232: Establishing Somatic Healing Practices for Morning and Evening

Michelle: 0:00

I think a lot of it is well, I guess, first of all just awareness and how you start and end your day, Because all of us have already morning and evening routines right, whether they're like, intentional or not, we have ways in which we start our day and ways in which we end our day.

Camille: 0:24

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know this is Call Me CEO. Welcome back to Call Me CEO. This is your host, camille Walker, and it is 2025 and we are starting anew Now.

Camille: 0:55

There's been so much stress that we've all had for years. I feel like the ramp up of COVID has really taken us on a wild ride that we're all trying to heal from, and a lot of the content I've been sharing lately on the podcast has been in reflection of that. I really want the women who are listening, the business owners who are creating life for themselves, that they're in touch with their intuition, the things they need, the pace they want to go, because the health of a business is very much a reflection of the health of the owner, and so in this episode, I'm so excited because we're going to be talking about morning and evening rituals for somatic healing, which, to put that in terms that might be a little more relatable, is how do we find a center within us that we feel calm, so that we can feel production and be as energetic as possible the next day. I also think it's really important for just enjoying your life in general. So this can apply to anyone. You don't need to be a business owner.

Camille: 1:54

But here at Call Me CEO, we are primarily talking to mothers running businesses, and we all know that if you want something done, you ask a mother. But we all know that if you talk to that mother and ask the last time she took care of herself, it can be not as often as it should be. So Michelle Grosser is here with us today. She is a nervous system and somatic coach and I'm so thrilled to have her here because she's going to help us break it down into step-by-step pieces that we can really dive into, creating a space in our lives where we feel in touch with ourselves and with our healing. So, michelle, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Michelle: 2:34

Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Camille: 2:38

Yeah, so we are actually recording this in mid-November, but I knew, coming up with what I have recorded, that this will be released in January. So right now, we are just coming out of finding out who the new president is, which the climate right now is chaos. We are also a jump and a skip away from the thickness of the holidays. I mean, there's a lot going on. So I hope with the new year, you can install these tips and tricks about creating that space. But, man, we can use it any time of year and I feel like it's needed more than ever. So, michelle, please tell us a little bit more about you. Your story is so interesting about how you got into this world, so let's dive into that. Tell us where you're from, tell us about your family, and then we'll get into your story.

Michelle: 3:28

Yeah, sure, so I am married. My husband and I just celebrated um gosh 18, 15 years married. I don't even remember Um and I have two daughters they are six and seven and for the last 15 years we've lived in Miami and we just recently moved to Houston. So we sold our house and we packed up everything and moved to Houston in a I don't want to say in an effort too, but really in a season, I think, where we just started questioning and rethinking everything, which was equally terrifying and exciting all at the same time. So I'm in a season now where I'm homeschooling my girls In Miami. I ran a law firm, a law practice, for 10 years and we've shut that down and I've transitioned now into what was once a side hustle and is now my main business and has been for a while now teaching high achieving women just like you, listening how to regulate their nervous system, to help with things like anxiety and overwhelm and burnout, really using body-based solutions and understanding why that's so important.

Michelle: 4:48

So that's a lot of the work that I've been doing, and I think especially now, like you said, with everything going on and the flip of a calendar, new year starting, it's such a great time for us to take a look at how we start our days and how we end our days, and how we can do that with more intention to help cultivate a regulated nervous system Because, like you were saying, the health of our business is a reflection of the health of us as the owners and, I think, even deeper than that, the health of our business is a reflection of how regulated our nervous system is as the owner of our business, and, ultimately, that's what these routines will help to do is help us to feel regulated.

Camille: 5:30

Yeah, I love. I mean, first of all, what a what a flip. You have a few flips that you've gone through in the recent years to go from running a law firm now to focusing primarily on somatic healing and having calm. Was that born of a place of necessity for you, or how did that? How did that come to be?

Michelle: 5:53

Yeah, for sure. I mean I had a let me see a one-year-old and a two-year-old, or maybe like a two and three-year-old at the start of the pandemic and I think you know even before that, when my children were born, I just remember being so tired and just chalking it up to like, well, that's just new motherhood life or that's just, you know, working mom's life and not really understanding the depth to which I was experiencing true burnout. And for a lot of you who you know are entrepreneurs and then have children, I thought I could just kind of introduce my kids into my business and that things would certainly be different, but I think I was so naive as to how different they would be. So at three, four weeks, I brought my daughter to the office with me and I remember I was like nursing her while, you know, on calls, trying to settle cases and and, and there was not really the space created, um, for my, my body to heal and my mind and my soul and my spirit to heal after giving birth.

Michelle: 6:57

Um, and I just did what I knew how, as you know, a high achiever and ambitious woman now mom, like I just kept pushing, and I think that so many of us when we feel like we reach those. Um, maybe they feel like breaking points, but something just feels off. It's like, well, I'm just going to push through it. Right, there's going to be rest coming on the other side. After this season it's going to get easier. They're going to start sleeping through the night soon or being able to get their own snacks or whatever it is. And I and I pushed through, but you know our nervous system burnout. Nothing heals by pushing harder. So I really had to kind of reevaluate every way in which I was thinking and the paradigms I had around success and what it meant to be weak and what it meant to be strong, and you know all these different mindsets. I guess that I held to really find my healing and, like you're saying, my energy again and my joy again and all of these different things that were waiting for me on the other side.

Camille: 7:56

Wow, I mean, I think that it is such a whirlwind becoming a mother and I can only imagine becoming a mother literally right during the pandemic, and then your babies are so close. They're like how many months apart, cause yeah they're 16, 16, 16 months apart and you are running a law firm where you is it. Was it a private practice, like a small team, or was it just you, or how? What did that look like?

Michelle: 8:27

Yep, it was a private practice in Miami. We had a few attorneys and paralegals and then a support staff and it was small but mighty. It was really busy practice and I loved it and I think I just didn't understand the toll that it was taking, because I think there's a cost to all of these things and I think some things we can sustain and kind of sweep under the rug and there are other things I think, especially becoming a parent, that our children just reflect and magnify and point out for us Right and invite us to like hey, something's got to change here.

Camille: 9:08

Oh man, Okay, so you decide to make this change, and how was your partner in reaction to that and your and your firm were they surprised? Like I mean, that's a big, that's a big change. What was that transition like?

Michelle: 9:23

Yeah, um, I don't think anyone was surprised. I think it's something I had probably been preparing to transition for a while. I actually remember this one day in particular where I had a deposition in the morning and then I had a one-on-one coaching call in the afternoon. And I just remember going into that deposition and I was deposing a small business owner, a woman, and her team had done some work that we were alleging was negligent. And she came into this deposition just in good spirits and her shoulders were up and her chin was up and I was being kind and respectful and myself, but I had a job to do which was ultimately to pinpoint and tear apart everything that had happened in her business, right, that hadn't hadn't been done as it should have. And I just remember watching, over the course of a few hours, her body language just shift and like the shoulders kind of slump forward and her head come down and her eyes come down and, um, you know the world needs attorneys and there are great attorneys out there.

Michelle: 10:26

But it was such a distinct shift for me to go from that to then a coaching call in the afternoon where it was just so full of life experience, both of those back to back all of a sudden, whatever that shift would look like, fell so right and aligned and clear for me that it actually made it really easy. So you know, my partner also has children. My husband was so supportive, so it was really. I'm grateful because it was really an exciting transition that felt, I think, aligned and right for everyone. That doesn't mean it was easy and without its risk and certainly took a good amount of prayer and courage and and boldness, I think. But ultimately you know, when you know what the right thing is, then it's just like am I going to do it or not?

Camille: 11:23

Yeah. Then it's just like am I going to do it or not? Yeah, cause that was really coming out of that masculine energy and, yeah, Allowing that feminine to take over and trusting that intuition, and that's a big, that's a big deal. And then you decide to move, like, as if that wasn't enough, how, what was that transition like for your family? I mean, you're, it's fresh, it's been a few weeks.

Michelle: 11:50

Yeah, yeah, it's been really good. There's been a lot of transition, but I'm just so grateful that it's all things that we've decided right, Like these are things that we've had to to endure in any way. So we've yeah, we sold our house in Miami. A lot of it was just, I think, where we lived in Miami in particular, like, can you raise kids there? Yes, absolutely you can, but for our family and the things that we valued, it just wasn't the place where we wanted to do that and we wanted a different pace with our kids.

Michelle: 12:19

And ultimately, I think I mean at that time I was running the law firm, I was running this coaching business. I have a podcast that's grown crazy fast called the Calm Mom, so that's become its whole thing. And then my husband and I launched a ministry there in Miami. So I had my hands in a lot of different things and it came to the point where there was way too much busyness, and I think it's easy to get caught up in busyness, um, where you're just going all the time and you're not really connecting and you're not, you don't have the space or the bandwidth or the margin um to feel and be with your family in the way that you want to. So a lot of the move was really just like a stripping back of like okay, let's take it all apart and then let's rebuild it in a way that feels really intentional and aligned, for you know the grosser family values Um, one of which busyness is not.

Camille: 13:15

Yeah, I love that. I love it All right. Well, we are going to dive a little bit into today's topic about creating morning and evening rituals. This is a topic I have been revisiting with the new year and setting intention, so I would love to talk about that and where you say so much of our nervous system and somatic healing is happening in the body and to be body aware. I love the book the Body Keeps Score. I think I really believe in that and that listening to ourselves and listening to our body can only happen if we create a space to not be busy, which can sometimes feel overwhelming because you're like how do I fit in another thing? But as far as investments go, preventative health care is where it's at Like, health is wealth, and you cannot buy back your health, and so that's why I think it is worthy of spending so much time. So I'm really excited to hear what you have to say about that.

Michelle: 14:20

Yeah, I agree, I think a lot of it is well, I guess, first of all, just awareness and how you start and end your day, Because all of us have already morning and evening routines right, whether they're like, intentional or not.

Michelle: 14:34

Um, we have ways in which we start our day and ways in which we end our day, and you know, for me, for a lot of my life, my day started with just grabbing my phone and then, you know, taking it from there. If there were emails I had to respond to in bed I was doing that, right, I was taking a look at my calendar and seeing what the day held, and then I was getting up, probably later than I should have and everything already felt behind for the day, and then I was just quickly getting dressed, grabbing a cup of coffee and I was out the door to work. And even early on when I had kids, that didn't really change very much. There still wasn't a lot of time to nourish my body and my mind and my soul before starting the day. So I think some practices that can be really helpful in the morning, especially when it comes to our body, is for myself. Now, before I even get out of bed, right when I wake up, awareness comes. I do a body scan laying right there and I'll just start at the top of my head and scan all the way down and just seeing what's present ultimately Like where do I feel like I'm holding tension right now? Where do I feel like I'm holding anxiety or some sort of energy that I'm noticing? Are there any points of pain? Did I sleep weird anywhere? Is there, like you know, messages that my body's trying to communicate with me that I can attune to before my day gets started, because our body's always communicating with us? That in and of itself, has been such a great practice, and I think that's a really easy place to start practice, and I think that's a really easy place to start right. We can all do that, regardless of what our morning looks like. I think something that will probably seem very obvious is just moving our phones out of our room for so many reasons, but not starting the day, you know, grabbing your phone and everything coming through there. Not only is it well, first of all, we don't even know what's going to come through right, the news that's going to come through and the things that people are going to need from us already first thing in the morning. Really protecting that space, but then also just setting an intention that you know I'm going to start my day with a boundary, protecting the things that are important to me, and I think that sets a really important tone to carry out and hold healthy boundaries through the rest of the day.

Michelle: 16:57

For me it looks like getting early morning sunlight. Within the first hours of waking up I make sure that I'm getting exposure to sun. Sometimes it's outside, sometimes, if I can't swing it, it's sitting by a big window, but without sunglasses, making sure that those morning wave lengths right of light can get into my eyes and signal to my body hey, this is the start of the day, this is the start of your circadian rhythm. That's going to help you sleep so much better the following night. So, getting early morning sunlight and we I mean there's so many things we can talk about. I don't know if you want to talk about specific things.

Camille: 17:33

I can kind of walk you through what my morning looks like too, that's kind of why don't you keep going with your morning and then we'll come back and break it down? I think that sounds great.

Michelle: 17:41

Um so early morning sunlight, and then I always have I wake up early, naturally, I don't think that's true for everyone.

Camille: 17:50

How early? How early are we talking? I wake up between probably four and four, 15. That is so early. I do, I do not. I wake up like at seven, yeah, so Holy smokes.

Michelle: 18:04

So you get a lot done in the morning, so well, and I also go to sleep at like eight, 30.

Camille: 18:08

So you know it's like probably the same amount of sleep as everyone else, and does your husband as well. Does he go to bed at 8.30? He does, he goes to bed.

Michelle: 18:16

I mean, he probably doesn't go to bed at 8.30, but he's probably asleep by 9.30 every night.

Camille: 18:20

Okay, but then he's up early too.

Michelle: 18:22

And it works for us. But there were seasons where we didn't wake up, that I know. Different people have different chronotypes, right, where that's just not how your body is wired to function. So not saying you have to do that, you can put this into practice whatever time you wake up. I just know I feel best when I go to bed early and I wake up early. Yeah, so I wake up early, I do that body scan early morning sunlight. The first thing I consume is always water.

Camille: 18:56

I don't think you have to over complicate it. I don't know if it has to be, you know, warm and have lemon in it or sea salt or however it is. Do you keep like a?

Michelle: 19:00

decanter next to your bed or are you down in the kitchen? I have this water like water tumbler and I just I just fill it in the morning and then I actually try to chug it. I like we'll try to chug 20 to 30 ounces of water. Yeah, and I find that that cause we lose actually so much water over the course of a night. Yeah, I think it's like one to two liters that we just the respiration.

Camille: 19:20

Then you get perimenopausal and you sweat even more.

Michelle: 19:24

So if you want energy throughout the day, um, that's really the best thing that you can do is just rehydrate early in the morning, first thing, before you're reaching for coffee or anything else, um, and then I'll eat something really small, so I keep like hard boiled eggs and my. That's usually what I reached for first thing, just to get some protein and some fat in my stomach before I have coffee, um, or or while I have coffee, and then I do have a cup of coffee, um, and I limit it to that. I just have the one cup in the morning that I love so much, and then I get into, depending on how much time I have before my kids wake up. There's three things that I think are so important to do every single day for a regulated nervous system, two of which I try to do in the morning. So the first one is movement. We've got to move our bodies every day, um, it doesn't mean we have to have like a workout set every single day. It doesn't mean we have to go to CrossFit. It doesn't mean we have to run, go out and, you know, do sprints or any. It just means we have to move our body and, from a nervous system perspective, I shoot for at least 10 minutes a day, so most days it is a workout in the morning.

Michelle: 20:32

I tend to prefer a lot of lower impact exercises, again, from a nervous system perspective. Ultimately, exercise is a stressor on our body, right? That's how we build muscle. So if we're someone who already tends to run more on the sympathetic track of our nervous system, we tend to be more like anxious or have higher energy. We just want to be aware of the types of exercise that we're participating in, because really strenuous, high energy, high impact exercise can actually kind of throw our nervous system over the edge and actually cause us to be more anxious. So we just want to be aware, gentle movement, go for a walk, whatever it is.

Michelle: 21:16

And then second is stillness. I think that's one of the most uncomfortable things for a lot of us to do, right, as moms, as CEOs, in this day and age. There's just always something to be done, and the more that we can push back against that and really protect the stillness. And what I mean by stillness, I guess, is just time where we're not being stimulated, right, it's like there's no sounds coming in, there's no new information coming in.

Michelle: 21:50

I'm not reading a book. I'm not listening to a podcast. It's not like this constant barrage of just like stuff that my brain has to process. I'm giving it that space and that stillness that my brain so desperately needs to heal and reorganize and grow and all of these functions that our brain can only do in moments of stillness. So sometimes that's meditation, sometimes it's prayer, sometimes it's journaling, sometimes it's just like sitting there and breathing, which is just so helpful in expanding our capacity. And if you can have a morning routine that looks something like that maybe some days you do, I don't know you have a gratitude practice that can be really helpful. Or you do journaling every day, or whatever it is. These are just like the small morning things that have such a high had, such a big ROI through the rest of your day and then when your kids wake up and they come down, it's like I'm always ready to see them because at that time right.

Camille: 22:49

It's like I'm so glad you're up.

Michelle: 22:50

Let's get into the day, so you mentioned three things Um you said movement stillness.

Camille: 23:01

What's the third?

Michelle: 23:02

play, play. Okay, let's talk about play, play, um, play is, it's my favorite one, um, and I think it's the first to get probably dismissed. Just as we get older and we get busy and you know, we have to be very discerning about how we spend our time and I think a lot of times we think of play and we think, well, like I don't have time for that, or that's superfluous, or that's for kids or whatever it is. But really, when we prioritize doing something every day that really excites us, that we can get lit up about right, that we're passionate, whatever that looks like, maybe it's art, maybe it's baking, maybe it's like for me, in a season last year, it was like going in the driveway and shooting free throws. It just took me back to like eighth grade and I'm just there like meditatively shooting hoops and it was so good for my soul and those types of things.

Michelle: 23:55

Um, I think there's a lot of reasons and research behind why they're so good for us, but they ultimately regulate our nervous system. They bring safety to our body, right, um, especially as women, as high achieving women, women running businesses like yes, so often we come last. But I think even bigger than that is, we've become disconnected in motherhood from our pre-kid identity, right From the things that used to get us really excited and passionate, and it's kind of gotten into this like drudgery. And it's kind of gotten into this like drudgery. And every time we choose play and get excited and bring back that joy and that the playfulness, ultimately right, it's the levity that we're all seeking. Like there's so many women I work with. They're like I just want to feel like lighter again. I don't want to be so irritable and edgy. Like I just want things to feel easier and I'm like man that's play. Like we can build that in.

Michelle: 24:50

There are things that you used to love to do that would bring that forth every day and there's a powerful rewiring that happens in our brain when we prioritize play right. We know from research that's how kids learn. They learn best through playing, and the same thing happens for us. So you'll get your best ideas when you play of the year. Last year was joy, which included a lot of play, and it was. I made these big decisions, but play was always the priority for 365 days and it was the year my business did the best and I made the most money and I helped the most people and it was. I was like, oh man, this is so, so powerful.

Camille: 25:47

Oh, that's awesome. I think that that is because when I think about movement, stillness and play, when you think of a child, these are things that are a part of their day without even thinking about it, because I'm talking little kids, little before they have the distract, the distraction of the phone and even screens. I'm saying like two, three, four, you know in there, where they naturally have lots of movement in their day, they naturally take time for stillness, where they notice things, they slow down, they're curious, they have you know, they're not in a rush, no, they're very in tune with the stillness and what's around them and they play so naturally. And I think that it is a learned behavior for us to forcefully move those things out, not intentionally, but that it is so natural for that progression, for that progression to happen.

Camille: 26:47

And I would imagine, with play being that number three, I would imagine that's probably one of the hardest that mothers especially re-identify, because they're like I don't even know what I like anymore. Like what, what wouldn't be fun to me? Or I mean a long shower, you know, like we're to go to the bathroom by myself. Like what, what are, what are some questions or maybe some explorations that you've helped people through to discover that play aspect.

Michelle: 27:19

Yeah, I love that. I think it's actually a return, like you were saying, to childhood. What were the things when you were seven or 10 or 14 that you really love to do? Right, you couldn't. You woke up and it was Saturday and you're like, yes, it's finally the weekend, I have time to do this today. Or when this particular season came around, your parents took you to do X, y and Z. Like maybe you loved going to the theater or maybe you loved, you know, participating in some sort of arts and crafts or whatever it is Like. There are things. Maybe it was just I say just, but like reading. Like so many of us, like I, went through years where, like it was either a business book, right, or a personal development book or parenting book.

Michelle: 27:57

And I'm like, wow, like I also deserve to read for pleasure, because this is actually fun and enjoyable and not because I'm trying to learn or fix something or do something better.

Camille: 28:08

Yeah, be better at whatever the thing is, it's interesting because, as you were talking about this and talking about shooting hoops, I think one thing that has helped me with my kids is allowing myself to be present with where they want me to be, because your kids will invite you into play and a lot of times we think, oh well, later I'll get to that or I'm doing this other thing. And not that we can say yes always, but you could say yes for 10 minutes, and so there I've been trying to make an effort to say yes to the play, which For me, right now, my kids, my youngest and my youngest is like tickle me, mom, will you tickle me? I love when you tickle me, and he's so funny when he laughs that I start laughing and it becomes this really playful thing. My older son, from him, will say hey, I want you, would you read with me? I'm, I want to read this book, and, and so it's a. I'm actually reading the Harry Potter books with my two youngest right now, and that is such a fun, playful place for me to be. And then my daughter she is very much into skincare. Right now it's all about the skincare and or, you know, singing karaoke, or she just will do some really silly, goofy things, and so I'll arrive there with her, and anytime I do, I'm so grateful that I do my oldest.

Camille: 29:30

His way to play is he wants to play video games in my room with me and he wants me to watch him, which I'm not good at the games he can play. So sometimes I'll pull out my Nintendo switch and I'll sit next to him, and when it gets too scary or gory for me, I like play my very innocent Zelda or whatever it is, and we're playing together. And he will ask me this is just something we've done in the last I don't know maybe month, which, by the way, if you're an Amazon prime member, there are a ton of video games that are free, that you can connect your remote to which, by the way, that's amazing, but that's play that I can connect with him, and I think that it just opens up opportunity Now for me. As you were talking, I was thinking okay, the way I incorporate play is through audio books that are just for pleasure, it is through writing, and it's also with music.

Camille: 30:25

If I'm ever feeling bogged down, especially in the kitchen, whether it's cooking or cleaning up dinner, those are times of the day that I can get really short or like frustrated, and I'm like, okay, I need to turn on a show or listen to a podcast or music that makes me feel happy, which it's like turn on the music from when you were in high school or that takes you back to a place of joy, and that has been a huge bomb for me. And when I had little ones that we were doing like bath time and I was in there with them, same thing, I would turn on music or sometimes even read them a book while they were in the bath, and then we kind of did a two for one. But yeah, those are just some of the things that have worked for me for incorporating play, which I love, travel too, and you'll see that on my account If you follow on Instagram. Travel is my motivation for everything, cause I love memory making.

Camille: 31:21

And so that's a big motivator for me when I work is I think Ooh, I'm working so that my kids, our next plan is that we're planning to go to London this next summer with all the kids and we're going to go to the Harry Potter sets where the movies were filmed. Isn't that fun? And that's the fun motivator that I'm like hey, work, I'm going to work hard but it's all about playing hard and that's fun to like. Motivate with that play, yeah it sure is.

Michelle: 31:49

I love that and I love all the opportunities for genuine connection and all of that Right. Yep, that's awesome. I love it.

Camille: 31:57

So good. What are some ways that you found people connect to themselves and improve their businesses, Because I know that that's a big part of what you help people with. So what can you tell us an example of that? I know you shared your own, which is amazing. I'm so happy that that worked out for you to incorporate more play and fun. Can you share an example of a story of someone else that was able to do that as well?

Michelle: 32:23

Yeah, so I think, I mean I know that the research shows that more than 98% of the things that we think and do and say every day are driven by our subconscious right, our nervous system that's just constantly assessing everything that's happening around us and then making these split decisions so that, ultimately, we stay safe. Right, that's like our body's number one priority always, and I think we underestimate the impact that has on us as entrepreneurs and business owners. It has an impact on our risk tolerance and the risks that we're willing to take, right. It has an impact on how vulnerable we're willing to be as far as, like, pitching ourselves or going after those big dreams. It has an impact on everything financially right, how we make decisions and manage our money. It has an impact on our capacity to hold good things, which is the opposite of sabotaging ourselves or business or these big opportunities or whatever it is. And I could go on and on and on.

Michelle: 33:39

But ultimately, when we use tools that we have and those are three kind of big foundational ones, but also, in the moment, tools too and we notice, um, our somatic cues, because our body, again, is always communicating with us, so I can notice if I'm going to I don't know. Let's say I'm going to be in a room, a networking room. Let's say, for example and I noticed that my I guess my turn to speak in my heart is kind of racing and my palms get sweaty and, like when it's my turn, my voice feels really itchy and I don't say the words that I want to come out. Those are all different, just different somatic cues that our body is asking for regulation right, something feels unsafe. That's a very obvious one.

Michelle: 34:24

Or public speaking, a lot of us have experienced but that can show up in so many different ways. So in those moments when we can have somatic tools to help our body to feel safe and come back down, shift out of that state and back to a state where we feel more regulated, then again we have access to the part of our brain that allows us to have our highest levels of communication and logic and make decisions and see things clearly and see other people's perspectives, but then also have access to the parts of us that make us really good business owners. But when we have that awareness and then we can bring in the practices and the tools that we have to regulate, that will be such a game changer. Play is a way to do that, but there's so many other ways that we can do that body-based tools to help us regulate and that it really fundamentally changes how we show up in business, in our family, in our marriages, parenting all of our spaces.

Camille: 35:21

really, what are some of your favorite of those practices to do a quick check-in and reset?

Michelle: 35:28

Yeah, so I think for me, I tend to run more in the sympathetic circuit. So our nervous system has these different circuits and the two main ones are ultimately like our bodies, like, if you think, like a car, our body's gas pedal and our bodies break right. So our gas pedals, that sympathetic nervous system, I tend to run more in that energy. So that's more of like a very activating energy, right. So our gas pedals, that sympathetic nervous system, I tend to run more in that energy. So that's more of like a very activating energy, right. If you tend to be anxious or you tend to worry about things or maybe even be angry or irritable, it's a lot of that activating energy. And then the brake pedal, the other circuit, is where we would tend to feel more disconnected or withdrawn or dissociated, kind of spacing out, slow moving, right, it's hard to come forward. We feel burnt out in that space. So for me, when I notice my somatic cues, which for me are like my jaw will clench, so I'll wake up in the morning and I notice that my jaw is really tight and it's sore and my teeth kind of hurt, my shoulders will come up, so I'll not feel all that tension right in my neck and shoulders and I'm wearing my shoulders up here like earrings and then gut issues. If I'm starting to experience any sort of gut issues, that's a cue to me that I'm experiencing some sort of stressor.

Michelle: 36:44

And the body-based practices that I love the most are the first one is shaking. So it's exactly what it sounds like, but it's literally just, you know, standing up or, if you have to do it, sitting down wherever you're at, just shaking out your body. What does it look like to just shake out your arms, right, shake out your legs, let yourself just like really discharge a lot of that activating energy that's kind of swirling around in your body. You can do body tapping, so just your hand into kind of like a fist and up and down your arms and legs at whatever pressure feels really good, kind of to get you out of your head and into your body, right, it's a practice of orienting and being present, havening so kind of crossing your arms, putting your hands over your shoulders and then just kind of gently squeezing your arms up and down all the way across your forearms and then gently squeezing back up. You can even squeeze along your legs and back up.

Michelle: 37:38

Those are practices that are really helpful for me and for a lot of other people. And then, once you've, like, discharged a lot of that energy if it's shaking or dancing is great. I thought that's kind of where you were going when you were talking about playing the music, just those kinds of practices and then to introduce something that brings a lot of safety to our body. So then it could be a practice of deep breathing or short meditation or something like that. I find that to be. My body can shift states quite efficiently if I allow it to move, and then I bring in a kind of calming practice afterward.

Camille: 38:12

Yeah, you kind of shake it up and release it and then come to a place of calm.

Michelle: 38:16

That's right, yeah, so go for a walk.

Camille: 38:18

Yeah, what kind of breathing practice every? I love asking this because I feel like everyone has a favorite. What's your favorite breathing practice?

Michelle: 38:26

So, so, probably the most effective for me, um, is a physiological breath, because you can do that in 15 seconds, 20 seconds maybe, and I know for me it makes a huge difference.

Michelle: 38:40

There's other practices that you can do, for again, it's ultimately relatively quick, right Two or three minutes to really bring a lot of regulation.

Michelle: 38:52

But, man, when my kids, like I, feel myself starting to become triggered or I'm in traffic or I'm in public and I can't necessarily sit and close my eyes and breathe for three minutes, usually like just two or three of these physiological breaths is enough to shift the state of my nervous system and I can kind of feel everything just kind of melting off and resetting. And the way it works is so simple you just breathe in through your nose as deeply as you can until it feels like your lungs are completely at capacity, and then one more quick breath at the top through your nose and then exhaling through your mouth a long, slow, extended exhale. You can purse your lips if that kind of helps to extend the exhale. And, man, just doing that two or three times consecutively, you'll notice a shift in the state of how you started and then how you feel your body, just kind of melting and a lot of that tension releasing after.

Camille: 39:44

I'm going to try that and I have some kids who could benefit from that and that sounds like easy enough. Like it. It doesn't even require like square, you know, like this box breathing.

Camille: 39:56

Yeah, that's what I mean to say and that's what I love too. I was doing an assignment with my daughter the other day which was really stressing her out and we were learning about the skeletal system, the muscular system, the nervous system. The was really stressing her out and we were learning about the skeletal system, the muscular system, the nervous system, the circuit, like all of the systems in the body. And what was so interesting to me, but also so basic, was how much our body needs oxygen to function. Yeah, and that with healing, getting oxygen to our brain and to all of the organs and making sure that that blood is oxygenated and pumping well from the heart.

Camille: 40:35

It was so and I was saying it was funny because I was I have a walking pad in my room and I was walking on my walking pad and and my daughter came in and said, mom, now you're going to help me with this assignment, but don't talk too much about this, because I know you're really passionate about this and I know you know stuff about this, but like I just need to get through it and I'm like, okay, so I'm like walking, walking, and then we'd start talking about the heart and the oxygen and the brain and the organs and how everything communicates together and the diseases that come from.

Camille: 41:09

And every answer of like how to make this not happen was exercise and nutrition. And she's like oh, mom, all the answers are the same for how to not get sick or how to prevent these diseases. And I'm like, because it is. It really comes down to the basics of movement. And I'm like, and look how important oxygen is and how it helps your body to regulate. And she's like mom, remember I told you not to get too excited as I'm walking this?

Michelle: 41:38

is why.

Camille: 41:39

I walk because I want to live a long life and she just it was really funny, but I I think that it's. It's interesting in those moments, especially with somatic healing, is how important the oxygen is and literally our brain and our organs and our skeletal and everything the circulatory, everything is working together through oxygen and through that being present in the moment and our world today is not focused around that. Where it's not, people aren't going to stop traffic and say, okay, everyone, let's take that deep breath we all need right now, or you know, especially in parenting with young kids too, and teenagers, because it they just bigger kids, bigger problems. Like everyone needs it. So I love that it. Thank you for sharing that. I think that that's a really helpful simple. So it's movement, something to shake the energy out, and then breathing to be re-centered.

Michelle: 42:37

Yeah, so it's basically, yeah, a movement practice to release a lot of that energy, however that looks like for you, and then a way to introduce, reintroduce safety to the body, which can look like breathing or meditation or just some stillness, but something that's active and then something that's really still.

Camille: 42:53

So would you say, for someone that is disassociating, or they're more on the other side of the parasympathetic, or if you're just feeling sluggish and oh, I don't even want to get out of bed, would the process be the same, or is there something that we should do different in that scenario?

Michelle: 43:11

Yeah. So there are different regulation tools to help us down regulate. That's what we would need if we're feeling like really high energy and we need to come down. And then there are up regulating resources for when we're feeling kind of disconnected and dissociated and to help bring us up into regulation. So a couple of things that are really helpful there Temperature our body will respond really well to temperature changes. So you know, get in the shower and then turn it on cold for the last you know 30 seconds or a minute. That will help to bring you back into your body and upregulate. You man, grab a bag of frozen vegetables out of your freezer and even holding it on the back into your body and upregulate. You man, grab a bag of frozen vegetables out of your freezer and even holding it on the back of your neck or rubbing it, rubbing like an ice cube on the inside of your wrists. Those are practices that will help activate your vagus nerve and your parasympathetic nervous system and bring you out of a dorsal vagal collapse and and which is ultimately like a freeze response right and bringing you back into your body.

Michelle: 44:10

A lot of the practices, if you want to upregulate, are really getting you out of your head, which is where we tend to be when we're in that space, and into our body, right. So, even gentle, stretching, going for a walk, orienting yourself right, going through your senses and being like, okay, what are five things that I see right now, what are four things that I hear and really just like attuning to the experience of your body, those kinds of things can be really helpful in upregulating music. Right, we talked about it. I really like calming. Obviously, calming music can be very calming to down-regulate us, and then upbeat music can be up-regulating to up-regulate us. How we move our body in. That is really powerful too. But yeah, when we're feeling kind of on that disconnected side, getting out of our head and into our body is probably the most powerful reminder thing we can do.

Camille: 45:05

So would you say that that's the same practice for people who do like the ice, where they'll dip their faces in ice? That's the same kind of deal, that's very popular, which I think is really interesting.

Camille: 45:18

I mean, it just had me thinking, okay, if we need to drink water in the morning, maybe we ice dip in our face with ice water and then you drink it, which maybe that's not the most, maybe just get the water for both at the same time. But yeah, that's really interesting and it can help with your de-puffing. Gosh, there's so many things to remember. Okay, we're going to talk about nighttime routines, do a quick recap and if there is only one thing, listen. If there's only one thing that you are hearing that you're like, okay, I could start with that, please do.

Camille: 45:49

I don't want you to hear all of these things and be like, okay, I need to do ice on my face and do this and then make sure I get all of these things in, because it is a process, but I do love hearing about it and what's working well. So that's why we're going there. But don't feel like, if you're not adopting these all tomorrow, that you're a failure. Just pick one and go with it and see if you can set that habit and really make it work.

Camille: 46:12

Okay, so let's talk about nighttime routine, okay.

Michelle: 46:16

All right, so for the evening. I think a good nighttime routine, when we're talking about our nervous system and somatics, starts a few hours before bedtime. So I know for me. I try not to eat anything within three hours of going to bed, so that makes for a pretty early dinner time, so you're done by 5.30?.

Michelle: 46:36

Yeah, we'll have dinner around five, yeah, and I'm usually done around 5.30. And if I have a small snack or something before bed, sometimes maybe, but for the most part I don't need it. And the reason why there is that we'll just sleep so much better when our the resources right and our body and our glucose levels and everything aren't working to digest a large meal right before we go to bed. Right, that has a huge impact for those of you who wear a wearable and you can track your sleep.

Camille: 47:03

You'll notice that if you eat before you go to bed, do you wear a?

Michelle: 47:07

ring or I don't wear one, but I track um. I don't. I don't track while I sleep, but I track my sleep and I track my habits and I'll see a correlation.

Camille: 47:17

Yeah, Cause if I eat late, it'll it will tell me, like that it took me longer to fall asleep or I was more restless, or it'll it'll show your latency, which is like the amount of time that it takes you to fall asleep, and regulation of your heart, like your heart actually actually lowering, and when I eat late it takes a longer time for my heart to get down to the spot that it needs to be for really restful sleep. So yeah. I.

Michelle: 47:42

I have seen that, that's a good yeah, that's a good one. Um, and then the other one that goes along with that I have seen that that's a good, yeah, that's a good one. And then the other one that goes along with that, I guess, is alcohol. I think there's a perception or misconception that alcohol, like, will help us fall asleep and sleep better. So a lot of you know I'll hear it like yeah, but I just have to have that glass of wine, cause it really helps me like kind of unwind and then fall asleep. And while alcohol can certainly help us youowsy and, yes, ultimately fall asleep, it's actually really detrimental for us to get the quality of sleep that we need. And it comes back to our nervous system, right. Alcohol is a stressor on our body and for us to get the rest that we need at night, we need to be in a deep parasympathetic state. We need to be feeling really relaxed to be able to get that good quality rest. So alcohol will act as a stressor. You might fall asleep better, but you're not going to sleep well and you'll wake up feeling not as rested and energized. So that's another one too If I'm going to have a drink or a glass of wine, I'll do it while I'm making dinner and then I'm good, right, I'll have time to metabolize it before I start to go to bed. Limiting caffeine we know about the half-life of caffeine. It takes much longer than we think for our body to fully metabolize it, so I just have it in the morning. But if you're able to tolerate more caffeine than I am, I'd probably cut it off early afternoon to make sure you're ready to rest.

Michelle: 49:10

And then blue light we talk about not being on our phones before bed. I think for a long period of time I just didn't really understand. I knew I shouldn't be looking at blue light before bed, but I didn't really understand why. And that blue light from our screens actually signals to our body to stop melatonin production because it's daytime. So we're like looking at our screens while we take a melatonin supplement and we're sending really mixed messages to our body, right. So if you can wear blue light blockers, it's helpful, but ultimately, if you could just put your phone away I put mine away a couple hours before bed, but even just an hour before bed will make a big difference and that your body will be able to start seeing. Okay, the sun is going down, right?

Michelle: 49:57

This is the time of night where we get ready to go to sleep, we increase the melatonin production and then that leads us into a good, you know, restful space to sleep well.

Michelle: 50:13

And then what are the things that you can do to really help to downregulate and activate that parasympathetic nervous system before bed?

Michelle: 50:16

Because a lot of times we are talking about it, that witching hour at dinner, you know, it can be really stressful to try to put kids to bed, especially younger kids, and then we're so activated and then we go and scroll social media or what have you, and then we try to fall asleep and we wonder why we're not sleeping well. So maybe it's, you know, taking a warm bath before you go to bed, maybe it's journaling, maybe it's, you know, reflecting on three things that went really well today and planning and brain dumping before tomorrow, so I don't have all of that swirling around in my head before I go to sleep. Gentle stretching, um, those kinds of practices breath work can be really helpful and a good evening routine, um, and I read somewhere I don't know if this is true, but it's felt true for me that the last thought we have in the evening is often our first thought in the morning. So just being really discerning about where our mind is before we go to sleep can really set the tone for the next day.

Camille: 51:11

I thought it was going to be what you dreamt about. When I was a kid, I used to.

Camille: 51:16

I would purposefully practice thinking about what I wanted to dream about so that I could dream about it, and it would work. And it works, yeah, oh yeah, if you're. You have to practice it, though, like it really is. And it's funny too, cause I remember, maybe, when I was five or six, and my grandpa said you know, we all have an internal clock, and if you think about that time and you tell your body that's when you want to wake up, you can create that reality. And I thought really, like this is such a magical power and I would practice it and it works. And, of course, you have to create support systems around that where you're getting enough rest and you are, you know, not being woken up all night by a baby or a toddler, whatever the scenario is like. There are things outside of our control, but I think the messaging here is you can create it, you have to create the space for it. Here is, you can create it, you have to create the space for it. And that's such a powerful space to think about, because I mean, yeah, as you were talking, I was thinking about I've become really good at not watching screens at night because of eye sensitivity.

Camille: 52:21

It's not because I was, like, really responsible. It was because my eyes hurt more at night, and not something that I've inherited from my mom, and I think being on screens every day, all day, for years it has contributed to that, and so now I'll listen to an audio book rather than watching a show, but that does mean that my phone is next to me. So, could it be better? Probably, but that was a better step for me in the right direction, you know, Um, and so maybe there's modified modifiers, that where you're thinking, okay, maybe I want to wake up earlier, and what does that mean about going to sleep earlier? Maybe it's just 15 minutes increments that you work on, day after day, week after week, and eventually you'll get there, cause I think it is a process of figuring out what those tweaks can be.

Camille: 53:11

And, man, the phone is so hard. I'm curious with you putting it away, do you? And you say, in a different room? Is it like in your bathroom, or is it downstairs, away from your room? Like how far away is it? And how did you develop that habit so that it's effective?

Michelle: 53:28

I think for so like, for so long, my phone was such a source of stress, like it was only right, like it would only ring if, like someone needed something. Um, so I kind of grew, I think it was only right, like it would only ring if, like someone needed something. Um, so I kind of grew. I think it was like a blessing in disguise, kind of like a disdain, to have my phone around me where it would just like I knew.

Camille: 53:47

I'm like, ah, only like stressful things come from that device, especially as an attorney, where you're like as an attorney, exactly Right.

Michelle: 53:53

So for me it's very easy to put my phone away because I don't. I don't want to be around it. I can feel like what happens to my body when it's around. So, yeah, I'll leave it downstairs. We have, like in our pantry, a little charging station and everyone plugs in their stuff and then they and then we go to bed upstairs. Um, so that's been helpful, because it's so. That pattern for me ran so deep, like when I started doing that I would still wake up in the morning and before I was fully conscious I was reaching for my phone and then it took a second to be like, oh, it's not even in the room, it's downstairs.

Camille: 54:28

So do you use an alarm? Then an alarm clock you just wake up.

Michelle: 54:32

I don't You're like bing 4 am, yeah. But to your point about creating this time that we can tell our body when to wake up, I've just been consistent, I think in it for a while and when you have a consistent bedtime and a consistent wake up time, your body, you don't need an alarm clock, or at least I haven't.

Camille: 54:54

So what about social engagements? Because eight, eight, 30, that's early. So what? How do you handle that with keeping it the same?

Michelle: 55:03

Um, that has been a good practice in boundaries for me, um, and my husband has helped me support that. So are there times where I'm out past eight, eight, 30? Of course there are Right.30, of course there are right. But it takes something quite special for me to do that and agree to that.

Michelle: 55:21

And I do prioritize my sleep so much so that so often just that is enough for me to decline evening things and again, like part of this undoing of how we did everything and then rebuilding it was so that we could have the mornings and the evenings that our family, that served our family best, right. So because we're homeschooling now, our home, our mornings look so different than they did last year, so different, um, and the same thing with our evenings. Like there's more flexibility earlier in the day and later in the day. We know we're not carting our kids around to all these different extracurriculars at eight, nine, 10 o'clock at night. We're just choosing not to do that and the house is asleep and sometimes when we do have to go out later, it's okay and I'll come home and I'll still do the same routine and I'll probably be tired the next day and that's okay. But as long as you know it's a, it's a not the norm, right, it's an exception to the norm, then I think that's okay.

Camille: 56:23

You can recover from it. Yeah, I think you bring up a good point, though, of like the extracurriculars. That gets hard, especially as your kids get older, Cause there's so much out of your control. But with homeschooling you do have more of that control and that's a choice. Like that's really a powerful choice to be made, and I think that was something that was so relieving during COVID was that we were like wait, like we're actually at home together and we don't have to be running from this, that and the other every single day and what?

Camille: 56:55

what are we signing up for every single day and what? What are we signing up for? It's an interesting balance because I think there is a big mental health element that comes into play with, especially with my kids being physically active and that being a really great regulator for them. Yes, but then also to not overpack it where it's like, hey, we pick the one thing that we're doing for this season and that's it, but then you multiply it by four.

Michelle: 57:18

When you have four kids, it's hard, it's hard but yeah, but that sounds like you guys have found a good balance.

Camille: 57:25

Yeah, it's, it's working out right now. It's tricky, it's. It's always a reassessment, and I think that that's a good takeaway from this episode too is look at your life, look at your season. There's always a reassessment of the stage that you're in, and that's okay to make adjustments and to know that there can be things that you let go and that you make more space for you and to have peace and to create that environment that you're really looking for.

Michelle: 57:53

So and seasons like that will come right, and I think it's okay. Um, and something that's been helpful for me is that we can have sprints, but we're not going to have marathons. So, like we can have sprints, it can be six weeks or maybe even six months where things will feel busy, but this is not going to be the indefinite like yeah, we're just going to keep grinding until all of a sudden, you know it's 10 years later and everyone's burnt out and dysregulated. So I think you're right, just the power to like we can be in this sprint, but I see the end date. And then there's going to be an opportunity for us to sit and reflect and reassess, if we need to, to make sure we're honoring our bodies and our minds and the cadence that our family needs.

Camille: 58:33

Yeah Well, this conversation has been amazing. I know I've had a lot of takeaways and some inspiration for what I am hoping to do with my morning and night routine. So thank you so much. It's been so wonderful to have you on the show. Please tell our audience where they can find you and connect with you.

Michelle: 58:53

Thanks. You can find me on my podcast. It's called the Calm Mom and what we do there is we give nervous system solutions to busy moms. Moms have got a lot going on with anxiety, overwhelm and burnout, so body-based, somatic solutions. We do some mindset work there the Calm Mom. And then you can find me on my website. It's just my name, michellegroessercom.

Camille: 59:16

Awesome. Well, thank you again and everyone listening. Thank you so much for being here. If you found this inspirational, inspiring, please make sure to leave a five-star rating and review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. Thank you for being here. I believe in you. You're amazing and we'll see you next time. Hey CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment. In a five-star review, you could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast and remember you are the boss.