The Root of Nervous System Disregulation
Enjoy a 5min video version of this Nervous System 101!
The ‘Civilized Mind’ has been trained to keep us safe by following the rules of society.
Usually this happens at the expense of our intuition, instincts, and feelings being repressed.
These repressed parts of ourselves then try to come back into wholeness but our fearful Civilized Mind works to keep our blinders on to “keep us safe” (“keep it together, and stay within the lines!”) and instead we get things like anxiety, depression, gut issues, heart issues, sleep trouble, or a permeating sense of fear of anything “unfamiliar” in life.
And what do most of those symptoms have in common? They are also signs of Nervous System Disregulation (ie. being stuck in Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn). When we live in a way that goes against how our body, mind, heart, and spirit are wired to live - as humans and as individuals - then the strain shows up systemically and we’re limited to responding to life from a survival mode.
I believe for us to make that shift towards wholly embodying who we are, we need a holistic understanding and care for all of the parts of us: our body, mind, heart, and spirit.
We need to attune ourselves to the joy of living a fully embodied human experience so we can find our pathway to living an authentic, connected, nourishing life.
And here’s the secret: there is no perfect formula that is right for everyone because you are not everyone.
If we are unable to orient to the wisdom of our senses, body (instincts/intuition), and heart (feelings), then our nervous system activates as if we’re in danger - it’s our basic survival reflex to be ready to Fight or Flee from a threat.
When the nervous system activates a Fight/Flight response, our higher level/rational thinking and digestive processes shut down while our heart rate and breathing increase to prepare the body for sudden, reflexive defensive action to keep us safe.
This is a very primal, and instinctual response that also happens when we feel overwhelmed by emotion we choke back.
In modern life, that primal part of our brain can feel like everything is a danger if we’re cut off from processing all of our feelings and using all of our senses to assess the potential threat - paying bills on time, the rude clerk at the store, a big deadline for work, traffic on our commute, a huge emotional meltdown by a loved one - these all feel like threats.
So if we aren’t taking steps to Signal Safety to our body and return our nervous system to its “Rest and Digest” deactivated state, then we become adrenaline junkies living in a constant state of stress, anxiety, overwhelm, headaches, foggy thinking, inability to focus, gut issues, high blood pressure, neck and back tension, and tendency to feel run down/sick/burned out.
Here’s the good news!
We can manage activation through:
staying present to our senses and feelings to increase our capacity for challenge;
training and educating our Mind to discern true threats from confusion; and
socially engaging with others allowing our relationships to solve problems and help us feel safe and supported. (Yeah, kind of the opposite of the mainstream Western culture that prides itself on competitive individualism.)
somatic healing work to address past emotional wounds and trauma that were stored in the body until we can safely process them.
I am passionate about teaching people to be outside with all their senses engaged, to find creative expression through art, dance and music, to get their hands in the dirt and garden, and watch the moon and stars for a very key reason —
Because when we regularly practice these embodiment activities they help us regulate our emotions and stay present with our senses which is soothing to our nervous system. Win-win!
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Photo credit: Heidi Kurpiela - Feral Photo Works
This is commonly called “The Inner Critic” in psychology and inner coaching work. I have a motto for this that I used to tell others when I struggled with this in my early decades: “You can never possibly judge me as harshly as I judge myself”.
When our nervous system is in Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn mode, fear will also lock us into the tiny box of the Civilized Mind in an attempt to protect us - we may notice obsessive thinking or our mind making up false stories to explain things we don’t understand.
Learning how to recognize the voice and feel of the Civilized Mind is important so we can catch it in the act. Depending on your astrology it can feel: heavy, urgent, numbing, rigid, or defensive in the body. You may also notice a pattern of it creeping in when you’re feeling afraid, hurried, tired, angry, stressed, lonely, or sad.
Once we learn to recognize when it’s showing up, then comes the task of practicing the skills to acknowledge and quiet it to create space for your higher wisdom and inspired mind to shine through.
This is where the rubber meets the road - you learn to rewire your mental patterns and habits each time the world activates you and you consciously choose how to respond rather than reacting from a defensive place.
If we don’t take the time to do the work of understanding the nuances of our own inner voice, and how it can show up in different ways, it makes trusting our instincts, intuition, and our feelings much more difficult.
All of our states of awareness can become enmeshed and colored by the tone of the Civilized Mind as it disguises itself in an attempt to keep us safe by controlling the outcome of our daily life to protect us (which is an illusion).
Without this discernment and self-awareness, we can easily mistake fearful thinking for intuitive “downloads” or our instincts. When we’re in places of true connection, the quality of it can feel present, clean, peaceful, clear, quiet, still, or light in the body. This is when we can trust the higher wisdom of our soul to shine through.
Our wise mind, or (Wise Self) is able to see the forest for the trees. We become able to see the bigger picture and put our challenges, concerns, needs, and desires all into context of this bigger view of our life. Developing a regular soul presence practice develops our muscle memory for connecting and disciplines the mind so eventually it’s a natural habit to “check in” before you react to something.
This also disciplines our thinking mind so that it understands its job is to collect actual information from the outside world and review inner sensory data needed to support our decisions so the Wise Mind can use discernment to coordinate with all of our elements.
And here’s the kicker - our thinking mind is NOT the decision maker of our life, rather, we are wired to go through a process that comes from checking into all of our states self awareness before committing to a path of action. AFTER all our aspects of self are in agreement, then our thinking mind can shine again as it brings us ideas and opportunities to consider on our pathway.
When we live with our Civilized Mind in charge of our experience, our mind will write endless checks that our body cannot cash. It will commit us to huge undertakings and plans it believes are “a good idea” that our heart and soul do not agree with.
Without the support and energy of the heart, our body gets drained trying to keep up with the mind, which leads us to feeling unmotivated, depleted, procrastinating, or not finishing projects.
When we think we’ve “failed”, the Civilized Mind tells us it’s because we’re lazy or we don’t follow through — when in reality we didn’t make a clean decision from the start — because parts of us will get depleted and sabotage the result eventually.