My work involves helping people find and maintain a regulated nervous system state, which is often long-term work.

However, even one personal session of experiencing that regulation, or a group series where you regularly feel it with others, can fundamentally open your eyes to a different way of existing.  Something your body remembers.

I actually feel that experiences of regulation, or regulation in the community, can be like a moment of spiritual awakening. The kind that you hold as a possibility for the rest of your life.

Except that regulation isn’t necessarily calm and comfortable.

Instead, what being regulated means is that you are activating and settling within your zone of confidence, window of tolerance, or capacity. So we get activated, feel all the feels, and settle, feeling calm and safe enough.

A regulated nervous system will look and feel different for every being.

You may have more capacity to activate than I do.

I may be able to settle more than you.

Folks who have done a ton of work over decades can have what looks to us like a massive ability to hold both activation and settling that would throw you or me into overwhelm, freeze, and misery.

But just having those embodied moments of being able to activate only enough that you can still be present to move through it and subsequently settle, the way you were biologically made to do; that’s gold.

 Over the last 10 days, I have had three individual clients and one group participant express how much they have shifted since our work together began. That is a balm, a tonic, to my taxed nervous system.

This pattern of growth in my people is also a testament to my own work. Even when things are tough, I have stayed mostly regulated. Notice I don’t say I’ve “held it together”… that connotes force of will, or desperation. Freeze, in my case. I slip here and there. And find my way back, because at this point, I not only have an expanded zone of confidence. 

I have actively been building on that embodied sense of regulation; I have strengthened my “muscles” and neural pathways over the last several years, so that my system recognizes regulation more often than not.

I was able to get that embodied experience of a regulated nervous system state, and have built on it since then.  It’s not easy, and not necessarily comfortable, but I couldn’t be here, doing what I’m doing (and loving it) without it!

In case you’re wondering how this can look in the real world, here’s an example. 

I have been carefully navigating the political turmoil in the US. I ran a political resilience group in 2024 by not talking about what I think. On social media, I have been trying to post and share things that are supportive or specifically about my work and trauma.

Occasionally, I can’t help myself, and I allude to this greater context.

But I am living in the same world as you, making choices for my own nervous system regulation that you face. For me, that means reading and being confronted by as little as possible. I get the most apolitical news I can early in the day, then all but ignore it for the rest of the day. 

Because I don’t have the capacity to know all that’s going on, I do my work with you to the best of my ability, do the administrative stuff involved in my business, take care of myself and my animal family (aging dogs), and keep up with my personal growth and healing.

It’s a very sensitive balance, for me.

When I try, when I add just one more thing —like houseguests, taxes, moving (or more news) —it can send my system into survival mode—some version of fight, flight, or freeze—and I stop being able to do most things.

As a result of adding a few of the aforementioned things over the last couple of weeks, my fibromyalgia flared up, and I had to spend this week doing absolutely nothing but work (no admin) and caring for the dogs and myself. I’m in a little less physical pain now, thankfully. But I know I need to take it easy for weeks to make sure I don’t crash and stop being able to do anything.

That’s why I try not to talk about politics. It’s too much for my system to handle and stay in regulation. 

There’s nothing wrong with not being regulated. But staying there, in fight/flight/freeze, for very long makes me incapable of doing the things I actually want to do.

Like connect with other humans in authentic ways.

Like, do my work in this messed-up world. 

Like, actually notice and (gasp) enjoy being a human. 

There are really good things about being here, living, loving, existing.

Things I didn’t know about until I came down out of constant survival mode.

It seems strange to make a big deal about being regulated and getting out of survival mode in these times.   

And yet. I know, on a basic, scientific level, that if I do, I can not only do my work better, but I can respond to what comes with my full faculties. Instead of reacting from a place of overwhelm and desperation, I will be able to do what I need to do because I will know what that is.