Nervous System Regulation & Healing Trauma in the Body with Olivia | Why You Don’t Feel Safe (And How to Change It) | Hot Flushes & Higher Self

Welcome to Hot Flushes & Higher Self

Olivia’s Healing Journey: From Autoimmune Illness to Energy Work

0:49 Soraya: So hi Liv, welcome to the show. before we go on, just could you please share a little bit about your personal and professional journey and what led you into energy healing and the work you do today?

1:55 Olivia: Hello, yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here today and get to share a bit about myself and my journey. So it's been it's been sort of like a long journey, but in a very sort of succinct way. Um, I got very ill several years ago. I was working as a kickboxing instructor and essentially a lifetime of trauma and stress caught up to me. And I got the flu, and then the flu sort of set off a number of different um reactions in my body that led me to um have several autoimmune conditions, and being so young, I was probably like 22, 23 at the time, and I was going to doctors and I was saying that you know, I'm not well, like, how do I heal?

2:45 Olivia: And they were essentially like there's no way that you can heal, you have these autoimmune conditions, you have to live with them forever. But here's some medication, and I think being that age, I just I just refused to believe that the next, you know, however many years of my life was going to be in this container of this like very ill body. And so I went on this manic journey of trying to heal my body, trying anything and everything. And at first, it was much more focused around diet and nutrition.

3:15 Olivia: And so I thought if I could create the perfect diet and lifestyle with the perfect supplement routine and the perfect food and control absolutely everything in my environment, I would be able to heal. And it did help me a little bit, but it was still very like trapped and not it like I was still very limited of what I could do. Um, and then I I went through that journey for several years, being really, really super strict, constantly trying to find new, new lifestyle things to implement. And then I started regulating my nervous system on a daily basis with different uh techniques, different mindfulness, breath work, somatic practices.

4:00 Olivia: And once I actually started doing that and I started to heal my nervous system, all of a sudden I was able to notice my body start to come back to life again and have such a bigger um bandwidth of what I was able to do to the point where I was able to start training in martial arts again and I had a Muay Thai fight, and that's like a miracle. I should never have been able to do that. So, kind of as a testament to my own journey of what I was able to do, I really am passionate about trying to bring nervous system regulation um to other people to help them also break free from um break free from the stress that is limiting so many people in so many ways that they're not even aware of.

4:44 Olivia: So, yeah, it's a little bit of a thank you, Liv.

Energy, Emotions & the Physical Body Explained

4:49 Soraya: How do you see the relationship between the energetic body, emotional processing, and physical sensation?

4:57 Olivia: Okay, so the way that I like to look at it is that we have different levels that we exist on. So we exist, our most physical way that we exist is our bodily sensations. But if you um and like the 3D world realm, but then when we go into and we go into ourselves and into our um our atoms, and what's even smaller, right? It's all energy that's holding us together. And often I I feel into my clients, and often they have like some sort of energetic um signature or frequency that then ripples out into their emotional field, which then ripples out into their physical body.

5:40 Olivia: And so through working with clients where you are allowing the nervous system to calm down, to make the body feel safe, to then see what that energy, energetic signature is, to see how to heal it, to find kind of the anti-jode, to allow it to be seen and witnessed, and then move through that is really vital because we can often only like move on the 3D plane. But if we're not removing what that energetic signature is or what that thing, the energetic signature, which then causes the emotional impact, which then dictates the 3D, it's gonna be, I found it, it's been quite limiting on actually how much progress you can make.

6:27 Olivia: Um, because it's also really then connected to your identity as well, and you have to be able to really shift your identity, and that comes, I think, first by aligning in an energetic way.

What Happens When You Feel Safe in Your Body

6:45 Soraya: Okay, thanks. That makes sense. And in your experience, what shifts when people begin to feel safer and more held within their bodies?

6:53 Olivia: Um, everything, everything, in my opinion, shifts the way that you interact and see life. Um unfortunately, I feel like most of us actually don't have never really experienced what it feels like to be truly safe. Um, unfortunately, the majority of us have been raised by parents who are also traumatized, and that kind of trauma has been trickled down. And so, you know, our parents always do the best they can with what they've got, but often what is created as some sort of um insecure attachment style, um more commonly known as, and that creates a real safety, a lack of safety.

7:42 Olivia: And so because our inherent sort of like little child doesn't feel um safe to be authentically ourselves, we um we start to mask, we start to change our behavior, and um once we start to reconnect to that like little us inside of ourselves, which we do that by regulating our nervous system every single day. And I almost see it like a brick wall, our nervous system. So often if we've had like a lot of trauma um or a lot of uh stuff that we hold on to, we have a really big brick wall. And so when every time you choose to regulate uh your body in a moment of stress or even not necessarily in a heightened state, what you're doing is you're removing a brick.

8:34 Olivia: And over a period of time, you'll notice that there'll be a big hole in the wall. And by allowing that hole to be there, you allow that hole to be filled with love, with compassion, and with kindness instead. And when you do that and you start to feed the body with that instead of this kind of wall of protection of often really unhelpful set of behaviors, of mindsets, um, your body starts to essentially, I feel like, regain its like life force energy again and starts to operate in the way that it's actually always been made to, because it's not operating from a place of survival, it's operating from a place of of life force energy.

9:20 Olivia: Um, so yeah, of an expression of its true authentic state, and so your immune system isn't compromised, your energy levels are heightened, and all your hormones start to function in a way because it's not just focus on the bare necessities, which it would be if it's just focused on stress and protection and survival.

How to Regulate Your Nervous System (Practical Tools)

9:46 Soraya: Yeah, and how do you do that with your clients, um, Lib, when you're working with a nervous system, how do you help regulate them?

9:52 Olivia: Yeah, so I I focus on three main different areas. First is somatic, which is focus on body work. So through bilateral stimulation, there are different techniques that you can do to activate both hemispheres of the brain. So I work with um EFT and havening and other types of like massage and pressure techniques, um, activated activating the vagus nerve in different ways. There's so many different things, even like engaging the sense of smell. The smell is such a powerful way to override the nervous system and get them straight back into a calm state.

10:30 Olivia: Um, there are so many shaking is really powerful, um, different types of shaking as well, voluntary and non-voluntary. Um, and then you have breath work and also mindfulness, and all each stage is just as can be just as important. But it's also really important to state that nervous system regulation and this type of work is not one size fits all. Some people do not want to meditate, it's there, it's not what they um, it's not how they feel their peace. Some people really don't react to breath work.

11:05 Olivia: It actually makes them like sometimes black out and have really bad reactions. Sometimes people are not somatically inclined, they feel overwhelmed by the physical touch. So it's about finding what is right for you. Sometimes actually doing creative work, creative creativity and getting people to scribble on a page can be also an incredibly powerful tool. So there's so many different ways that we can do it, and it's kind of trying to um trying to find that blend that resonates with um with the person best.

11:36 Olivia: But it's it's there's like thousands and thousands of ways and colours and shapes depending on the person that I'm working with.

Signs Your Nervous System is Healing

11:45 Soraya: So, but what are some subtle signs you noticed when the nervous system begins to soften and settle when you're working with clients?

11:51 Olivia: So you often start to yawn. Yawning is a big thing, you know. We think, oh, that's like a that oh my god, they're switching off. That's terrible. No, yawning is a really, really good way. It also shows that something's being released. Often, when like an emotion is being stored and it's being released, you'll start to yawn. Um, your stomach will start rumbling because all of the gastric juices in there start to start to be secreted, um, which is very, very um normal. Again, you might actually feel really tired.

12:20 Olivia: It might actually be because we're often running on adrenaline when we finally give ourselves permission to slow down or sometimes go totally the other way because our but we're finally giving our bodies a chance to show, oh my god, I'm actually so exhausted. So they might feel even more tired, but that is actually a really good sign because you're allowing the body to relax into a deeper rest than it needs. Um, what are some other ways? I think those are yeah, the main ways, but yawning is a big, is a big big plus, yeah.

Why Slowing Down Feels So Hard (But Is Essential)

12:56 Soraya: Yeah, I see that one as well in hypnosis when uh clients seeing they yawn, which is great. At first, when you don't know, it seems like they're bored and they're feathered, but actually it's a really great sign. It's just someone's very relaxed and then letting go of things. So, yes. Um, why do you feel slowness, presence, and tune is so important yet often missing in modern well-being culture?

13:19 Olivia: Um, I think everyone's trying to find a quick fix. Um, I think everyone, we're kind of unfortunately, even in the wellness spaces, it's kind of been infiltrated with this like capitalist idea that more and hard and intense, and you know, I want to feel as much pain, you know, even in a massage, I'm a massage therapist, and we'll want as much to experience as much pain as possible because it's good for us, you know, we want maximum results. And in our culture, what is always celebrated is like you know, the most and like how fast we can get there, and how you know it's really counter now intuitive for actually us to slow down as much as possible for us to crave slow healing, you know, slow sustainable healing, rather than like you know, these um essentially like quick fixes um that have kind of been popularized, popularized um recently.

14:17 Olivia: And I think there's a space and a time for all. Like I think there is everyone has their individual medicine that they're looking for. Um but it's really, really jarring for we all work in a rhythm, and we all live in a this rhythm, and rhythm works powerfully with momentum. So in our lives with momentum, momentum is really, really easy to speed up. So we'll we're all speeding up and speeding up and speeding up, and with phones and with our lives, and with us now kind of even being infiltrated by the wellness spaces of like we need to fill our day with as much wellness as possible and like all this pressure, all this pressure.

14:59 Olivia: What you notice is our like speed and our stress, everything is being at like fastest pace as possible. And so it's actually incredibly jarring to get someone and even ourselves when we're in the state to stop and to slow down because nothing in our body wants to slow down our momentum, our tempo, because it wants to go in the direction that it's naturally going at. Um, but when we do do that and we do have the strength to pull ourselves back and change directions and change momentum, um what we allow ourselves to do is actually tap into a different sense that people are not used to activating, and that is more this the emotional energetic senses, uh, which is really hard to describe if you don't give yourself that space.

15:53 Olivia: But when you start to tap into sensation and energies, all of a sudden that becomes a lot more nourishing and enjoying and enjoying than the fast pace, but you can't really tap into those if you're moving so quickly. They're they're subtle realms that exist, but you have to sort of have the patience to slow down, slow down to allow yourself to feel it. Um, yeah.

Presence, FOMO & Reconnecting to Yourself

16:24 Soraya: Yeah, no, I think that's really important. I think we forget that, like you said, people looking for fast fixes, but it's about really taking time and just slowing down and enjoying every moment and being present, right?

16:37 Olivia: Yeah, next thing I think with FOMO and online, we're constantly being shown that there's something else better that we should be experiencing, and actually, like, what if in every single moment, every single moment has the opportunity for you to connect inwards, to learn something, to grow, to feel peace, to feel do you know what I mean? Every single moment, why don't we see every single moment as that opportunity that every single moment that we are experiencing is perfect for us, and there's not that other place, you know, it's as much as you know, this holiday and that holiday and this influencer is over here and living this magical life.

17:22 Olivia: What if we can just trust that in this moment we are exactly where we are meant to be for us?

17:29 Soraya: Yeah, true. I think it's that it's that disconnection, isn't it? Everyone's trying to do things and be someone, but they're kind of forgetting what who what they want, who they are by being in the present. Which leads me on to the next question I have. Um, so I know you're not there yet, but midlife, when you're in your midlife, it's often you get the transition and you're kind of more sensitive. How do you see your work with nervous system um support supporting women through these phases in their life?

Supporting Women in Midlife Through Nervous System Work

18:00 Olivia: I love women working with women who are actually all older. I think as we get older, um, I don't know if I can swear, but I feel like women have this incredible.

18:11 Soraya: I give you permission.

18:12 Olivia: Okay, amazing. This unfuckwithableness that as you get older, you like gain this unfuckwithableness, you know, of like care. I think as a young woman, we have all these expectations and we have all these pressures. And I think as you get older, you like actually like take off those layers and all those expectations. That as you get older, and I think as you mature the women, you just have this beautiful grace of just getting to be yourself. And um I think it's amazing doing this as an older woman, especially because a lot of women who are midlife have had children, and a lot of them have spent now so many years caring for other people, and you know what, even if they don't have children, it might be they're caring for their friends or they're caring for their families, but we take on so much of this duty role, you know, to be holding people and holding people, and it's not necessarily have been built within naturally within our culture and as a society to actually create spaces to hold up to learn to hold ourselves and to allow ourselves to be held by other people.

19:26 Olivia: And I don't I think so much sort of dis-ease within our body is created because women have been kind of infiltrated with this message that it's not our space to actually receive. And so again, doing this, doing this nervous system regulation work is you are allowing your body to receive safety, you're allowing your body to reprogram yourself to be like, no, I actually I am safe to receive love, I am safe to experience joy and experience happiness and to actually experience like to experience the things that like are the right careers and the right friendships, you know.

20:13 Olivia: Um, a lot of the time we actually self-sabotage in so many different ways because we don't actually feel like we're truly safe to receive that. And I think fundamentally our our body's job is to keep us alive, right? And it's to protect us, but um we have a choice to overcome that. And I think when women get to sort of like that mid like stage in life, I think that at that pivotal moment where they can actually say, you know what? I've spent so long caring for everybody else, and now I'm going to give myself the biggest gift that I can ever give myself, and that is giving myself that inner gift of love, of safety, and of that inner harmony that I truly, truly deserve.

How the Body Changes When You Feel Safe

21:03 Soraya: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and what patterns do you notice when women begin to reconnect to their bodies and nervous systems?

21:14 Olivia: I notice that their relationship with food changes actually a lot. I think unfortunately, uh you know, we all have real I think a lot of women, you know, growing up with like early 2000s culture of what we were exposed to with like magazines and stuff and skinniness and you know this yo-yo dieting, and all of a sudden when you create that inner system of safety, actually our relationship with food massively, massively um heals and changes. And for example, like a lot of digestive issues goes away, a lot of intolerances can be have been.

21:59 Olivia: I've seen to be massively improved. Um, and I mean, I I I I was able to really heal, address like many of my autoimmune conditions. Obviously, I can't, I'm not like a medical clinician, so I can't say that that's gonna like happen to everyone. But I've seen, I've seen like, I've literally seen not just through my own work, but going and working, uh going to other retreats and working with other practitioners in similar fields and seeing them work. I've seen like spontaneous like miracles, I swear, happen in front of my eyes.

22:39 Olivia: And so when you see that and you see that that is capable, it's it's incredibly just the nervous system support, that's what's you've seen happening. Yeah, because all of a sudden you've told your, but you know, I think even with this nervous system regulation, you know, you're retraining yourself on the deepest energetic or in on the deepest energetic layer that you are safe and you are safe to receive and you are safe to heal, and you are safe to be something other than. And so when you change that and you're able to, you know, remove that through this nervous system regulation work.

23:19 Olivia: Like, I really believe that there is the potential for so much of your biology to also change.

Safety vs Happiness: What Your Body Really Prioritises

23:28 Soraya: Yeah, but you're right that that is the basis, I think, before any else, anything else can happen. You need to feel safe. If you're not feeling safe in your body, then you know, there is that self-sabotage or the things that are not really working, and you need to have that. And so, yeah, no, I think I completely agree with what you're saying, Liv.

23:46 Olivia: Yeah, and you know what, I've seen it so like in my eye, went through like the really manic manifestation stage of like the early part of my work, and I noticed that like I was like, why isn't any of this working? You know, something wrong with me. And actually, like fundamentally, like, I didn't feel safe to receive any of that. I didn't feel safe to change my life, and actually, unless you feel safe again, you know, like nothing is it, it's it's it sounds like you know, I'm repeating the same thing, but like your body will not allow you to receive anything in the physical realm or whatever, unless you feel safe.

24:22 Olivia: That's why, even you know, when people win the lottery, they will lose all the money and they won't be able to retain it because on an energetic, you don't actually feel aligned to that, um, on a like in a really humane way.

24:36 Soraya: Yeah, no, it it's it's again, it kind of goes back also to the subconsciousness that it's trying to keep you safe, not necessarily happy, yeah, but safe.

24:45 Olivia: It needs to keep you alive, that's all. It needs to keep you safe and alive, and even if that means you have a miserable life, even if it means that you're trapped in toxic cycles, if it trapped in toxic behaviors with toxic, it doesn't matter because you're alive and that's all that's important.

24:58 Soraya: Yeah. But if you want a happy life, that's a different story.

25:02 Olivia: Exactly, exactly.

Redefining Rest & Daily Nervous System Care

25:04 Soraya: Yeah. Um, and then you explained a bit about how you use your work to help you with your um conditions, but so how is your own relationship with rest, presence, and well-being evolved through your work?

25:19 Olivia: Okay, so I uh I am quite an all or nothing person. So when I try something, I really like throw myself in. And then you know, sometimes that's not always it. I didn't always have great experiences because of that, right? But what I do is I can learn a lot, and I set myself a challenge um just over probably like a year and a half ago of like doing something, some sort of nervous system regulation, healing, returning to this state of rest and presence every single day. And it started, you know, I started, I'm not gonna lie, I was meditating for like up to four hours a day.

25:57 Olivia: Um, sometimes like at 10 hours, like because I went on, did did different stuff. So I've done like a lot, but still I have not missed a day of doing some form of this self-nourishment, this nervous system regulation activity.

Living as Your Limitless Self

26:14 Olivia: And we we see I think even rest, we've like kind of capitalized on rest, right? And now what I see rest is it's not it's not something that I need to like, I don't I don't I don't need to necessarily do hours and hours every day, right? To like put all this pressure on myself, but I just need to how I view it is that like just as I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, right? I have my nervous system regulation, like it is just part of who I am. I'm a highly sensitive person. I feel so much, I absorb so much from my outer surroundings and even myself because I just that's who that's who I am, and I'm so grateful for that.

27:04 Olivia: But I'm not going to have a happy, fulfilled existence if I don't do something to reconnect to my inner state and to find my sense of clarity and calm. So that is my gift to myself, and that is the most important. I honestly think it's probably like the most important thing that I do for myself every single day because it's the basis of everything else. Like if I am able to tap in and connect with myself and refind my peace. And even, you know what? Some days I've had meditations where I sat there for an hour and it's been awful, and it hasn't been like perfect.

27:42 Olivia: That's okay, that's fine. I still try to show up for myself, I still did my best, and who cares about the results, you know, but I am actively going to choose to create that container in myself and take accountability for myself, for my feelings, for my process. And yeah, like everything's changed as a result because no matter what happens in the outside world, I have created that inner environment that I can always return home to. And um, I'm so grateful for that. And it's just I now crave peace, I now crave silence, which is not something that you know I would have ever thought or imagined five years ago.

28:23 Olivia: So yeah.

A Simple Daily Practice: The Power of Gratitude

28:26 Soraya: Yeah, okay. And is there a simple grounding or awareness-based practice listeners could try to support their nervous system day to day?

28:34 Olivia: So one that initially actually changed my I used to be a very negative person actually growing up, and I was gifted this book called The Magic, and it's very I'm sure you've heard of it, it's all about gratitude and the power of gratitude. And I actually first changed my brain through gratitude. And I think we always assume that you have to be grateful for things which are like positive, you only can be grateful for things which are like positive, right? And actually, I like decided every day I was gonna write down 10 things that I was grateful for, and there were 10 new things every single day, and learning to change your state to really feel grateful, even if you're feeling anxious or feeling whatever that is, just allowing yourself to sit with this gratitude for your body, whatever it's coming in with, like I can't tell you how gratitude has changed, has has literally changed my life.

29:38 Olivia: Um, so if you so many people can't necessarily sit with themselves yet, and even want to close their eyes. And so I just think the first step is always connecting to gratitude because if you can connect to gratitude and you can just name one thing in your life that you're grateful for, one thing about yourself that you're grateful for, and one person that you're grateful for every single day, that will automatically start to change your brain in the ways that you perceive safety in the world. You will start to notice all these amazing things that you do have to be grateful for, and your body will naturally start to soften into a safer state of being.

30:25 Soraya: Yeah, it's a muscle though, isn't it? Gratitude. It's the more you use it, the easier it becomes. And I remember when I first started doing it, I was like, oh, this is really hard, but it's not really. You start listing things, and then the more you do it, the more things you find to be grateful for as well, and just automatically throughout the day.

30:42 Olivia: Absolutely, absolutely, and I'm sure people have heard it so many, so many times, but it doesn't matter how there's a reason for that though, exactly. And I think sometimes we think we need these like brand new, like fancy tools or whatever, and they can again those can be fabulous and great, but actually coming back to the most simple practices. But starting your day with gratitude and finishing your day with gratitude, even if you just do that, you will honestly start to notice a difference.

What’s Inspiring Olivia Right Now

31:11 Soraya: Yeah, no, I definitely, I mean, it worked a lot for me. It doesn't matter how bad things are, there's always something to look positively at. And I think it's just kind of putting a magnifying glass on the good things and they actually on the bad stuff, right? So, yeah, I think that's a really good tip. Um, and what's currently inspiring or lighting you up most in your work at the moment, if okay, so something that I'm not doing.

31:38 Olivia: Um, this isn't so I'm starting to work with um an amazing guy called Minasha, and it's all about screen addiction. And unfortunately, I feel like um in our current day and age, our biggest currency now that we have is our own attention. And because of our screens and our addictions and our relationships with screens, it is totally um ruining people's lives, but specifically children. And so we're gonna go into schools um to start to help to teach about this how to overcome and how to work with screen addiction.

32:21 Olivia: Because fundamentally, as humans, what I am most passionate about is connection. You know, as humans, we are here to connect, to connect to ourselves, to connect to people, and to connect to our environment. And when we have a screen in front of us, we just lose ourselves into this void of nothingness. Um, it does have a role, obviously, but unfortunately, we have misused this relationship, and that's not to blame people. We have it's like a multi-trillion dollar company, so they've it's been created for that.

32:51 Olivia: But how do we reclaim our sovereignty and our connection? And that's what I'm really, really excited to go into in the next part of my journey.

33:00 Soraya: Yeah, that no, that's a great thing to be doing. I think we had this conversation before we started the interview about teenagers. I have teenagers and this whole obsession of screens. It's you know, PlayStations, TV, phones, it's constantly on a screen. So um, yeah, but it is, it does become addictive though, and as adults is that. So we obviously with children with their growing brains, and it affects them as well, even more than for the adults. So yeah, it's good that you're doing that, Alex.

33:29 Olivia: Thank you.

33:30 Soraya: Um, I send my kids to you. Yeah, um, and if you can leave listeners with one message about trusting their body's innate intelligence, what would it be?

Trusting Your Body’s Intelligence

33:42 Olivia: Not everything is meant to be understood cognitively with words, with language. I think you know, nowadays we're so obsessed with intellectualizing everything, and to really start to understand that we don't have to intellectualize everything that's being held within our body. Sometimes we'll do these practices and we'll release something and we we can feel it, but we can't necessarily put words to it, and that's okay. We're we you know our our body has if I always like to think, you know, women have been giving birth for how many years?

34:27 Olivia: Like I don't even know, right? It's just like our bodies now, but the body knows what to do, and um when you reconnect to that inner safety, and you give your body permission to guide you without having to overuse our brain, right? It will guide you always, always to exactly where you need to be, um, and to an incredibly rich and beautiful life. Um, but our bodies wisdom, I think, especially as women, is way more um knowing than any sort of intellectual um manner, you know, intellectual um yeah, narrative that we can create in our brains.

35:19 Olivia: So yeah, never underestimate its power.

What the Nervous System is Teaching Us About Addiction

35:22 Soraya: Yeah, so true. And finally, I have two questions to always ask my guests. Firstly, what's something your body or nervous system has been teaching you lately?

35:34 Olivia: Um, that our addictions in life are never about the addictions, they're merely distractions that are being created to protect us from needing to listen to something underneath that. And yeah, that's what has been really coming through, and I've been working through myself, so yeah.

35:58 Soraya: Yeah, love that. And the last question I have is what does living as your limitless self mean to you right now?

36:06 Olivia: Freedom is number one, and freedom is not necessarily like a a it doesn't mean a physical freedom, it's the the energetic alignment of what it feels like to be free. That is that is how when I feel most alive is when I feel free. Um, and to have that certainty in my freedom in every single moment. Yeah.

36:34 Soraya: I love it. Thank you, Liv. Um and before you go, can you tell us how best to get in contact with you?

How to Connect with Olivia

36:41 Olivia: Yes, so um, if you would like to connect more, I've got um my Instagram is live well wild um or my website is www.livewelllondon.com, or you can email me at live wellondon at gmail.com.

36:59 Soraya: Thank you so much, Liv, and I look forward to seeing you soon. Bye. Bye.