Three Ways to Start Listening to Your Nervous System
What Your Nervous System Is Trying to Tell You
The signals aren't the problem — they're the message.
There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from feeling like you’re at war with your own body. You notice a symptom — heart racing, brain fog rolling in, limbs feeling heavy as wet sand — and your first instinct is to fight it, ignore it, or Google how to make it stop.
We understand that instinct. When you've been sick for months or years, symptoms can feel like the enemy. But what if they're actually messengers?
What Is Your Nervous System Actually Doing?
Your nervous system is not malfunctioning. It is doing exactly what nervous systems are designed to do: scanning your environment for safety, processing an enormous amount of information, and responding to protect you.
In people navigating Long COVID, ME/CFS, chronic Lyme, and other complex chronic illnesses, the nervous system has often been pushed far beyond its capacity — by illness itself, by repeated medical trauma, by the relentless effort of simply trying to function in a world that wasn't built for bodies like yours.
The result is a nervous system stuck in high alert. Not broken. Stuck.
The Signals Are a Language
Fatigue that crashes over you after a short walk. The way your heart rate spikes when you stand. The sound sensitivity that makes ordinary conversation feel like too much. Brain fog that descends without warning.
These are not random. These are your nervous system communicating — in the only language it has — that something needs your attention.
In the TENDing Method, we call this "listening to the soil." Before a gardener plants anything, they kneel down and pay attention to what the earth actually needs. Not what they wish it needed. Not what worked in someone else's garden. What this soil, this season, this plant is telling them.
Your symptoms are an invitation to that same kind of attention.
The Problem with Pushing Through
Most of us have been taught — explicitly or implicitly — that the right response to a symptom is to override it. Push through the fatigue. Ignore the dizziness. "Mind over matter."
For people with chronic illness, this approach is not just unhelpful. It's harmful.
When you push through nervous system signals instead of responding to them, you are essentially telling your body: Your messages don't matter. I will not listen to you. Over time, this erodes trust between you and your body — and makes it harder to develop the kind of attuned relationship that actually supports healing.
Pacing is not giving up. Resting is not weakness. They are responses to real information your body is giving you.
Now that we’ve said all that, here we go!
Three Ways to Start Listening
You don't have to overhaul everything. These are small starting places:
1. Name what you notice. When a symptom arises, practice observing it without immediately reacting. "My chest feels tight." "My energy is dropping." This creates a tiny bit of space between sensation and response.
2. Ask what the signal might be trying to protect you from. Fatigue after over-exertion is your nervous system saying: slow down before you crash. Heat intolerance might be your body saying: I need cool and quiet right now. There's often a logic, even when it's frustrating.
3. Respond with something gentle. You don't have to fix it. You just have to acknowledge it. A few slow breaths. A change of position. A moment of stillness.
That’s it. This is the beginning of tending.
You Don't Have to Do This Alone
Learning to listen to your nervous system — after years of being told to ignore it — takes time, community, and guidance. That's exactly what TENDing Foundations is designed to provide.
Over 6 weeks, you'll work alongside Michele Renee DC MAc, Karen Lawson MD, and Brenna Erickson DC to:
Understand what your nervous system is actually doing — and why
Learn body-based practices to help it feel safer
Build a personalized pacing and self-care toolkit
Find community with others who truly understand
Move from survival mode toward sustainable healing
Our next cohort is forming now. If you're ready to stop fighting your body and start tending it, we'd love to have you with us. You’ll be led by experts, including one who is living with Long COVID.
➤ Learn more and register at bodyluminary.com
Michele Renee, DC, MAc • Integrative Provider & Educator • Living with Long COVID since 2020