Doomscrolling When You’re Stressed AF (and How to Come Back to Yourself)

When the world feels loud and heavy, it’s easy to feel pulled away from yourself. The scrolling, the missed practice you paid for, the quiet ache of anger, grief, and love all living in one body at once. In this episode, Keri speaks directly to that moment—when your nervous system is overwhelmed and even the tools you trust feel just out of reach.

With honesty and care, we explore what dysregulation actually looks like in real life and why fight, flight, freeze, and fawn narrow our capacity to respond with clarity. We name an important truth: yoga, breathwork, and meditation don’t fix broken systems on their own—but grounded, resourced people are how change becomes sustainable. Through simple, compassionate reflections and practices, this episode offers a way back into the body—without bypassing the pain, shaming yourself for pulling away, or pretending everything is fine. It’s an invitation to stay rooted, human, and open-hearted when it would be easier to shut down.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Context
• 0:45 Collective Dysregulation Explained
• 2:16 Doomscrolling Versus Nourishing Practices
• 3:21 Compassion For Disconnection
• 4:33 Practices Don’t Change Systems
• 6:02 Why Being Resourced Matters
• 8:18 Meeting Yourself As You Are
• 10:53 Emergency Tools And Invitation
• 11:43 Gratitude And Listener Connections

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

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 mysteries, right now there's a lot going on in the world, and even in my immediate community, there's a lot going on just like within the region, because many of us in the United States have been hit with a pretty intense winter storm and navigating that, but also want to talk about the larger things that are going on in our world related to ICE and the violence and the videos and the constant barrage that we're getting about our administration and what's happening in our communities around the country of the United States. And I recognize that not all of you that listen are currently living in the United States or have ever lived in the United States. And so, in your own way, I'm sure that even if you're not local to these areas that I'm talking about, that maybe you're feeling some of this in your own way or that you can relate to it. And so I just kind of want to acknowledge that collectively we're in a time of really intense dysregulation. And when I talk about dysregulation, I'm I'm referring to the state that your nervous system is wiring towards. And when you're in a state of fight or flight or fawn or freeze, and your capacity to feel calm and grounded and creative and connected is smaller, it's so easy to doom scroll, or to spend more time on screens, or to read books instead of meditating, or to avoid taking the yoga class, or sign up for the yoga class, but not go to the yoga class, or not do the things that actually help you to feel grounded and help you to feel creative and open and to take sustained action towards helping this world be a better place. Like literally, your nervous system will tell you, leave your yoga mat in the corner, we need to doom scroll instead. And the irony is that a lot of those activities that I know so many of you are finding yourself doing right now, I've had women telling me they're having a hard time peeling themselves away from their screens. I led a candlelight restorative yoga class on Zoom inside of the Nourished Woman Sanctuary, just like two days ago, as at the time of me recording this. And many women signed up for that and paid for that, but then not one showed up. And I told my husband, I was like, of course, of course they didn't show up. Everyone is struggling so hard right now, they're so dysregulated. And so I just want to offer up this lens of compassion that there is a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot going on right now. And it's so easy to feel deeply heart sick. I myself have had periods where I oscillate between being angry and being sad and feeling grief and feeling hopeless and feeling inspired and feeling just in love with humanity because even in the midst of unthinkable things happening in our world, there are still people doing very beautiful things. I feel a little emotional talking about it. I was watching a video about the vigil from Alex Pratt's celebration of life, and it was people singing about peace and about coming together. And I just, gosh, like I want to be honest that I too, I too am here in the trenches with you, and I too am struggling with some dysregulation, and I too find myself being pulled away from the things that nourish myself. And I also know, I know that for you, and I know that for me, and I know that for us as a collective, and I especially know it for those of you that are empaths, like you're feeling this. Even if you don't know you're feeling it, like you're feeling what is happening. It is impacting you, at least on subconscious levels, if not conscious levels. And it's really natural to turn away from the quiet contemplative practices that bring you peace and that shift your state and open you up to do things that help you take action in a way that matters. And I obviously like I will be honest with you, that yoga and breath work and chanting and meditation and analyzing your emotions and going to therapy, they don't change systems that need that need to be different. They don't change our public health system, they don't stop ICE from violence, they don't shift our leadership towards different choices. They don't, like, they fucking don't, and I wish they did. But those are those are systems that need a different kind of change, right? And I get it, like your yoga practice isn't gonna change that. But also those systems that need changing require resourced women and men and people of any gender to show up and vote with their dollars and call their senators and boycott companies and elect people who matter, and you need people who matter and are gonna move us forward. You need to be resourced to do those things, and you can't really do those things when your nervous system is super dysregulated and you're stuck doom scrolling or you're overwhelmed or you're enraged or you're numb or you're shut down. And maybe that's not for you, like maybe you don't want to step into that role. And I know most of you do though. Most of you want to feel like you're putting your time and your energy towards social change and justice, and it's okay if it's really hard for you to do your yoga practice right now. There's nothing wrong with you. I would just say you're awake. And it's okay if you feel heartsick, and it's okay if you're crying or you feel the tears, but they can't come. And it's okay if you're experiencing any of the things that I'm describing. It just means that you're alive and you're awake, honey. And also maybe being disconnected from your yoga practice and the community that your yoga practice can give you. Maybe those are exactly the things that you need from yourself and the world needs from you. And maybe those moments when your nervous system is telling you to snack and scroll and distract and avoid and watch are actually the signs and signals that it's time for you to sit for just a couple minutes of meditation or to do five minutes of breath work or 15 minutes of yoga and then to see how that makes you feel. Because I think I think I know you at least enough to know that you value how these practices shift your state and that you're proud of who you are for doing them. And they're gonna be harder to do them right now. So just like expect that shit. Expect it to be harder. If you've been at it long enough, you may have the mindset of when I think that I can't practice yoga, it's the time when I need it most. It's something that my original teacher really drilled into me. And it was like that deep knowing that when you can't, when you don't feel like you can meditate, you need to meditate for an hour kind of thing. And it's like, oh, it means you need it double. And so I just want to reflect that back to you that it's like you probably need to be even more resourced right now, and it will feel so much harder to do it right now. And also true, like if you want to be a catalyst for healing and shift and humanity and all of the things that you care about in your own political ideologies and all the things that you want for our country and our world, then you being resourced is a huge part of how you're gonna get there. And my method is really focused on helping you with your nervous system. So just know like you don't have to come to these practices and pretend that you're not feeling these things. This is not about gaslighting yourself, it's about meeting yourself honestly in real time in the present moment, just full on, letting all of it be there and choosing to do the work anyways, because it opens you up. It opens the space up inside of you, it opens up inspired action, it opens up intuition, it opens up bandwidth, it opens up connection, it opens up kindness, like it opens up all the things that I know you probably want to see in the world, and I certainly want to too. Sending you so much love, and I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to an emergency meditation and breath work practice. It's just 10 minutes and it is literally designed for when nervous system state is more in the fight or flight realm. I want you to practice that if that speaks to you. And if you want more specific practices based on the science of your nervous system, if you want to be closer to me and get access to my full roster of practices, my candlelight restorative yogas on Zoom, all of those things on demand, then join us inside the Nourished Woman Sanctuary. I think you'll find all kinds of good things that meet you right where you are. 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.