiety and panic and hypervigilance, or do I feel myself shutting down, right, caving in, kind of going into power off mode when I don’t want to go into power off mode?

Am I getting spun up or am I starting to shut down? We want to recognize when that’s happening inside of our bodies. Once we recognize it, we want to ask ourselves, what does this mean? What’s happening here? What is going on? What triggers are present in my environment right now that are leading to my body having this response, this cycling up response or cycling down response?

Often, there is something happening in your environment that is violating a boundary that you have. For more UN videos visit www. un. org Something’s happening that’s making you not feel safe, secure, or grounded. Something’s happening that’s triggering an old wound or an old memory. You have to be able to pinpoint what is it here that isn’t quite right.

Because if we don’t know what’s causing our nervous system to become activated, it’s going to be hard to know which regulation strategy to choose to help us really heal whatever is unfolding in the moment. So, see if you can take a guess. At what is the trigger that is activating my nervous system here in this moment.

Once you get clear on that, we can move into choosing, well, what kind of emotional regulation practice might be most helpful for me right now? The three things I want to talk about today are creating safety in your body. Through breath and self compassion, thinking about times when we need to implement boundaries, and the final thing is learning to practice self trust.

So those are the three things I would love to say a little bit more about. Should I just go straight into them? Yeah, please. Let’s hear it. Okay, okay. So the first thing that we want to do when we feel dysregulated is breathe. Breathe. You don’t have to close your eyes. You don’t have to meditate. You know, meditating, It means something different to everybody and there’s no right or wrong way to meditate.

So when I say the word meditate, I’m using air quotes here. When I say meditate, what I mean, it’s like, sit down and breathe, sit down and breathe, turn off distractions, you know, get out of your inbox, put your text messages away, maybe put on some music. If music is soothing for you, you know, turn out the lights or go outside, sit in a coffee shop, put yourself in whatever environment.

Feels safe and secure and just breathe. Breathe normally. When we’re activated, we’re often constricting our breath and we’re not giving our bodies oxygen. And your body, when it starts being deprived of oxygen, it’s going to panic. That’s great. That’s good. You want your body to freak out when you’re not breathing.

You want your body to be like, Hey, you’re literally suffocating. Please take a breath, breathe, give yourself breath, let your, and breathe deep into your belly. Because when you breathe deep into your belly, you’re actually activating something called the vagus nerve. And when the vagus nerve feels your breath, it communicates to your brain that you’re okay, that you’re safe, sit down, breathe, breathe deep into your belly and meet yourself with self compassion, right?

Self compassion sounds like. Me talking to myself, you talking to yourself, Oh, sweetheart. This is so hard. This is so painful. If you don’t want to call yourself a name, don’t just be like, Oh, Megan, this is so, this is really scary. Ooh, you are so stressed out right now. I understand. Talk to yourself. Like you wish your mother would have talked to you when you were a child.

And just meet yourself with lots of tenderness, lots of compassion until you feel your body coming back online. So that’s the first suggestion. Breathe self compassion.

Should I keep going? Yes. Keep going. I was just like, Oh, what’s next? What’s next? Okay. Great. Great. Okay. Thing number two, boundaries. If we’re getting activated, especially if you’re getting, if you find yourself getting out activated in really repeatable ways. So if you notice that you, your nervous system gets activated or spun up every time you go to your inbox.

Or every time you open your Instagram or every time you sit down with a particular client, if you notice there’s a pattern of you’re getting activated in certain situations, that’s a really good indicator that that is a place where you need more boundaries. And I’m sure we could have a whole other episode about boundaries, but what I want to say about it now is To oversimplify, there are internal boundaries and external boundaries.

So internal boundaries are boundaries I need to have with myself. So maybe I need to have a boundary with myself that I only check my email once a day. You know, okay, my boundary with myself is that I check my email at 10 a. m. and then I don’t look at it again for the rest of the day. That’s a boundary I need to hold with myself.

Or maybe the boundary is external. Maybe it’s about another person. Maybe there’s a boundary I need to set with that client who keeps triggering me because they’re doing something that’s violating my boundary that maybe I haven’t spoken or made explicit yet. So setting and implementing boundaries is a way to practice emotional regulation.

It’s a way to protect ourselves against the triggers that make us feel unsafe, that make us feel dysregulated in our bodies. Does that make sense? Yep. 100%. The third thing. The third emotional regulation practice that I want all of us to do more of every single day for the rest of our lives is to practice self-trust, right?

Because we live in a society, all the buzzwords, patriarchy, colonization, capitalism, all of these oppressive systems that we live, live inside of, operate, they operate most effectively when we trust ourselves the least. Okay. So our whole lives we’ve been conditioned to trust the man, you know, listen, like the, the, the man up on the, on the podium at the front of the stage on the pedestal.

Like that’s the person who knows the truth. That’s the person. And maybe it’s your school principal. Maybe it was a parent or a caregiver. It doesn’t just have to be a man. I’m being a little bit silly about that. You know, maybe it was a government official. Maybe it was your pastor or your priest, or your preacher.

Who in your life have you learned to defer to when it comes to making decisions for yourself? 

Mai-kee Tsang: And 

Maegan Megginson: in order to really learn how to regulate ourselves emotionally, we have to learn how to reclaim our ability to look inward for the answers. Right. Someone else external to me doesn’t know what I need to be well.

Someone else can’t tell me what my boundaries need to be. Someone else can’t tell me what my business strategy needs to be. Even though there are a lot of people out there who want to do that and who profit when we listen to them, we have to stop doing that. We have to come into our own bodies and start trusting ourselves, trusting the information our body is giving to us and trusting ourselves to make decisions.

That we know, deep down, in our most intuitive, wisest part of our bodies, will lead to our success and happiness and well being. We have to learn to trust ourselves. I

Mai-kee Tsang: couldn’t agree more to that. And what comes to mind immediately when you say the self trust part, I recall a situation in the past where My body knew something was wrong because it was I get the tingles basically that that’s that’s how I feel I get tingles and I The texture because I this actually might be something that each and every one of you who are listening right now might want to You know look out for.

When it comes to bodily sensations, there can be various colors you might want to attach to it or various textures. For example, when something feels fundamentally wrong, it feels like there is a splat, a splatter of black tar that’s across my chest. It is sticky, it’s thick, it, it’s hot and it’s yeah, and like I can’t get it off.

You know, that’s how it feels when something is fundamentally off, but everyone else around me was like, no, Meike, it’s fine. And then the, when I say funny, I don’t mean ha ha funny, but I’m like, Oh, you know I was basically in Japan. It had turned into you know, the nightlife started coming out and all of my friends were literally like, Meike, you’re just not used to the nightlife.

Because they, they saw me more as like the goody two shoes kind of gal. And I was like, no, no, no. Guys, there’s something wrong, and I mean it. And then, they didn’t believe me, of course, but my body knew something was up. And then we had wandered into the red light district, and then suddenly they started feeling really unsafe, because some of my friends had like really fancy watches on, and they’re like, oh, as you know, we should get out of here.

And so I was like crossing my arms and I was like, look, giving them this look. I thought, you know, you should trust my bodily sensations. You know, there’s a good, this is a good part of being highly sensitive person. Your sensory awareness tends to be quite heightened. And it’s a lot more, it’s a lot, a lot more sophisticated in some shape or form.

That’s how I kind of see it. I feel like an open nerve to the world and I pick up on things before a lot of people do. They don’t believe me, but then when they feel it, I’m like, yeah, I said that like 10 minutes ago. And so that just goes to show, listen to your own body, what it is saying to you. it’s so easy to defer our power to someone else because it’s how we’ve been conditioned.

So I love this final practice to really cultivate that sense of self trust. You may get it wrong sometimes and that is okay, but what if you’re right? 

Maegan Megginson: That’s right. Yeah. We’re wrong all the time. So there’s no harm in like being wrong a few more times, but what you just said is so true. What if you’re right?

You know, the, the potential benefit of being right, grossly outweighs. The reality that you’ll often be wrong because we’re human and we make mistakes all the time. That is such a powerful story of how, both how you knew that your body was communicating to you and in what big way it was communicating with you.

Thank you for sharing that story. And yes, listen to your body. Trust your body. You, you know what is best for you. And that will always be true. It always has been true and it always will be true. 

Mai-kee Tsang: I love this. So just to recap for everyone. So Megan said that the three emotional regulation practices is to breathe deeply in your belly, to be aware of any boundaries you may need to set internally and externally, and to consciously.

practice. This is like a lifetime practice. So it’s not a, Hey, let’s rush to the finish line. It’s very much like, no, no, no, no. There’s 

Maegan Megginson: no finish line. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Yeah. It’s just, it’s a continuous cycle in the best of ways to really cultivate a sense of deep self trust and not needing to defer our power, our decision making to any, anyone else apart from yourself.

So I love all of this. All right, Megan. So we’ve talked a lot today, and I’m sure that there are plenty of listeners who are like, okay, I want to be in Megan’s world. So like, as we start to round off here, I’d love to know where can we further connect with you here on the interwebs? Like, Tell us all the links.

You don’t, you don’t, you don’t have to spell them out, by the way, like I’ll pop all of them in the show notes. My name is spelled a little silly, 

Maegan Megginson: but yeah anyone listening, if you’re resonating with this conversation, I would love to have you in my email community. And I really do think of my email list as a community of people who are trying to make these shifts together.

We’re trying to, you know, rub up against the ways we’ve been conditioned to think and behave as mission driven business owners and people who are choosing to, to be rebellious in their own way and, and need community and accountability for these big, hard conversations. So I would love for you to visit my website, maeganmegginson.Com join my email list. I also have a free email series that I would love to Invite your guests to join. It’s called recover from burnout. And it’s a 10 day email series to help you recover from burnout without adding anything to your to do list or buying anything at all. So how do we recover from burnout and start a more sustainable practice in our business?

Using some of the skills and, and ideas we talked about today and a bunch of others that we didn’t. So I’ll make sure to give you that link as well. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Absolutely. So for you, lovely listeners who are tuning in right now, I’ll pop all of these links to connect with Megan inside of the show notes. So you don’t need to worry about URL spelling or anything like that.

So. Okay. So Megan, before I come to a conscious close to this conversation today, I would love to ask you my most favorite question. I love asking every guest who comes onto the show and that is drummer, please. Do you have a fun fact or a weird story about you that no one else knows on the internet?

Maegan Megginson: I knew this question was coming and I was like, God, this is a tricky question because I’m an open book on the internet and my email, my emails are, are based on my stories. So I, I tend to reveal a lot of strange and embarrassing details about myself on the internet every week. But I was thinking like, Oh, what’s the story that I, what is a story that I haven’t told?

And this is kind of like a sweet story, but when one story that I haven’t told is that I’m from Texas originally, I have lived in Portland, Oregon for the past seven or eight years. But back when we were in Texas, my husband and I fostered puppies and it’s, and I’m like, how have you not told this story?

Because I have some really adorable pictures of very tiny puppies. So for, for about a year, we always had A mama dog with newborn puppies in, in our house. And my whole house smelled like puppies. It was kind of gross sometimes, but I would come home from work and I would lay on the kitchen floor and I would just like, let tiny newborn puppies crawl all over my body and that.

That was the best emotion regulation practice I’ve ever had. So I’m going to add that as number four, emotional regulation practices, cover your body and really tiny puppies and magical things will happen. 

Mai-kee Tsang: Oh, okay. I absolutely love this. And because I’m more of a cat person, I do love puppies as well, by the way, because I remember I went with my dad to pick out his first dog and we went to a farm and then there was a little pen of.

like fairly newborn puppies, like just probably a slightly couple of weeks old. And so they had their fur come in and everything. I remember my dad was like, okay, just go into the pen, sit down and see which one comes to you. All of them came to dad, you got to take more, 

Maegan Megginson: but that was really careful what you wish for dad.

Mai-kee Tsang: Yeah. Like, please, please take this one. And I remember feeling so happy. So, so, so happy. And I remember seeing this video of this lady. She was covered in kittens and they were all purring at the same time. Oh my gosh. Stop it. Yes. Because, okay. Whenever I feel a little bit dysregulated, what I, I literally, this is what I actually do.

So animal therapy is real. I find my cat Luna in particular. So I have two cats, Loki and Luna. Luna, she has the most beautiful purr. It’s literally my favorite sound of the entire world. Mm-Hmm. Like, I love Loki as well, but Loki has more of a nasally kind of Mm-Hmm. Purse. So it almost sounds like he’s always has snots.

He’s congested. . Yeah. So it’s, it’s a li it’s a slightly different sound, but with Luna, all I need to do is scratch her chin and I put my ear on her body, so I’m like leaning on her body. Oh. She’ll start purring. And the sound and the vibrations are incredibly healing. So I. So love the story that you just told.

And yes, I, for any animal lovers, yeah, they can be like the most helpful thing in the world to help heal sometimes. 

Maegan Megginson: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. That’s really what this episode is about. Puppies and kittens go to your pets when you need help calming down. 

Mai-kee Tsang: I agree. Oh, Megan, it’s been an absolute joy to have you on the podcast.

Thank you so much for sharing your love. true well of wisdom, like bottomless well of wisdom. And I’m so, so grateful that you gave us some really practical ways that we can really support ourselves, how we’ve been, can become very aware of like what it feels like, what it can feel like in our bodies to have an activated nerve system and what to do with that.

So I so appreciate you. And I just can’t wait for you know, any future collaborations that we have currently, it feels like we have one at least once a year, like for the last couple of years that we’ve known each other. And so just thank you very much for being here. 

Maegan Megginson: It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

And thank you for hosting this podcast and your email community, the way you show up and share so authentically and vulnerably with so much courage it’s inspiring and I’m, I’m grateful to know you. So thank you for having me. Likewise.