understanding my nervous system
How does my breath change when I feel safe and when I feel threatened?
What happens when I feel scared? What is happening in my body? Cortisol increases. Chemicals that increase blood flow to the limbs, the legs, the arms surge.
My heart speeds up. My blood pressure climbs. My body needs to move. To do something. Anything.
FIX. ARRANGE. CONTROL.
My breath becomes short and shallow. Maybe I breathe through my mouth.
Because of the tension in my chest, a long deep breath is not accessible.
There’s no time for a long, deep leisurely breath. There’s only, flee, fight or freeze.
My body in a frozen state is not relaxed, it’s simply... disconnected. My consciousness and my body are not together.
There is no breath awareness. There’s no body awareness. There is only an unconscious reaction to whatever it is I’m scared of.
The reaction could be thoughts in my mind, words I speak or actions I take.
When my body feels safe, when there’s no apparent stress or activation, the systems of my body, the chemicals, are more neutral.
My heart rate is normal. Regulated. My blood pressure is normal.
And because my body does not have a baseline of chronic tension anymore, my breath is relaxed. It is longer, deeper and through the nose.
My system is generating chemicals that relax my body and allow my mind to rest on the awareness of my breath and the sensation of my body.
I’m present. There’s no impulse to flee or to fight.
There’s no need to disconnect the consciousness from the body.
A safe nervous system allows me to experience fully embodied consciousness.
Fear and relaxation affect my breath and my body.
I can also use my breath and my body to affect my nervous system state.
When I become activated or fearful, which look for me like emotional states of anxiety, worry, resisting, for example, I stop.
I stop what I’m doing. I stop what I’m saying. I give myself a time out.
I am still in my body. I lay down if I can. I consciously breathe.
I breathe through the nose. Slow and long and deep. As best I can. Once I can do that, then I make my exhale longer than my inhale.
The extra long exhale is telling my body all is well. There’s no danger. There’s no problem.
I have plenty of time to breathe out all of my breath. There is no urgency.
I use my body and my breath to regulate and steady my nervous system so I do not slip into unconscious words, actions and thoughts.
So I don’t, for example, overwork or overproduce, pick a fight with one of my family members or punish myself in my mind with conditioned inner dialogues that are so familiar they are hard to not believe.
When I can tend to myself in this way, overtime, I train my nervous system to respond appropriately to my life.
And I consciously strengthen it. My life can be stressful. I need the capacity to remain conscious and intentional under stress.
I do this through physical effort. Weight training. Strong yoga. Intentionally and intelligently putting my body under stress and then resting consciously. Allowing myself to breathe, to stretch and to just be for a little while. No plans. No distractions. Just settling.
This expands my capacity for stress. So when stressful situations arise, my system does not respond in a fearful state of DO SOMETHING.
Instead, it maintains steadiness and calm and responds appropriately to whatever is in front of me.
My nervous system was trained to be hyper vigilant, to over perform and over produce in order to feel safe and to relax only when sleeping or using chemicals.
It has taken time to retrain it. It has taken daily practice and attention.
It is the best fucking thing I’ve ever done for myself. The only thing that truly created change in my life and in my children’s lives.
For those of us who truly want to be sovereign over our life experience, who do not want to feel like a feather at the mercy of the direction of the wind, we have to learn our own nervous system.
And respond to it accordingly.
You can determine where your nervous system is at any particular time by feeling the breath in the body. Notice how your breath is breathing. Notice your heart rate. Notice the sensation of you.
And you can shift your nervous system state by using the same things that helped you become aware of this state.
Pause. Still the motion of the body and become aware of the sensation of your breathing.
As best you can. As often as you can.
Slowly but surely, shifting the body from a chronic fear, reactivity state to a more neutral, steady state.
Understanding My Nervous System
How does my breath change when I feel safe?
When I feel threatened?
What happens when I feel scared? What is happening in my body? Cortisol increases. Chemicals that increase blood flow to the limbs, the legs, the arms surge.
My heart speeds up. My blood pressure climbs. My body needs to move. To do something. Anything.
FIX. ARRANGE. CONTROL.
My breath becomes short and shallow. Maybe I breathe through my mouth.
Because of the tension in my chest, a long deep breath is not accessible.
There’s no time for a long, deep leisurely breath. There’s only, flee, fight or freeze.
My body in a frozen state is not relaxed, it’s simply... disconnected. My consciousness and my body are not together.
There is no breath awareness. There’s no body awareness. There is only an unconscious reaction to whatever it is I’m scared of.
The reaction could be thoughts in my mind, words I speak or actions I take.
When my body feels safe, when there’s no apparent stress or activation, the systems of my body, the chemicals, are more neutral.
My heart rate is normal. Regulated. My blood pressure is normal.
And because my body does not have a baseline of chronic tension anymore, my breath is relaxed. It is longer, deeper and through the nose.
My system is generating chemicals that relax my body and allow my mind to rest on the awareness of my breath and the sensation of my body.
I’m present. There’s no impulse to flee or to fight.
There’s no need to disconnect the consciousness from the body.
A safe nervous system allows me to experience fully embodied consciousness.
Fear and relaxation affect my breath and my body.
I can also use my breath and my body to affect my nervous system state.
When I become activated or fearful, which look for me like emotional states of anxiety, worry, resisting, for example, I stop.
I stop what I’m doing. I stop what I’m saying. I give myself a time out.
I am still in my body. I lay down if I can. I consciously breathe.
I breathe through the nose. Slow and long and deep. As best I can. Once I can do that, then I make my exhale longer than my inhale.
The extra long exhale is telling my body all is well. There’s no danger. There’s no problem.
I have plenty of time to breathe out all of my breath. There is no urgency.
I use my body and my breath to regulate and steady my nervous system so I do not slip into unconscious words, actions and thoughts.
So I don’t, for example, overwork or overproduce, pick a fight with one of my family members or punish myself in my mind with conditioned inner dialogues that are so familiar they are hard to not believe.
When I can tend to myself in this way, overtime, I train my nervous system to respond appropriately to my life.
And I consciously strengthen it. My life can be stressful. I need the capacity to remain conscious under stress.
I do this through physical effort. Weight training. Strong yoga. Intentionally and intelligently putting my body under stress and then resting consciously. Allowing myself to breathe, to stretch and to just be for a little while. No plans. No distractions. Just settling.
This expands my capacity for stress. So when stressful situations arise, my system does not respond in a fearful state of DO SOMETHING.
Instead, it maintains steadiness and calm and responds appropriately to whatever is in front of me.
My nervous system was trained to be hyper vigilant, to over perform and over produce in order to feel safe and to relax only when sleeping or using chemicals.
It has taken time to retrain it. It has taken daily practice and attention.
It is the best fucking thing I’ve ever done for myself. The only thing that truly created change in my life and in my children’s lives.
For those of us who truly want to be sovereign over our life experience, who do not want to feel like a feather at the mercy of the direction of the wind, we have to learn our own nervous system.
And respond to it accordingly.
You can determine where your nervous system is at any particular time by feeling the breath in the body. Notice how your breath is breathing. Notice your heart rate. Notice the sensation of you.
And you can shift your nervous system state by using the same things that helped you become aware of this state.
Pause. Still the motion of the body and become aware of the sensation of your breathing.
As best you can. As often as you can.
Slowly but surely, shifting the body from a chronic fear, reactivity state to a more neutral, steady state.
And over time, your life begins to change.
The first cohort of The Nervous System Immersion has begun. I am so excited and proud of this program.
The heart of this work is teaching participants how to sustain higher states of consciousness in daily life. How to respond instead of react. How to stay conscious when stressed. How to stay graceful under fire.
The key to sustaining these higher states of consciousness is the regulation of your nervous system every day.
Understanding that it’s not just fear and safety. We are more complicated than that. It’s a spectrum.
Can we understand how to regulate ourselves when we are overstimulated and overwhelmed?
What do we do with our body? What do we do with our breath? How do we relate?
What about when life is uncomfortable and we want to steady ourselves? To tolerate discomfort consciously?
What about when we are feeling fine and want to strengthen? Increase our capacity to walk through the fiery portals of life?
We’ve got so much pent up tension. So much emotion that wants to move. So much irritable energy that’s gotta go. How do we release all that?
And when we really need to relax, when we find ourselves hyped up, when our body is tired and our mind is not quiet.
What do we do?
The Practice Room is a collection of practices organized by state. Both audios and videos ranging from 5 to 30 minutes in length.
This is how we learn to regulate ourselves to sustain higher states of perception
On June 7, The Practice Room will become a membership of its own: full access to the practices and one monthly call studying our states and how to respond to them.
Where the Immersion is personal and relational emphasizing perception of life experiences through higher states of consciousness.
The Practice Room forms the foundational practices that create the ability to sustain capacity and clarity.
More on that next week.
This week, paid subscribers will get a sneak peek at a practice to bring you back to your center when anxious and overwhelmed or otherwise on edge. Upgrade to be a paid subscriber to experience the practice.
Thanks for sharing this! It’s so important to understand our nervous system and recognize what it needs🙏
💚💚