Being Aware of Your Threat Bucket Can Change Your Life! Guest Blogger: Jessica Raaum
Hey there everyone,
My name is Jessica Raaum Foster. Aidan is a dear friend of mine from way back in our musical theatre training days. I do still sing and perform, but I am now also a Neuro Performance Coach, and a Z-health Master Practitioner (Z-health is an education company dedicated to providing cutting-edge applied pain and performance neurology training to elite health and fitness professionals around the world.) Essentially, my job is to use applied neurology to help people overcome obstacles and achieve their goals, whether that is walking without pain or hitting the high note from center stage. And sometimes… the person that needs my help the most is ME.
This has been a VERY difficult year for me: I am in the middle of a divorce, I have moved twice, there are financial issues, and after taking a year off to be with my baby, I was just getting back to work when the world shut down. Due to social distancing, I was no longer able to see clients in person, and my upcoming sold-out workshop had to be cancelled. Daycare closed, and I was suddenly back to being a full-time mommy, but now with the responsibility of putting food on the table, and paying the bills. I needed to work. I knew I could be effective virtually, but I did not have any infrastructure in place to make that transition easily. I knew what I needed to do, but I found myself falling asleep any time I had a spare minute to get work done. I felt like I was failing. I knew there were people dealing with way more than I was, and I had so much shame and judgement about my inability to function. I felt like I just needed to buck up and work harder… But my vision was suddenly declining, all of my joints were hurting, I was taking sharp inhales all the time (a good sign that my breathing was way off kilter), my sleep started getting wonky, and I realized that the harder I tried, the worse it got. It was REALLY interesting to watch myself tank with a head full of education and professional expertise. I was a textbook case on the downward spiral of stress. My education could not protect me from the effects of stress, but it did help me make some decisions about what to do about it, and I’d like to share these ideas with you.
In this video, I discuss the neurology behind what happens to us physically under high stress. We are designed to handle quite a bit before we start showing the negative symptoms of stress, but we all have our limits. If you feel like you are at your threshold a lot of the time, it may be that you have some neurological deficits that may be draining your resources before you even start. In any case, all of us can benefit tremendously from training our nervous systems. I hope the video highlights the value in this.
I am grateful to have had the awareness to recognize these symptoms as warning signs from my body. It took a while for my ego to admit that I was losing the battle, but then one day, I tried to film a video, and I just looked EXHAUSTED in it. I realized I wasn’t practicing what I preach, and I finally surrendered. I set my pride aside, accepted support from my parents, and gave up any expectations of working during the pandemic. I spent the next few weeks mirroring my daughter. Toddlers aren’t afraid to ask for their needs to be met, so I was grateful for her wisdom! I slept when my daughter slept, ate when she ate, played when she played. I started to do the vision drills, the vestibular drills (balance drills), the breathing drills, and movement drills I know my body needs to recover from the damage stress has done. As I started to gain some energy, I focused on cleaning up some of the loose ends in my life that have been weighing on my shoulders. And it is working. I am now back to work (remotely for now.) I am getting things done. I am showing up for my friends and family, and my community seemingly without much effort. It has not been a subtle shift.
Hopefully my story and the information in the video will help make clear the following ideas:
1) None of us are superhuman. I have to remind myself constantly that “pushing through” is going to cost me something. “No pain, no gain” is an outdated concept. To whatever degree possible, pausing to replenish is of the utmost of importance.
2) Comparing myself to anyone else is not only futile, it is often inaccurate. I am incapable of taking into consideration all of the unseen factors that differentiate us… our strengths or our liabilities. There is only one person that I have any control over, and it’s me. What is really cool though, is that by training my nervous system, I have discovered more control than I ever thought was possible.
3) Training your nervous system is the future of health and wellness. It often shortcuts the solution to any and all health issues. And… it is really fun! I hope you will check it out further!
