The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino

This Isn’t About a New You — It’s About Coming Home to You

• Keri Marino • Episode 22

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If your brain feels like it has 47 tabs open right now — same.


This episode is about the invisible weight of December, the pressure to start fresh, and why stillness can feel downright uncomfortable when you’ve been running on fumes.


I share honestly about my own resistance to slowing down — how I found myself avoiding meditation, what fight, flight, freeze, and fawn actually look like in real life, and the moment I realized even joyful things can overload the senses. Together, we’ll talk about how to gently work with your nervous system instead of pushing through it, so you can come back to calm, clarity, and choice.


We’ll explore what happens when you stop trying to “fix” yourself and start listening again — how your breath deepens, your body softens, and your mind finally quiets down. 

You’ll learn simple, body-first ways to reset that don’t require an hour-long routine — things like feeling your feet on the floor, softening your jaw, or following one slow exhale at a time.


Because what if you didn’t need a “new you” this year?
What if you just needed a moment to remember yourself?


I’m also inviting you to join me for a free New Year’s Day Tone-Setting Ceremony on Zoom— gentle yoga, meditation, and reflection to start 2026 grounded, calm, and clear. 


Free to all, meets 9-9:45am EST with replay. Register here.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Nourished Woman Podcast, a space for women who've been doing the work to grow and heal and are ready to feel good again, body, mind, and soul. I'm your host, Carrie Marino, somatic yoga therapist of over 16 years, mentor and mama of three. I help women like you fall in love with how yoga makes you feel. Alchemize the hard things you've been through and experience more pleasure and aliveness in your body and relationships. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in. I just know I can't survive. Without mystery. As I record this episode for you today, I am about to turn 40. It is peak December. We are just after Christmas and right before New Year's Eve. And I have been avoiding my meditation practice. I'm just gonna go right out for it. I'm gonna tell on myself to you. I've been avoiding it. I think that, and you can maybe relate to this. I think that this time of year and what it represents for me personally, but also what it represents for all of us personally, and in terms of this system and culture that we're in as well. And it's a beautiful season, don't get me wrong. Like I love so many aspects of December. I love that it becomes winter. I live somewhere where we get to really experience the change of the seasons. And also it's this invitation to draw in. And I feel like so many of us, as modern women, right, who are balancing both work inside and outside of our homes and in many different layers of relationships, and we're also trying to heal past trauma and emotionally be dialed in and emotionally intelligent and have healthy ways of expressing them. And I know if you're parenting, you're trying to do it in a really conscious way, and you want to allow your kids to feel their feelings, and you also want to teach them about boundaries and how to be a fully functioning adult out in the world, right? And then there's just like the stuff of what do you do with the random piles around your house that you've it's that like weird stuff that you're like, where do I put this? Do I get rid of it? Do I donate, donate it? Like all of those different things. And food, what am I gonna serve everybody? Okay, where do I get that? Like, how long does it take to cook? All of the different things, lady, like I see you. There is so much going on. And this time of year, this holiday season of the year is so much. And I know depending upon your religion and what you celebrate and what you don't, like, all of us have individual expressions of this. And I think even if you're not celebrating the Christmas holiday, for example, you can feel the sort of collective shift around you in other people. All right, so there's that. I've been avoiding my meditation practice. Chances are a lot of you have been avoiding your meditation practice or your breath work or your yoga practice. There's been some way that in the back of your mind, you know you want to be leaning into these practices, investing yourself in these practices. And also there's that part of you that's like, nope, I would rather avoid because there's so much going on. And I want to acknowledge that really your nervous system, my nervous system, it's actually telling us to avoid as a coping strategy. Because if you take an already over-functioning woman, I'm talking to you, and then you add in the fullness of a month like December, or for me, like May is another whopper of a month. And then you've layered that on top, which is predominantly a female-carried role in the world, the magic maker, if you will, of presents and Christmas cards being sent out and decorations and different events at your temple or whatever it is going on. You add all of that on top, and it's a recipe for your nervous system to be in fawn or freeze mode or fight or flight mode a lot of the time. And so there's less time spent in the sort of spacious, multidimensional, like open ease of the window of tolerance. When you're in fight or flight, or you're in more of a fawn or freeze place, your nervous system is going to try to keep you away from deeper feelings or processing or being tuned into your body, because your nervous system is going to be wired for safety, like wired for protection mode. Your nervous system is a safety software. And so when your nervous system is perceiving a threat, which could be just too much going on, too much stimulation, too much eating, too much sitting around and not moving, whatever it is, like too much social interaction, whatever it is. When you get that too much added in, it stresses your nervous system. Interestingly, my family and I went on a little road trip up to Asheville, North Carolina yesterday, and we truly just had a blast. We went to this really cool playground called Jake Rush, and it kind of looks like this wooden castle. There's all these layers and steps and this cool little webbed climbing thing that my daughter was super obsessed with. And then we did some other stuff too. We went to the Grove Park Inn. We had a delicious meal. We saw some insane gingerbread houses. We had this great experience. And also, true, like that for my nervous system, as fun and for my adventurous heart, like adventurous that experience was. It fed me on so many different levels. And it also was a very externally oriented day because I'm in new places with little people I'm responsible for. I have three kids, in case you don't know that about me. And you know, my husband is there, and there's all these logistics. Like it was a lot. And so it's very natural. I want to completely normalize that it's very natural for this particular moment to be one of those cycles out of practicing as frequently. And it's so counterintuitive because your yoga practice, your contemplative practice, your somatic practice or mindfulness, like those things, they are truly what actually anchor you into a state of ease in the present moment. When you are more in touch with your body, when I am more in touch with my body, life literally feels different. And I don't mean the like hyper anxious connection to your body, like if you have some sort of medical anxiety, I don't mean that kind of connection to your body. I mean more of this like global, this holistic connection to your body where you can literally feel your feet and you can notice that you have this spine in the middle of your body, and it is doing amazing things. And there are all these little nerves and pathways moving through there and traveling out into the distant regions of your fingers. And like there's so much incredibleness going on within your body. You know, you have a heart beating right now. You can feel the sensation of your clothes laying on your skin. When you can anchor yourself back into your body with your presence, and when you can be aware and really just more awake, that actually shifts everything. It can shift whether or not you're self-aware or just focused on everything around you and everyone else. So it like bridges this gap between looking out and looking in. So you're looking back in, and then you can feel your body relax and soften. You'll feel your posture shift. Maybe you'll naturally notice your breathing is slower and smoother and fuller. You might notice that suddenly those emotions that have been swirling, maybe like boiling on your stove from within, or maybe they're just kind of like simmering in the background, you barely notice them. Like those emotions, they might just start to even out and you might feel less charge around them. You might notice yourself actually seeing what you're seeing. Like you're not just in your head, you're in your body. And then that ripples out, that rimples out in who you are when you listen to your daughter ask you a question. Or who you are when you drive your car later and somebody needs to get out and they're being pushy. It changes it all. And so I know for me, I was literally writing in my journal last night about how I just feel full to the brim on every level. I feel mentally full to the brim. I feel emotionally full. I feel literally full of delicious food from the holidays. I feel overloaded with responsibility. Like I just feel like a sponge that's like absorbed all the things and it needs to squeeze and dry out. And as a mom of three young kids, I have to be really intentional and creative about that. And even if you don't have kids, you you probably like your life is crazy full too. You've got a lot going on, even if it's like, you know, habit things that you have going on, working with your habits and your ability to choose yourself. Like we've all got things going on. I do get that. And I also see that for me, and I'm so curious to hear from you. Please send me a message if this episode resonates with you. Like what your are you too feeling super oversaturated? Because I I know so many of you listening do feel that way. And how your nervous system is literally telling you you do not have time for self-care practices, or for doing your yoga practice, or for even slowing down when you're putting on your moisturizer, or not rushing about to get all the things done, or not constantly keeping your mind occupied with something outside of you. Like if you get a second to yourself, not playing the podcast, for example, not reading the book, not constantly filling every second of quiet and pause to be just focused on yourself, not turning that into another level of distraction. And so these practices they require, in a way, in moments like this, for you to consciously choose from your higher self. Like you've got to override what your first line of thinking is, and then tune in a layer more and actually make the choice on whether or not these practices are important and valuable for you, and how you know that they're gonna go against everything your body and nervous system is telling you, which is it's gonna be telling you to just constantly numb out and distract yourself. And your yoga practice is telling you the opposite, like it is the opposite vibe, and it is also quite frankly, it might be just the medicine that you need, that return to yourself. All right, one last thing I wanted to talk with you about just a little bit, and it's the New Year's Day vibes. Right now, I feel like everywhere I look, you can hear the same old stories around New Year, New You, and setting intentions and really getting clear on what your goals are for the year ahead. And and first off, like rock on. If this is something that you enjoy, if this motivates you and sort of lights a fire under your butt and gets you excited and you feel warm inside when you think about new year, new you, and really being intentional and goal-oriented, go for it. Like, absolutely get really clear on the things that you want for yourself in the year ahead and what you're gonna prioritize, and then also true, I think we can get a little oversaturated in this as well. I know for me, I do not want any more pressure to set goals for myself. And I also want to simultaneously acknowledge that a year has passed and that a new year is beginning, and that there is like we live on earth, we live in the world. That is an energetic shift for all of us, and so part of that intention of showing up in 2026 as the way I want to be, and that I I want for you to want for yourself to be, is really grounded and present and aware. Because wouldn't you rather lead this year ahead for you feeling really rooted and centered, for example, or feeling this spaciousness from within, or feeling the delight and really bottomless pleasure that comes with being in your body? Like, don't you want to set the tone for your year like that? I don't know about you, but that gosh, that sounds really good. And so I want to invite you to pause a little bit and perhaps not take on all of the pressure and expectation that can come with this time of year. Because I know many of my clients really grapple with perfectionism, like getting it just right, having it all be perfect, doing it perfectly, doing it good enough, whatever good enough is. I don't know how you define it. And so as you move into this New Year's stuff, I want to encourage you to just really consider that maybe right now, what all of us need, what you need is to come down from being so busy. Like back to the basics. Oh, I have a body. Hello, body. I can feel you, body. Oh my gosh, this body breathes. I can notice you, breath. I can slow you down, breath. Oh my goodness, I have a mind. There are so many thoughts in my mind. Where is my mind? How do I get this monkey mind to focus? Okay, just one moment at a time. There I go, there I go. So it's just this this way of like, what if actually the message that you need to hear right now is that you have permission to do less and you have permission to not have it all figured out yet, or to have precise clarity on how you're gonna get where you want to be from where you are, or have all the answers. Like you do not have to have that right now. And in fact, maybe, maybe, maybe what you need is to let yourself put some of those things down and to just come back to the basics. And the basics that I'm alluding to, to be clear, are a deep level of self-connection. You are present, you are aware, you are tuned in. All right, my love. Wishing you so many blessings as you close out 2025 and welcome in this new year of 2026. I am wishing you good health. I am wishing you peace of mind. I am wishing you wealth on so many different levels, financially and emotionally, and relationally, and educationally, like all the wealth and safety. Thank you all so much for being part of the Nourished Woman podcast this year. I want to invite you to a free nervous New Year's Day tone setting and ceremony and yoga practice that I'm leading. Gosh, that did not come out very smoothly. But basically, it is a 45-minute Zoom gathering where I will walk you through little ceremonies like lighting a candle and a somatic yoga practice that's really slow and soothing breath work and some meditation and some chanting practice. And all of this is just gonna culminate in this delicious, I think, delicious 45-minute experience that just really helps you return home to yourself and in the most grounded, like simplistic terms, set the tone for the year ahead. You can access that for free via the link down in my show notes. I love to have you join us. And if you want to share that with somebody, everyone is welcome. You can share that online, you can share it with a friend or on your social media. This is here for all women of all levels of yoga practice, from beginner to advanced, and you can do it right at home in your coziest clothes. I'd love to have you join us. Happy New Year. Thank you so much for listening to the Nourished Woman podcast. I would love to hear what resonated with you and what you're carrying with you out into your life. Send me a message on Instagram at the Nourished Woman or even in my email. Your messages really mean the world to me, so don't be shy. The beautiful music that you're hearing is by Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. You can find them on all streaming platforms. I'll see you next week for another episode.