@stef_ganong
🪷Healing means feeling. 🪷We don’t like to feel uncomfortable things. Honestly, most of us are in the habit of shoving them deep down without even acknowledging them. 🪷But when feelings and emotions are left unprocessed, they build up in the body, causing tension, illness, and dysfunction. 🪷But here’s the thing. The best way through whatever you’re going through- it’s straight through it. Not backtracking, not going around, not pretending like it’s not happening. 🪷Feel the grief, the pain, and the discomfort. Breathe through it. Move through it. Dance through it. Process it. Take your time. Repeat as necessary, sometimes it will take weeks or months, but it will move. And then when it’s ready, let it go.
👉🏼You can’t control other people. You can’t make them like you. You can’t make them act the way you want. You can’t make them want to grow or change or heal. 👉🏼You can’t control the external circ*mstances of your life. You can’t control illnesses or injuries or symptoms. You can’t change the past and you can’t predict the future. 👉🏼So what can we control? Our thoughts. Our perceptions. Our growth. Our decisions. Everything else, let it go. We aren’t controlling it, and the continual attempt is keeping us in fight/flight/freeze because our subconscious feels like it’s unsafe. 👉🏼 This is what I do. I guide you in developing awareness of your emotions, fears, and perceptions. I highlight areas where you may be feeling stuck or overlooking important behavioral patterns. 👉🏼I support you in recognizing self-sabotage and help you in uncovering the lies you’ve embraced as truths. And I help you rediscover the joy of simply living, regardless of chronic symptoms. These subconscious beliefs may be holding you back from living the life you truly desire! 👉🏼My waitlist for “Fearless Freedom Formula” is now open! If you’ve been feeling like you need to make a change and rediscover joy, then this is for you! Link is in my profile!
🌺We all have a window of tolerance, where we are essentially in our comfort zone and know what to expect, and therefore know how our body and nervous system will react. 🌺When pushed outside of our window of tolerance, that is when we experience symptoms of discomfort, whether they are anxiety, panic attacks, disassociating, etc. 🌺So what do we do? Obviously, we try to stay in our window of tolerance. This helps us to become predictable, safe, and small. However, it doesn’t stop here. 🌺Constantly staying in our window of tolerance often keeps shrinking our window so we can tolerate less and less. We end up in a prison of our own making. A tiny cell, which we cannot leave, or we will suffer the punishment of nervous system hyper arousal. 🌺What is the solution to this? At the risk of oversimplifying because I only have so much space- pushing our comfort zones. Expanding our window of tolerance. Getting comfy with being uncomfy! It builds resilience, which is the goal. 🌺Learn how to do this and more in my new course “Fearless Freedom Formula”! Waitlist is in my bio- Sign up to get a discount on the first round to go through!
👉🏼You can’t control other people. You can’t make them like you. You can’t make them act the way you want. You can’t make them want to grow or change or heal. 👉🏼You can’t control the external circ*mstances of your life. You can’t control illnesses or injuries or symptoms. You can’t change the past and you can’t predict the future. 👉🏼So what can we control? Our thoughts. Our perceptions. Our growth. Our decisions. Everything else, let it go. We aren’t controlling it, and the continual attempt is keeping us in fight/flight/freeze because our subconscious feels like it’s unsafe. 👉🏼 This is what I do. I guide you in developing awareness of your emotions, fears, and perceptions. I highlight areas where you may be feeling stuck or overlooking important behavioral patterns. 👉🏼I support you in recognizing self-sabotage and help you in uncovering the lies you’ve embraced as truths. And I help you rediscover the joy of simply living, regardless of chronic symptoms. These subconscious beliefs may be holding you back from living the life you truly desire! 👉🏼My waitlist for “Fearless Freedom Formula” is now open! If you’ve been feeling like you need to make a change and rediscover joy, then this is for you! Link is in my profile!
Mar 14
👉🏼When we are having a hard time feeling joy, or imagining the future, this is because our subconscious has been wired to only look for fear. It just wants us to be safe- that is the primary purpose of our subconscious mind… survival. 👉🏼So when we are primed to only see fear and danger, and our nervous system is stuck in fight/flight/freeze, then there is no room for joy. The subconscious won’t allow it. It thinks “we don’t have time for this nonsense, our survival is at stake!” 👉🏼This is why we stop laughing. Stop even finding things amusing. We stop doing things that are fun. And we create a prison of fear in our own minds, and lock ourselves up. Unintentionally, of course. 👉🏼This is why it is so important to learn how to feel joy and have fun WHILE you are still feeling ill. It becomes about proving to your subconscious that it is wrong, and that you are not in danger. It takes time, but it is very possible, and I am proof. 👉🏼Also, my waitlist for “Fearless Freedom Formula” is now open! If you’ve been feeling like you need to make a change, get rid of anxiety and rediscover joy, then this is for you! Link is in my profile!
🌷Your subconscious mind does not want you to change. It won’t respond to reason, it has made its mind up and will do everything in its power to prove itself right over and over. 🌷This means that if it is convinced that going out in public is unsafe, the hyper vigilance will allow panic attacks to be easily triggered in order to remind you that you shouldn’t be in public, it is unsafe. 🌷The way through this is by making and keeping small daily promises to yourself in order to build trust. If your subconscious says it’s unsafe to be in public and threatens with a panic attack, you find a safe way to be in public for a short period of time, reminding yourself that you’re safe. As often as it takes. 🌷Consistency will help you regain trust with your subconscious mind and will make it easier to make changes in the future. It just needs to realize it’s not right.
🌷Every time that you listen to the fear and do what it wants, you reinforce what it already thinks it knows.
🌻My nervous system used to be so hyper vigilant that the thought of doing anything new would have sent me into a panic spiral. 🌻You see, our subconscious wants to keep us alive. Thats its only job. So once it has been shown that things are unsafe, it will cause discomfort in your body (like anxiety and panic attacks) to reinforce its stance that these things you are doing are indeed not safe. Even if it’s just going to a new grocery store. All the subconscious sees is new=danger. 🌻In order to get to the other side of this, we have to take the position of showing our subconscious that these things are safe, and that it is mistaken. 🌻I used to not be able to drive at all without having panic attacks. Then when I started driving again, I would have panic attacks at a certain bridge and would have to plan my route with extra time so I could go out of my way to avoid it. 🌻It took a lot of intentional practice of me actually making the drive over that bridge before my body calmed down and decided it wasn’t a big deal anymore. And sometimes it still tries to creep back up! But brain retraining and nervous system regulation gave me my life back. 🌻Waitlist for the Fearless Freedom Formula is in my bio! Sign up to get a discount on the first round to go through!
🪻The journey of overcoming a chronic illness is exhausting. I went from doctor to doctor, practitioner to practitioner. Supplement to supplement and modality to modality. I spent so much time chasing the next “thing” that would help. 🪻It happened one day at a time, and then all at once. I suddenly realized that nothing I was doing was making a lasting impact. Sure, some of the stuff was helping maintain me where I was. But where was the healing? Where was the actual progress? Was there an end to the road of neverending treatments? 🪻I realized that maybe my journey was less about racing to the “finish line” (or some arbitrary goal of perfection, meaning having zero symptoms) and more about surrendering to where I was and learning how to live in the Now. 🪻I realized I spent so much time putting things off because of how I felt, or planning things around flares, and eventually I didn’t feel good enough to do anything. I stopped enjoying every day that I was gifted. I let the symptoms control my mood and emotions and even time spent with family. 🪻And then the biggest realization of all hit me- I was the one in control of my day. I could choose to play a game even if I didn’t feel well. I could choose to laugh or participate, even if I was in pain. I was the one choosing to let my life pass me by. So I made a different choice, and it led me to so much more freedom than I ever expected. 🪻I realized everything would be ok if I continued making different choices than the ones that led me to where I was stuck. It needed to love myself, I needed to stop drowning in shame, and I needed to take an active role in my healing journey instead of sitting around and expecting it to just find me. 🪻if you’re ready to take control of your healing journey, head to the link in my profile where my waiting list for “From Fear to Freedom” is! Sign up to be notified first when the doors open - the first round will be getting a 20%discount code!
🐓We moved to the country because I wanted a slower pace of life. I was starting over with nervous system calming and knew that moving out of the city would help me to regulate. 🐓We got chickens because I was so excited to try mini-homesteading, and farm fresh eggs were the easiest place to start! 🐓I knew having a hobby would help with my brain rewiring by giving me something to do to keep busy, and learn something new! 🐓But four years later, our chickens turned into turkeys, guineas, pigs, emus, lambs, goats, rabbits, dogs, and cats. Whoopsies. 🐓Be careful what hobbies you choose! 🤣 🐓But seriously- find a new hobby and start retraining your brain! I’m not special. If it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you too. Send me a message or go to my site and sign up for my waiting list if you’re ready to change your own life this same way!
Anyone else? 🫣 👏🏼For real though, I used to get panic attacks on the regular. I had trained my subconscious to fear everything, and the more I feared, the less I did, which reinforced the fear in my mind. 👏🏼Grocery stores have always been a trigger for me since this part of my journey started. I remember having a massive panic attack out of the blue in Costco and it was traumatizing. 👏🏼Standing in lines, being in crowds… these used to be instant triggers for me. And now, since I’ve done nervous system regulation and brain retraining, I no longer get them. 👏🏼Just last night I went to my first concert in 15 years and had an amazing time! Crowds, lines, fragrances, LED lights, and not a single moment of panic. 👏🏼I’m not special. If it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you too. Send me a message or go to my site and sign up for my waiting list if you’re ready to change your own life this same way!
🪷Healing means feeling. 🪷We don’t like to feel uncomfortable things. Honestly, most of us are in the habit of shoving them deep down without even acknowledging them. 🪷But when feelings and emotions are left unprocessed, they build up in the body, causing tension, illness, and dysfunction. 🪷But here’s the thing. The best way through whatever you’re going through- it’s straight through it. Not backtracking, not going around, not pretending like it’s not happening. 🪷Feel the grief, the pain, and the discomfort. Process it. Take your time. And then when it’s ready, let it go. Audio: @lauramatsue
💃🏻My mind may have forgotten but my hips have not! 💃🏻But seriously, somatic dance is such a great way to get in touch with your body. So many of us spend most of our time lost in our head and completely disassociated from our bodies. 💃🏻When my nervous system is anxious and feeling jittery, somatic dance really helps me get rid of the excess energy in a helpful way, and I feel so much calmer after! And if my booty takes over the show, so be it! 💃🏻I will usually turn on some energetic music, and then you just feel your body as you dance. You let your body tell you how it wants to move and what it needs to release. Our body keeps the score, and dancing helps the body process the emotions that were stored and release them. 💃🏻Dancing also sends messages of safety to your nervous system. When we are chronically in fight/flight/freeze, our nervous system is always looking for threats. By dancing, we are showing the subconscious “see? If I’m dancing, if I’m able to have fun, there is no threat.” 💃🏻Have you ever tried dancing to express emotions and help regulate the nervous system?
👉🏼the nervous system wants to keep us alive. Period. Survival is the one and only goal of the subconscious mind. It looks for danger, files it away, and keeps us safe. 👉🏼when the nervous system is stuck in fight/flight/freeze, you cannot start a major protocol or detox. This will only stress the system out more. It doesn’t want to detox, it wants to survive. The body only heals when it’s in Rest & Digest (parasympathetic). 👉🏼we need to first focus on regulating the nervous system. The brain won’t listen to you though, so how do you regulate? You start with the body. Calming the body physically sends safety signals to the brain. 👉🏼things like singing, humming, dancing, watching a funny show, somatics, breathwork, EFT tapping. These things help calm the body and send safety messages to the brain! 👉🏼once the body feels calmer, protocols will be more effective. THEN you can begin working on calming and rewiring the brain. This may take a while, depending on how much your lifestyle revolves around fear. You need to be serious in removing these beliefs from your surroundings! 💛If you are tired of feeling like you’re missing out on your life, and want to re-learn how to live and enjoy yourself even with chronic symptoms, sign up for my waitlist to work with me 1:1!
🌾I decided to give my body the benefit of the doubt. 🌾I made the choice to believe the best, that it was always working toward healing, and that it hadn’t given up on me. 🌾Instead of looking at myself as “broken” or “needing to be fixed”, I started viewing myself as a work in progress, with an emphasis that progress was always happening. 🌾This did a few things: 1️⃣ it took the pressure off of me. It made me realize that if I wasn’t broken, then I didn’t need to be fixed. 2️⃣ it allowed me to begin to trust my body. Healthy relationships are built on trust, and that includes your relationship with yourself. 3️⃣ it opened up the opportunity to learn to love myself where I was, instead of just waiting until I had reached this specific benchmark or that level of perfection. 🌾Just by making those changes, I was able to remove so much stress that I was placing on myself. My body calmed down, I showed myself compassion, and it opened up so many new options for me to choose to believe instead. 🌾If you’re ready to reclaim your joy and live life on your own terms, join the waitlist for my “From Fear to Freedom” course and unlock the power of regulating your nervous system, eliminating triggers, and finding true fulfillment and joy!
🪴I cannot even tell you how grateful I am for learning how to set boundaries. I think that boundaries can often get misunderstood, that setting them means being rude, destroying relationships, and manipulating people. This is not true, and I’m here to explain what boundaries are: 🪴Boundaries are for self-respect. They show other people how you expect to be treated, and what behaviors you are willing to put up with. They encourage authentic connection with others by aligning with your values, needs, and priorities. They stop the cycle of people-pleasing, which is overwhelmingly harmful. 🪴Boundaries are for clarity. When they are clearly expressed, they reduce misunderstandings and conflicts in relationships. They foster healthy relationships and have a way of either maturing and transforming or weeding out unhealthy relationships. 🪴Boundaries are essential for self-care. They help you to prioritize caring for yourself so that you are not pouring from an empty cup. You cannot give to others what you don’t have. Self-care and self-love are not the same thing as self-worship and self-obsession. 🪴Boundaries require open and honest communication to work. You can’t expect people to know your boundaries if you don’t express what they are. Setting boundaries means that you are clear on what you want and you are willing to stand up for yourself. 🪴The most important part is this- boundaries create healthy relationships. They are not there to give excuses to cut people off, but to create guidelines to operate in, via mutual respect. 🪴If you’re ready to learn boundaries, reclaim your joy, and live life on your own terms- join the waitlist for my “From Fear to Freedom” course and unlock the power of regulating your nervous system, eliminating triggers, and finding true fulfillment and joy!
👉🏼When we are having a hard time feeling joy, or imagining the future, this is because our subconscious has been wired to only look for fear. It just wants us to be safe- that is the primary purpose of our subconscious mind… survival. 👉🏼So when we are primed to only see fear and danger, and our nervous system is stuck in fight/flight/freeze, then there is no room for joy. The subconscious won’t allow it. It thinks “we don’t have time for this nonsense, our survival is at stake!” 👉🏼This is why we stop laughing. Stop even finding things amusing. We stop doing things that are fun. And we create a prison of fear in our own minds, and lock ourselves up. Unintentionally, of course. 👉🏼This is why it is so important to learn how to feel joy and have fun WHILE you are still feeling ill. It becomes about proving to your subconscious that it is wrong, and that you are not in danger. It takes time, but it is very possible, and I am proof. 👉🏼Follow along for more daily nervous system balancing tips! 👉🏼Also, my waitlist for “From Fear to Freedom” is now open! If you’ve been feeling like you need to make a change, get rid of anxiety and rediscover joy, then this is for you! Link is in my profile!
Over the last year and a half I have made a lot of changes to my life! These habits are so nourishing and really help keep me mellowed out as I continue to regulate my nervous system and retrain my brain. 1️⃣ Journaling- whether it’s gratitude, working through things that bother me, praying, or journaling my future visualizations, I journal Every. Single. Day. This is huge in helping to rewire the brain to accept circ*mstances other than where you are currently sitting. 2️⃣ Focus on healthy breathing and posture- when we are stressed and living in fight/flight/freeze, our breathing is impaired. If you pay attention to your breathing, you’ll likely notice that you’re doing things like shallow chest breathing, holding your breath, breathing too quickly… on top of that, we get a rounded, hunched posture which makes it harder to breathe correctly. I love either just taking time to breathe calmly and fully on my own, or I do breathwork classes from @breathe_with_kimberly_rose and block therapy classes with @blocktherapy 3️⃣ Spend time outdoors - nature is so grounding for our nervous system, and there’s so many beneficial aspects of it. The sunlight is wonderful for regulating our circadian rhythm, walking barefoot helps with grounding and inflammation, and the fresh air is so good for us. Being in nature just feels so calming, which is a great help for chilling the nervous system. 4️⃣ Move my body - calm exercise is a great way to lower stress hormones and relax the body. Walking, dancing, hiking, swimming are all great ways to move without stressing your body more. I avoid intense exercises like running, HIIT, etc, because my body doesn’t need more things revving up the stress. 5️⃣ Observe my thoughts with compassion and without judgment - it’s important to realize that anxiety comes from our subconscious trying to keep us safe. Its only objective is to keep us alive, it doesn’t care if we are happy or miserable. So when we start getting anxious, feeling anger at a part of ourselves that is just trying to protect us is not useful. The subconscious responds to calm redirection and compassion, not anger and threats. (Caption for more 👇🏼)
My story, part 5 💟 I struggled for four more years before I finally decided to focus on nervous system regulation again. So 9 years into my journey with chronic illness I had finally had energy and I went for it. 💟 I embarked on an 8 month journey to rewire my brain, regulate my nervous system, and help me to see and break the subconscious programs that were holding me back. 💟 What I learned was incredible. I was my own worst enemy. I was self sabotaging, I was believing lies, I was locking myself up in a prison of my own fear, and I was allowing myself to feel like a victim of my circ*mstances. 💟 The truth hurt. But it was so freeing. I changed the programs, rewrote the lies with truth, and found my true identity. I learned to show myself compassion and love. 💟 And I saw so much change. I brought joy back into my life, even on days I still felt sick. And I found myself smiling and laughing again. I could go places and have fun. I could set boundaries and I built trust within myself. It was a full transformation. 💟 I am no longer the person I was when I got sick. And that’s the point. We have to change who we are if we want to recover from chronic illness. I love who I am for the first time in my life. And I can show you how to do it too 💛
💛why are we like this? We try to control everyone and everything around us, because we think we know best. But is this actually true? 💛 It’s not. First of all, most of us hardly know what’s best for ourselves, so how can we know what is best for everyone else? (Obviously the raising of kiddos isn’t what I’m talking about here.) 💛 Now you may be thinking “of course I know what’s best for myself, I’m the one living my life!” And my question would be “are you?” Are you really living your life, or are you just going through the motions? Are you enjoying your days or are you wishing them away, counting down to the next annual vacation or trip because THEN you’ll be able to enjoy yourself. 💛 Are you going to be living 85 years, or will you be living one year repeated 85 times? Are you growing? Are you learning? Are you changing? Do you really know what’s best for yourself? Are you happy in your job, or do you feel stuck there? Are you happy where you live or are you just too afraid to go elsewhere? Are you happy in your relationship? 💛 The reason that these questions are important is because if we are unhappy then our body will start to express that via symptoms. We will begin to get chronic pain, inflammation, and other issues because of the chronically elevated stress hormones. 💛 Because the truth is, we outgrow things that are outgrow jobs, homes, relationships, friendships. It doesn’t mean that the ones we outgrew aren’t “good enough”, it’s just life. There are seasons. And that’s ok. But clinging to things that are comfortable because we are afraid of what else is out there isn’t helping us. It makes the nervous system feel safe, but it shrinks your life. It limits your possibilities. 💛 So how well do you know yourself and what you want? Most of us only know what we don’t want. When was the last time you took an inventory of your life and really looked at what parts are stealing your joy? 💛 It really is ok to change things that no longer fit. You are the one in charge of your life and your decisions. What do you want it to look like? And if it doesn’t look like that, what can you change?
My Story, Part 4 💟I had tried everything to heal, so by the time I was 5 years into chronic illness, I was desperate to heal. When I came across a brain retraining program it seemed too good to be true. But I bought it anyways. 💟 After just a few weeks of daily practice I started feeling better and having fewer symptoms. I was in shock, it was working, and I had hope again. 💟I was able to start doing things again, like driving, going places. I stopped having panic attacks, and I felt happier. 💟 The more things I did, the more I forgot about the brain retraining. It was boring and repetitive and I was living again, so I eventually stopped. I didn’t get worse, but I didn’t get better from there either. 💟 And then life hit. You know one of those seasons that tears you apart. And without my retraining practice to fall back on, I spiraled to rock bottom. This season lasted years, and the stress of it made me feel worse than I’d ever been. 💟 I started keeping myself balanced with supplements to get through the hard season. The more I focused on fixing what was wrong with me, the worse I got. The supplements didn’t seem to be helping as much anymore. And I was on way more of them. I knew it wasn’t sustainable. 💟 I knew I had to get back into retraining, but I was living in survival mode. I kept learning what I could, but I started to wonder if I would ever feel good again. 💟 follow along for part 5-> doing the work!
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