Karin Wildheart

How I learned to sync up my brain and body so they don’t sabotage one another

Article originally published in March 2022.

Two years ago this month, in March 2020, I wrote an article declaring that I was finally going to attempt to develop an action bias. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

I didn’t actually commit. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I knew commitment was a prerequisite to seeing something through. But when I couldn’t generate that commitment, I softened my language and just said I’d try.

Of course this didn’t work. Of course whatever was keeping me from committing would also keep me from following through.

It was to be the first of 30 articles in a series. I didn’t make it to ten.

If I had known that back then, I would have felt stupid, embarrassed, ashamed, bad at follow-through. Then again, maybe part of me did know. I already felt these ways.

As unbelievable as it would have seemed to me then, I rarely feel these things now and they are much easier to manage when I do. I am not ashamed I didn’t finish. I’m not proud of it or anything; I just finally understand what was going on.

I’d struggled with a lack of follow through for many, many years. I never had an “excuse” for it. I don’t have any children, and in March 2020 I was working a part-time job so that I’d have time to write. The article came out days before that job would transition to even fewer hours, all worked from home, as my workplace closed for COVID.

I’d make a little progress as a writer, publish some well-received articles, make some connections, participate in some supportive groups, and still never get very far.

I “knew” everything I needed to know to move forward on my writing and other dreams, to connect and change lives like I hoped to. I even knew knowledge only takes you so far! I knew that nothing actually “moves the needle” on goals other than action — research or talk are no replacement (I had plenty of both to prove it). I mean, that’s why I wrote the article!

Something invisible, something I couldn’t understand and very much resented, was holding me down.

I wrote, “I will not blame this on any of my external circumstances. No one has forced me into anything. I know I have everything I need, and more… But having said that, now what?”

I wrote, “Far and away the biggest thing holding me back has been my ambivalence about success and a tendency to passively self-sabotage… I just shrink back and stop publishing for months or years whenever an article of mine gets tons of positive feedback, cause, you know, the next one might be terribly disappointing and now that people might be watching, I don’t want them to see. Better to wait until the crowd disperses before taking a risk.”

I was genuinely puzzled. What was going on here? Why did positive feedback scare me so much? Why did I work to gather a crowd together, and then immediately want to disperse it as soon as it came together, even while feeling pleased by the attention?

I had no real idea what I was up against. I ascribed a lack of follow-through to my own flaws or weakness, or choices I was making. But the truth is, my choices were being guided by an unseen hand. There was another character in my story who I had just barely come to name and yet who interacted with me on a daily basis.

Trauma.

Oh, I knew about trauma (barely). I was reading The Body Keeps the Score and having my mind blown every few pages. I knew trauma can sometimes be a reason you cannot keep it together or do what you intend to do and it’s not for love of drama, lack of willpower, constitutional laziness, or “not wanting something enough” — no matter what someone may obliviously tell you.

My body was absolutely keeping the score. I had to stop and acknowledge my body, not just my mind. What I didn’t yet realize in March 2020 is that childhood developmental trauma had so warped my nervous system that it literally felt unsafe to be successful.

A part of my body was convinced that it was dangerous to my life and health to be surrounded by a watching crowd — to be visible. That part of me was trying to protect me and keep me safe, which meant keeping me quiet and small — invisible.

Though I’d noticed that I felt flooded and trembled during and after heated online arguments (okay, most any arguments), I didn’t have language for this and hadn’t connected it to the way I felt after posting certain blog posts. Now I would call that a state of nervous system activation. I guess I thought it would just go away in time if I kept pushing myself. Perhaps this was true, but there was a way that would be gentler on my body.

Before I could just “try harder,” I had to recognize that I had limited nervous system capacity, and that “putting myself out there” was literally taxing on my body. I needed to learn to care for myself after taking any public step (even one as “small” as a vulnerable social media post or article), instead of assuming that I should be able to do the same plus a little bit more the next day.

I had to learn about the window of tolerance, and that when I am out of it or close to being out of it, my only priority is getting back. Getting myself back to a feeling of safety so that all parts of my brain and mind are “online” again, not just the panicked, paranoid, survival areas. While upset is not the time for analyzing what went wrong or how I ended up there (though many of us attempt this analysis).

I’ve heard this quote a few places: “Burnout isn’t caused by stress. It’s caused by stress without adequate nourishment, rest, and support.” My error was in trying new things that felt scary (stressful) to my body without understanding what nourishment, rest, and support would look like in that context and without even attempting to give myself those things. In trying to override my body’s self-protective mechanisms.

I’m not a nervous system or trauma expert per se, but I know enough. More important is what I can do. My life proves that I can successfully take someone who is stuck for reasons she doesn’t understand and help her love life again even when she has been lost for decades and for a time was convinced things couldn’t get any better.

I still don’t necessarily have an action bias, but I now take action anyway, a lot more of it, and I usually do it without being obsessively afraid of being judged. When I have those fears, I find ways to care for myself through it. And though I deeply honor that woman who was legitimately doing her best two years ago, I no longer write about how I’m going to try to do something, as an attempt at motivating myself.

I just do it.

Hey! I’m Karin, a life coach who mentors from my years-long experience healing my frazzled nervous system to a point where I can pursue my dreams despite discomfort. If this article has resonated with you, I’d love to connect! Come say hi on Instagram or feel free to join my email list if you want to hear more from me. If you’re ready to take a simple but effective step towards getting your mind and body on the same page, I recommend identifying your values. I created this free guide to get you started.

Photo by Nick Linnen on Unsplash