Your Nervous System Isn’t Failing You:
Why Overwhelm Is Often a Sign of Protection, Not Weakness
Welcome to Unlocking Your Greatness. If you’re here after the Rezzimax Conference, thank you for being in the room and continuing the conversation here. If you’re discovering this column for the first time, welcome.
I’m Wendy Bjork, and I’m honored you’re here. Whether you heard me speak or you’re reading these words for the first time, something brought you to this page. Maybe you’re tired of pushing through. Maybe you’re wondering why overwhelm feels heavier than it used to. Or maybe you simply know, deep down, that there has to be another way.
You’re in the right place. Today we’re exploring something that changes everything: your nervous system isn’t failing you. It’s protecting you.
Let me show you what I mean.
The Question That Follows Us At Some Point
Many women start hearing a familiar question. Sometimes it comes from other people. Sometimes it comes from inside. “Why does that bother you so much?” “Why can’t you just let it go?” On the surface, those questions sound reasonable. But underneath them is an assumption that the reaction is the problem.
What I’ve learned, both personally and professionally is that triggers aren’t signs of weakness. They’re signs of a nervous system doing its job. When something activates us, it’s not because we’re broken or dramatic. It’s because our body recognizes a pattern it learned a long time ago.
The nervous system doesn’t ask, “Is this logical?” It asks: “Is this familiar?” “Is this safe?” And when safety hasn’t been fully restored yet, the body responds first, long before the mind has words.
How Survival Patterns Form
Remember what I shared about 7th grade? Those hallways, the noise. The unspoken rules about belonging. At that age, belonging feels like survival. And being different feels dangerous. Most of us didn’t have language for what was happening then. We just learned what to hide, what to endure. What not to say out loud. Those early lessons don’t disappear, they follow us into adulthood.
Into our relationships, into how our bodies respond to stress. If you grew up in environments where you had to:
• Manage other people’s emotions
• Stay composed under pressure
• Perform well to feel secure
• Hide discomfort
• Push through stress
Your nervous system learned that vigilance was smart. It learned to brace, and over time, that bracing became your baseline. You don’t consciously choose to tighten your jaw or feel wired at night. Your body is repeating a pattern that once kept you safe.
The Cost of Always Being On
Bracing works in short bursts, becoming exhausting when it never turns off. When your nervous system stays on guard:
• Clarity becomes harder to access
• Decisions feel heavier
• Resilience seems lower
• Sleep stops restoring you
• Your body feels inflamed or tense
You may still function well. From the outside, you look steady. But inside? Your system is negotiating with stress all day long. That negotiation is costly, not because you’re weak, but because vigilance requires enormous energy.
Endurance Is Not the Same as Strength
Many high-functioning women confuse the two. You’re used to pushing through, managing, carrying more than most people see. But strength isn’t how long you can endure stress.
Strength is how quickly you can return to safety. Your nervous system changes through repetition, not force. You can’t out-discipline it, you can’t shame it into calm. You can only retrain it through consistent signals of safety.
How Safety Gets Relearned
Safety isn’t relearned through dramatic transformation, it’s relearned through small, steady cues. A consistent evening ritual. Reducing invisible stressors in your environment. Choosing calm responses over reactive ones. Tools that help your body stand down. Repetition matters more than intensity.
When your nervous system experiences the same safe cue over and over, it gathers new evidence:
I don’t have to brace right now.
I can soften.
I can settle.
That evidence accumulates quietly. Over time, your baseline shifts.
What This Looked Like in My Life
For years, I struggled with migraines, MS symptoms, and a nervous system that never felt like it could fully settle. One practice that changed everything for me was creating a simple nightly ritual: ten minutes at the end of the day with a Rezzimax Tuner (a gentle vibration tool) and lavender essential oil.
Eyes closed, tuner between the soles of my feet. A gentle hum. Not for performance, just enough vibration to signal settling. That simple practice became a bridge between the busyness of the day and rest.
The power wasn’t in doing more. It was in doing something small, steady, and familiar enough that my body began to trust it. That’s how regulation builds. Quietly, over time.
You’re Not Broken
If you feel overwhelmed, reactive, fatigued, or wound tight, you’re not behind. Your nervous system has been working hard, adapting.
Adaptation is intelligent. The work now is guiding that intelligence toward steadiness instead of survival. That doesn’t require perfection. It requires awareness, consistency, and choosing safety; even when pushing feels more familiar.
From Understanding to Embodiment
You’ve heard the framework now, you understand how your nervous system works. But understanding doesn’t create change. Real transformation happens when you move from intellectual awareness into embodied experience; when your body actually feels safe enough to release the bracing and receive what’s available. This is where many high-achieving women get stuck. They know what to do, their bodies remain unconvinced.
Shifting out of survival mode requires giving your body consistent signals of safety, not just once, but repeatedly, until your nervous system begins to trust that calm is real. One of the ways I support women in this process is through guided nervous system practices that help the body experience calm, not just understand it.
If you’re ready to move beyond understanding and into felt change, I’m hosting Abundance Through the Body, a guided experience on February 25th. It’s designed specifically for this: helping your nervous system recognize abundance as safe.
When we learn to receive through the body rather than in spite of it, everything shifts. You can learn more at HeartsofWellness.com.
One Small Place to Begin Tonight
Notice one signal of safety your body already responds to. Maybe it’s:
• A certain scent
• A particular breathing rhythm
• A quiet time of day
• A short grounding ritual
Don’t overcomplicate it, one signal. Repeated. This is how self-trust rebuilds, not through force or performance, but through relationship with your own body.
Why This Matters
You are likely someone who’s done everything right. You’ve worked hard, shown up and delivered. Something inside you knows that pushing harder isn’t the answer anymore. That awareness isn’t weakness. It’s intelligence.
Your nervous system isn’t failing you, it’s protecting you. With steady guidance, it can learn to protect you in ways that feel calmer, clearer, and more sustainable. That’s where real change begins. That’s where self-trust is rebuilt.
Thank you for being here, whether you found me on stage or on the page. I’m honored to walk this journey alongside you.
Continue Unlocking Your Greatness: Join me for Abundance Through the Body on February 25th. A guided experience in helping your nervous system recognize abundance as safe. Details at HeartsofWellness.com
Wendy Bjork is an international bestselling author, nationally syndicated columnist, inspirational speaker, and founder of Hearts of Wellness. As a mentor, she guides women living with Multiple Sclerosis and other chronic illness challenges to build a strong Foundation of Wellbeing One Whole-istic™ Step at a Time. Diagnosed with MS at fifteen, Wendy has navigated over three decades of chronic illness while raising a family and building a career. Her lived experience revealed the gaps in care, connection, and clarity that many women with chronic conditions face, and ignited her calling to bridge them.
Wendy teaches women to move from survival mode into self-trust by working with their nervous systems and creating consistent signals of safety. She believes healing doesn’t come from hustling harder, it comes from listening deeper.
Learn more at HeartsofWellness.com.
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