How to Bring a Dysregulated Nervous System Back into Homeostasis

"Opening to the possibility that lasting transformation and healing are not so much about changing our experience as retraining ourselves to meet it with new levels of curiosity, perspective, and warmth.” - Matthew Licata, PhD

We know the tools - nature, writing, movement, meditation, breath work, cold therapy, loving and safe relationships, rest, rinse, repeat. These things are necessary and helpful, but sometimes, there is such a profoundly unsettling part of us that we can never quite reach and calm. I know this for myself. I learn to live with it and consider this part of me, the “one living at the edge.” I feel ungrounded and yet totally grounded at the same time. As if two parts of me were operating at once. But I think this is true for all of us. There is a dysregulated part and a regulated part. Sometimes one or the other will dominate. This is life. This is being human. I am ok with this. I love all of me, especially the one who is “living at the edge” and refuses to give up due to fear. Both can be a part of me. 

This is a disarming understanding and a surrendering to our humanness. Once we see the way things are with love, we can learn to be gentle, and that gentleness creates an environment for healing. We no longer disown and hate the dysregulated parts in us, but see it with clarity and hold it in love as best we can. It is a constant practice. This is the process. 

For instant relief, I stop everything and feel my feet on the earth. I put my right hand on my heart and left hand on my belly. I come back to my breath and the sensations in and around me. I imagine a competent protector holding me - or that bigger version of me - witnessing and welcoming all parts of me.

May we see we are human and in process - always. May we love what feels unlovable in us. May we smile as we learn. Thank you for being in process with me.