Little fires everywhere

This is uncomfortable for me to say out loud but I’m going to say it anyway. Maybe we need to stop talking so much about regulation. As someone who has found so much passion and purpose in teaching and supporting others to regulate their nervous systems, I feel a bit conflicted about what I am going to share. At the same time, I cannot keep doing the work I do and not acknowledge this aspect of it.

As Nervous system regulation has become more of a trend in healing spaces, it has become another thing on the to do list rather than something to understand. It has become a tool to escape rather than a path towards returning to the self. This has made me deeply uncomfortable for quite some time. But the more conversations I have with people who question everything with gentle curiosity, I have found more clarity in why I have struggled with how to show up with this work.

When people study and learn about nervous system regulation, it is so tempting to begin to teach it and share it immediately. It can change lives. It is powerful work. Why wouldn’t you want to share it? I did the same thing and sometimes still do. I find a tool or a somatic practice that feels incredible in my body and I want to shout it from the rooftops and convince everyone else to do it with me.

But there is so much nuance with this work. Humans are complicated. There is no single path to peace. There are a million ways to get to where you want to go. And the only person who knows the easiest path is yourself. As much as we desire a map with clear directions, nothing of the sort actually exists. We are all stumbling our way through life, having no idea where our next step will lead us. Terrifying, I know! But also, such a relief.

The constant feeling of not knowing is not yours alone. We are all unsure of how to live through the next moment, because nobody has ever been there before. Sometimes someone will have lived through a similar moment and to hear their perspective is a gift. But no two paths are ever the exact same. This can bring you a lot of peace but may also infuriate you, both are valid responses.

I am falling away from circling back to why I started writing this. Nervous system work is an absolutely beautiful way to return to the body. It helps us to find safety within ourselves in many ways. But what if our body is not safe and we keep on regulating the discomfort away before listening and learning from it? There is an uncomfortably thin line between using nervous system regulation tools as a form of avoidance rather than a form of connection. And sometimes, it can be a little bit of both, all mixed together.

The question to ask is, are you regulating yourself to continually tolerate the same discomfort in your life while doing nothing to manage that very discomfort or shift your life?

Dysregulation often feels like standing in a burning building. I use this metaphor often because it is brutally visceral. Standing in a burning building is overwhelming in every way. Smoke makes it hard to breath and see. The heat becomes insufferable and panic will set in quickly. Clarity and calm are not two words that would come to mind in this situation. It is full tilt into survival mode.

Any tool used to regulate yourself in a moment like this is essentially dumping a bucket of ice water on yourself. It cools your body and gives you momentary relief from the intensity of the fire. That bit of water may allow you to have some clarity and be able to think clearly enough to remove yourself from the burning building. That is the purpose of regulation, to bring you towards a calm and clear mind. In doing this, you can take care of yourself in the most practical and logical way. Because as soon as the heat returns, the mind and body will return to dysregulation.

What I see far too often is that people keep dumping bucket after bucket of ice water over themselves but never use that moment of clarity to do anything about the burning building. If you are not using regulation to take calm and clear action, you are not going to get anywhere. The burning building normally is not going to resolve itself. It is a call to action.

To say it clearer, dysregulation is not a call to regulate ourselves to feel better, it is a call to bring awareness to what is dysregulating us in the first place. If we do not lift our eyes up enough to see what is causing the dysregulation, our nervous system will continue to shut us down, no matter how many tools we have in our belt. The bucket of ice water becomes a survival mechanism rather than a tool to allow us to move towards living a calmer life.

This complicated and confusing at times, for many reasons. One that must be acknowledged is that we are living in a world that is nearly constantly on fire. No matter who you are, where you live or how you engage with the world, there are far more stressors present than we are adapted to handle. Humans have not evolved to be aware of multiple wars, famines and other atrocities at all times. The access to information in todays world is placing us all in the line of too many fires. Most of these fires are not something one individual can put out alone. So my idea of regulating to bring awareness to the environment becomes a source of dysregulation at times.

When we become more regulated, it can make us uncomfortably aware of how many fires exist that we cannot do anything to change. This is where understanding pain, discomfort and suffering is a necessary part of this work. We must be able to differentiate what is ours and what is not ours to hold. What we can change and what we must accept. What fires we can put out and what fires we may only be able to slowly back away from.

Did I mention how nuanced this all is yet?! And how thin the line is between using regulation tools to avoid and dissociate rather than meet challenges with acceptance and aligned action?! The more I sit in this space with more questions and fewer answers, the more I understand how complex it all is. The bucket of ice water is so very necessary to cool us down. But that is simply the first step. We cannot stop there. We cannot keep relying on the ice water without taking any other action.

Regulation is essential but not the whole point. We must begin to cultivate curiosity along with awareness. We must ask ourselves what fires are in our control and what is out of our control. Only then can we find the places that feel safest to our being. Only then can we begin to live our lives in more aligned ways. We must stop distracting ourselves from our own internal and external environments. Fires are not bad but they can cause harm if we stay too close for too long.

I’m still very much in the messy middle of figuring any of this out. I fully know that the answers I desire will likely continue to lead me to more questions. The curious Gemini in me will never complain about this. But the part of me that wants to desperately understand this world is a bit frustrated. It is my calling to lean into both of these sensations. To continue to discern what side of that thin line I am on. Am I using my knowledge to avoid pain or meet it and learn from it?

For now, I will continue to use my bucket full of ice water to find clarity. So I can look straight into the fire and do my best to balance it..