Pssssssssshhhhhhhh.

That’s the sound I hear when my pot of milk boils over and spills onto the stove. Oops.

Drinking cacao is part of my morning ritual. It’s simple enough: I boil almond milk and mix it with cacao powder. I love the warmth & rich flavor of cacao, and the way it wakes me up but doesn’t give me jitters like coffee.

Some mornings, it’s also part of my ritual to clean up spilled milk, because I wasn’t paying attention to the stove and the milk boiled over quicker than I was expecting.

One second, everything seemed fine. The next second… pssshhhhh. A mess.

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I’m sharing this story because it’s a visual representation of what a nervous system meltdown can feel like.

One second, we might seem fine. The next second, we might “boil over” — and suddenly, we’re not fine; our nervous systems become dysregulated, our brains overstimulated, and it feels like there’s a huge mess to clean up.

If you relate to this, you’re definitely not alone.

I want to normalize the ways that, as highly sensitive & neurodivergent people, we might struggle with dysregulation, meltdowns, shutdowns, or any other state that feels challenging to navigate.

What can we do about this?

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Back to the spilled-milk analogy. Even though, to my eyes, it seems like the milk suddenly boils over without warning, in reality there’s a lot going on beneath the surface that leads up to the boiling point. The milk gets warmer, creates little bubbles, starts to froth up and move around in the pot.

If I pay close attention, I’ll notice these subtle signs that the boiling point is near.

The same idea applies to our nervous systems. Even though a meltdown may feel sudden & unexpected, there might be subtle signs leading up to that dysregulation point.

The signs are different for each of us. For some, it’s sweaty palms, a slight increase in heart rate, or shortening of the breath. Maybe thoughts move faster or slower. Feelings may become more intense, or numbed-out.

If we observe our nervous systems as if it were a pot on the stove, we might notice lots of moments between “everything is fine” and “everything is not fine.”

The boiling point might feel more predictable, less abrupt. And importantly, we might have the chance to turn down the temperature before the pot boils over and spills.

A question to reflect on: How does your nervous system let you know if it’s reaching a boiling point?

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Talk soon,

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P.S. If you're feeling overwhelmed & burnt out, and need help taking care of your nervous system, I'd love to support you. I offer ​Nervous System Healing Intensives​ — three 90-minute sessions, using brain-body modalities (Brainspotting, IFS, EMDR) that go deeper than talk therapy & help you feel better, sooner.

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Intensives are a type of short-term, accelerated therapy — for folks who are looking for something different than weekly therapy; who need longer than 50-min sessions to go deep & get to the root of the issue.

👉🏽 If you want to get an Intensive on the books, click here to book an intro call.

​ P.P.S. Know someone who needs to hear this? Forward it along. New readers can subscribe ​HERE​.

I help highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults heal their nervous systems & connect with their authentic selves.

Need a nervous system reset? —> Join me for a Calm Place meditation.
Want to learn about neurodiversity + holistic healing? —> Peek at my blog.

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