Regulation Is Not Numbness

“Regulate your nervous system” gets thrown around like it means you should be calm, unbothered, and untouchable 24/7. I don’t buy that, and I explain why it can quietly turn into emotional shutdown, misinformation, and even spiritual bypassing. A healthy nervous system doesn’t erase your feelings. It expands your capacity to have them without losing yourself. 

I walk through what the nervous system is actually doing all day: scanning your environment and asking, “Am I safe right now?” When safety is present, your body settles. When threat is detected, your biology shifts into protection mode, especially after trauma, chronic stress, burnout, or sudden life events. We talk about what dysregulation can look like in real life: overwhelm, anxiety that won’t switch off, hypervigilance, exhaustion you can’t sleep off, and numbness that feels like disconnection. We also name a common pattern for empaths and helpers: absorbing emotions that aren’t yours and overgiving to keep everyone else comfortable. 

From there, I get specific about what regulation looks like when it’s real: pausing before reacting, staying present during hard conversations, feeling grief without losing your sense of self, and returning to balance after stress. We go deep on grief and the fear many people carry that feeling better means “dishonoring” the person they lost. I share a gentler truth: regulation doesn’t remove grief, it helps you hold it and still live. Finally, I offer practical tools that support nervous system healing, including breathwork, somatic movement, mindfulness, grounding, EFT tapping, nature, and connection with safe people. 

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Transcript

Why “Regulation” Gets Misused

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Hello, it's Dr. Donna and welcome to another episode of my podcast, Soul Talk and Psychic Advice. Today I want to talk about something that has become a very popular phrase in the healing world and just online. I hate when we go through these fads of phrases. It it's just because they get misused, right? I remember when bipolar was misused, now narcissism and regulated nervous system. You know, so many terms get so misused, and people think they know what they mean, and they really don't, and they're too comfortable with misusing terms, and that's how misinformation gets spread. And always remind people, although I study this stuff, I'm not a licensed psychologist, I don't pretend to be one. I speak from being a somatic coach and a somatic grief coach and a psychic and psychic life coach. So you probably have heard people say things like, I'm regulating my nervous system, I need to regulate, stay regulated. And while nervous system regulation is incredibly important, right? Always talk about it. There's also a misunderstanding that can develop around it. Some people begin to think that a well-regulated nervous system means being calm all the time. No, that isn't what it means at all. Or never getting upset. There are some things that you need to get upset about in life in the world, or being completely unbothered by life. I did a whole podcast on this desire to be unbothered by life. But that's actually not what regulation means at all. A healthy nervous system does not mean you stop feeling. That is not what it means, people. So please don't misunderstand that. A healthy nervous system means you can feel deeply and still stay grounded in yourself. It's really about you can feel things, you can get upset, but not losing it. You know, not just being totally wild, crazy, ungrounded, right? So today we're going to explore what a well-regulated nervous system actually looks like and why regulation is not numbness. No, we want to feel it's not disconnection. We want to stay connected and grounded. Our emotional shutdown. Please don't shut down emotionally. Feel life. That's what life is about. Feelings. We're here to feel. You hear many reasons why we're here, but we're here to feel, and that's what scares people. And people who struggle with connection end up having addiction issues. Not because they're weak, not because they're bad or you know, they're they can't have control over their lives, it's simply because they haven't experienced true connection and it hasn't been safe to feel. So let's talk about the nervous system's job. Let's begin with the basics. Yes, the basics. Your nervous system has one primary job. It is constantly scanning your environment and asking a simple question. Am I safe now? This scanning happens automatically. It happens every moment of every day. Your nervous system is noticing tone of voice, facial expression, body language, environments, and emotional cues. When it perceives safety, your body settles. When it perceives threat, your body prepares to protect you. This response is not something that you consciously controls. It's it's built into your biology. You know? It's just what we do. And when somebody has trauma, they can't do this properly, right? Because everything's a threat when you've been traumatized. Especially if you've gone through some like a car accident or quick traumatic events where you were attacked or something, you're constantly gonna be like m not regulated. You're gonna be scanning for threats. So let's talk about what dysregulation looks like. Many people today are living with chronically dysregulated nervous systems. This can look like feeling constantly overwhelmed. We are, we have so much on our plate, so much to do, so much financial responsibility. Being easily triggered. Anxiety that doesn't seem to turn off. Yes, a lot of people have that been there. Emotional shutdown or numbness, just not wanting to feel. Feeling exhausted but unable to rest. Overthinking and hypervigilance. For impasse and healers especially. This can show up as absorbing other people's emotions and carrying energy that isn't yours. Or you can have your own, you know, issues and then you're feeling other people and it becomes a lot. Then you truly have a dysregulated nervous system. Your nervous system becomes stuck in protection mode. But here's where an important misunderstanding can happen. When people start healing, they sometimes well sometimes they think the goal is to stop feeling anything difficult. Oh god, yes, that's what they think. But that's not regulation, that's numbing our dissociation. I remember when my son died, a lot of people thought I should just be cool with it. It's just life, right? Um spiritual, I'm a psychic. It's like no, you know, and I realized at that point how in tr how much in trouble humans were, you know, because this fear of feeling something tough. And I've seen people post, you know, my mother died, I loved her, I'm gonna miss her, but you know, that's just part of the spiritual process, or they go, you know, I guess there's something for me to learn from it, and it's like, wow, we are so afraid of feeling, and that's what we're here to do. So let's talk about how regulation is not emotional numbness. A well-regulated nervous system does not mean you stop feeling sadness, anger, grief, or frustration. No, you are meant to feel all these things, these are human emotions. I always tell people anger is my favorite emotion because it tells the truth that under all that anger, sadness and pain and what needs to be healed. You can feel something strongly, right? Regulation simply means that when emotions arise, you know, your nervous system has the capacity to move through them without becoming completely overwhelmed or shut down. You know, those emotions are part of the human experience, grief, anger, sadness, frustration. You can feel something strongly and still stay connected to yourself. You can experience grief. You can still feel safe in your body. You can feel anger. Something should make you sad or angry, right? Some things just will. You know what's the phrase? If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. Something in life is gonna make us angry. And still respond intentionally rather than impulsively. This is the difference between being flooded by emotion and being present with emotion. Anger doesn't necessarily mean rage will follow. I mean, you can sit there and calmly say, I'm angry about this, and you can explain yourself why you're angry. You don't have to go off, you don't have to cuss someone out. You know, if you do, you do, but you know, then whatever consequence comes, comes. But honestly, we have turned emotions into good, bad, negative, positive, and this is hurting people, and that's why people are so uncomfortable with themselves. Let's talk about emotional range being healthy. A healthy nervous system actually allows for a wide emotional range of feelings, right? You can experience joy, sadness, excitement, disappointment, love, anger, grief. I tell people you can grieve and be joyful at the same time. You can grieve and be happy at the same time. You you can, you know, be excited about something and still be grieving over someone you love. You you know, and I think that it really hurts people when it comes to grief because they think, I must be stuck in sadness. Someone died. I can never feel excitement, joy, or anything is dishonoring the person I love is dishonoring what I felt for them. And that isn't so. And remember, we live in a world of duality where we feel both good and bad emotions at the same time. Is emotion good or bad? Grief is appropriate, so is it bad? No. Disappointment is appropriate, is it bad? No. Sadness is appropriate at times, anger is appropriate. You know, are there any bad emotions? No, not really. And so you're not trapped in one emotional state for long periods of time. We're not. Your nervous system has the flexibility to move through experiences and return to balance. This flexibility is sometimes called nervous system resilience. It's the ability to experience life fully while still maintaining stability. That's the key, stability. Why some people become numb. For many people, especially those who have experienced trauma, grief, or chronic stress, the nervous system learned early on that feeling deeply was overwhelming. So the body developed protective strategies. One of those strategies is numbness. Numbness is not regulation though. It is a nervous system trying to protect you from emotional overload. People who are numb might say things like I just don't feel much anymore. Or I feel disconnected from everything, right? That's what they say. This can happen after trauma, loss, burnout, or long periods of stress. That is very, very common. The nervous system shuts down emotional intensity in order to survive. But true healing is not about becoming numb. It's about slowly restoring your ability to feel safely again. Regulation is ability to return to yourself. A well-regulated nervous system has one very important ability. It can return to balance after stress. Life will always include challenges, arguments, loss, unexpected events, stressful situations. Right? People want their problems to go away. One problem is, another one comes. It's just how life is. Regulation doesn't mean these things stop happening. It means your body can move through the experience and eventually come back to a grounded state. You may be ungrounded for a moment, stressed out, fearful for a moment, but you come back to a grounded state. You don't stay stuck in fight, flight, or shut down. Your nervous system can settle again. Signs of a well regulated nervous system. Let's talk about what regulation actually looks like in real life. A well regulated nervous system might look like this. You can feel emotions without immediately becoming overwhelmed. Yes. You are able to pause before reacting. You can listen during difficult conversations without shutting down. You can experience grief without losing your sense of self. You can feel stress and still make thoughtful decisions. You can recover from emotional experiences more quickly. You are able to experience joy and connection. Notice that none of these involve being numb. In fact, regulation actually increases your capacity to experience life. That's what it is, to experience life to the fullness. You know, and to feel all the ranges of emotion and know that none of it's bad. Nervous system regulation is closely connected to boundaries, yes. When your nervous system is dysregulated, it becomes difficult to separate your emotions from the emotions of others. You might absorb other people's stress. You might feel responsible for fixing their pain. You might overgive and exhaust yourself for trying to keep everyone else comfortable. Because you start feeling all those energetic triggers and you're like, I need to calm down, I need to soothe myself. So you end up, you know, trying to keep everybody else comfortable because you're trying to save yourself while doing that. But when your nervous system becomes more regulated, something shifts. You can feel compassion without losing yourself. You can care deeply without absorbing everything. You can support others while staying grounded in your body. Yes, you can. You can regulate. Regulation and grief. Let's talk about it. Grief is one of the most powerful emotional experiences a nervous system can move through. When someone we love dies, a nervous system experiences a profound disruption. The body can move through waves of sadness, disbelief, anger, longing, and exhaustion. A regulated nervous system does not mean grief disappears. It means the body slowly learns how to hold grief without being destroyed by it. You can feel the pain of loss and still experience moments of peace. You can cry and still feel connected to life. This is a gentle process of healing. That's what healing is. You know, and I think that people get scared to feel the pain of grief because you can get lost in it, right? The despair of it. And things do get lighter and easier, and you will laugh and smile and and feel joy again. And you can hold a grief without being destroyed by it. That's something that was very important to me. That's why I decided to do more grief work and become a somatic grief coach. And some people aren't ready to hear that because they really think if I feel better, I'm dishonoring the person I lost. And the first thing I tell them, I said, if this person is so great and so wonderful that you miss, do you think they want you to suffer? Do you think they want you to, you know, validate your love for them by punishing yourself? And you know, always say what I have someone say to me, my close friend Corrine, not her real name, say to me. Haven't you suffered enough? And if you can answer that question of yes, I've suffered enough, then you can learn to still grieve but still live at the same time. And that's what it means to be regulated while grieving. You're still feeling the emotions, but you are regulated. So let's talk about practices that support regulation. These are my favorite practices I'm going to mention, but there are many practices that support nervous system regulation. I love breath work. And you know I should do a whole podcast on breath work, but you know, regulating the breath, and there's different ways to do that. I done some certifications in breath work, plus I practice it regularly regularly. It really does regulate the nervous system to help you cope with daily life. Somatic movement, moving the body. There's many ways, right? Yoga, dance, different somatic exercises that are out there. There's so many techniques. Mindfulness, you know, just being present in the moment and feeling the moment is very important. Grounding exercises. You know, it's very important. Sometimes it's walking, going for walks is very grounding. Doing body scans can ground you. And good old EFT. I love emotional freedom technique. I got certified in that a few times. And tapping on the meridians, they're the same meridians that they use in acupuncture, but those points really help when you just tap on them, you know, for emotional regulation. It is very much can help people change and how they perceive life. It could change their mindset, it can help them heal and upgrade their mindset. I do a lot of tapping. I've taken many courses where tapping was involved. You can go on YouTube and find many tapping videos. Gentle physical movement, move the body, spend time in nature, connecting with safe people, knowing who is safe. Safe person is a healed person who won't judge you, who will be present with you. These practices help signal to the nervous system that it is safe to soften. And when the nervous system begins to soften, emotional capacity expands. The goal of nervous system healing, the goal of nervous system healing is not perfection. Oh, let's just ban that word perfection. It's not being calm all the time, it's not avoiding emotions. The goal is greater capacity, the capacity to feel, the capacity to respond instead of react, the capacity to stay connected to yourself in different moments, the capacity to experience joy, love, and connection. Regulation allows you to move through life with normal stability, more presence, and more resilience. That's really what it's about. Okay, so a regulated nervous system doesn't mean being calm and unbothered and numb and you know the world is falling apart around you, just like, oh cool. That isn't what it is. It's being able to respond. Remember, some things should make you sad, angry, hurt, frustrated, just like some things should make you joy and happy and laughing, right? So let's talk about a final reflection. You know, we're closing this out. If you are someone who has spent years feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or emotionally exhausted, nervous system regulation can be a powerful doorway into healing. It can. But remember this healing does not mean becoming unbothered by life. It does not. That is never ever the goal to be unbothered. That is not a flex people. It means becoming present enough to experience life fully without losing yourself. You're not meant to be numb, you're meant to feel. And when the nervous system feels safe enough, it allows you to experience the richness of being alive. I want to thank you for spending this time with me today. And hopefully, if this episode resonated with you, take a moment today to gently check in with your body. Notice your breath, notice your surroundings, and remind yourself that your nervous system in this moment is safe to soften. Because it's very important to be able to do that. You know, I see all these terms being misused. And I just cringe. And I tell people, you know, when it comes to a regulated nervous system, it means that you can have a moment of being upset and you don't spiral. But you have that moment, you allow for that moment because it's a valid response to what's happening in the moment for you. Um, we should not be scared to feel because we're meant to do that. And it's about being present, present with life, present with the discomfort. Yes, life can be pretty traumatic and it could be uncomfortable at times, but it still stay, stay present, stay in the moment, show up. And part of showing up is knowing that you're gonna feel, and part of having a regulated nervous system is saying I could show up, and if something bad or uncomfortable happens, I will respond appropriately appropriately to it. It won't devastate me, it won't break me down, you know, maybe for a moment, but not forever. And you could bring yourself back to a grounded space where you could react accordingly, but definitely know that you're supposed to react. You don't want to ever stop feeling the range of emotions because that's what makes you human. And so with that, I want to close this out. And I want to thank you for listening. Have a great day, and I will see you in the next episode.