All this talk these days about manifestation, and us being totally responsible for creating our lives, sounds really empowering for 3 seconds...but if you actually think about is may want to slip beneath the waves of despondency and depression.
Can I really be the cause of all the awful experiences I have had in my life? you may begin to wonder.
If so, I don't even know how I did that, so how can I stop?!
And if I do figure it out, and learn to manifest rainbows and unicorns, will I never have a cloudy day again?
I mean if I want a rainbow I need some rain, right?
These are certainly the types of rabbit holes, my brain begins to burrow through, and sometimes I get lost in the maze of the rabbit warren and don't know up from down anymore.
Which brings me to our miraculous Nervous System.
The central nervous system, consisting of our brain and spinal cord is like a super computer.
The peripheral nervous system is like the internet of our body, sending and receiving so much information which it sends back to the CNS to be filed and stored for future use.
The nervous system has many functions but I wanted to discuss the Autonomic Nervous System, which is an automatic instinctual thing, that we have little control over. It consists of two main parts;
Sympathetic - fight, fight, flee, freeze, fawn
Parasympathetic - rest, digest, heal
When our sympathetic nervous system is triggered, we have three main response functions;
1. Fight, flight or flee
2. Freeze
3. Dorsal
Just a reminder that these responses are not something we have much control over.
They are triggered by all the experiences we have had in our life to date (including way back in the womb) and our traumatic experiences are what leads our nervous system to decide what is safe and what is NOT.
Because these sympathetic responses are designed to keep us safe, but are largely unconscious they may be operating under the assumption that you are a scared child even once you are not.
When our sympathetic nervous system is triggered, we are reactive rather than responsive.
So, when I ask do we have the ability to respond, I mean as apposed to reacting.
We react in a fraction of a second, without thinking to catch a ball flying at our face or to swerve for a deer in the road (even though it is often more dangerous to swerve).
Reactions are instinctual and designed to keep us safe. So our sympathetic nervous system has a big and important job. It draws from your memory bank in a millisecond to decide when there is danger and what is the safest reaction.
The challenge comes in when we are actually reacting in a way that is based around old traumas and keeping us locked in to believing certain things, that once may have been dangerous, still are.
Do you see where I am going here?
The ability to respond rather than react takes us getting to know who we are, how we tick, why we believe this or react to that.
For us to tap into responsibility, does not just mean – I am responsible for getting dinner on the table, the kids to bed, my work project completed. These are all part of our responsibilities, to be sure. And they are important for our practical day to day lives.
But it goes further, for us to have the ability to respond in the way that is self-honoring and honoring of others we need to pepper it with large doses of personal accountability.
I posset, and I am still practicing too, that the more practiced we get we get a being personally accountable the more responsibility is just a byproduct.
If we cannot repattern our nervous system then we cannot consciously be accountable for manifesting the life we desire.
Also to be clear whether we are unconsciously or consciously manifesting life will present challenges, that is inevitable.
As we up level our consciousness just like a math problem we go up a grade in difficulty, that is called growth.
But I digress, I wanted to give you a chance to consider the level of sympathetic response that is most common for you and some ideas of how to start working with it, gently.
1. Fight, flight or flee
When something triggers you, you get moving fast in one of these ways. If you think you can win you stand and fight, if you don't you get the hell out of Dodge. Everything feels really loud and intense. This is not usually something you consciously think about before reacting. And this is the lightest level to break pattern wise.
2. Freeze
This is a combination of 1 and 3, on the surface you seem unable to act, but inside of you there is a screaming to move...like thinking 'I have to, but I can't' frozen in fear but fully mentally alert and aware. This is a bit more complex to break.
3. Dorsal
Is like hibernation, and is the most challenging one to deal with. This extreme response is from major trauma where you may have been physically unsafe in one major trauma or systematically over time, to the point that you had to disassociate from you body in order to cope.
I know this is just a very nutshell version of this and I highly recommend listening to Sarah Baldwin, I will drop 2 amazing lectures if this really resonates.
So a few tools to start working to reprogram your nervous system, but remember the level of fear and anxiety my impact how things work or don't in that moment. Just try and see what lands for you.
1. Fight, flight or flee
breath work, dance, meditation, pat on your chest, gentle exercise
2. Freeze
rock or sway your body, make some tea, soften your gaze, wash the dishes, get your bare feet onto the earth
3. Dorsal
we may feel like we have taken a sleeping pill so we need to wake ourself up, brisk exercise, write down 10 items in your current environment to orient yourself into your present space, the devil is in the detail. The more you detail the things the more you focus out of dorsal.
Please do more research on this if it is resonating strongly.
Learning to regulate our immune system is so powerful for all of us.
Most of us can use many a simple tool.
If you have severe trauma I highly recommend facilitated support.
You've got this, and sometimes that means you can do it alone, and other times it means you need to ask for help and find the right support.
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