Ep 14: How to Regulate Your Nervous System to Handle Bigger Opportunities Without Self-Sabotage

Have you ever been about to do something important? A presentation, a phone call, a difficult conversation, an opportunity that could stretch you or change things, a new opportunity. And right before you did it, you felt that surge of energy, your chest tightened up, your mind is racing, your body felt pressure, fear, or intensity. And maybe because of that feeling, you didn't take the call, you avoided the conversation. You pulled back from the opportunity. What if I told you what you experienced wasn't really a mindset problem at all? What if I told you that you were always capable of doing that thing and the only thing that needed support in that moment was your nervous system? Welcome back to the Built for Impact podcast. I'm Jake Burhans, and this is the podcast where inner peace meets high performance and where building your dream life starts from the inside out. On this show, we follow the BUILD Framework: break limiting beliefs, upgrade your operating system, imagine your new life, let go of the past, and transcend into your new self, your 2.0 identity. Today's episode is about something that shows up right at the edge of growth, and I don't think it's talked about enough. It's the nervous system. It's the bridge between the energetic world, the quantum world, and the physical world. Because every time that you step into a new opportunity, your nervous system is going to feel it. It's an unfamiliar environment. That's why I love the saying, get comfortable with the uncomfortable. If you want to grow, growth lies outside of your comfort zone. And that makes complete sense because you're becoming a person you never have before. You've never been this person. It's uncomfortable. Your nervous system isn't used to it, and your nervous system is— it was meant to protect you from unfamiliar situations. But if you don't understand what's happening in your body, right, you don't understand what's happening, you'll mistake expansion for danger, and we want to change that. So the first thing I want you to understand is that new opportunities activate survival energy. So whenever you step into something unfamiliar— presenting, leading, being seen, having a hard conversation— it activates what they call your sympathetic nervous system. This is your fight or flight, as opposed to your parasympathetic nervous system, which is rest and digest. That's your creative state. That's where we want to be more of the time. But when you are in this fight or flight sympathetic nervous system, you're your body is releasing the chemicals of adrenaline and cortisol. Your prefrontal cortex in your brain shuts off completely. Your heart rate increases. Your breathing gets shallow. Your thoughts speed up. Okay, and this is not because you're incapable. It's really because you're hitting this boundary of what you're comfortable with. Now, when you're in a fight or flight state, your body is getting ready to run, fight, or hide. So all of the resources and energy and blood and stuff goes to your extremities, and you are really grounded in this physical world because you're trying to protect yourself. The big thing here is that your prefrontal cortex shuts off. Okay, so you're— so when you're in this state, you, you are cut off from the flow of ideas. You can't execute clearly, you can't think clearly, you have no energy. Your energy gets drained very, very quickly. So the biggest thing to understand here is that we want to regulate our nervous system as we go into these new opportunities. Your body doesn't know the difference between a lion chasing you, right, or the vulnerability of being seen, heard, or evaluated. Doesn't know the difference between a lion chasing you and you stepping into a new, uh, speaking opportunity or a new business opportunity or having a difficult conversation. Both feel like risk. So what happens is, as you step into the new version of yourself and you're chasing new things and you want to go create movies and you want to, uh, like I said, be a speaker, you want to be an entrepreneur, you want to, um, get a promotion, or you're looking for that relationship and you have to go on dates and talk to new people, that, that dream life that you want is on a higher frequency. It's on a higher energetic level. Like, the energy behind speaking on stage or having a difficult conversation is something your nervous system probably isn't used to. Because everything is energy in this world. We know that everything is energy— thoughts, emotions, circumstances. And if you're trying to get on the energetic level of your dreams, it's a higher energetic level than you are now. That's why it's a dream for you. It's something you haven't experienced. So when that energy rushes in, your nervous system tends to tighten up like, oh my gosh, I can't handle this. But the key is understanding that You know, that overwhelm is, is the sensation of expansion. And, and I— the reason I was not successful as a hockey player wasn't necessarily because I didn't have the skill. It was because I couldn't regulate my nervous system. When I would play in practice, I'd play lights out, you know, I'd be as good as anyone. But when it came time to the game, it was really hit or miss. It was hit or miss. Was I going to be good or was I going to be bad? I don't know. But when the pressure was on, I couldn't separate that feeling. I was consumed in the feeling. I didn't realize like, hey, this is you stepping into bigger and bigger games. I would make the All-Star Game, I would make, you know, whatever it was, and I'd go into that and I would feel nervousness and I wouldn't know how to handle it. So what would I do? I would collapse, I'd play bad, I'd succumb to the feeling, I'd get lost in that feeling of anxiety versus now whenever I feel that, and I still feel that when I hop on a sales call or I have a difficult conversation, or even I'm going to like a little bit of meetup, I get that, those butterflies in my stomach, but now I know it's, hey, this is just me expanding, it's me going into new opportunities, it's me going into the unfamiliar. And I separate that feeling from my mind. My body might have butterflies, right? I'm about to go live on social media, I might have some butterflies in the body, but my mind is at peace. And that's the key. And the biggest thing I do to regulate myself is use my breath. Using my breath, right? Box breathing. 4 seconds in, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds out, 4 seconds hold. So as we step into these new opportunities, these new, these new areas of expansion, whatever it is, you're going to feel that feeling of anxiety and fear. And it's not because you can't handle it, it's because your nervous system isn't used to it. And the goal is to step into these new opportunities and regulate your nervous system and keep it safe. Tell your nervous system it's safe to be here, it's safe to speak on this stage, it's safe to have this conversation. It's safe to post on social media and be my true self. That's okay. And when you use the breath, you literally regulate the nervous system and you put yourself back into a creative state. And that's where you can truly execute. And that's where you can be your highest and best self, is in a creative state, because your prefrontal cortex is on. And you'll notice, like, whenever you're relaxed at work, wherever you are, I guarantee you ideas come into your head much easier, much more easily. Ideas come in, you're able to execute flawlessly. You have a lot more energy because one of the biggest drainers of being in fight or flight is that you have no energy. It's like zapping your system. It's like being— it's like being in a car and having the RPMs on 7 or 8, like in the red. You ever look at your dashboard, you see those RPMs, it goes from 0 to 8, and when you hit the gas, that needle goes up. It's like being in the 7 to 8 all day long. And that's how we create disease in the body, because we are at dis-ease. We're in a state of disease when we're in stress and fear and worry and anxiety. So it's not that we don't feel these states, but we need to understand how to regulate it when we do get into that. And don't let that feeling stop you from becoming who you know that you're meant to become. You know that you're meant to do something or have certain goals or chase dreams or be certain things. But you feel that feeling of fear and anxiety and worry as you step into the opportunity. But know that is just normal. That's what's supposed to happen. We need to reframe our mind to understand this is what is supposed to happen when I grow. I'm supposed to feel this because I've never stepped into the energy of this event before. Awesome. I'm feeling nervous. This means that I'm growing. I'm excited for this. Great. Let's do some box breathing. Let's slow our breath down. Let's regulate our nervous system. Let's tell our body, hey, it's safe to be in this environment. I'm not getting chased by a lion. I'm just speaking on a stage, okay? I'm completely safe and you can do it. And when you, that self-talk is huge. The self-talk, the breathing calms you down and then you step into that opportunity. And as soon as you step into the opportunity, a lot of the nervous system, the nervous system will calm down because it realizes that it's safe. That's the other thing. As you step into the event, like I use public speaking as an example, 'cause I used to be deathly afraid of it. I, but, I recognized that no matter how nervous I was to speak in front of people, I— the second I started speaking, like a minute into it, all the anxiety would go away and I'd just be in the flow. I'd be in the moment. Why was that? Because my nervous system was scared. It was like, oh my gosh, you're not used to the energy of this event. You have 50 people watching, you have 75 people watching you, you have 200 people watching you, and it's trying to protect me. But I have to tell it, hey, I'm gonna be safe here. I'm gonna get on stage, I'm gonna do my thing. And I'm going to speak and I use my breath, I regulate my nervous system. And the second that I got into the, into the presentation again, my nervous system realized, oh yeah, he actually is safe here. That's okay. Let's— we can, we can stop worrying, right? We can kick it down a notch. But what happens is that feeling, that, that pressure, that fear, whatever that is, it prevents us from taking action on the things that we know we're meant to because we think something's off. We think something's wrong. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is off. That's the, that's the main point that I am, I am making here. So I want you to remember that, that as you step into new opportunities, you're supposed to feel uncomfortable, you're supposed to feel anxiety because it's energy you haven't dealt with before. All you need to do is regulate your nervous system and, um, regulate your nervous system to make the body feel safe. And you do that through the breath, box breathing. Okay, so I want you to take a moment and reflect. Think of a time when you were offered a new opportunity, something that could expand you, and notice, notice the pressure you felt, the energy in your body, the fear or intensity. Maybe you stepped into it, maybe you didn't. But instead of questioning your ability, what if all you needed in that moment was regulation? So as I'd mentioned earlier, the practice I want you to use anytime you feel that surge, the tactical takeaway is the box breath. Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. Just do it for a minute. Do it for a minute or two, and I promise you, you'll feel your, your whole body and your whole system kick down a few gears. You're like, I can do this. And, you know, courage is not to be underestimated. You need to have a little bit of courage, step into that. But it goes back to my— I know I talked about fear as an illusion a couple episodes ago, but it ties in with this as well. Is like your nervous system is freaking out, but it's just an illusion. Once you get into it, everything's gonna be okay. And we can go into that— the acronym FEARS— in another episode. FEARS stands for— FEARS is fear of failure, embarrassment, abandonment, rejection, and success. But that's another conversation for another day. Um, that's it, folks. Every new level of your life comes with a new energetic demand. The fear, the pressure or intensity you feel before presentations, calls, or conversations. It's not a signal to stop. It's a signal to regulate and step forward. And this is how you upgrade your operating system within the Built Framework so you can imagine a new life and actually walk into it. If this episode resonated, share it with someone who's standing on the edge of something bigger. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode where we continue building from the inside out. All the peace, all the power.