00:00:00 Shreya: Have you ever noticed how your body says no before your mind can find the words. Sometimes healing doesn't start with a big breakthrough. It starts with a tiny XL, a shoulder dropping a foot, finally feeling the floor. Today we are talking about movement and nervous system regulation without forcing it. Without performing it. Just coming back home to the body. One honest moment at a time.

00:00:33 Shreya: Welcome back to the Wellness Reimagined, where we explore healing in ways that feel human, practical, and actually doable in real life. I'm your host, Shreya, and today I'm joined by Julie Turner, founder of the Movement Effect, a non-profit bringing trauma informed fitness and wellness into domestic violence shelter to support healing for mothers and children's. This episode is all about movement and nervous system regulation. What it really means, how it shows up day to day, and how we can use movement as a gentle doorway. Back to safety, safety, connection, and strength. Welcome, Julie. I'm honored to have you on my show.

00:01:17 Julie Turner: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.

00:01:20 Shreya: And Julie, before we get into like, how I want to start, uh, with the human part, when you think back to your own healing, was there a moment where you realized that my body is a part of this story too?

00:01:38 Julie Turner: Um, so a little bit of my story is that I was in an abusive relationship when I was younger, and when I left that relationship, I was just sort of going about my day to day life. I wasn't really doing a lot of actively healing activities. Um, I was doing a little bit of therapy, but not much. But what I was doing all the time was dancing and I was teaching Pilates. I was studying anatomy and I was teaching people their wedding dances, ironically. So I was doing a lot of movement with the body. Now, after I left that relationship, I actually suffered from PTSD and I had really extremely debilitating panic attacks, like every day. I even had a hard time leaving my apartment at times, and I noticed I started to notice anyway, that when I was dancing, when I was in class rehearsal, or when I was teaching, when I was moving my body, I was able to find a different sort of feeling inside my body and the panic would actually subside. And so I started to pick up on the fact that how I was using my physical body was helping me regulate in a way that got me feeling safe and at home physically. And that then enabled me to start doing the real work emotionally and mentally. Yes.

00:03:05 Shreya: Uh, let's deal with that because so many people feel like they have tried to think their way into healing, and it doesn't really land until the body really feels included.

00:03:20 Julie Turner: I agree, and even if there's even small things that I'm trying to, to do that I'm trying to shift the way, my way of thinking, even in a small way. Even when we're talking about, um, not even healing from trauma, but even just your everyday shifts and changes that you're trying to make, whether or not in your relationships or your parenting or even with work, I find that I can think about the thing that I want to change. I can I can make decisions to make change. I can have an idea of what I want to see or what I want to do. But until I truly embody that, it doesn't show up for me. Um, all the time. It will be here and there. And so I have to, I have found that really embodying what I'm trying to change, what I'm trying to do is what actually helps me make the shift and brings me toward healing even more.

00:04:12 Shreya: Yeah. And also, there is one misconception I hear a lot. That is, if I'm moving, I must be getting better. Or if I work out hard enough, I'll feel okay. I'm really curious. What do you think people misunderstand about movement as a tool for nervous system regulation?

00:04:40 Julie Turner: You know, when I started.

00:04:42 Julie Turner: Talking about this work, nobody else was really talking about it. Um, there have always been therapists around that have done somatic healing and somatic experiencing and have really tried to connect the brain in the body. Um, and that, that has existed for a long time, um, long before I was doing it. But in terms of being a practitioner, I remember being, um, at the precipice of having these ideas and saying them out loud and people, you know, looking at me like, I didn't make sense. Um, but I find that now everybody is a, it's a, it's a larger topic. It's much more common to hear about. And what I found that a lot of people are focusing on is just calming down. And my biggest thing I want people to understand about nervous system regulation is that being regulated doesn't necessarily just mean calm. It's not just about, you know, releasing big feelings that you're having. I feel like that's the biggest Misconception. And some people say, oh, well, I go exercise and I calm down, so I must be better. But they're not. They're not really realizing that there are very specific nuances to how the nervous system works and how it shows up physiologically. And different types of exercise are going to have cause a different reaction within that as well. Now, I've heard, you know, a lot of people suggest, oh, well, you know, I don't I don't believe that nervous system regulation means that you're not angry about things that you've been through. I believe that nervous system regulation means that you allow for your anger, for your expansion of your feelings, and that you are able to understand them. It might just mean that, you know, you don't have misplaced anger or you don't have any sort of misplaced anxiety, but you are able to understand, oh, I have anxiety today. This is why I have a real I have a reason for it. Um, so again, back to, you know, not to wander off the topic too much, but back to the idea that the misconception is that regulation means calming down. Regulation means understanding your nervous system. What happens physiologically inside the body when you're when you get triggered or when you are, um, going into the fight or flight mode and then figuring out how to find balance within your body. So that way you can understand whatever emotion arises is, okay, you can understand where that emotion is supposed to be directed toward and how to direct it without feeling out of control.

00:07:14 Shreya: That's, I think, such an important reframe because movement isn't automatically regulating. It depends on how we are moving and what our system is experiencing.

00:07:26 Julie Turner: Absolutely.

00:07:28 Shreya: Yes. And for someone who's lived through trauma, illness or injury, sometimes the body doesn't feel like home. It feels like a place you are trying to escape. So what do you notice underneath that disconnection? What is the nervous system protecting us from?

00:07:49 Julie Turner: Absolutely. So I that's one hundred percent true, especially about people that have had a trauma that has involved their physical body, especially like the women in the survivors that I work with that have survived domestic abuse, domestic violence. Often they feel not at home, unsafe inside their own body. And so much of that has to do with what the situation that they were in. They were in a relationship where they were led to believe that they couldn't trust themselves. So that lack of ability to trust yourself translates into the nervous system, into the body as well. And so then even when they go to do small movements, simple exercises that I'll do with them. Sometimes there's a lack of trust there of themselves. They think, oh, I'm not doing this right, I'm not doing this right. And I spend a lot of time saying it's not about right or wrong, especially when it comes to movement in the body. What our goal is, is to make you feel that at home, inside your body, to start trusting yourself again. And once you begin to trust yourself again, you then start to feel a sense of safety in the physical body, which allows you to again, open up your mind to the idea of what safety might be like it mentally, what safety might feel like emotionally. You start to make that those small steps toward that safety by opening yourself up in smaller ways during a movement class.

00:09:24 Shreya: Right. So, so it's not about my body is failing me. It's about my body learned what is what it had to learn to survive. And I think once we see it that way, we can approach movement with respect and not with pressure.

00:09:43 Julie Turner: Absolutely. And another, another way that that manifests for some people when they start to say, when they start to feel my body is failing me, sometimes their experience of physical pain is bigger. And that has a lot to do with how the nervous system is responding to our sense of pain inside the body. If you have chronic pain, for example, low back in the low back, for example, that's a really great example of it. People that people will have chronic low back pain and they start to feel that that is an injury. And once they have that injury, they start to become afraid of movement because they don't trust themselves to do movement that will feel okay. And then what tends to happen is the pain actually gets worse and or the lack of moving their body makes them tighter and causes more problems down the road. So I always try to convince people, you know, try to find some movement that you can do what we do a lot of working together to try to make sure that we give exercises that feel good inside the body. Somebody comes to me with low back pain. I want to only give them exercises that are going to help them heal from that low back pain. I don't want to give them anything that's going to make it worse, and I want to teach them that movement, even in that situation, is a step in the right direction. And when they start to do that and they say, oh, I had this back pain, but I still I kept moving. And not only does it feel better, I'm less afraid of it. Well, that builds trust inside their mind and within their emotional body as well.

00:11:28 Shreya: Yes. Uh, let's let's make this real life practical? Uh, what are some subtle signs someone might be dysregulated? Especially the people who look fine on the outside. MM.

00:11:43 Julie Turner: Yes. And looking fine on the outside is a really important thing that you just said. Because nine times out of ten, people will look fine on the outside and be really suffering on the inside. But one signal that a person can look out for is what is their level of anxiety? And is that anxiety misplaced? So essentially, your nervous system is supposed to respond when you are in danger. And that danger, because of the way how you know, the big capacity that our brains have. And I'm simplifying it right now. There's a lot of, um, there's a lot more nuance that you can go into, but I want to be direct and clear. So I'm simplifying the language a little bit and people that want to dive deeper and know more. There's always opportunities for that. So I just want to be clear that I am simplifying the structure a little bit. So nobody thinks that I'm saying all there is to say on the matter. Um, but essentially when you're in danger, whether that's physical, emotional or mental or some sort of something that you've perceived as danger before, that's what sends a signal to your nervous system to react and respond. And so that manifests in a lot of different ways in the physical body. It can manifest by feeling and not in the stomach. Uh, your heart rate can go up. You can start sweating. It can manifest by making you have to use the bathroom a lot. Um, giving you a stomach ache, uh, tingling, sharp, sharp, tingling or sharp feelings up and down the arms, uh, dizziness a lot. There's a lot of physical manifestations of this triggering. Now, what people need to understand is that when you are actually in a place of danger, that is supposed to happen. The other thing that happens is your body gets flooded with adrenaline, which gives you the ability to leave the situation, fight if you have to, or do what you have to do to get yourself back to safety. But if that is misplaced, then you will feel all those feelings and then there's nowhere for that adrenaline to go. So then you're just sitting there with this misplaced anxiety. Now, I will give a real life example of when this would happen for me. When I was when I was in the throes, in the middle of these panic attacks, I was living in New York, and I would have them most often on the subway. And that is just something that we all do in New York to commute. This was a daily, you know, I would ride the subway nine times a day, and that's mainly because I was working all over the place. I had a lot of different. I was teaching private sessions and dance lessons. I was just all over the city all the time. So I was coming in in the morning riding from here and there. I had a big, a lot of riding the subway day to day, but I would have these knock down panic attacks just sitting on the train or standing on the train. And I want to I bring this up because I'm sure nobody who is sitting next to me or looked at me even noticed because like you said before, it's all happening on the inside of my body. Now, what I realized over time, and that part of that for my movement practice was that was misplaced anxiety because I wasn't in danger. I was just sitting there commuting like everybody else. Um, and there was no dangerous situation that I needed to get out of in that moment. It was a mundane, everyday activity, but yet I could not handle it physically. And so when I started to realize that I was having, you know, when I realized that I wasn't dying, which was what I first thought was happening with the panic attacks. But when I realized that I wasn't dying because that happened over and over again and I didn't die, I started to think something else is at play here. And then I started to realize, oh, this is misplaced anxiety. So that's a that's a real life example of what happens when you have this misplaced anxiety. And so that's the cue for you to look for and not I bring up anxiety because that was my experience for it. But there are many other misplaced emotions that we can have and real to be super clear. Like I said before, every emotion that we have is natural and is okay and is totally valid. It's a matter of discovering if that emotion is misplaced. And that means if I'm sitting watching a TV commercial and I start bawling, crying because, you know, I'll tear up at a touching commercial all the time. But if I start bawling, crying like my world is ending because of a TV commercial that's misplaced, right? If you know, and there's lots of other examples of that, I don't want to go on and on about it, but, you know, I think that those two are enough life examples, but that's the number one thing to look out for is if your emotions are not tracking with what your experience is.

00:16:38 Shreya: I think that, uh, looking find peace really hits hard because, uh, a lot of listeners are high functioning, doing everything, holding everyone and their nervous system is quietly screaming. So, uh, like, and also setbacks can feel sometimes really brutal, like I was doing better and now I'm not. So when someone gets triggered or shuts down, how do you help them respond? Uh, in a way that doesn't create shame. Mhm.

00:17:14 Julie Turner: Um, that's another great, a great thing to bring up. Now, I like to remind people that healing is cyclical. It's always a cycle through. Um, and I'm talking about for myself and I bring myself up as an example because a lot of times when I'm sitting with the survivors that I work with, it helps them to know that I've been in their shoes because they look at me and they understand, oh, she's been where I am before and she's still okay. And so I bring my own experience up sometimes when I'm trying to help other people. But the main thing that I try to remind everyone is that this healing is a cycle that we go through. And what I have noticed in myself is that every time I go through the cycle and I am still nowhere near, I have nowhere near perfected this. I still have plenty of moments, I still have, I still have certain triggers that, you know, really for me, but I just have different tools now and I have a different understanding of it. So first things first is getting to the place of realizing that you're having an experience and that this has to do with your nervous system and that you have. You can work through it. The second place to get to is building your tool belt. Of things that you can try. Different types of movement, different type of of activities and different things that you might try to help you through the moment. And once you realize that you can get through the moment, then you start applying that. And over time, the moment that you're feeling soften. So one of the big thing that I think to help people release the shame is to remind people that we're all human and that we don't need to think of it as this perfection thing, that we have to get right away, we have to get the first time, and then we're healed fully. We're constantly uncovering these little, little moments that really need attention, that need focus, that need healing from us, that need softening from our own selves, that need forgiveness for our own selves. So if we just relax a little bit into the idea that we don't have to be perfect, that we are on a healing journey, and that we will walk together with each other, and that can help release the shame of having the experience again.

00:19:43 Shreya: Yeah, I think that's the message people need to clear up isn't failure, it's information. And if we meet it with kindness and nervous, then the nervous system really learns. And, uh, I am not alone in this. That's a regulation, too. I think this message is so much needed. And thank you for sharing this with our audience. And, uh, if, if one thing I'm taking from this conversation is that movement doesn't have to be intense to be healing, sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is to help your body feel safe enough to stay. And this is truly a very amazing conversation with you. And if after this, my listeners want to connect with you and want to know more about you and your work, then what's the best way?

00:20:31 Julie Turner: Oh, awesome. So the best way is to go to my website, w w w dot org. And I also have Instagram at movement effect. Oh, and then I also do have a private practice. Julie Turner movement. So that is w w w dot com and at Julie Turner M v m t my Instagram for that as well. So I have both things. I have the nonprofit and then I have a private practice that people just want to reach out and think about working with me, um, as well.

00:21:14 Shreya: Yeah. And I will make sure to attach all these details and links below so that the listeners can find them easily and get in touch with you. And for my listeners, before we close, I just want to say this. If today's conversation starts something in you, then take a breath and let that be enough for now. And if you want more episodes like this grounded, practical, and deeply human, then follow the wellness reimagined. Not because you need to fix yourself, but because you. Healing is easier when you have steady reminders that you are not alone and you don't have to muscle your way through it. And Freya, thank you for being here. Be gentle with your body this week. Even one small movement or safety counts. I do not forget to hit the follow button. Subscribe and feel free to share your thoughts because your ears deserve premium content. Thank you.