☀️ the day I stopped blaming my husband’s metabolism

One of the biggest accelerators in my personal growth was finally owning this sentence:

I am my own responsibility.

When I decided I wanted to change my body, I realized it was going to be a job only I could do. No more complaining that my husband or my best friends were naturally thin. That became irrelevant. Their bodies weren't my business. My habits were.

I was going to choose what I ate.
I was going to choose how I moved.

And that choice would be independent of the people around me.

It’s a custom job. It’s an inside job.

But then something else shifted.

I realized my nervous system is also my responsibility.

Even if people around me were panicking, irritated, or spiraling, I still had agency. I could match their energy or I could refuse. I could jump into their storm or I could stay on the shoreline. That pause between their cause and my reaction was everything.

Taking responsibility for my own peace was empowering, but I wondered realistically if I was to live in community with other people, could it actually be sustainable?

There isn’t just my nervous system.

There’s also the shared nervous system of the house.

If you’re married, partnered, or even just living with another adult or child, the truth is this: one person absolutely impacts the other.

Example: You walk in the door in a stressed-out hurry, and suddenly the whole house feels tense. Your partner starts moving faster. The kids’ volume goes up. Even the dog acts weird. Or flip it: someone comes home grounded, humming to themselves, quietly tidying up, and suddenly you find yourself breathing deeper without even trying.

That’s called co-regulation.

I spotted this woman's shirt on vacation and I asked her if I could take a picture. I was laughing so hard.

In neuroscience terms, co-regulation means that our nervous systems literally influence one another through cues like tone of voice, facial expression, breathing patterns, and presence. We are wired to sync. Humans are herd animals. We match what we’re near.

But here’s the empowering part:

If one dysregulated person can shift the whole house downward,
one regulated person can shift it upward.

Here are a few ways to improve the nervous system of the house when one person is off:

1. Regulate yourself first
Before you try to fix anything or anyone, take 60 seconds to breathe low and slow. A regulated nervous system is contagious.

2. Narrate your state
Say something like “I’m feeling overstimulated, so I’m going to take 5 minutes to reset.” It signals to the whole house that the energy is temporary and handled.

3. Lower the volume everywhere
Quiet lighting, quieter voice, slower movements. Your body becomes the tuning fork the home syncs to.

4. Move the energy physically
Walk to the mailbox. Do a dish. Change a load of laundry. Movement tells your system “we’re safe.”

5. Don’t meet chaos with chaos
If someone else is elevated, match them one notch lower. Not dismissive, not patronizing — just grounded enough that they can find you.

6. Create a shared “reset cue”
A diffuser, a certain playlist, turning on lamps instead of overhead lights, a five-minute tidy. These become sensory signals of safety.

7. Make it a house culture
One sentence that changes everything: “This house defaults to peace.”

And speaking of matching energy… my sister just sent me a reel that I CANNOT stop laughing at. It’s the most accurate depiction of how we unintentionally sync up with each other’s chaos. I’m linking it here if you need a visual of co-regulation gone wrong (in the funniest way) and now I want in on this prank. Dare me to try it?

- Katie Day (write back soon!)