When Your Body Says “Stop,” But Your Calendar Says “Go”

What if the quickest path from stress to peace is already in your body and your spirit? 

We open with the breath, why shallow chest breathing keeps you stuck in survival mode, and how diaphragmatic, nasal breaths boost nitric oxide, widen vessels, and deliver oxygen to the mitochondria that power your energy. Then we connect the science to worship: long, sustained exhales and diaphragmatic support mimic breathwork, while singing with others sparks oxytocin and a sense of safety that can quiet cortisol. It’s a whole-body reset hiding in plain sight.

We get candid about overload, from year-end hustle to the invisible weight of always saying yes. One five-minute moment of guided breathing dropped blood pressure from 133/101 to 115/83—proof that physiology responds when given space. 

• We also name the hard truth most helpers avoid: every yes comes at a cost.
•  Boundaries are not cold; they’re caring. 
• The sacred no is usually just “not today,” and it protects the joy of serving, so it stays a gift rather than a grind. 
• Sabbath is a design pattern for modern nervous systems.

You’ll leave with simple, actionable tools: deep nasal breathing with longer exhales, worship as a nervous system practice, asking a friend to co-regulate through prayer and breath, and a small menu of quiet resets - tea, a psalm, a walk, a moment of beauty. 

We talk about honoring limits in small communities, inviting help, and listening to your body's cues before burnout steals your clarity. Peace is not the absence of chaos; it’s the Presence that steadies you right in the middle of it.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review so more women can find soul-deep calm and spirit-led strength.

Transcript

Welcome And The Power Of Breath

Melissa 0:02

Welcome to the Heart and Soul Elevation Podcast, where Jesus is first, wellness is lift from the inside out, and women find the connection their souls have been craving.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

We're your hosts, Melissa Holman and Stephanie Pasniokis, two women passionate about weaving scripture and science into everyday life so you can live aligned in spirit, mind, and body in that order.

Shallow Breathing vs Deep Energy

Melissa 0:25

Take a breath, settle in. Let's elevate together. Can we just can we just start this episode by taking a deep breath? Why? Who needs to breathe? Oh my gosh. We all need to remember to breathe. I mean, like, we breathe for life, right? We have to breathe, right? Our heart, our lungs, the blood, everything requires the oxygen. But those shallow breaths that we take to survive are not the deep, healing, restorative breaths that we need to be reminded to take.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Exactly. I actually have a whole video called Breathing for Energy that it goes through a number of different breathing practices from a number of people, and I've just kind of put it all together in how I approach it. But it's absolutely true, right? Shallow breathing is is activating our sympathetic fight or flight nervous system, but it's also not getting a lot of oxygen to our the things that use it. The things that use oxygen in our body are the mitochondria that create energy. That's what their job is. And and they're they're asleep if we're not taking those deep breaths. They're not doing their job. And when, you know, when we breathe appropriately, we breathe deeply through our nose, we're activating nitric oxide, our blood vessels widen because of that. And it we have better flow of that oxygen to the cells that need it and to get into the cells. There's all these different steps that have to happen. Breathing deeply, barrel-chested, using the whole lung. And then even doing a second breath on a deep breath.

Diaphragm, Nitric Oxide, And Flow

Worship As Nervous System Reset

Melissa 2:10

Well, and pop everything open and uh and you know, as women, we don't really like to breathe deep because you know what that requires pooching out my belly, and I don't want to pooch out my belly more than it's already pooched. I know, but yeah, I know, but like it's a thing. I remember uh growing up as a dancer, it's a completely different way of breathing than for a like a singer. Like singers, they they use their diaphragm, they pooch their bellies as a dancer. We had to hold everything in, and breathing happened literally from the chest, the breast up. That was it. That's all that's where all of my breathing took place as a dancer.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Oh my gosh. I had just taught about breathing a couple of workshops ago, uh, like last in the fall, past in the fall, um, before this year's workshops. And um I then went to church the Sunday after, and I was singing and worshiping, and I was taking those deep belly breaths, filling my diaphragm and everything, so that I could, and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is my breathing exercise. I take a nice big breath in and it's slowly being released and it's activating my parasympathetic nervous system. I was like, worshiping God resets my nervous system physically, but also mentally. Like, I was like, I just geeked out about it right there. And then I started crying and I'm worshiping.

Community, Oxytocin, And Safety

Melissa 3:41

I'm like, God, you're so awesome. I know, and I've seen so many posts on Instagram about that recently. Really? About how worshiping does exactly that because of how it's activating the parasympathetic system. Oh my gosh, I had never even I yeah, I know, and it's not just um creating mass hysteria, like I've heard non-believers talk about worship, how we're just creating mass hysteria and everybody's going into this um collective mass delusion or something. Mass delusion. But but what but what it is really is that individual resetting of the pair of the nervous system, activating the parasympathetic system by breathing, forcing the diaphragm to push on the lungs to get the notes out, and a slow, sustained exhale.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Now, that all being said, guess what else you get in communal worship is oxytocin. It's that community and connection and feeling of safety, right? That is so that is another aspect of that, which actually helps you set, you know, like basically blocks cortisol, blocks that stress. So, I mean, there's so many, it's I you know, it's almost like we were designed this way. What?

Melissa 4:59

I know, but um for those who are uh listening who may not know this, I'm like the caregiver for my dad and my husband, and life has been pretty stressful recently. And um I'm so thankful for you, Stephanie, because you you reminded me to breathe. Breathe. Right? Breathing does what? It activates the parasympathetic system. And when when you're stressed out, you I when okay, I'm just gonna say it this way. When I'm stressed, like I forget all of my tools. I don't even know where I put them. Like I can't find them at all. And they're right near you. It's like when you put your glasses on your head going, where did Exactly? But like I can't find my tools. I can't find my breath. I can't find my aromatherapy, I can't find anything. I can't find anything when I'm stressed out. And that's actually another way our brain is designed, right? When we're stressed, we get tunnel vision.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Yeah, well, because we're trying to survive.

Year-End Overload And Recovery

Melissa 6:08

Yeah.

Five-Minute Breathing Lowers BP

Co‑Regulation And Holy Spirit Peace

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, this the end of last year um was particularly difficult. And I had planned in 2024, I promised myself that I would set up the last two weeks of December to be a full recovery time and to not allow the kind of frenetic craziness that happened at the end of 2024 to occur again. Um, and it wasn't in on purpose. I absolutely adore serving my my clients. But what happened is my systems that I had in place at the time weren't conducive to scale to large amounts of business. And so because I was serving in the way that I love most, I wasn't able to plan or prepare for January. And I I all of a sudden January was there. I was like, oh my gosh, I don't have anything, right? It all happened well. It it went exactly what it was supposed to. I was able to pull something together quickly, although it's a little stressful to do that. So this year I was planning on having January, everything planned. And I did so much work this year, uh last year to to create uh streamlines this year. And it was wonderful. And I still didn't quite get the pre-planning done that I had wanted to do. And I found myself at the end of last year in a physiological, a severe physiological stress state, not fully burned out, but like it was, you know, I thought ring my it tells you a lot of things, it gives you insights even before you need them. And I I had gotten, you know, a couple weeks before middle of December, I'd gotten the the notifications to start, hey, watch out. This is trending down. And um, the weekend before all the kids were home, and I was just like, I I was, I I told my community about it. I had been going to give blood that Saturday morning, and they almost didn't take me for the first time in I think 20 over 20 blood donation sessions. I have never ever had a situation where they said, I don't know if you can donate today. Wow. And we're in crisis. Like they are, they were needing, they were they're trying to get everybody in because nobody is donating at the end of the year, and there's a lot of need for blood transfusions. And so why? Your diastolic, you're you know, your systolic, you're diastolic and systolic, right? So my lower number, they want it under 100. I was 133 over 101. Oh my word. I had been running around that morning, and this had been after a very hectic week and not maybe not enough drinking water. I had drunk a lot of water that morning. Um, but it was just go, go, go, go, go. I was in just go mode, and there was the stress from the morning with the grandchild, you know, all of the things, happy stress, but stress. And I I was working and trying to get everything. So I got there and I said, okay, I just need five minutes and you can come back and take my blood pressure again. Is that okay? Yeah, we can do that. Flips the thing. I have five minutes. I had another bottle of water, I drank that, but I did the breathing exercises that I teach. And in that five minutes, now I went, I didn't get into my perfect range of blood pressure, but in that five minutes, breathing the way we we we talk about brought me down from 133 over 101 to 115 over 83 in just five minutes. And I was able to donate blood. Yeah.

Melissa 9:55

It can you can breathing is powerful, but we have to give ourselves time to do it, and we have to remember to do it. And if you're stressed out, this is why community is so critical. Because I remember you reached out to me and we talked about what you were going what you were going through. And having that community, having somebody that you can go, I don't, I don't even know what to do, where do I start? It's just critical. And and co-regulation is important for a time. For a time. Co-regulation is a very important tool for a time.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah, and while we can we uh you know, we might not always need it, but if we find ourselves rolling down the hill, gathering like becoming a snowball, and and we we pass the point of being able to self-regulate because our brain suddenly goes, Yeah, exactly. Um we we need our community in those absolutely sometimes, especially and having somebody that that can look at you and go, let's just let's just stop right here and just take a nice deep breath, okay?

The Sacred No And Boundaries

Melissa 11:08

Yeah, ready? Yeah, and pray because we're not co-regulating to each other, right? Yes, we're we'll be breathing together, but the co-regulation that we're talking about is regulation with the Holy Spirit, getting the Holy Spirit, regulating with the Holy Spirit, because that's where peace actually comes from. Peace is not the absence of chaos, peace is the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Rest, Sabbath, And Joy In Service

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Absolutely, absolutely. Um, and so what I think was you know, bringing in this conversation was that that time where you go and you go and you go until your your body is just done. Yes, and we tell the we tell ourselves I was even doing it, right? I know better, and I was doing it, telling yourself, well, I made these promises, I said I was gonna do X, I already set this up, it's in the schedule, yada, yada, yada. And the reminder that they're human on the other end of that and they will understand, and they actually don't want you collapsing just to show up for a picture, yeah, or whatever it is, right? That there are humans on the other side that are more than happy to, you know, reschedule or move things around. So I I said, you know, what what are the things that I can let go and say no to, um, because you know, so that I have time to be. And I took a whole entire Sunday off after hitting probably the lowest physiological data point I'd ever hit all year last year. And um, and in that one day of not even letting myself brainstorm plan, brain, nothing. I literally I made myself food. And that evening I I slept the one of the best sleeps I had had in three weeks. And the next day got up and my metrics were back to my normal. And it was and it and I spent that day in in in prayer, worship, and I just uh thoughtfulness and just enjoying the fact that I had not a single to-do list. My husband went grocery shopping for me that day. He was more than happy to do that. So asking for help is important.

Melissa 13:41

Well, and I think as as women, and the only reason I say as women is because I'm not a man, so I cannot attest to their experience, right? Yes, but I mean, and I would be willing to bet that they experience the same things that we do because they are human, but uh but like as women, I mean like we feel this uh overwhelming obligation to say yes to everything. Because it's gonna help someone and we want to be helpful and we want to be in community, we want to have relationships, right? We're relational beings, we want to have relationships. And how do I have relationships? Well, I show up and I support, I show up and I help, I show up and I do. And we just have this overwhelming feeling of obligation to say yes to everything. But when I say yes to everything, I'm saying no to everything else, and usually I'm saying no to myself, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

And of course, you know, that whereas where you come in there with the proverbial, you know, oxygen mask. If you don't put it on yourself, you can't help others. And who is our actual oxygen mask? God, Jesus, Holy Spirit. That's our oxygen mask.

Small Churches And Saying Not Today

Melissa 14:54

And even Jesus went away to be on his own to ensure that his oxygen was in place, and it talks about it in the scriptures repeatedly. It wasn't they don't just mention it one time that he went away by himself, they mention it over and over again. He went away to pray, he went away to seek God, he went away basically to make sure he was aligned with the father's plan.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yeah, and I mean, even you know, and uh I I almost hate to say it, it's almost cliche, but it's it's in the very, very, very, very, very beginning of the Bible for a reason. There were six days of really good, good, good work, wonderful work, joyful work, important work, amazing work. And on the seventh day, God rested and reflected, honestly, and saw that it was good, reflected.

Melissa 15:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

And and he didn't just he didn't just veg out in front of in front of the TV watching Netflix, right? Yeah, but I mean, we you can, but you know, you could there's some reflection in there, and I think that um we, you know, just yeah, we can go and go and go and be human doings all day long and not be doing good and wonderful things and doing it for self-aggrandizement and all of the wrong reasons, but we can also run ourselves into the ground for all of the right reasons. I mean, Martha and Mary. Martha had she wanted to do the right thing, and but she had forgotten the oxygen mask.

Listening To Your Body’s Limits

Melissa 16:28

And how many people get burned out at church serving? I know so many people who get burned out at church serving, and it's not because they didn't get acknowledged for their service, but they end up feeling like it's a another it's another job that they have to do, not a gift that they get to serve.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah, the and you lose the joy, and and and that can happen, you know, and I I mean I I love that there are certain things that I do, um, and I do them once a month or or every three months where I'm on for the month for whatever it is, and there's time to the you know, there's time off, and it's not every every Sunday, all the time, every time.

Quiet Beauty As Daily Reset

Melissa 17:15

Right, but even if even if you're in a small church like I am, I go to a very small church, there's just not a lot of people serving, right? It's always 10% of the people do 100% of the work. Well, if you only have 20 people coming, the same 10, two people are gonna be doing everything, right? Yeah, and that's you know, I'm not saying we have 20, I think we have more than that, but it's a small congregation. But remembering, like you said earlier, they are also human. And they will also understand if you say, I cannot do that this weekend, but we have to be willing to stand up and say not today, not today. When we I have this conversation so many times with clients because they don't want to say no. It feels it feels wrong to say no, it feels selfish to say no, but reminding them when you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. But the opposite is also true. When you say no to something, you're saying yes to something else. And sometimes we need to say no, I can't do that this this weekend. Doesn't mean I'm not doing it ever again. But I think in our in our nervous system, we feel like if I say no, that means I'm never gonna do it again. I'm never gonna get to serve again, I'm never gonna do the thing that I enjoy again. And that's just not true. And it's a moment that is actually a moment to breathe through, right? When you feel that, when you feel that angst, because I'm sure you've felt it, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:47

You feel that angst when you say no, and it's like, oh, and in that moment, it feels like you've made this gigantic, monumentous, permanent, massive, complicated decision that everything in the world hinges on, and oh my gosh, this is it, this is defining everything I am. I can't say no now, right?

Melissa 19:08

And it's it's really just like it's just this one just for for right now. I cannot do it for right now. Yeah.

Key Takeaways And Listener Prompts

SPEAKER_01 19:16

And every time I have listened to the voice that says, This doesn't make a lot of sense for you right now. Listen to what's happening in your body, and maybe this is the time to go uh aside and put that Holy Spirit oxygen mask on and breathe and pray. And uh just just even be quiet. I mean, honest to goodness, if if if what that looks like for you is reading a book, read just do it. Do why not like fine? Like there's not a rule. There's not a rule that it has to be you have to be on your knees, you know, or something.

Melissa 19:53

I like to just sit with a cup of tea, you know, just sit with a cup of tea in the quiet, pet my dog, pet my cat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

And because there's beauty everywhere. There's beauty everywhere. And we can find it. And believe resting in that beauty is a reset. God gave us that beauty.

Melissa 20:13

Well, and b yeah, I was gonna say, believe it or not, this entire world was created for us. Yeah. Everything in the rainbow is for us. The sun stars. The angels don't need it. God doesn't need it. It was created for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

I don't know. How would you sum that up? What's the takeaway? What can we leave? What can we leave? We actually covered lovely listeners with today. And um, you know, and also, you know, you guys you're listening, join, you're in the community. If you're, you know, um in in in YouTube, comment. What is it, what it, where do you find it hardest to say no or to to things so you can say yes to really good things? How do you keep yourself um what are ways that you keep yourself uh energized and calm and at peace with with the Holy Spirit? What are, you know, do you have a hard time with it? Do you is it something you struggle with?

Closing And Community Invitation

Melissa 21:18

I mean, yeah. And and like I think my takeaway from today is just when you say no, you're also saying yes. And when you say yes, you're also saying no. But sometimes your no just means not for right now. Yeah. And it's okay. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Yeah. We do put a lot of importance on, well, okay, what just came to my mind was making mountains out of molehills. We do it all the time. I I don't know what it is in us that is so uh bent on making everything a disaster, but well, that's our survival brain at work.

Melissa 22:03

And and that's the part of our brain that does that developed first. So that's the part that's online all the time. All the time.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah. And I mean, I mean, we don't we don't have existence if we can't survive.

Melissa 22:18

Thanks for joining us for today's conversation on heart and soul elevation.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

If this episode encouraged you, be sure to share it with a friend. Remember that healing happens in community.

Melissa 22:30

Be sure to subscribe for more faith first conversations. And if you're desiring more community, come join us over on YouTube where we grow together in real time. Until then, keep your eyes on Jesus, care for the body he gave you, and may his peace guard your heart and mind.