The Power of State and the Hidden Biology Behind the Life You Are Leading
Trishiana is a global Feminine Wellness & Sensuous Living Coach, an inspiring author, speaker, and coach. Her work explores how women can access deeper healing, vitality, and creativity by aligning with the body's natural intelligence and higher states of awareness.
What if the life you are creating is influenced not only by what you want to achieve but by the state your nervous system is in while creating it? We spend enormous amounts of energy thinking about what we want to change. We learn more, work harder, set goals, create affirmations and vision boards. Yet sometimes we still find ourselves returning to familiar reactions, behaviors, and patterns. Perhaps the question is not simply why we are not getting the results we want. Perhaps we also need to ask, "From what state am I creating that change? Are the conditions from which I am creating supportive of the outcome I want, or am I attempting to create something new while operating under the same stress, exhaustion, or overwhelm?" That question opens an entirely different conversation about transformation, human potential, and what many people call manifestation.
It begins with awareness
We often approach personal development through the mind. We learn new information, create affirmations, set intentions, and attempt to develop new habits of thought. All of these can be valuable. But human beings do not experience life through the mind alone. The brain and body are in constant communication through the nervous system. We also receive continuous information from our surroundings, light and darkness, sound, movement, temperature, touch, interactions with people, food, and sleep. Our internal and external experiences shape this ongoing conversation between the brain, body, behavior, and environment.
This brings us to an often overlooked element of transformation, state. Before we can intentionally influence our state, we first have to become consciously aware of it.
What is a state?
In simple terms, a neurological or physiological state is the condition of the mind and body at a particular moment. It can involve bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, attention, perceptions, and the way we interpret what is happening around us.
A state is not an identity. States can change. When we confuse a temporary state with our identity, we can begin to believe that our current experience is who we are and the only reality available to us. It is not.
You may be experiencing something a certain way because you are exhausted and need rest. You may be irritable because you have been overstimulated. You may be anxious because you are anticipating something uncertain. The experience is real. But it does not define you.
State awareness becomes powerful here. We can notice what we are thinking, how we are feeling, what our body is communicating, and what may be influencing our mood. Simply noticing without immediately judging or reacting creates a moment of space. In that space, choice becomes possible.
The same circumstance can produce a different experience
When we influence our state, we may also change how our nervous system is responding in the moment. That can support greater clarity, presence, and effectiveness. This is particularly important for women in leadership. Leadership is not performed only through strategy. It is also experienced through the human nervous system, the perceptions, emotional state, adaptability, and sense of presence we bring into any given situation.
Research supports the idea that physiological state shapes cognitive capacity. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 223 studies on voluntary slow breathing found that it increased vagally mediated heart rate variability, a marker of nervous system regulation, during practice and following repeated sessions. Published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, the findings suggest that a voluntary change in breathing can produce measurable changes in physiology.
Sleep provides another example. A 2024 meta-analysis involving 154 studies and more than 5,700 participants found that sleep loss affected emotional functioning, including reducing positive emotional states and increasing anxiety.
Sometimes we are not failing. We may simply be attempting to create change from a state that is not supporting us.
The input we carry everywhere
There is one human input we carry with us at all times and can learn to influence, our thoughts. We cannot always control what happens around us or what another person says. But our thoughts are with us almost continuously. The way we think about an experience influences how we interpret it. Our interpretation can influence emotions, attention, behavior, and the choices we make next.
This does not mean we can simply think our way out of every difficult circumstance. It means we can learn to become aware of the stories our minds are creating and question whether those stories are helping us meet the moment we are actually in.
Consider the difference between telling yourself, “This is impossible,” and asking, “What might be possible that I have not considered yet?” Or between telling yourself, “I am failing,” and asking, “What can I learn from what is happening?”
The circumstance may not have changed. But the state from which you are meeting it can begin to shift. We do not have to believe every thought simply because we had it. We can observe it, question it, reframe it, and sometimes simply create enough space around it that we no longer have to react automatically.
A fascinating question about observation
There is an intriguing parallel worth considering from quantum physics. At the quantum level, the act of measurement matters. Experiments show that measuring a quantum system can affect what is observed and how the system behaves. The famous double-slit experiments are one reason quantum physics challenges ordinary assumptions about observation and reality.
This does not mean that human consciousness can think a particle into becoming whatever we want, or that observing our thoughts gives us supernatural control over reality. But it does invite a useful question, "What happens when we begin observing ourselves?"
In everyday life, awareness can change our relationship with an experience. We may notice a thought without automatically following it. We may notice tension before reacting. We may recognize exhaustion before making an important decision. We may see a familiar pattern and choose a different response.
Awareness creates a space between what is happening and what we do next. That space is where choice becomes possible.
The biology of everyday experience
If our state matters, what influences it? The answer is much bigger than positive thinking. Our everyday lives contain countless inputs, experiences, conditions, signals, and environments that continually interact with our biology and can influence our nervous system state.
Breath influences the autonomic nervous system directly and is one of the most accessible ways to shift physiological state.
Light, movement and time in nature affect nervous system tone and mood-regulating neurochemistry.
Nutrition and sleep are foundational to emotional regulation, cognitive flexibility and executive function.
Touch, sound and music influence arousal, attention and emotional state.
Relationships and social connection shape the felt sense of safety that determines which state the nervous system settles into.
Words and the stories we tell ourselves shape our interpretation of events and the emotional response that follows.
These inputs do not work like simple switches. Human biology is far too complex for that. But becoming more intentional about the inputs we give ourselves can influence the conditions in which we live, think, feel, and create.
That is the opportunity. Not control. Influence.
A simple state practice
You do not need an app, an hour of meditation, or a retreat to begin. Try this during your day.
Pause. Then move through four questions.
What state am I in right now? Simply notice without judgment.
What might be influencing this state? Consider your recent inputs. How did you sleep? How have you been breathing? What conversations have you had? What thoughts have you been quietly carrying? What story have you been telling yourself about what is happening?
What state would better support what I am attempting to create? Perhaps you need calm, energy, clarity, rest, or connection.
What one input could support that shift? A few slower breaths. A walk. A different question. Music. Sunlight. Water. Movement. Silence. A nourishing meal. A moment of genuine rest.
The goal is not perfection. The goal is awareness. Awareness creates choice. Choice allows intentional input. Input can influence state. State influences response. Repeated over time, this becomes a remarkably powerful practice.
The brain is not completely fixed. Experience, learning, and repeated practice can influence neural function and organization. Your patterns are not necessarily permanent. Repeatedly practicing a new way of thinking can strengthen new patterns over time, giving you more possibilities for how you respond and the state you cultivate.
Your state is an asset
Every time you become more aware of your state, pause with it and learn to observe rather than automatically react as if it is the only possible reality, you are developing an invisible asset, self-awareness, and with it, an opportunity to influence what comes next.
Self-awareness can support your health and vitality, your emotional resilience, your creativity, your ability to recover, your capacity to think clearly under pressure, your presence and your ability to participate fully in your own life.
Perhaps this is one of the most important investments a woman can make. Not simply becoming more productive, but becoming more aware of her inner world rather than being unconsciously directed by the outer environment and the stress surrounding it.
Begin tomorrow morning
Tomorrow morning, before reaching for your phone, pause. Take a slow and deep breath. Notice your thoughts without following every one. Notice your body. Notice your surroundings. Then ask, "What state do I want to begin my day from? What state would support the outcomes I want to create? What is one input I can intentionally give myself today?"
One. Not twenty. One.
Because transformation does not require perfection. It requires participation. One breath, a different choice, one walk in nature, one moment of rest, one thought you choose to question.
These moments may seem small. But repeated experiences become patterns. Patterns influence how we function and what we create. Over time, the person you are becoming can begin to feel less like an imagined future and more like the way you live.
That is the power of state.
One of the greatest assets you will ever possess is not sitting in a bank account. It is you. That is your Human NetWorth.
Begin the practice
If something in this article resonated with you, the next step does not have to be more information. It can be experience.
The Sensuousity Reset is a guided audio and integration journal designed to help you begin exploring your own state through awareness, intentional inputs, and reflection. Rather than simply telling you what to think, it invites you to notice what you experience, what changes, what feels different, and what helps you return to yourself. The journal gives you a place to capture those experiences so that awareness can become personal knowledge.
Access the Sensuousity Reset here.
Read more from Trishiana Shelton
Trishiana Shelton, Feminine Wellness Coach & Global Advocate
Trishiana, a feminine wellness coach, author, & editor of Feminine Wisdom Newsletter, a free feminine wellness publication for high-achieving women that reports on research on how to reduce stress, restore nervous system coherence, and elevate their lives through feminine wellness & sensuous living practices. She integrates modern science, ancient wisdom & lifestyle practices that cultivate vitality & lasting transformation. She is an inspiring speaker, coach, and global advocate for feminine wellness. Her work explores how women can access deeper healing, vitality, and creativity by aligning with the body's natural intelligence and higher states of awareness.
