eBook + audiobook, read by Lindsey

Nourish Your Nervous System

A holistic guide for sustainable nervous system regulation & healing.

You do not need to be fixed, because you are not broken.

Name your price, $17 to $37 · suggested $29

Get the book + audio

Somewhere along the way, you picked up some version of this belief:

“If I just find the right ______, then I’ll be well.”

The right ______ might be a relationship, a fancy health gadget, a doctor or practitioner, an ideal number on the scale, or the latest fad supplement or diet. The list could go on forever.

So you find yourself doom-scrolling the Internet at 1:30 AM and doom-purchasing expensive supplements, online courses, and health gadgets. Maybe the Internet turned on a light in a dark closet and showed you that much of what you thought was your personality is really a collection of adaptive survival responses.

And you’ve still got the anxiety, the panic attacks, the relationships that don’t work, the missing boundaries, the mom guilt, the shame. I see you. I know what it’s like to be you, because I was you.

I spent over a decade, and thousands of dollars, on what I now call the Hamster Wheel of Wellness, searching for the Holy Grail of Health. At one time, I truly believed that eating the right diet, taking the right supplements, living in the right place, having the right relationship, maintaining the right weight, having the right diagnosis, and seeing the right practitioners was my ticket to health and wellness.

Our modern culture conditions us to look for answers outside of ourselves. And if you’re looking outside yourself, you’re never going to find the wellness and wholeness you seek.

Trauma causes a sort of malnourishment in every aspect of our existence, in our bodies, emotions, minds, relationships, souls, and ancestral lineage. If you’ve been doing “the work” for some time and feel stalled, like you’ve hit a glass ceiling, you can bet there’s some nourishment missing.

You want your body and mind to calm the fuck down, and for life to start to feel a little gentler. You want to walk around in your body and know what she’s telling you. And you want a safe place within yourself that you can always come back to in moments of danger or stress.

In our culture, “nourishment” usually has something to do with food. I expand that definition to include anything that supports your physical, spiritual, mental, relational, emotional, and ancestral health.

The book is practical, tangible ways to nourish your nervous system, which, in turn, holistically nourishes all of you. It’s 15 chapters, and I read the audiobook myself. Here’s what’s inside:

On my daily walk through the woods during the summer of 2021 with our bearded collie, Lachlan, I turned a corner and stopped in my tracks. The sun was back-lighting the tiniest spider’s web, and the spider was still busily spinning. No kidding, she was the size of a pinhead, and she had anchored her web between 2 balsams about 5 feet apart.

Suddenly, Lachlan’s floofy tail touched an anchor point, and I gasped. The spider dropped straight down and hung for a split second. Then, just as quickly, she climbed straight back up to the tightly woven center of her web and sat, frozen, waiting for the danger to pass.

A web is a spider’s only means of nourishing herself. Before her web could nourish her, she had created a place of safety for herself in the middle. That’s the work, to consciously weave a nourishing life with a safe place within that you can always come back to.

Like those 2 balsam trees, we have anchor points too: our bodies, minds, emotions, spirits, relationships, and ancestry. And a spider designs her web so the tiniest vibration on one strand ripples out to the entire web. Nothing happens to one thread that doesn’t somehow affect the rest.

Whatever symptoms you’re experiencing are signposts. Your body is a fucking genius, and she communicates through sensation and, sometimes, symptoms. The very sensations you’ve labeled, diagnosed, pathologized, and tried to get rid of are usually her way of asking, begging, demanding to be nourished.

Sensation is how the body speaks.

Interoception is how we listen.

Practitioners like me love to tell people, “Just listen to your body!” I used to be so frustrated with Insta-therapy and Insta-coaching for that phrase, because I didn’t understand what it meant. Somatic Listening is the process I developed for myself and my clients.

I ask my clients to imagine Ms. Frizzle and her Magic School Bus of kids taking a field trip through the body. When the bus finds a sensation, it stops, and the kids get out to observe it. You describe it with sensing words, like pulsing, tingling, hot, cold, tight, radiating, heavy, dense. The goal is to notice and feel it, to connect with your body, and to show her that you are here for her and she can trust you.

I grew up an Evangelical Christian in the Bible Belt, and I gave the church authority over what I wore, who I dated, how I spent my money, and how I behaved as a woman, wife, and mother. My Memaw Edith washed and folded wax paper and aluminum foil to reuse them, long after she had to. To this day, I wash and keep my baggies, exactly like her.

I lived in my dream home for almost 9 years with white and light gray walls, in case I had to sell it. And I tell you why I signed up for a year-long sensual movement class, after videos of women pole dancing made me feel repulsed, squirmy, ashamed, jealous, fascinated, and (gasp!) turned on.

Your body starts telling you what she wants and needs, what’s bothering her, what nourishes her, and what doesn’t. She may ask you to end a relationship, quit your job, set some boundaries, go to bed earlier, be outside more often, throw away clutter, experience more pleasure, or start a new hobby for fun. All of it is her effort at being profoundly, unapologetically nourished.

Somebody sighs across the table and the voice in your head starts a story. I’ve learned to ask, “I noticed your sigh, and the voice in my head says it means ______. Is that what’s happening right now?” The other person has never said, “Yep, the voice in your head is telling the truth.” Not once.

As you follow her lead, she opens up and trusts you more. And once you’ve felt what I’m talking about, you won’t feel comfortable denying your body ever again.

“In short, this is a book that anyone with a body needs to read, especially if you’ve ever experienced confusing sensations, feelings, or emotions. Lindsey is part mentor, part friend, and part sister who will walk beside you as you work to discern and understand yourself more deeply. For beginners to nervous system regulation, this book provides accessibility. Lindsey has a way of explaining complex concepts without sacrificing nuance. If you’ve been a student of somatic healing, you will find kinship and belonging in these pages. Her approach to this work feels balanced. Curiosity meets practicality. Constriction is met with awareness. Spirit meets science. And above all, trauma is met with love.”

Kat HoSoo Lee, emotional alchemist and trauma-informed spiritual business mentor

I already have a stack of books I haven’t finished. Why this one?

You get it as an audiobook too, and I read it myself, so you can listen on a walk or in the car. And you can start with whichever chapter feels most frayed. You don’t have to read it in order.

Is it for beginners, or for people who’ve done a lot of work?

Both. It explains how your nervous system works in plain language, and it’s full of what I’ve lived and learned since then, so it meets you wherever you are.

Does it replace my doctor or therapist?

It’s education, and it’s meant to go right alongside the care you get from your own doctor or therapist.

How do I get it?

The eBook is a PDF, over 230 pages, and the audiobook downloads with it. Both are ready the moment you buy.

What should I pay?

It’s name your price, $17 to $37. The suggested price is $29. Pick the number that fits your life right now. It’s the same bundle at every number.

What you get

• The full eBook as a PDF, 15 chapters and over 230 pages
• The full audiobook, read by me, for the walks, the drives, and the days you can’t look at one more screen
• Somatic Listening practices you can come back to again and again
• Resources and a full bibliography
• Ready to download the moment you buy

Name your price

$17 to $37

Suggested price: $29. Pick the number that fits your life right now. It’s the same bundle at every number.

Get the book + audio