"My kid has changed my life. She's also changed my nervous system. I know now that it's not just mine."
You are listening to notes with Kathy Patalsky.
Today's episode is called Shake It Off.
Triggered trauma, toxic therapy, nervous system. If you've been on TikTok or Instagram in the last five years, especially if you're a woman in your thirties or forties. Those words are basically the background music of your feed. Everyone is regulating their nervous system. Cutting off something toxic, probably in therapy. I think we're all a little exhausted by those buzzwords, even though I also love to see them being talked about. Because we are living in a very activated time.
Scroll headlines and it's pure chaos. Read comment sections and it's fire. You're trying to raise children in a world that feels louder faster and more fractured than it used to be. Then layered on top of that is your own personal wiring, your own history, your own memories. And if you're a mother or just a sensitive thinking woman in midlife,
You feel when something pokes at an old bruise, and now you have language to describe it.
What makes it all even more heavy is that we are trying to raise children with regulated nervous systems, who know how to manage their feelings. Be kind. Give hugs. And all these beautiful things about being human.
Meanwhile, we look around at all the adults in the room and we're like, what happened? Where did we go wrong?
So yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a long time. Like it was just a beautiful, happy day. The sky was bright, there was warm sunshine. Beautiful late February day here in Los Angeles.
There was a special event I went to at my daughter's school. And my daughter was just glowing. It just made me feel so proud and happy and peaceful. This is it. I'm doing it. I'm doing motherhood and my daughter is happy and thriving.
We were just existing inside something very easy and magical and lovely, and it felt like, oh, this is the life that I worked for.
This is the person who I wanted to be. When I grow up, I'm here. But the same day, something small happened. Not dramatic, not even big enough to tell a story around, but I felt it.
I felt that internal trap door. And it's wild how fast that shift can happen. One sentence, one interaction, one memory opens a door in your nervous system, and suddenly you feel 14 again, or 18 or 25. And the worst part isn't even the feeling. It's this weird shame because for me, at 45, I'm like, Ugh, I have done way too much work to be activated by this.
I used to think healing meant that those triggers wouldn't happen anymore. Adulthood meant emotional regulation was supposed to be built in.
Like one day you walk across a floor and none of those trap doors open ever again. Congratulations. You graduated. That's not how it works.
When you're a baby, you scream and someone soothes you.
When you're a toddler, you melt down because your socks feel weird. Or you got apple juice instead of orange juice, and you cry. When you're a teenager, you slam your bedroom door because no one understands you. You sit and you sulk and anger and frustration. You run to your friends and you feel all the things in the world. A wild horse running through a field with your new emotions, but at the same time you feel happy and free in those growing years. And then in your twenties you grow more and maybe you spiral because somebody didn't text back or back in my day it was like instant messenger. A OL, it was a thing. And then in your thirties you start to build a new life and you think, okay, I'm kind of figuring this out. I'm getting my feelings in order. Then in your forties you're like, Ugh, I'm so evolved. I am self-aware. I have language, I have done therapy.
I have read books. I know all about my attachment style and where I came from and the trauma wounds of my youth. Generational trauma. Communication styles. I know everything that's going on.
And then still. Between all of that knowledge, something small hits and your nervous system goes, uh, I'm still here.
I remember early in my marriage, this was like 2007. I remember sitting on the bathroom floor crying. Nothing Anxious, sad, overwhelmed,
and I don't even really remember why. And what made it worse was thinking, i'm married. I'm an adult, and I just didn't know how to get up off the floor. I was just laying there. I wanted to sulk in those feelings for a minute to try and feel them fully.
'Cause I thought once I figured them out, I could get up off the floor, right? But that's the difference now.
I do know how to get up. I do have tools to understand myself better. Just because I know how to get up off the floor, it doesn't mean I don't fall through those trap doors. And that is what healing actually is. It's not never getting triggered.
It's not eliminating your trauma. That's part of you. It's part of your story. It's not becoming some perfectly regulated zen person who floats above emotion and never gets upset about anything because that's ridiculous. It's getting out faster.
That's the growth. Not perfection, not enlightenment, not complete avoidance of the feelings. It's adaptation.
Something else I've realized in this very buzzy mental health, heavy cultural moment that we're all living in. Anger and activation, they feel really powerful. They feel sharp, and they feel clear.
They feel like fire. Fire is very useful. Fire is a tool, but sometimes fire starts to feel yucky and you know the difference in your own body. There's productive fire and then there's the kind where you can literally feel your nervous system buzzing and you think, I don't wanna be here.
I'm done. That's my cue.
And it's not that the feeling is wrong, you just don't want that to be your home base.
And this morning I woke up with that same feeling that I had last night, it was still lingering in my head and I was sitting with it for a minute.
Walking across the living room and suddenly I saw, saw my cat throw up. And I know that's a really silly example you guys, but it's true.
And I saw my cat. The poor little thing. And then he just looked yucky. And then he went and he sat in his little sunbeam and he curled up. And in that moment all that anger just evaporated in my body. I ran over to him and I gave him this warm, cozy little hug.
And I was like, Mr. White, are you okay? Are you all right? That looks scary. All that weird tension that I had just went away because I needed to be in that moment of calm and compassion and softness as a human, as a mammal. I wanted to comfort my baby, who in that moment was my cat, and I was just like, wow that was kind of magical. I was trying so hard all morning to Peloton those bad feelings out of my body, and in two seconds I comforted my cat and it all went away. Because you can't do both. You can't be angry and compassionate at the same time. And we are humans who want to be compassionate. We want to be soft.
We want to love and cuddle. That is part of our wiring.
The softness took over.
You cannot be raging and tender at the same time.
Softness feels like home. Activation feels like armor. Armor is useful. But if you've watch Game of Thrones, which I have many times, you can't live in it. You can't live in that armor.
And if you're raising children, if you are the nervous system that your kids co-regulate off of which you are, by the way, you will feel that difference even more. You cannot parent well from a constant state of fire, you need access to softness. So yes, we're all talking about trauma and triggers and nervous systems right now, but maybe the real life flex in your forties isn't eliminating those words or saying that you've gotten past them.
It's being able to say, I see what's happening. I am not ashamed of it. I'm not staying here either, and I'm actually kind of proud of the tools I've learned and the acceptance I have for the feelings that I have as a human. And the skills I have to move through them. And all of that gets to be passed down to my kid because I've done the work first.
The goal isn't to never fall in the tunnel through the trap door. Away from your beautiful garden of life that you built. You fall into those trap doors. the goal is to build a ladder out as fast as you can.
I know that's a weird metaphor. but we have these beautiful gardens that we live in and we've built and we've created with bubbling streams. And Butterflies and bees and fruit trees, and all the people who are soft and love you and you just wanna stay in that garden.
But you can't get away from those trap doors that lead to these tunnels of activation. And you can't avoid them. Some you can, but you can't avoid all of them if you've made it to your mid forties. You have a couple triggers, you guys.
The goal is to build the ladder, to figure out how to climb out before you bring all the dirt and all the pain, and all the stuff that you're gonna need to wash away to get back into your garden. I love a metaphor.
I have this garden now. I have my husband and my daughter and my work and my quiet mornings and my cats and my friends.
And it's a life that I built, and I don't pretend the tunnel doesn't exist, I just refuse to live there.
So yesterday when I fell through that trap door, it was annoying. But I climbed out.
Pretty quickly.
My kid has changed my life. She's also changed my nervous system. I know now that it's not just mine. Every parent will understand what I mean when I say it's not just my nervous system anymore. It's also an extension of hers. I regulate her. I am her example. I am the one who she goes to if she needs a safe space. So it counts so much more than it ever did.
I used to think that growing up and figuring out your life meant that one day, those nervous system activations, and triggers just wouldn't happen anymore.
I don't believe that anymore. I know it's not true. Healing is truly learning how long you sit in it, and how to get out faster. That's it.
The world right now is full of activated people. You can feel it. Online, in comment sections. So much rage, uncertainty. There's not just one headline, there's not one news story. It's 10 every day. One more traumatic than the other,
So that's my rebellion, that's my practice. Getting out as fast as I can.
I wanna leave you with something practical, based on what I actually do.
So everybody's gonna have their different triggers, whatever it may be.
For me, it's fertility stuff. That whole chapter of my life. Belonging, being chosen, friendships, communities, family dynamics, career insecurity, self-esteem, body image. These are things that go back to my childhood. These are not fresh wounds. This is all deeply rooted stuff.
When I get activated, it usually shows up as something hard first. Anger, anxiety, tension, that buzzy sharp energy. It's like armor. You suddenly feel like you have to defend yourself. It feels protective. It feels like your knight, Jamie, protecting Queen cersei.
Any chance for a Game of Thrones reference you guys. And then I asked myself, what is the actual human soft feeling underneath it? Grief, sadness, loneliness, shame, fear, disappointment. Those are softer.
Those are harder to admit. And sometimes just naming it and realizing it is enough for it to shift in me. And sometimes I'll literally start crying because I realize, oh, I'm not furious. I'm just really sad.
And something about that softens the whole experience. That's step one for me. Feel it, name it. Don't skip it. And then this is the adult part. I decide how long I'm staying in this and I don't have a universal formula for getting out.
I wish I did. Sometimes it's movement, sometimes it's talking rest therapy, laughing at myself, literally just standing up and changing rooms. It's different every time, and honestly, now I have a new tool. I will just see if my cat needs comforting because that totally erased my anger this morning.
That's what healing looks like in your forties. It's not the absence of triggers, it's the growing awareness of your own pattern. You start to know yourself.
You know which ones are quicksand and which ones are just little muddy puddles to jump in for a second.
And over time something else happens.
You start to see the value in those dark stretches. The grief gives you empathy. The struggle gave you depth. The hard chapters gave you new language, the tunnels, they gave you perspective on all the beautiful gardens.
You connect differently. Parent differently. Love differently.
Maybe that's the real gift. Not that the pain disappears, but that you don't waste it.
And if one day you wake up and you realize, wow, that used to knock me down for an entire day. And now I just pushed it off in two seconds. That counts. Good job. Congratulations. You're healing.
📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 📍 This was Notes by Kathy Patalsky
For more, follow Kathy on Instagram or visit healthyhappylife.com
