Mythbusting "Regulation" and Orienting Towards Pleasure

As the concept of emotional regulation has moved into the wellness world and therefore into the mainstream it seems there is this idea that we are supposed to be calm, cool, collected, benevolent beings at all times. That this is the pinnacle of “wellness” or “wholeness” and that this means someone is “healed”. 

Lol nope.

You don’t have to be regulated all the time- in fact you can’t be.

It’s not physiologically possible. Our nervous systems are dynamic and constantly in flux. In every moment it is picking up internal and external cues and responding to them. “Oooh you just had a big burst of energy maybe now it’s time to slow down a little” might take the form of a yawn. Or the rigidity that moves up your spine when your boss singles you out in a work meeting- your nervous system is like “ooh yeah I remember elementary school and how we would get scolded for our posture so here you go here’s some energy so you can keep your back straight! Don’t want you to get yelled at buddy!” And this is happening all. day. long. Sometimes we are able to notice our nervous system responses and sometimes we aren’t. Some of us (hello, hi, me!) had zero awareness of this at all and it’s turned into a daily practice that we’re still learning.

But ALL of us have nervous systems that are constantly moving and in flux. 

The idea that being calm and non-reactive is a state of being we should all aspire to doesn’t leave room for our humanity.

It doesn’t leave room for our animal bodies. And it doesn’t allow us the space we need to identify what’s really happening for us. What our experience actually is: what is, looks like, feels like, how it presents itself, and how that drives us in our interactions. It leaves us with less awareness and way less room for choice. 

In RETURN I teach about the nervous system at the outset- through the lens of the Window of Tolerance and a little bit of Polyvagal Theory. I won’t get into all of that here (but if you are curious, sign up here for the waitlist) but I will give you the sort of central thesis. 

When deepening our awareness and/or working with trauma and the nervous system- the thing we desire to do is to grow our capacity to hold the hard feelings. When we do this, we can really show up in our integrity. We have choice about how we want to show up for other people and our communities. We’re more able to get a sense of what’s ours and what is not. 

To do this, we don’t bypass the hard feelings and tell ourselves we’re fine. We also don’t dig into the uncomfortable feelings to try and analyze them or rush to make meaning. There’s a fine line here! It takes practice- it IS a practice. What we do is allow ourselves to sit in the discomfort alongside the things that resource us. We get to have both. We make a lot of room for the concept of “and”; letting more than one thing be true at a time. Through this process, through this practice- we get to tap into a little more self-compassion. 

“I’m angry. AND I’m uncomfortable with anger so I have a desire to push this emotion away. I feel like I should be the bigger person. AND I’m still angry.” 

All of that can be present at the same time. Can we expand our capacity to be able to hold both of those truths? Can we hold the righteous truth of anger and our need or desire to stay in relationship? There isn’t always a linear answer- it’s nuanced. Some days we might be able to hold that. To sit in the liminality of that. Other days it might be more difficult. You might find that over time, and with practice, you are able to get there a little easier (which is what happens with repetition- new neural pathways, baby!). 

Expansive work like this takes time.

I see a desire for commodification in the wellness/spiritual/somatic world. A desire to be able to show what we’ve learned or package up teachings into something bite-sized. And that’s part of human nature I think, the want to share what we’re learning, so I’m not knocking that. But I am offering that this work isn’t shiny in this way.

It’s not quite as simple as “I took a knitting class, look! I’ll show you what I can do”. It’s slower than that. Because it’s deep work. It’s deep work that happens on the cellular level. Which is why we move so slowly and allow room for integration. It’s earthy, underworld stuff and it’s subtle. We kind of have to tune ourselves to be able to hear the subtlety of this work and that’s part of it too.  The shifts that occur are ones you can sense and feel rather than show (If I’m to frame it with binaries).

All that being said, this work is also… fun?? It’s deep and earthy, totally, but it’s also an opportunity to play. To get to know ourselves and witness ourselves and lead with curiosity. In this work we orient towards pleasure. Not by bypassing the hard stuff but by learning how to hold the hard thing and also orient towards what feels good or even neutral. And we grow our capacity for joy and pleasure from there. From that place, we have access to our wholeness and can make room for all of ourselves. Our many “selves”, our many parts. 

And when we can do that, we can show up with dignity and integrity in our relationships. Our interpersonal relationships as well as in our communities. When we have access to that center, we can access more of an awareness about how we want to show up in times of struggle and the capacity to engage with what the world is meeting us with.

This is why we work with self-regulation. Not to control but to allow- in service to a better future. A future of collective liberation for all bodies.