Taking a Root Cause Approach to Nervous System Regulation and Cortisol Rebalancing
Guest blogger Kate Starr
Tired. Frustrated. Unmotivated. Overwhelmed. Yet you’re likely the type of woman who keeps it all together, who stays collected in a crisis – this shouldn’t be happening to you, right? This is nervous system dysregulation: often beginning with a “fight or flight state,” but eventually leading to burnout, or “freeze,” that can occur after living in high stress mode for far too long. Many women experience this type of nervous system dysregulation and cortisol imbalance for years, soldiering on with their professional, familial, and social responsibilities in a state of chronic distress until … they can’t.
This feels terribly frightening and urgent; we want to rush to fix it, put a stop to the symptoms, prioritize new protocols, take any medications or supplements that claim to help. According to Kate Starr, Certified Nervous System Regulation Practitioner, there really is nothing to fix. Kate holds a Master’s degree in Public Health, specializing in behavior change, and she is the creator of the SomaNeuro Alignment technique, which combines powerful somatic movements with uplifting subconscious work to create lasting change and help women to feel truly safe within themselves again. In her highly successful work with hundreds of women, she has taken the approach that the body is always trying to protect us and has a lot of information to share. What has often been characterized as “self-sabotage” actually just signals that our subconscious mind perceives a very real threat, whether that be a present stressor or trauma from our past. Our nervous system is responding exactly as intended based on our old beliefs, habits or ways of relating to ourselves – which were essential to our survival in our formative years. Now these coping mechanisms are no longer serving us and they have become the root cause of dysregulation. We need new guidance and approaches to return our nervous system to homeostasis and to balance cortisol levels in a long-term way.
The first step then is to return to a sense of trust in the body. By leveraging somatic exercises to target a physical release in the body, the mind can become more relaxed and open to accepting present safety. From this space of safety and deactivation of the “fight or flight” response, the brain begins to enter the alpha and theta states in which reduced brainwave frequency allows the unconscious mind to be more malleable and open to receiving new information. Once having helped her clients achieve this sense of safety and state of openness, Kate works to help them expand their window of tolerance - creating the ongoing capacity to respond to stress appropriately rather than react to it - and build resilience naturally. Clients are able to work through visualizations and thought journeys in order to reset the pathways of the brain toward safety, joy and connection to the self. She guides them to trust their intuition, respond rather than react to stress, and finally feel present again. Having confronted the root cause of their dysregulation, they are able to break free from the grips of chronic stress, burnout and constant anxiety.
Kate’s SomaNeuro Alignment technique guides clients with intentionality, giving clear sequences and practices to follow - but she also encourages clients to explore various options and listen to what works best for their bodies on a given day or session. Over time, this creates a strong self-trust in the body so that clients feel capable of prioritizing joy and beauty to connect back into the present moment. With a sense of safety internalized, clients learn they themselves can determine what their particular nervous system needs. Nervous system regulation then becomes a lifestyle available at all times rather than a time-consuming or rigid program of ongoing stress management. This allows them to approach life with calm confidence, freeing them to focus on their personal and professional aspirations. The SomaNeuro Alignment technique teaches us that we are our own best resource. When we acknowledge the root cause of dysregulation and build somatic awareness, our system will never lead us astray.
To find out more about Kate’s program and credentials you can check out her website www.alignedwithkate.com or visit her Instagram page @alignedwithkate.
Listen to Dee Davidson's podcast episode with Kate on the Confidently Balance Your Hormones podcast here.
Kate Starr is a Certified Nervous System Regulation Practitioner with a Master's degree in Public Health specializing in behavior change in women's health from George Washington University. As a Nervous System Coach, she helps ambitious, driven women overcome burnout and chronic stress through holistic nervous system regulation techniques. Through extensive research and personal experience, Kate developed her unique approach, SomaNeuro Alignment (TM), when she noticed that many nervous system practitioners specialized in one or two areas of regulation, but few had created a method to combine both psychological and physiological modalities into one powerful subconscious practice. To date, her 1:on:1 and group coaching programs, which teach women SomaNeuro Alignment, have had a 100% success rate upon completion.