You are wired to feel nervous. It’s a bio-energetic fact of human existence.

Your body WANTS you to know when you are in danger – and when you are anywhere near danger. You are built to know it and get ready to meet it.

Some Basic Bio-Energetic Facts

Inside one of the oldest chunks of the human brain, the mid-brain, is a component dedicated to keeping you safe. When it senses danger, it takes over the brain and body so that you are prepared to react appropriately to the potential problem.

Daniel Goleman calls this phenomenon "an amygdala hijack” – and that’s exactly how you experience it. One minute you’re fine, and the next minute you’re overtaken by emotion.

The limbic system in the mid-brain governs the old fight, flight or freeze response you learned in 7^th grade biology. It’s always scanning the scene, looking for danger. As it finds danger (say, a second grade book report failure) it learns to tie events together so that it can do an even better job of protecting you later.

That’s how the book report failure gets tied to the ditto paper smell which gets tied to the dentist’s office which gets tied to all gray-haired men in white coats.

Another energy system helps the mid-brain be even more efficient in protecting you. Through your body run “energy highways” called meridians. Scientists can’t dissect a body and find meridians, but they can find them with electromagnetic measures.

You have several hundred meridians, of which 14 are most important. One of those works with the mid-brain to scan for danger, and keep in place the habits your energy system thinks keep you safe. It’s usually called Triple Warmer (from Chinese medicine) and you should get to know it.

Why am I telling you this?

Because – if you suffer from nerves – nerves are not your problem. They are the appropriate response to what your mind/body/spirit perceives as a problem.

Say you have a presentation to make. You find yourself fidgeting and wandering around the front of the room, even though your boss or some speaker coach said to stand still.

You can’t stand still because your brain is telling you need to walk out of the room. Your body is trying to soothe the mid-brain into thinking you’re ready to slide out of the room any minute, and you feel less anxious.

Say you have a big audition. You find your knees knocking and your throat parched.

That’s because your mid brain has dried up your saliva so you can’t choke, if you need to run out of the room. You are also breathing shallowly so any nearby predators can’t hear you inhale or exhale. And your knees? All the energy that makes you ready to kick the director, if you need to, is getting dammed up and needs to go somewhere.

Sounds crazy, huh? It’s just a SPEECH! It’s just an AUDITION! Why would a body over-react like that?

The mid-brain evolved when we lived in pre-historic times. And for your gene pool to have survived this long, your ancestors had to have excellent mid-brains, capable of avoiding the worst danger.

Now What?

The trick isn’t to smother the nerves. That just makes your body work harder to let you know, “Seriously! That guy in the suit wants to hurt you!”

The trick is to teach your brain and body the difference between actual danger and ego danger. The difference between this tee shot and a gun shot. The difference between this opening night and a bar fight. The difference between giving a sales pitch and being boiled in pitch.

Next month, we’ll look at a few ways to help your body/mind/spirit sort out what’s real danger from what’s not.

In the meantime, here’s a simple exercise from Energy Medicine guru Donna Eden, to help calm down the meridian that sends that fight, flight or freeze energy through your system.

Harness the Energy Around You!

You can do this sitting, standing, walking, working, watching TV, riding the subway, in a meeting – anywhere you have two hands. You can’t do it too much.

You’ll just sit, with your arms crossed. At least, that’s how it will look to everyone else. One of your hands will be on your rib cage, instead of your crossed arm. And the other will be at your elbow, instead of further up.

Right hand on left rib cage. Left hand on right outer elbow. Then switch. Or not. Feel how you start to relax in this position. Donna calls it The Triple Warmer Hug.

It feels gooooood to do, once you tune in. Better still, it starts to teach your body not to go into hyper alert all the time. That’s a lesson that will pay dividends down the road, I promise. 

In the meantime, listen to your body. Pay attention to WHEN your body is telling you to be nervous. Start to look beneath the nerves to what is triggering you. THAT’S where you will start to focus, so that you can begin to teach your mid-brain how to step into your life in the 21^st century.

Have fun with your observations.  See how much you can shift your energy around nerves just by noticing them.  See you next time!