This Can Be Here Too… a mantra for the overwhelm

This past week, I had the immense honor of delivering the opening keynote at a rural behavioral health conference. The topic, "This Can Be Here Too: Grounding Your Nervous System Amidst Uncertainty," is deeply personal to me, focusing on nervous system awareness and the transformative power of co-regulation. What I didn't share from the stage, however, was just how much I had to practice what I preached in the hours leading up to that very moment.

Let's be honest: even for someone who speaks about presence and regulation, procrastination and pre-performance anxiety are very real. Despite knowing the material inside and out, I found myself in the familiar pre-presentation scramble, feeling the weight of a looming deadline and the internal chatter of self-doubt. The worry about whether my message would resonate, whether the tech would cooperate, whether I'd truly land with the audience – it all built up right until it was time to walk on stage.

And that's where my own keynote became my real-time challenge.

My core message for the audience was simple: "This can be here too." It's an invitation to acknowledge and accept whatever you're feeling – grief, excitement, skepticism, overwhelm, or even profound gratitude – rather than fighting against it. Because, as I shared, "before we can truly learn, we have to land." (As an important aside, I learned this mantra from my dear friend, mentor, and coach, Shirin Eskandani. You can learn more about her incredible work here.)

In those final moments before the keynote, with my heart racing and my mind buzzing, I had to turn that invitation inward. "Chrissy," I told myself, "this nervousness can be here too. Your hope, your self-doubt, your gratitude for this opportunity, your worry about whether your message will resonate—it can all be here too."

It wasn't about magically eliminating the anxiety. It was about creating space for it, accepting it as part of the experience, rather than letting it hijack my focus. By anchoring into my breath and consciously choosing acceptance, I could feel my own nervous system begin to settle. It was a subtle, yet profound, shift from fighting against my internal state to simply allowing it to be present.

This personal moment underscored another key point of my keynote: co-regulation happens in relationship. My ability to "land" in my own nervous system wasn't just for my benefit; it was for the audience's too. When a speaker, a leader, a clinician, or a colleague is grounded, that presence can literally help others feel safe and settled. It’s an unspoken borrowing of regulation that happens constantly in human interaction. By taking responsibility for my own internal state, I was better able to offer a truly present and hopefully, co-regulating, experience for everyone in the room.

As I closed my keynote, I left the audience with a powerful quote from Bayo Akomolafe that felt more relevant than ever given my own journey to the stage: "The times are urgent. Let us slow down."

For all of us in the demanding field of behavioral health, and indeed, in life, it often feels like everything demands urgency. But my experience this week, both in preparing for and delivering this keynote, reinforced a vital truth: our capacity to serve, to lead, and to heal begins with our own awareness and our willingness to invite all of ourselves to be present. When we accept "what is," we create the vital space for everything else to unfold.

It was a powerful reminder that the principles we advocate for others are often the very ones we need to apply most diligently to ourselves.