Week 8: How well do you understand your nervous system?
A year ago, I hardly knew a thing - I'm definitely making progress
Hi everyone!
Hope you’re doing well.
I’m in Ontario this week. We’re doing a few memorial things for my dad this weekend, so that’s the priority, but for reasons to do with my nervous system I still wanted to post. Let me explain…
Do you have goals or dreams that remain unfulfilled?
Do you “know” what to do, but don’t do it? Or not consistently enough to achieve your goals?
Do you feel like your body is your partner whom you love & respect? Or is the relationship more negative - your body is a weak and unreliable link?
Hi, it’s me 👋 I’m the problem.
I’ve come to understand, the expression - as above, so below - more.
We talked about grounding in Week 3, so I hope you’re doing this!
Now, imagine as you ground into Mother Earth, you’re creating a triangle.
The wider base is in the earth, the top point is in your body, somewhere around your heart ♥️ . This is your earthly energy system. Your nervous system is a receptor cell for Mother Earth. Interconnected electrical, magnetic and emotional energy. Hopefully this gives you a sense of how essential this system is.
And it’s not intellectual.
It’s not logical.
It’s survival.
The body, your body, is seeking to survive.
And depending on our early experiences, the system decides what is safe or a threat based on what is familiar.
Did you read that well?
Yeah, what’s familiar.
So, if early experiences are really bad, your system is likely to find similar situations in adulthood to be safe. [While intellectually, you know they are not.]
Poverty? = more poverty
Abuse? = unfortunately probably more abuse
Overly controlled = controlling situations and/or feeling powerless
Understanding this is a GAME changer.
As is why & when we self-sabotage.
If our conscious self pushes hard towards a goal - imagine a scenario at the gym, and your pushing towards an outcome or state that feels unfamiliar to the nervous system - your instinctive self will kick in at some point, and you’ll just stop going. Without conscious thought.
And your conscious self will be pissed off at yourself and not understand why it’s had been going so well, and why(?!?!) you just stopped.
Self-sabotage baby!
Does this sound like something you can relate to? I sure can!!
When our nervous system is triggered, we move instinctively (not consciously)
Fight > oh, do I have a story about this one
Flight > and this!
Freeze > what I’m working to get out of now [why does it return so easily?]
Fawn > and to stop doing this! [this is only with other people when we feel unsafe somehow]
I did a masterclass with Keri Ford last fall. She has a very detailed breakdown of each and how they can be further broken down into 3 unique subcategories and the actions to move out of them.
This class blew my mind and it explained something I did 10 years ago that I had never understood. I was in flight, so I fled. And I immediately felt better, only to feel awful in time, because I had let go of something that had felt too good to be comfortable.
Back to the present
I spent May doing a deep dive with Keri Ford, and boy it’s hard to explain somatic trauma therapy because it is not intellectual - but I understand and appreciate this part of myself so much better. And there is more to rewire and expand.
Resources that might be useful - I’ll be digging more into these for sure
Dr. Nicole LePera - she has a PHD and is a trained clinical pyschologist, however she believes many ‘mental’ diagnosis/conditions are in fact nervous systems that are disregulated because of trauma. She has 3 books and you and follow her on her instagram or YouTube.
Keri Ford - she’s a somatic trauma therapist. As I mentioned, I’ve been working with her and found it super helpful thus far. I’m signed up for a class in early June!
I haven’t read these yet but books by Peter Lavigne and attachment theory - by Diane Poole Heeler, and there’s many others. Will be busy reading!
One last bit:
This tip from Keri, she describes each nervous system as a container. Whether big or small it’s a constrained size with limits of capacity.
And no matter your current size, you can grow your container.
And you do that by doing short pushes against your limits.
Imagine wind sprints, say you do :30 second sprints, 4 times and then you rest for a few days.
You don’t say, I’m going to go run as fast as I can, for as long as I can, everyday this month. This is not likely to work - unless this behaviour is already familiar to your nervous system.
Posting weekly:
I wrote and published this week because these weekly substack posts are part of my growing my container with weekly wind sprints. What felt uncomfortable (very uncomfortable!) early April, is now more familiar. While I still procrastinate some weeks, or I don’t want to post on social, I am committed to publishing and am thus growing my limits of what feels safe. And it’s working!
Hope this was interesting, and hopefully helpful.
Perhaps it will start you on a journey to explore how your nervous system is working for and against you and your dream life.
❤️