THE NERVE OF YOU - Nervous System, Burnout, Identity, Fascia Release, Creativity, Visibility, Slow Living, Getting Your Mojo Back

Does just the thought of asking for help leave you lightheaded, your blood pressure plummeting?
People-pleaser your middle name? Deed poll forms filled out and ready to go?
Welcome to my Wednesday afternoon.
After rushing to make a Zoom call, I fractured my foot. But even sitting in A&E, my first instinct was to apologise for missing the meeting.
What followed was more than a physical recovery. It exposed a familiar pattern of putting other people's needs before my own and the surprising discomfort of asking for help.
In this episode, I explore the emotional side of injury, the fear of being an inconvenience, the unexpected power of receiving support, and the breathing and fascia practices I've been exploring during recovery.
Sometimes the hardest thing isn't doing more. It's allowing someone else to help.
In this episode:
How a spectacularly unfortunate accident exposed the sneaky side of people-pleasing
Why asking for help can be so much harder than giving it
What a fractured foot, fascia and a little enforced stillness revealed that I hadn't bargained for
 
🎨 Next Step:
Follow The Nerve of You for chats about coming home - to your human, your artist, your body and what makes you feel alive.
Join the waitlist for The Curious Club: https://thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/thecuriousclub
And to apply to come home to you privately: https://thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/
 

Are family traditions something you groan at or feel secretly proud to be carrying on?
Since when was turning into your parents a good thing?
And when was the last time the far-too-often boring-ass adult in you was filled with the wonder of a child?
Come round to my gaff for honey-harvesting season.
Neighbours, friends, old memories and a few unexpected lessons gather round the noisy spinner.
From a revered Cork bee charmer who taught me the word surfeit, to my Dad's decades of beekeeping, the ancient Irish tradition of telling the bees and the astonishing intelligence of these tiny creatures.
Somewhere between uncapping the comb, spinning the honey and getting very sticky, I find myself thinking about what we inherit, what we pass on and what we might be ready to begin ourselves.
In this episode:
What bees can teach us about community and working as one
What we inherit from our ancestors - and what we choose to carry forward
Why curiosity might be enough reason to follow an idea
 
Grab a cuppa and let's go to the hive!
🎨 Next Step:
Join The Curious Club: The Curious Club: thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/ thecuriousclub 
 

Ever have one of those days when you genuinely don’t know what to do?
You can think harder, try to figure it out, look for the right answer - and somehow end up even more tangled
That’s me today
It’s publish-my-podcast day, I’m tired, I’ve nothing ready to go and my usual instinct to push through stress is nowhere to be found
Instead, I notice the dancing shadows of the birch tree
I make a matcha
I take off my runners and walk into the garden
And I let nature do the heavy lifting
In this episode of The Nerve of You, I’m exploring what happens when we stop demanding that we know what comes next — and give ourselves permission to simply be where we are
In the episode:
How beauty can call us back to ourselves when we’ve become lost in our heads
What happens when we step off the hamster wheel of urgency and its demand that we know what comes next
A simple three-minute practice to recalibrate and reconnect by letting nature do some of the heavy lifting
So, what has you in its grip today?
And what might happen if, for three minutes, you stopped trying to figure it all out?
 
🎨 Next Step:
Follow The Nerve of You for more conversations about nervous system health, curiosity and making space for what makes you feel alive.
Join the waitlist for The Curious Club: https://thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/thecuriousclub
And to apply to work privately with me: https://thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/
 

Ever notice how quickly “I’m exhausted” can become “I’m not coping”?
Or how a sore shoulder becomes "there's something’s wrong with me". And feeling "I'm behind" becomes "I’m failing at life"?
What if noticing didn’t have to come with a verdict? 
In this episode of The Nerve of You, I’m at the sea, tired and carrying a lot, when I find myself completely absorbed in the tiny details around me: the light on water, reflections, ripples, shadows.
And how something changes.
Noticing brings me back into the world - and back into myself.
This isn’t another thing you need to add to your nervous system toolkit. It’s a five-minute invitation to stop trying to fix yourself and become available to what’s already there.
In the episode:
How beauty and attention can interrupt the noise when life feels heavy
What changes when we notice what’s happening without deciding there’s something wrong with us
A simple five-minute practice to try this week
So, what might you notice if you stopped trying to fix anything for few minutes?
Grab a cuppa, press play — and come sit by the sea with me.
🎨 Next Step:
Follow The Nerve of You for more conversations about nervous system health, curiosity and making space for what makes you feel alive.
 
Join the waitlist for The Curious Club: thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/thecuriousclub

When the sea calls you somewhere you didn't know you needed to go.
My beautiful Dad died last week.
A few hours later, I went swimming in the sea.
In this episode of The Nerve of You, I’m sharing the interconnectedness of it all in those early days of grief, why I found myself drawn to the sea and the unexpected ways my Dad still feels very close.
In the episode:
The first hard thing I did after losing my Dad
Where solace was found
Something I love about the Irish language
Grab a cuppa and hit play!
🎨 Next Step:
Join The Curious Club: The Curious Club: thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/ thecuriousclub 
And for coaching: https://thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/privatesessions 

Ever take a flight in search of a life-changing revelation, only to have your head turned by a pair of battered stilettos?
I fly to London to see the Mind Architect, Peter Crone. Another blonde — a dead one — steals his thunder.
A last-minute red-eye, a 100th birthday exhibition and a pair of Ferragamos stop me in my tracks.
Somewhere between Marilyn's well-worn, formerly white heels and the experience I've actually travelled for, I'm falling in love again with following where threads of curiosity lead me.
In this episode:
How a side quest becomes the main event
Marilyn, Ferragamos and the woman behind the icon
What happens when you stop looking for what's wrong and start noticing what makes you come alive
 
Grab a cuppa and hit play!
🎨 Next Step:
Join The Curious Club: thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/thecuriousclub
 
If you haven't seen the exhibition do yourself a favour, go: https://www.npg.org.uk/tickets
To see Peter Crone live: https://www.petercrone.com/events

Ever had a pain, tightness or niggle that just won’t behave?
You fix one thing and something else starts complaining? You stretch it, rest it, rub something on it, get it checked and still it keeps coming back?
For 26 years, I vacillated between thinking the problem was a torn hamstring. Then my butt. Then sciatica. Then piriformis. I kept trying to fix whichever bit was shouting the loudest.
Then I discovered fascia. 
In this episode of The Nerve of You, I’m sharing how a night out during the World Cup in 1994 (yes, I'm that vintage) - where a few too many Guinness might have been had - eventually led me to a completely different way of understanding my body and why the place that hurts isn't always the whole story.
In the episode:
Why the body can’t always be understood one painful bit at a time
How my 26-year-old pain in the butt became a lesson in connection
What changed when I stopped trying to fix my body and started getting curious about it
Grab a cuppa and hit play!
🎨 Next Step:
Join The Curious Club: The Curious Club

Ever plan a dream holiday - only for your teenager to be, well, a teenager in full flight? Leaving you standing on a balcony, wondering how somewhere so idyllic could feel so utterly miserable?
In this episode of The Nerve of You, I’m sharing an unfiltered story from a girls' trip to Greece, where the cacti weren't the only prickly things present.
Reality tears up the dream vacay script and a rooftop aha moment changes how I show up for my own life.
In the episode:
The chocolate-box holiday versus the real-life fallout
Knowing when to hold 'em, fold 'em, walk away or run!
Leaning into the nerve of letting the story rewrite itself
Grab a cuppa and hit play!
 
🎨 Next Step:
Join The Curious Club: thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/thecuriousclub

When playing small is too high a ransom.
Have you filled notebooks and your notes app with ideas, recorded endless private drafts, and are always busy doing everything around your goal—except actually putting it out into the world? How often do we let the demand for perfection keep us hiding in the background?
In this episode of The Nerve of You, we're looking at what happens when the fear of being seen has had you in a headlock for too long.
 
In the episode:
Doing "around" the goal vs. actually stepping up
The physical toll of perfectionism and hiding in plain sight
Finding the nerve to be bad at something—because it's fun and you're done not fully living
 
Grab a cuppa and hit play!
 
🎨 Next Step:
Join The Curious Club: thenerveofyoupod.myflodesk.com/thecuriousclub
 

Welcome to The Nerve of You.
I'm Niamh, a mum in my 50s and this podcast is me doing something new.
I'm delighted you're here following along. 
Bye for now
Love Niamh