Nervous System Care is Self Care

In the work that I do, the nervous system is a main player. I tell my clients often that I think through the nervous system to make sense of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It is not uncommon for me to ask clients, “What do you think your nervous system is telling you?”

You see, our nervous system holds the blueprint to how we function. It’s been with us every single day of our lives. For all of our experiences, our nervous system has been present-collecting data. Your nervous knows you, like REALLY knows you. It holds memories and experiences that you may not even have conscious memory or verbal ability to articulate. That’s right, our preverbal experiences also live in our nervous system. 

Despite it’s importance, we can forget it’s such a big role in our emotional, cognitive, and behavioral functioning. I strongly encourage my clients to think about what their nervous system is signaling to them during times of excitement, discomfort, avoidance, fear, or worry. This practice also supports building self-acceptance and love towards the self. Taking time to learn your nervous system and what activates it leads to knowing how to respond and regulate it.

Traumatic experiences are overwhelming by definition. They are experiences of such significance and severity, our current operating system is unable to cope with what is occurring. Traumatic experiences can be so excruciating and painful, we will block memories out altogether. The fascinating thing is though, even if we cannot consciously grab hold of a memory, our nervous system often still has reactions that are reflective of our trauma. Isn’t that wild? 

There is so much power in learning what both regulates and dysregulates our nervous system. Often, traumatic experiences can make down-regulating very uncomfortable. We can become accustomed to the level of activity in our nervous system, even if that level of activity is inappropriate. If for example, we were raised in a household with lots of anger, conflict, and loud arguments; in turn, our nervous system can become accustomed to that level of chaos. We can even find ourselves unsettled and out right uncomfortable when we experience regulation because to the nervous system it feels so foreign. Learning what our body needs in the context of stress and dysregulation to settle itself into regulation is called self-soothing. Traumatic experiences, particularly those experienced in childhood are a direct interruption to us learning how to soothe ourselves. Any guesses on what helps us regulating our emotions across our lifespan? That’s correct, our ability to self-soothe.

In a world that is bombarding you with messaging about self-care, I ask you today the following reflective prompts listed below. I invite you to sit with and consider how your daily life routines and activities either support a healthy nervous system OR replicate a pattern of activity that may be familiar to previous trauma experiences. 

What events in life may have impacted your nervous system?

What do you do to tend to your nervous system?

How does a resting state feel for you?

Do you find it difficult to find comfort in stillness?

What things have you learned about what helps you feel settled in your body?

Be mindful, lead with love, and don’t forget to listen.

Dr. C

What is the Story of Your Nervous System?

Working in trauma, grief, and attachment requires a framework of understanding people through the story of their nervous system. You see, it is our nervous system that has been collecting data our whole lives that determines our emotional, behavioral, and cognitive experiences. Our nervous system holds the story of our life experiences-including the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Have you ever thought about yourself in this way? What is the story of your nervous system? How does your body respond in times of stress, love, excitement, fear, or rejection (to name a few)? How do you respond to being needed by another person? In contrast, how do you respond when someone doesn’t need you? What do you do when someone expresses emotion in front of you? What about when you show emotion in front of others? These are all questions that our nervous system answers.

Learning the story of our nervous system is an overwhelming process. Acknowledging relationships and experiences that were significant in our lives is often heavy and emotionally intense. I find we often want so badly to tell ourselves that things didn’t matter “that much,” or that we’ve “moved on,” or that “it all happened so long ago I was a kid.” We have the same nervous system our whole lives. It’s always taking in data and that data gets encoded into our emotional, behavioral, and cognitive functioning, at any age. As much as I wish this was true, age is not relevant. Even experiences that occur before we can even talk are influential to our nervous system. 

Today I invite you to go through the questions I’ve posed throughout today’s message. Take some time and think about the story of your nervous system. Consider what life events and relationships make up the chapters to the story. And, as an added challenge-I invite you to start perceiving the people in your lives through a similar lens. While you may not know the story of their nervous system and the intimate details involved, it can do a wonder for our relationships if we simply practice being curious, rather than being immediately judgmental. When a person in your life has a reaction that stands out to you, I invited you to remind yourself, they too have a story.

Be mindful, lead with love, and don’t forget to listen. 

Dr. C

Ping Pong

A really unhelpful question we humans can berate ourselves with in response to terminal news is, “Would it be better if I didn’t know?” Faced with holding the knowledge that you or someone you love has a terminal illness, we will search our thoughts in desperation for relief. Like a never ending game of ping pong, we find ourselves fantasizing that it may have somehow been better to not know and be taken by surprise by death. Aside from that question being unhelpful, it is also question we can never truly answer. Although our anxiety makes us believe the fantasy would be somehow different, that’s all it is-a fantasy. 

I specifically use the word desperation when referring to asking ourselves these types of questions. Let’s call it what it is. When we are faced with the unimaginable, we are desperate for relief. We so badly want to believe there is a world in which this process would be easier. A wild thought if we take a moment to really dissect it. We desperately want to find a version of life where losing someone we love isn’t painful. As much as we all wished that was the case, losing our loved ones involves pain.

Although this game of ping pong may be labeled by some (by me) as unhelpful, I dare also say it is a game that is comforting. Yes, two (or more) things can be true at the same time. To engage in a world where the process of death would somehow be less painful, even if this world is fantasy, can bring relief. How? It serves as a temporary escape and distraction from the current pain we are saturated in. It also gives us a sense of control, which is important to our brains and how it functions. Perceived control is not only comforting, it’s regulating. Although there might not be an answer to end the game of ping pong, it can feel good to play for a little while. 

As with most things, there is a balance to how often to engage in this game. It’s an enticing game that can be comforting and keep us disengaged from the present moment. That disengagement may feel good temporarily, but disengagement does exactly what it says in it’s name-it disengages us from the present. Escaping is attractive when the present moment is unbearable. We are only human, which means we are limited to our capacities. When our nervous system senses these capacities are tapped, it looks for relief. It’s tough to continue to face pain day after day and we can make the mistake that avoidance is the best route. Avoidance may temporarily relieve us, but it also robs us of all of the other aspects to the relationship we are grieving. We forget that in the midst of that pain is so much love and we can convince ourselves the two cannot exist together. It’s a convincing lie; a lie so convincing that we often believe it and turn away. Today’s message is a reminder that although that may feel true, it is not. The relationships you may be grieving are filled with so much more. And while pain may now be a part of the interaction in the relationship, I encourage you to not let it be the definer. I encourage you to be present and to remind yourself of other emotions that coexist in the midst of pain. Love, humor, anger, excitement, and delight are just a few that come to mind. 

If you’re new here, I don’t always tie things up nicely in a bow. Mostly because the work I do in trauma, grief, and attachment doesn’t come with bows. Instead I offer reflection and encouragement to feel the unsettling, to engage in the present moment even if it’s hard, and to allow yourself to play whatever your own version of ping pong is from time to time. It’s ok to need breaks, it’s ok to be overwhelmed, it’s ok to be in pain. The goal is to try and balance acceptance and allowance of these terrible feelings, while also encouraging ourselves to engage in the relationship.

Below are some reflections to support this process:

What emotions are involved in my grief other than pain?

How do I know when I’m overwhelmed and need to take a break?

Do I find myself avoiding the relationship?

Is my version of ping pong different or similar to the one described above?

Be mindful, lead with love, and don’t forget to listen. 

Dr. C

Think About How You Think

A common part of therapy is identifying how we think. Exploring our thoughts helps to identify patterns that may be problematic and adding to symptoms of conditions such as anxiety and depression. Doing this sort of exploration is often eye-opening, as it can reveal the framework our mind applies to the things we experience. Often these frameworks are distorted but feel real and accurate to us nonetheless.

For example, a common problematic thought pattern is referred to as dichotomous or “black-and-white” thinking. This pattern is rigid, and assigns things into two categories such as good/bad, yes/no, right/wrong, all/nothing. They are called problematic or distorted because they are riddled with mistakes. Take black-and-white thinking- if we only look at things through that lens-we completely miss any compromising, middle ground, or duality. Problematic thought patterns not only increase anxiety and depressive symptoms, they also make it more difficult to cope/regulate through distressing emotions.

While this sort of identification of thought patterns is common in therapy modalities that are cognitive focused, the conversation goes a bit deeper when working through an attachment-informed approach. When I am working with clients, not only do I focus on identifying problematic thought patterns; I also focus on identifying the relationships that influenced them.

You see, the meaningful relationships in our lives influence how our brains perceive things. For instance, if we grew up with a caregiver that was very black-and-white in their thinking, we can find ourselves also adopting that strategy. Thought patters are learned in the brain overtime, and they will feel natural and automatic. It isn’t until we step back, reflect, and examine how we think, that we can identify where distortions show up. Often these thought patterns also align with how we felt our emotions were handled by our caregivers. Did you grow up with some emotions being labeled as good and others as bad? Did you have a caregiver that ignored the details/context to your emotions and instead responded with a “this is right and that is wrong” mentality? Our thought patterns not only influence how we think, they influence how we feel, and how we respond to both ourselves and to others!

Similar to attachment styles, our thought patterns are also capable of change with consistent investment and effort. Today I invite you to sit with this black-and-white thinking example a bit more. Is this something you can relate to? Here are some reflective prompts to support diving in a little deeper!

How did my caregiver(s) respond to my emotions?

Did I agree with how my caregiver(s) responded to my emotions?

What did my caregiver(s) misunderstand or fail to see in my times of distress?

When I experience more distressing feelings, like anxiety or depression-do I apply this pattern? (right/wrong, all/nothing, good/bad, yes/no)

How does black-and-white thinking influence my relationship with others?

How does black-and-white thinking influence how I respond to my own emotions?

Be mindful, lead with love, and don’t forget to listen.

Dr. C