See if you can turn the volume down one more notch, right here, realizing 1% greater somatic release. Remember, you don't need to fix anything. I don't either just notice where there's a bit more space ease or warmth in the body. That's your body shifting from alarm to awareness. That's a quiet act of resiliency, all gently fluttering your eyes open, you might stretch or yawn. Today's gonna be a real one, hopefully one that you can source from as you move forward through the work. All right, let me bring in a little bit for you science nerds, all the people out there that love the brain terms and getting to figure out what's actually going on under the hood, is me. I love that stuff. So here's the deal. I already talked about, the amygdala, but she's spicy. She can't always tell the difference between burning toast in your home and whether the building is burning. She yells Fire, fire every time something feels off, whether it's an email from your supervisor, a classroom meltdown or a real emergency, and when that alarm goes off, it flips the switch on your sympathetic nervous system, your body's first responder. Bless the first responders. Also folks that wake up every day to keep our community safe. You have one of those inside of you, too. And when adrenaline and cortisol, which I talked about in the last episode, when they flood your body doing exactly what they're supposed to, they understand the assignment. Your heart speeds up, your muscles tense, your body's like, Let's Move. We got things to do. That system is vital. It's what keeps us alive. But it's not meant to stay on forever at the highest alert level, just running on a loop. That's where our parasympathetic nervous system comes in, the one that slows your heartbeat, deepens your breath and whispers You're safe now. It's just an email, and above it all sits your prefrontal cortex. I think of this as my inner grown up, that adulting cue that helps us be wise and know what's going on and interpret the world. One who can look around and say, hold up. We're in our home. That smell is familiar, it's just toast. We're fine, but here's where it gets real, when we live in constant stress, when our world feels as uncertain as it does, and our bodies don't get a break, that alarm doesn't reset, it just keeps ringing. And eventually it stops feeling like an alarm and starts sounding like the background music of your life. I'd much rather the Gap Band and Luther Vandross, and I don't know what your background music sounds like. It's a Maxwell or Raheem Devon, maybe a little Jill Scott instead. When I am in my most profound moments of stress, it is a ringing alarm. It's ruminating thoughts, it's ashy y'all the playlist is giving panic. So you get used to it. And one of the tricky parts that no one talks about is that when that siren is blaring, you can get so used to it that silence feels wrong. If you've ever sat down to rest and I'm big eye emojiing myself, because this is actually me telling on me, but immediately you open your phone and start scrolling because quiet made you itchy. That's your alarm still running. If you've ever gone on vacation and needed two full days just to stop thinking about your to do list, that's your security alarm begging for a reset. Educators, caregivers, nonprofit, folks, I see you. You're not alone. I'm in it too. We live in houses where the alarm has been blaring for years, every meeting, every deliverable, every crisis, every student, every can. I just get a quick minute of your time adds another trigger to the system. But I've got good news. Okay, it's not all doom and glue. If your nervous system is the alarm, your boundaries are the walls and doors of your home, the architecture that holds your peace. I've only recently started teaching about boundaries, because for a while I didn't know how to set them. I also have seen that boundaries can favor the privileged, but I'm really on this mission, along with my colleagues at the teaching well, to think about what Balanced boundaries look, sound and feel like for self and collective care to be really in a harmony and a flow, a reciprocity. So if you stick with this metaphor, boundaries are the architecture that hold your peace. And here's the truth, a lot of us miss boundaries. Aren't about keeping people out all the time. They're also about keeping yourself in. As I journaled last night, I arrived at that awareness. Boundaries help us be whole and grounded, and they tether you to what restores you. Prentice Hemphill says that boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously, a whole bar, and at the teaching. Well, we define boundaries as the limits and guard rails to honor ourselves within relationships and situations. But sometimes we confuse boundaries with barriers, or we think they make us selfish or unavailable. There is a skill, a fine line in our curriculum on balance boundaries. We address two misconceptions that boundaries are for other people to learn. We teach that they're actually needed to honor within ourselves too, because sustained well being takes discipline and consistency. It's the unsexy part of the wellness industry that no one talks about getting well is not just soft and fluffy, it's hard and focused. The second misconception we teach is that boundaries don't always look or sound like a hard No, sometimes it's a I don't have capacity today, but I do want to lean on that project. Am I able to meet with you early next week? Healthy boundaries are actually what makes compassion sustainable. They're what let us fully show up without burning out completely, and they invite others to be a part of a collective care model, reciprocal and anchored in support. That's where I want to work. I don't know about y'all, but Sign me up. So how do we find balanced boundaries, or even know if they've been crossed by others or ourselves? How do we know if we need to reset the alarm system leading up to or inside of a break? Sometimes our boundaries are too loose. We leave every door open, checking work email on vacation, saying yes to one more thing, logging in during your sabbatical to just observe a meeting. I know you're thinking it's fine just listening in real quick. I'm going to join that Zoom call while I lay on the couch, but that's the gateway drug to over extension. That's how your nervous system re hooks itself to urgency while you're supposed to be resting. This was me a few weeks into my sabbatical, and be real, real honest with y'all I did. I had a bloop. I thought I could attend our internal retreat. I love retreat. I love my team. I'm a neck tattoo away from them. The entire first day of the retreat, though we all struggled to know how to interact. I. I was awkward because I was in my testimony about rest. I was so deeply in the taste of productivity and unproductivity. I was so clear that I wanted to bird watch and I didn't want to look at a computer screen and I didn't and my team wasn't sure if I was retreating with them or there to retreat by myself. I think I just felt the pull to care for others, and that's my default, to ask questions about clients. And I don't have an outright regret. We actually had some really productive grapplings during those a couple of days, but I look back and I question why I thought I needed to attend. I know I wanted to, but I didn't honor my own needs to stay completely unplugged. And ultimately, we didn't count that week towards my sabbatical and I extended on the back end. But I share that because I never want to come off as having all the answers or getting it completely right. And sometimes the opposite can occur, and our boundaries can be too tight. We grip our rest days with white knuckles, over planning, over controlling, trying to make rest happen. We tell ourselves, I should be calm, I should feel better by now. I should be grateful. This was me on our last vacation to Hawaii as a family. A couple years back, I was a whole vibe. I was like, Are we having the best time of our lives? Yet, my husband's like, Yo, chill out. Go float in the ocean.