What Getting Present Actually Does to Your Body
So what the hell does it really mean for your health when the angry dictator of your thoughts (the guy with the German accent and the shitty little mustache, you know the one), that petulant little toddler of a hypercritical internal dialogue, rears his ugly little attitude?
One post wasn't enough. Learning why something works helps you figure out how to unplug it and unwind it.
In the last post we talked about the default mode network: the internal dialogue running old programming, generating anxiety about things that either haven't happened yet or already happened twenty years ago. In its misguided stupidity it's trying to keep you safe. Most of the time from imaginary nonsense, but I guess sometimes it's actually useful in modern society. Just not on social media. Just saying.
This one is about what happens in your body when you actually get out of it.
This isn't just psychology. Presence has a physiology. And if you're already dealing with adrenal exhaustion or a nervous system...
The Angry Little Dictator Running Your Life
We've all seen it. Or if you have kids, you've had the humbling experience of living it.
There's a kid at Target absolutely losing it. Full meltdown. They want a toy, a piece of candy, some form of dopamine hit, and when the parent says no, the little turd erupts into a torrent of crying, wailing like a banshee, kicking, screaming, and becoming a menace to everyone within a thirty-foot radius. And in a moment of pure exhausted embarrassment, the parent just gives in.
When my son was about two or three, he had one of those overtired, over-sugared meltdowns in the checkout line at Target. Full-blown fit about a Lego or something. We leaned in and whispered, "If you don't stop, I'm going to spank your butt." The wail immediately transformed into a tearful "don't spank my butt." Over and over. DON'T SPANK MY BUTT. My wife was mortified. It was the most awkward checkout I have ever been through in my life.
The best part came about a week later. There was another kid having a similar melt...
I've Been Through 9/11, 2008, and the Pandemic. This Feels Different.
I've been doing this for 24 years.
I started my first day of clinic on September 11th, 2001. I made it through the end of the dot-com bust. The housing crash in 2008. I had two kids 13 months apart (that stress was personal, not global). The pandemic. Riots. All of it.
This week feels different.
I don't know how else to say it. It feels deeper. Spiritual. Subconscious. Almost like a universal subconscious shift that everyone's picking up on whether they realize it or not.
And I don't like it.
What's Different This Time
Previous crises had boundaries. Economic collapse. Health crisis. Political chaos. They were massive, but they were contained within specific domains.
This one feels like all of them at once, plus something underneath that nobody's talking about openly.
It's not just fear. It's the sense that the ground itself is unstable. That the rules we thought governed reality don't apply anymore. That the institutions we relied onā€”even if we didn't trust themā€”are either bre...
Why Everyone's Adrenals Are Getting Destroyed Right Now (And What To Do About It)
This may come as an absolute shock to you, but everyone is stressed as hell right now and they're getting their ass kicked.
I wrote most of this after teaching at ICAK's winter meeting in Orlando last weekend. What became clear in the days after: everyone, and I do mean everyone, is getting crushed by adrenal exhaustion right now.
Every person. Every appointment. Every conversation.
Anxiety. Stress. Fear. Sitting in the chest. Crushing.
Almost all of my patients this week said some version of "I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just off." The anxiety is overwhelming. They can't sleep. They're waking up in the middle of the night. Can't focus. Stuck in doom scrolls. Actively avoiding their phone so they don't see the news, then consuming all of it anyway. Heart racing for no reason.
I'm experiencing every single one of these symptoms too.
Here's what's actually happening: your adrenals are trying to keep up with the world right now, and they're losing.
What Anxiety Actually I...
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