Ep. 43: How Your Nervous System Can Expand Your Business with Jamie Lugo

The nervous system and the somatic connection is huge because the nervous system doesn't speak English. A lot of us are trying to talk ourselves out of nervous system responses, but it speaks the language of the body. And so in order to communicate anything to it, we do need to utilize the body.

Welcome to the Prosperous Woman Podcast. I'm Claire Sellers, a business mentor and coach who is absolutely obsessed with helping you create the business of your dreams and your most prosperous life. Tune in for inspiring conversations with extraordinary women that will propel you towards becoming the prosperous woman. Hello everyone and welcome. I'm so excited to have my amazing friend, colleague, and opulent— former Opulence Mastermind client, Jamie Lugo. She is going to be one of our featured guest experts on the Simple AF Biz Summit, talking about all things nervous system. We were just preparing for this and I'm mind blown and just dying to let Jamie like explain all things nervous system and just give us a little micro teaser of what she's going to be talking about in her full session in the summit. Jamie, welcome. I'm so happy to have you.

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

Anyone who's interested in learning even more about Jamie, we recorded an episode probably last year, and so you can check that out. We go deep into Jamie's story and just about her work and her background. So we're not going to get into that today, but Jamie, just give us like a super brief introduction of how you became a nervous system expert, somatic coach, and Yeah, let's just start there and then we'll get into why is the nervous system literally like central to your business?

Yeah. Okay. So a little story is that, let's see if I can break it down. I started coaching in 2018 and it was just like the wind in my sails. I was so obsessed with it. It was like the thing that really helped turn around a lot of my anxiety and a lot of my depression and helped me feel like I was just like the world, like things were making sense. And then in 2021, I had my daughter and I went through like a total dark night of the soul. And none of my tools from like years of teaching yoga, years of coaching experience and studying psychology, none of my somatic anything, nothing was working. And so I got really deep into nervous system work. I had a coach that was really into nervous system and that was the thing that changed everything for me. And from that point, I realized that the nervous system really controls everything and controls not only just— not only our behavior, but also our thoughts and the way that we perceive and see the world. And so, I got really just kind of obsessed with this nervous system work and the way that it ties into the body was really interesting to me. I'm a yoga teacher. I've been— Oh, wow. Teaching for since 2009. And the nervous system and the somatic connection is huge because the nervous system doesn't speak English, right? And so a lot of us are trying to talk ourselves out of nervous system responses, but it speaks the language of the body. And so in order to communicate anything to it, we do need to utilize the body. And so, yeah, it's just really expanded my whole world and all I wanna do is talk about it.

Yay. I love it. I love it. It's so fun for me. Jamie and I met at the Co-Active Training Institute. We were in the same cohort, I guess it was 2018.

Yeah.

And you know, it's just been such a joy for me to watch your business and your, you know, yourself as a woman and as a human kind of evolve over the years. But what I've always known and kind of thought about you and your business is like, it's really always been about root cause, body, holistic, like those are the things that you've always been really, really into and really an expert in. So I'm excited to talk about the nervous system piece through the lens of business, because I think before we started recording, we were talking about some of the things like feeling like you can't write content or feeling like you always need to discount your prices or—

Yeah. Yeah.

When a client cancels a call last minute and that's against your policies, but you don't wanna speak up and say you've lost that session, feeling this like overwhelming sense of pressure and urgency. These are nervous system responses and they're showing up in different ways. Sometimes, as my clients will know the term saboteur, sometimes as a thought, a sabotaging protective thought. But before we get into the types of responses, cuz I think it's helpful to break it down so people can see like, oh wait, the reason I'm avoiding creating my sales page is not just because I'm quote bad at business. Yeah. No, no one is bad at business.

No.

Everyone has the ability to serve and have a thriving business.

100%.

One of the primary factors is we're going into nervous system dysregulation. So Jamie, like, I think it would be so powerful if you're willing to share just how you had a lightbulb moment around your own business and how you realized that nervous system was like the thing that was actually holding you back and how you overcame that.

Yeah. So Claire knows this very deeply. But I, you know, when I first started my business, it was very, very clear to me that I would hit overwhelm very, very quickly. And overwhelm is kind of this feeling of like, I just, I can't. And I would hit my limit and I would say, oh, I can't do this. And then when that would happen, I would just quit and throw in the towel and say, okay, I need to like start completely over. And so then I would flip back to like, okay, frantic urgency, like, oh, I gotta get this done. I gotta figure this out. I gotta go. I gotta do this. And then I would hit a wall and I would say, "Why am I even trying? I can't do this." And what I realized was that I kept hitting these walls. And when I started getting to know and learning more about the nervous system, what I realized is that was just a nervous system response because what I was doing in my— in my business was not feeling safe to my body. It wasn't feeling safe to me. Okay. And so when I started to learn about not just the nervous system, but then also about capacity, right? So a lot of people talk about nervous system and capacity kind of synonymously or with each other. And your capacity is basically the bucket of what you have available to you, the space in your bucket that of things in life that you can handle, right? And this could be relationships. This could be emotions. This this could be feelings, this could be anything. And in your business, basically had no room in my bucket to handle anything that happened in my business because I was always making it mean something about who I was.

Hmm.

And so when I learned how to not only see it as, okay, this is a nervous system response, this is not something that's wrong with me, this is me going into protection mode, right? My body's trying to protect me from something. I got a little more curious about that. And then learning how to increase, uh, my capacity so that I could face the things that would previously push me into that overwhelm. And so expanding our ability to just be with the hard things in our business is like something that every business person needs to do. Because, you know, I was talking to somebody about this the other day, if people wanna expand their business, but are you really ready, you know, to get the hate DMs? You know, are you really ready to get audited? Are you really ready to have to refund somebody or have somebody complain in a review about you? You know, those things do come along with having a bigger business. And so does, you know, all the money and expansive things that you want. But there's a, a capacity that we wanna build to be able to handle not just the joy and the excitement of our, of our business growing, but also like the hard shit that's gonna happen so that it doesn't push us into overwhelm and we can continue to grow.

Yes. And it's so helpful to just hear how this showed up for you and just kind of like normalizing this. And, you know, we were talking before we recorded, and we're gonna break down the 5 different responses in just a second. But before we do that, I just want to say and have you, you know, just speak to this. If you're hearing Jamie and you're like, oh my God, that's exactly what happens to me, that's exactly what I feel like, doesn't mean that you need to quit your business or you need to take a 3, 6-year-long hiatus to go heal your nervous system. We actually heal the nervous system through our business.

Yeah, like, I, I have to say that my business has been the hugest eye-opener and expander for me and my nervous system because it has shown me all the patterns, right? All these patterns. Like if I hadn't been leaning into these edges in my business, I wouldn't have been able to see these patterns. And if I wasn't able to see these patterns, I wouldn't have been able to work with them.

Hey gorgeous, I hit a point last year where I just couldn't do it anymore. The endless funnels, the fancy branding, the overcomplicated strategies, it all started to feel like a performance that I did not want to be in. And I knew that I wasn't the only one. That's why I created the Simple AF Biz Summit, a 2-day virtual experience for badass women where we strip back all the noise and bring business back to what actually works. Because real business, the kind that feels good and makes a lot of money, is simple and it's purposeful. Mm-hmm. And it's wildly prosperous when you stop trying to do it like everyone else. If you're ready to do less but make more and help more people and rise into 2026 with clarity and confidence about where you are headed with your mission and your movement, this is your invitation. Join us inside the Simple AF Biz Summit. It's It's free, it's powerful, and it's going to change the way you do business forever.

And so it was so obvious in my business, which is why I think business is the perfect place to do nervous system work, right? It's such a powerful place to, to expand. And it's not that, oh, okay, like go heal your nervous system and then come back to your business. Because if that's what's happening, then basically what's happening is like, okay, I'm just gonna go heal here in isolation with no triggers, no difficulties, no, no edges to push up against. And that's not expansion. In order to expand, we need those edges. We need that kind of something to push up against. We need that contrast. We need that kind of rub in order to work with the patterns and to be able to see the patterns. So business is such a powerful place to work with your system.

It, it really is. And I always say business is your greatest opportunity for healing.

Yeah.

And for me, I feel like I healed so much in my business that I was able to attract my partner. I healed it first in my business, and then I was able to translate that and, and have a deeper capacity to date, you know, and to not shut down and, and to be available for love with a secure attached man. So for me, business is the portal.

Yeah, it really is. And, you know, we talk— what I was saying is like, talking about capacity is like Building that capacity, I mean, that could be in relationship, that could be in family, that for me, it was like having a, having a child was a huge expander for me, but it was the hardest thing ever. But it was such an opportunity to expand my capacity.

Mm-hmm.

And what you did is like you're expanding your capacity in your business because your business is growing and you're meeting yourself at every step of expansion. And what happens is like, oh, okay, I'm also creating more space for love. I'm creating more space for for all the things in my life that I desire.

Mm-hmm. So let's break down, 'cause I think it's helpful for people to kind of hear how these different responses show up and like what they actually look like.

Yes.

Because I, the thing you said in the beginning when you were like shutting down around writing copy or having difficult conversations with clients or whatever it might be, and I see this with my clients, there's a tendency to latch onto the story of like, something's wrong with me, or I'm bad at business. But that's not true. This is just a nervous system response, and we can re-pattern it by expanding capacity. So let's just break down the 5 different responses. And in the summit session, Jamie's gonna talk about how you actually—

Work with each of these.

Work with each so that you don't shut down, so that it doesn't feel overwhelming to write an Instagram post or to respond on to a DM. So the how is gonna be in the summit session. So make sure that you sign up for the summit. It's linked in the show notes, but we're just gonna give you like an overview quickly of the 5 different types of responses so you can have the awareness of, oh, okay, when I do this, it's actually a nervous system response. It's not I'm bad at business or something's wrong with me.

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll call these the F responses because they all start with F and our F responses, like we were just talking about, are not problems to fix. They're ancient intelligent survival strategies that are wired into our system that keep us safe and alive. Okay. So even though the F responses are commonly known as dysregulation, or when we're moving into dysregulation, we need dysregulation and there's nothing wrong with these responses. Okay. So one of the first ones I'm gonna talk about are like the sympathetic nervous system. This is part of our mobilizing nervous system. It's the part of our nervous system that gets us to go, and that's fight or flight. So fight protects us through action and also boundary setting. It mobilizes energy so that we can confront a threat. And you can think it's kind of like a lion protecting its kill. It's like if somebody comes up and tries to take its food, it's gonna be like, hey, no, rah, it's gonna roar.

Right.

And you know, you can think of how many times in your, in your life that that has actually been really useful. We need to set boundaries. We need to have healthy aggression sometimes. We need to say, hey, no, that didn't feel good. Here is what I can do instead, right? You can also see how fight could also inhibit or limit your, your business or any area of your life. You know, if it's an unhealthy aggression, if it's not coming out the way that you, that you wanted it to, and you're not getting the outcome that you wanted. Flight rather is, also a protection through mobilizing energy. And this helps us to just like escape danger quickly. Where fight is like, okay, can I overpower? Can I overpower this situation? The flight is more like, can I escape? Can I get outta here? Right? And so this can show up as if there's danger coming at us, like we need to run. If there's a lion chasing you, you gotta get the heck outta there. And If your nervous system is perceiving like an email or a text as a lion chasing you and you're avoiding and running away from it, you can see how that could impact your business and your life. The next one is freeze, and this really is equal parts. So we have like the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Parasympathetic is kind of that rest and digest. This is equal parts of sympathetic and parasympathetic. And so it's kind of like, I want to, but I can't. I need to do this, but I don't know. I, I don't think I can do it. Right. And I think everybody who's in business can relate to this. It really shows up as confusion and indecision, or being like super productive, but also not getting anything done. Right. And this protects us through stillness. You can think of like deer in headlights, pauses us when neither fighting or running away actually feels possible. It's like, okay. Can I just like, huh, can I just freeze and blend in until the threat goes away? And so this is a really exhausting place to be. So if you, like me, have ever suffered from ruminating and indecision, it's fricking exhausting. And then at the end of the day, you're like, why am I so tired? I didn't even do anything. But you looped all day in your head. It's a really exhausting place to be. The next one is flop. I'm gonna get to fawn in a moment. Flop is this full parasympathetic shutdown collapse. This protects us by conserving energy. When we hit overwhelm. Remember I was talking about how I used to just hit this overwhelm and I'd be like, okay, shut down. And this is kind of like, if you think about it in nature, playing dead. It's like, okay, how can I just shut it all down so I don't have to deal with it? Right? And you can see how that can protect you so much, but it, you can also see how it can hurt your business in a lot of ways of saying like, oh, okay, I'm just gonna like put this aside. I'm not gonna face it. I'm just gonna avoid it. I, I can't do it. It's not for me. I can't do this. XYZ. So this is when danger really just feels like inescapable and you're just like, ugh, it's too overwhelming. I can't do this. So there, the next one is gonna be fawn. And fawn is actually not— all the F responses that I talked about, fight, flight, freeze, and flop, are all kind of like physiological. Like they happen in your body, like subcortical, which means like it's subconscious. Like it's not part of the thinking brain.

Mm-hmm.

And fawn is a bit different. It's more of a behavioral adaptation that can happen in any of these responses. So fawn is about protecting us through connection. It's where we blend in by fitting in. And that's a protection. It's like, how can I make everybody happy? Right? Keeps us safe by appeasing us, people pleasing to avoid conflict or harm. Okay. So like— If this is showing up in fight, it's gonna be like, okay, whatever you want. Okay, whatever you want. Whenever you're faced with confrontation, it's gonna be like, okay, whatever you want. Or flight, it's gonna be like, how can I help? What can I do? How can I be of service? Freeze, it's gonna be like, I don't know, you decide. I don't really have an opinion. Or flop, it's like, I don't care. You choose, whatever you think. And so this is like where we choose this sense of attachment over our truth and our authenticity, where it's like, it's safer to be in the group than for me to be by myself, right? And for me to stand alone. So I'm just gonna do whatever it takes to blend into the pack. And what that shows up in as our business, in our business, it's like not charging what we're really worth, really staying away from visibility, staying away from anywhere that we could be judged or criticized. And really expanding in our business is opening ourselves up to that. And so it's gonna be really hard to be in a fawn response if we're always like also putting everybody else's needs above our own, or just trying to make our clients happy, or, you know, somebody calls us and is like, you know, I wanna cancel my commitment and they already signed the contract and you're just like, okay, whatever, here's the refund, you know, and not holding your, holding your agreement to yourself. It's any way that you kind of self-abandon for attachment or approval or love to be seen, to be heard, et cetera.

It's— I don't know if anyone else is mind-blown by that.

It's pretty crazy because then you're like, oh, okay, so everything is nervous system, like everything I do.

I mean, I'm just like so excited for you to be a part of this summit because I think it validates— like, I get chills when I talk about it. It validates the experience that so many women are having in business where they're like, why can't I do this? Business is my Achilles heel. And I want them to hear that there's nothing wrong with them. It's just an opportunity to increase capacity. And you're going to show them how to do that. And it doesn't have to take years, you know, nothing is fast. But like, this isn't like a you have to put your life on hold and go live in a temple in Bali for 5 years situation.

I mean, that's the thing is like, you know, a lot of people think healing your nervous system is avoiding stress. And I think that's one of the biggest myths in business as well as like, if I'm stressed out in my business, then, you know, something is wrong.

Yeah.

What, what's happening is that your system is interpreting things as stress that might not be stressful.

Right.

And also we're moving into a response based on, you know, when we're having, when we're experiencing stress and we're not knowing what to do with that Right.

You know, I think one of the reasons that I think you and I have always aligned is my approach to business is so simple because I feel like that has helped me have more capacity.

Totally.

You know, like without— and, and I think what a lot of women do is they join these programs promising these crazy results or they sign up for the 15-Stage Launch Strategy thinking that that's gonna be the thing that fixes the quote problem. I'm air quoting if you can't see. Yeah. Yeah. But like, it's actually like business is so simple and your nervous system is, it's very complex, but it is quite simple.

It is.

Yeah. You know, it's like, like when you explain it, I love the nature analogies. It's like deer in headlights, playing dead. It is nature. It is ancient. You know, like, they're not so ancient things. So we can repattern.

100%. Like, we are neuroplastic and our nervous system is, you know, it's made to be flexible. The only, you know, the issues that we run into is when we get stuck in these responses, right? The issue is not these responses. It's not dysregulation, right? You're going to have dysregulation in your business. You know, PSA. It's gonna happen. It's going to happen. You're gonna experience all of these things, but it's important to know about it cuz then you're gonna be like, wow, I'm always in a flop response.

Mm-hmm.

I'm always trying to flop. My body's always wanting to just play dead. And that's what I noticed about myself and my business. And I'm like, hmm, what is this really about? Because it's not really about my business. You know, it's about something deeper in me that said, oh, okay, this is the threat and this is how we've, we've met threat before because it worked. It's a survival strategy that worked. And so, you know, the cool thing that we're gonna talk about in the summit is like not only rewiring these patterns, but also the way that you do that is you start to give yourself new, new information to say like, oh, this is not actually stress.

Yeah. This is a lot. That alone is huge.

Yeah. Knowing that parts of your business, like answering emails or getting like, you know, not a great testimonial. Or, you know, nobody calling you back after a great sales call, stuff like that. It's like, oh, okay, I know what response my body wants to go into and here's how I'm going to work with it so that I don't stay stuck in that place.

Yeah, it's so huge. Jamie, thank you for breaking this down and for just giving people like a micro teaser of what we're gonna get into in the summit. We're gonna go way deeper into this and I just think it's gonna be so game-changing because I just want everyone to imagine if you weren't shutting down when you get a DM, if writing an Instagram post didn't feel like the most impossible mission ever, if your stomach didn't drop at the end of a sales call when they say the investment's too much, what would be possible for you in your business?

Yeah. And that's what this is about, is leaning into that possibility.

Yeah, totally. I'm so excited and I'm so grateful you are like just I can feel your purpose is like in so deep alignment here, and it's just amazing to witness.

So thank you. 100%. I'm so excited to be a part of the summit. I'm just like, I'm really looking forward to it. I can't wait to share it with you. I love talking about all this stuff cuz it just lights me up and I love all the light bulbs that go off when I teach this material, when I talk about this in my clients and in my students. It's just, it's, it's really powerful. So I can't wait to share it with you all.

Yay. Thank you.

Thanks, Claire.

Thank you for tuning in to the Prosperous Woman Podcast. I am so grateful for your presence and for being a part of this community. Feel free to DM me @itsclairesellers on Instagram. I would love to connect with you and hear what resonated with you in this episode. Don't forget to subscribe to the show, and if you enjoyed what you heard today, leave a 5-star review. Your feedback means the world to me and helps me reach more incredible women just like you. And because I love to spoil you, just DM me a screenshot of your review on Instagram and I'll send you my free Prosperity Activation Course as a thank you. It's my way of investing in you and your dreams. Thank you.