Auntie Mille’s Corner is where I bring clinical knowledge to the kind of conversation I might have with family around the house. I talk about trauma, relationships, family, healing, PTSD, gender-based violence, emotional wellness, and sometimes just life; grounded in clinical insight.
I will not just provide you information. I want to invite you into the conversation. Some of these conversations are heavy, but I don’t believe they always have to feel heavy. Sometimes we can learn, laugh, think, heal, and have an “Okay, baby, listen’ moment all in the same conversation.
So pull up a chair and come see what Auntie Mille is talking about this week.
Auntie Mille’s Corner
When Your Brain Say’s '“You’re Fine” but Your Body Says “Absolutely Not”
The Vagus Nerve, Your Nervous System & Somatic Regulation
Have you ever known you were okay, but apparently nobody told your body?
Nothing is happening right now. You're sitting in your own house, minding your business, and meanwhile your shoulders are up around your ears, your stomach is doing whatever it wants to do, your heart is beating faster, and your brain has opened approximately 47 tabs.
And you're telling yourself: Calm down. You're fine. There is literally nothing happening.
And your body says: “That's nice, but anyway...” 😂😂
That's because we don't experience stress and trauma only through our thoughts. Our bodies are involved in the conversation too. And one of the things involved in that conversation is the vagus nerve.
Okay, soooo... what is the vagus nerve?
First of all, it is VAGUS, not Vegas, although my speech-to-text has spent the last 24 hours trying to send everybody's nervous system to Nevada. 😂😂
The vagus nerve is a major communication pathway between your brain and your body. It starts in the brainstem and travels down through the neck into the chest and abdomen, communicating with areas involved in things like your heart rate, breathing, and digestion.
It's also an important part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which plays an important role in rest, digestion, recovery, and settling after stress. So when people say, “I feel stress in my body,” that's not just a figure of speech. You really can. Your breathing may change. Your muscles may tighten. Your stomach may start acting brand new. Your heart rate can change. You may feel restless, disconnected, foggy, frozen, or like you need to DO SOMETHING even though you have absolutely no idea what the something is.
The nervous system is doing what nervous systems do. But can I “reset” my vagus nerve? Now here's where TikTok, Instagram, and the University of Unsolicited Advice can get us in trouble. 😂😂
RESET YOUR VAGUS NERVE IN 30 SECONDS!”
Baby, no. We're not unplugging the router. There isn't a tiny reset button hidden behind your left ear. What we can do is use practices that work with our bodies and breathing to support regulation. That's where somatic interventions can be really helpful. Somatic simply means “of or relating to the body.” In therapy, a somatic approach brings attention to bodily sensations and physical experiences—things like breathing, muscle tension, posture, movement, temperature, or where we notice sensations in the body.
In other words, we're not only asking, “What am I thinking?” or “What am I feeling emotionally?” We're also asking, “What is happening in my body right now?” And that's important because sometimes your brain already understands what's happening. Your body hasn't caught up yet.
So let's give the body some information.
Look at the exercise in the picture below and try it with me:
