137 - I'm Okay When I'm Okay: Rewriting the Female Nervous System
What if the root of overwhelm, urgency, and burnout isn't that you're doing too much—but that your nervous system learned that your safety depends on everyone else being okay first?
In this episode, Sarah explores one of the most common patterns she sees in women: "I'm okay when you're okay." While this response once served an important survival function, many women now find themselves trapped in cycles of hyper-responsibility, people pleasing, urgency, resentment, and exhaustion.
Sarah unpacks why the female nervous system often defaults to tending, managing, soothing, and caring for others before caring for ourselves—and why healing isn't about becoming detached or uncaring.
Instead, it's about building the capacity to return to yourself first.
Through personal stories, nervous system insights, and practical examples, Sarah explores what it means to move toward a new paradigm:
I'm okay when I'm okay.
We can care about others, without abandoning ourselves.
Episode Transcript:
Sarah Tacy: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to Threshold Moments. Today, we are going to talk about one of the underlying patterns in the female nervous system. This pattern is the pattern of I am okay when you are okay. We could say for many nervous systems, it is I am okay when it is okay. I'm okay when I reach my goal. I'm okay when...
Sarah Tacy: Right? And our okayness is dependent on things outside of us. For the female nervous system, it makes so much sense that unlike the male nervous system, where they say that the first response of being lit up or being activated would be fight or flight. But for a female nervous system that generally has [00:01:00] less testosterone than a male nervous system, what would have been safer for us when we lived in villages?
Sarah Tacy: Not fighting, not maybe
Sarah Tacy: flighting. Maybe fight. It most likely is tending and befriending. It is most likely our ability to take a heightened situation and help people to calm it down. Also, when we are in service to our community, we become highly needed, and if we are highly needed, highly loved, highly valued, we are going to be more protected and provided for.
Sarah Tacy: I do know that in healthy villages, those that are ill, those that are sick, are also taken care of. However, I do think that it was one of our highest survival strategies to fall [00:02:00] into what some will call hyper-social. Hyper-social can be thought of being outside of the range of regulation because you no longer have real authentic choice.
Sarah Tacy: You are working more from the pattern default of safety depends on other people being calm, other people liking me, and other people being happy, other people seeing my worth, other people understanding my value. That is a very high bar, and in my opinion, it is what leads so many women to burnout, overwhelm, over-responsibility, and fatigue I have seen through my program Resourced, most people come in feeling under-resourced, feeling overworked, overburdened, [00:03:00] feeling like they don't have enough time, that they don't, uh, have an ability to really locate themselves, that they are in a constant state of urgency.
Sarah Tacy: But what I see on the other side over and over and over again is that people say, "I thought I came in for stress," or, "I thought I came in for parenting, but what I didn't expect was that when things get heated with my partner, I know how to come to a place of safety in myself first and then into the partnership.
Sarah Tacy: When shit hits the fan," somebody said this to me in an accent, which just made it so much better, "I feel like I have the tools, like I have the foundation." So that their sense of okayness is less dependent on their kids' state, on their spouse's state, on the feedback that they [00:04:00] get on when hard things happen So I got really excited because I was like, "Oh this is the phrase moving women from I'm okay when you're okay to I'm okay when I'm okay."
Sarah Tacy: Before I go into my reckoning with this phrase and this work, I would also love to add that one of the first stages of freeze is called owl. So there are five phases that Bridget Vixens outlines in her book, and the first one being owl, which is to camouflage. So, so many things that fit in the hyper range that are not just pure fight or flight, but might be global high intensity activation, this constant state of urgency or hyper-social, meaning we do everything like this, an up, up, up energy, and I'm happy and I'm good, and what else do you [00:05:00] need?
Sarah Tacy: But inside, for those things that are hyper inside, there's a freezing of the sense of self in order to merge, in order to blend, in order not to disrupt anything, and in order to be of service to a more harmonious environment. So we often will put aside our inner environment to serve the outer environment
Sarah Tacy: I pause here because I think that's important to give it breath to land, to say we're not doing anything wrong. It's not strange that we do it. It makes sense because society has told us to do all of these things. There are studies that show that there's more pressure on women, for example, to keep a tidy house, that if [00:06:00] a man had a house that was not tidy, someone would go in and go like, "Oh my gosh, he's just so busy.
Sarah Tacy: He's getting so much done in the world." And if you were to walk into a woman's apartment or house, then it'd be like, "Man, she just can't keep her stuff together." So there are these ex- expectations that we would even not be okay until everybody else's opinions and vision of us is okay, and that is set so much higher
Sarah Tacy: I believe that when we were in smaller villages, that the I'm okay when you're okay was more reciprocal with the environment, with one another, and there was more health in it. In a patriarchal system, in a capitalistic system, it becomes more of unpaid labor, of unseen responsibilities, of expectations that lead women to feeling more exhausted, [00:07:00] and this is a place where we tend to lose our power and become more subservient.
Sarah Tacy: So we get to say it's not our fault. It is an intelligent inherited pattern that, put into an unhealthy system, becomes harmful to us. Now, as I play in my own life with this okay, this idea that I am okay when I am okay, what I have realized is that I am still going to be affected if my child were having a tantrum for 45 minutes.
Sarah Tacy: My nervous system is supposed to respond. And so I can use tools. I've said before, one of my best ones is, like, humming at a low enough tone that it's for me and not to override her. I have found things where wrestling works with my kids when they're fighting. But having my kids fight with each [00:08:00] other, it makes sense that the first response would be, "Somebody's attacking my child.
Sarah Tacy: Who's the perpetrator?" And, "Oh no, my child is attacking a child," right? 'Cause they're, like, going at each other. And so then it's like, oh no, the shame of like, oh my gosh, my child is doing... And so there are these parts to heal in myself, but also it makes sense that the outer environment should and would have an effect on me That is called health.
Sarah Tacy: I could throw out words like sociopathic or psychopathic or narcissist- narcissistic or egotistic, and all of these are pointing towards somebody who is so involved with themselves and their own state that the environment and others' emotions really don't have any impact on them. That's not what we're going for.
Sarah Tacy: So what does it look like if we're going for I'm okay when I'm [00:09:00] okay, and I have a heart that cares about my community and cares and loves the ones it cares and loves for and the things it cares and loves for
Sarah Tacy: I did a post recently on Instagram about coming to this realization like, "Oh, this is what my work is all about. This is the foundation of the female nervous system, and we need an upgrade. And although it's not our fault, it can be our responsibility in the best, most empowering way possible." And then I get on the plane, and my husband texts me something about my daughter, which I love to say she is healthy, she is well.
Sarah Tacy: But it was unsettling to me, and it was... Oh, man, it got a mama bear part going, and my unhealed part from a very similar matchy-matchy scenario just brought so much tenderness and sadness. And I was like, "Oh, I'm not feeling [00:10:00] okay knowing that she is feeling hurt, burdened, and in pain over this thing
Sarah Tacy: Anytime I get excited about something healing, I can fall into a perfectionist place of thinking like, "Oh, in order to avoid this, do this."
Sarah Tacy: And so Sweet Life gave me an opportunity to see myself and to also really look at my relationship with my husband and noticing how I feel when he's stressed, right? Noticing when my kids are stressed, how I feel. So how do we move from my sense of safety and joy and happiness not being totally dependent on other people healing first or other people changing or environment changing?[00:11:00]
Sarah Tacy: Turns out The equation is still the same The equation is still body first The equation is still small doable pieces of self-care, especially when it feels like you don't have time for it Especially when it seems like that small doable piece that you did is not enough to persistently unhook from the pattern of urgency and overwhelm, knowing that it brings us towards burnout, towards resentment.
Sarah Tacy: Resentment is what happens when we say yes to things that we wanna say no to
Sarah Tacy: We say yes to things we wanna say no to when we are in a default pattern, which often happens with a good amount of speed And so any [00:12:00] doable bit of self-care. So for me, while I was on the plane, I put my hands on my heart, and I really pressed my hands into my heart. Science currently is saying it's because the vagus nerve is there Ah!
Sarah Tacy: But all you have to do is try it on your own body. Take both hands, press them into your heart And notice if your breath shifts
Sarah Tacy: And so we add a layer of support not to distract from my emotions, but allow me to be with them, for the emotion to flow through and not get stuck or stifled Part of I'm okay when you're okay is also the freezing and the pushing down of emotions so that everybody else can be comfortable. And so as I press my hands onto my heart And I [00:13:00] allow myself to feel more supported I'm also able to then have a few waves of sadness, of tears.
Sarah Tacy: And when I come into a story in my head that amplifies the emotions that is not necessarily speaking to truth, I can unhook, take a breath, and say, "Okay, another round." And so I'll do another round of hands on heart, or sometimes literally just hugging myself. I was on a plane, so I wasn't gonna, like, get up and jump around.
Sarah Tacy: And then when I got home, I said the things out loud. I said the things that aren't pretty, the things that, um, a tantrumy, um... I'm trying to think of the word. Like, a part of me that I probably wouldn't want anyone to see, the thoughts I wouldn't want anyone to [00:14:00] hear, just saying them out loud, giving them voice.
Sarah Tacy: And then I began a journaling exercise where I journal to the thing or to the person or the event and let it journal back from me- to me. And I always learn something from that. So what you're hearing me say is I am, number one, I resource myself with something that is comforting, a layer of self-care.
Sarah Tacy: When I had time and space, I said the thing out loud instead of just keeping it in my head, so I had space for anger. And sometimes the anger is, like, jumping up and down or stomping or pushing against a wall is a real good one for so many people, or pulling up against a table And then I did something to orient, to give myself a bigger perspective.
Sarah Tacy: From here, we get more clean anger. Deb Kearns talked once about clean anger to me and said that she had a scenario where once she could take the thing [00:15:00] that fired her up and she could move the anger and move it through, she got a, the best manual she had ever written because she was so clear on the things that she wanted and the things that she didn't want.
Sarah Tacy: And so for me, this thus began a s- process of conversations with my husband, of conversations with other people involved, of looking into the future of next right steps. So the I'm okay when I'm okay does not mean that I dissociate from the people around me. I get to feel the effects. I get to see what is not mine.
Sarah Tacy: I get to use nervous system tools and not rely on other people saying, "I'm sorry, you're right, I shouldn't have done that," or not relying on my daughter feeling really good about something for me to come back to a place of stability and health. Pendulation is [00:16:00] important. Being tidal is important, meaning I don't go straight to calm, and I might not go straight to stability, although I may add on layers of support that can help stabilize me while I'm feeling a wave of emotion I just had Sarah Avant Stover on.
Sarah Tacy: I think her episode will come out before this one comes out, and she also spoke to this and how she was using internal family systems to work with the various parts inside of her so that she could clarify and heal the things inside of her that needed healing, so that when she went to have the conversation and when she ma- went to make big life decisions, she was doing so from a place that felt like her higher self and not her small hurt parts, that she would have time to meet those individually I hope this was helpful, and [00:17:00] I would love to say if you're interested in doing more of this work for yourself, you can tune in to Opting Out of Urgency, which is a free three-day course, which really helps to show, like, how do we slow down and find different paces where we can attune to what is true, where we can attune to what is real, where we can pause before falling into old patterns, which will eventually lead to the option for Resourced, which is 12 live calls.
Sarah Tacy: I feel like I'm not supposed to say any of this ahead of time, but I'm just gonna tell you, 12 live calls over 14 weeks. So you have time off around the holidays, and you have time to practice this relational dynamic before the holidays, before the New Year's, and then integration work in January. And then you get three months of Monday through Friday daily drips, which are these short five to 10-minute meditations that help to integrate all the small parts.
Sarah Tacy: All of this happens while [00:18:00] you're part of a community, while you get access to my monthly membership juice for movement practices with this Oh, it's just the best. And hopefully during this time of the launch and of hearing about opting out of urgency and resource, you'll also have the opportunity to hear the testimonials of the women who have been in the program, who literally, it was the best thing to, uh, take 20 to 30 minutes and have conversations with people in it, whom actually said, "This saved my life," and I don't think that's too small of a statement.
Sarah Tacy: Another who said, "I was able to present in front of 1,500 people live, and somebody was in the comments trolling, and I could keep my center." And so again and again and again, I hear from these women who have talked about relationships in work, in friendships, with kids, with lovers, with [00:19:00] partners, and so much of it is coming back to the sovereign self, to a sense of center, to opting out of urgency, to resourcing the nervous system, and moving from there.
Sarah Tacy: We will always be human. If we are lucky, we will always feel the connection to our environment and those around us. But the more we begin to start from center, the more our life becomes the one that we want to live. Thank you so much