Reactive Regulation: Lean In or Change Course?

I’m dysregulated, now what? This episode dives into two powerful approaches you can use when you notice anxiety, depression, or other challenging emotions arising: leaning in, or changing course. We’ll explore what each of these options look like, as well as, how to best use them, by understanding your nervous system's various states and how they inform your approach to regulation.

Three Takeaways

1. You have a choice. In moments of dysregulation, you can lean into the emotion or regulate and change course—both are helpful in different ways.
2. Leaning in builds capacity. It teaches your system how to be with discomfort, instead of fearing it.
3. Regulating creates function. Sometimes the goal isn’t depth—it’s stability. Learn the tools that help you shift when needed.

CLICK HERE for the full show notes, resources, and 3 tangible takeaways!

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Website: https://www.regulatedliving.com/podcast

Email: amanda@regulatedliving.com

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Transcript

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Amanda, welcome to regulate and rewire an anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in. 

Today's conversation is about reactive regulation. This is something we've talked about on the podcast before, but in case you're tuning in for the first time or you haven't found those previous episodes where we talk about it, we often talk about reactive regulation and proactive regulation. So reactive regulation is, ooh, I'm there. I'm already activated. I'm shut down. What can I do? What are the tools or the resources that can support me reactively in this moment of dysregulation, versus proactive regulation? This is where you're taking a proactive approach to more regulated living. You're looking at your deeper patterns, your habits, your sense of connection to your community. There are so many, innumerable ways that we can engage in proactive regulation. I share that to give context for today's conversation, which is adding to your understanding of reactive regulation. 

So when you find yourself in these moments of dysregulation, whether it is being activated, anxious, shut down, more depressed or any particular overwhelming emotion for you, you have two ways that you can engage in reactively regulating or resourcing yourself in those moments. Two choices, you can lean in or change course. So leaning in is where you acknowledge the need of this particular state or feeling, and you seek to resource yourself so that you can be there, you can be with it better. So for example, if you're experiencing grief, leaning in might look like, Yeah, this is really heavy. This is hard. I'm gonna step away from my task and just allow this feeling to come up, allow it to be expressed. Maybe I'm gonna go sit on my back porch so that I can feel the sun on my skin, which I know is really soothing for me. This is also a place that I can cry if I need to cry, the other choice would be to change course. So this is where you intentionally choose Tools, practices or resources that shift you out of your current state or emotion or decrease the intensity of it. So using the same example of grief, maybe it's just not the right time or place to lean in, allow and express grief. Maybe you're in the middle of your work day. There are a number of reasons why it's just not the right time or place sometimes to lean in, so you might instead choose to get up, to take a deep breath, to go get some water, maybe find an intentional distraction or conversation. And this is not a way of dismissing your grief. It is just more of a way of hey, I see this. Not the right time, not the right place. I'll come back to you later. 

So that's the primary goal of today's conversation, is to help give you this education or this context, to realize that in moments of dysregulation, you have a choice point that you can lean into this moment of discomfort or change course, and providing the context needed to help you understand when one of those choices might be more supportive than the other in the short term or long term. And in order to do that, I want to quickly revisit and just review our three primary nervous system states and the different physiology and the different experience that we have in those states, and to get you to a point where you can navigate those moments with more context and agency, I want to briefly review our three primary states to reiterate why different tools, why a different approach might be better or more appropriate, depending on the nervous system state that We are in. 

So we have our three primary states, what I often refer to as your green zone of regulation, yellow zone of activation, and red zone of shutdown. So when you are in a regulated Green Zone state, this is when your parasympathetic nervous system is the primary driver. Here, you feel capable, calm, regulated, you have coping tools for whatever circumstances at hand, and as the stress load on our nervous system increases, as we engage in circumstances or situations that feel more stressful for us or triggering for us, we often then move into a yellow zone of activation. So. Here, our physiology changes to mobilize our internal system, your blood flow, your respiration, your digestion, all changes to prepare you to fight or flee when we are in this activated state, this is where we feel things like fear, anxiety or anger, but we are, our body is mobilized and it's prepared to take action against whatever it perceives as a stressor or a threat, and then we have our red zone of shutdown. So when we are in this state, or we enter this state because our nervous system has become overwhelmed or overworked to the point of shutdown. When we are here, our physiology shifts in real ways to immobilize us and disconnect us. The goal is to conserve energy and to disconnect from any future overwhelm or harm. So this is where we often experience depression, dissociation, feelings of helplessness or apathy. 

And before we move into that more in depth conversation, and those examples of these two choice points, I also want to review what is reactive regulation or resourcing in general. What is it in context of our greater healing methodology or approach here at rise as we and also what it is not. So first of all, I often use these terms interchangeably regulation and resourcing. But if I had to split hairs on these terms, especially in the context of today's conversation, I would say that resourcing is more when you are making the choice to stay with to lean into the experience that you are having. So when we are resourcing, we first acknowledge, yes, I'm activated, or I'm shut down, or I'm having this big emotional experience. What can I do to resource or support myself in this experience, to stay with this experience, versus the way that I sometimes think about reactive regulation, which is, what can I do to try to shift out of or de intensify this experience? What can I do to change this what tools or practices can help me change course? Can shift my physiology to be different. So when it comes to this reactive regulation or resourcing, this happens when you have your toolkit, when you know the specific tools, practices or resources that support you in moments of dysregulation, and this looks different for each of our clients. This is a big part of the work that we do with clients is to help them identify and build out their unique toolkit, so that instead of in these big moments thinking, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so dysregulated, I don't know what to do, they have these specific tools to reach for. And oftentimes, I think this is what people initially come into our programs or even to this podcast to get saying things like, you know, teach me the tools so that I don't have to feel as much anxiety or depression. 

And I want to remind you that the goal is not less signaling from your brain and body. I am not here to offer tools to minimize or ignore the symptoms that are messages from your body. The end goal is to understand the underlying causes of our activation or the shutdown of our nervous system and to heal it there and as a natural result of getting to the underlying causes, be it physiological deficiencies or imbalances, past trauma, belief systems, when we address it there, the natural result is that there is less for our system to be alarmed about. We experience less activation or shut down because we have gotten to the root so reactive resourcing, it is a tool. It is an incredibly important part of healing. But the goal is not for you to have to use these tools every day, or at least not every day in the same way for the rest of your life. Our end goal is to create greater capacity before we become overwhelmed, and to in general, just design a life that is more supportive and sustainable for for our biology.

Is there play? Is there rest? Is there time for these things and human connections that we need to be well? And this is the bird's eye view. This is what we do inside our membership, and especially inside our one on one coaching is helping each of our clients take a personal inventory for what this looks like in their own life. 

So what reactive tools are is they are temporary support or safety cues that help you bridge the gap between. Of high stress or dysregulation and more regulation. Reactive tools work with your body's natural regulation system. So this is why understanding the different physiology shifts the different protective mechanisms that your body employs when you're activated versus shut down can be really helpful. We have to honor that. We have to meet our system where it is and then slowly support it to regulate. So these tools work with your body's natural regulation system. So understanding that helps you to work with it. And then these reactive tools put you at this choice point where they can support you in being with these emotions and experiences, or to minimize or take the edge off of them temporarily. But what these tools are not is they are not a long term fix to our problems, nor are they designed to be a way to bypass our feelings or ignore the symptoms from our body. So for example, when you are feeling tense or angry, you might practice something like a tense and release, where you inhale and you clench your fists and then you exhale and release, doing that might take the edge off the intensity of your anger so that you can show up in that moment more intentionally, but in the grand scheme of things, this does not eliminate the need to explore why that experience made you so angry. 

Okay, my hope is that I have given you the context needed to be more informed as we move into conversation that I really want to have with you today, which is about those two different paths or choices that you have reactively in these moments of dysregulation, to stay put, to lean in to resource or to regulate and change course. So leaning in again, reiterating leaning in is when you notice that you are in the yellow zone or the red zone, or that you are having a big emotion, you acknowledge where you are, and instead of trying to resist or fight or change that, you allow yourself to be there, and you support yourself and your body in that state. And then option two is to change course, to regulate and this is where you utilize practices that help to shift your physiology, to try to change your state, to decrease the intensity of your experience, to take the edge off, and to move you up that nervous system ladder and more towards regulation, both of these options can be really valuable. Both can support you in managing the dysregulation of a particular state or emotion. Neither one is inherently better than the other, but each can feel more appropriate at different times, and so let's talk about how this might look differently in activated states versus more shutdown states with anxiety versus the experience of depression. 

So let's start with that yellow zone of activation, reiterating in this state, you are experiencing mobilization. You have feelings of urgency. This is oftentimes when we have those really spirally thoughts. So what does it look like to lean in? Number one, it is to have the awareness to say I'm really activated right now. I'm really activated right now. And I know what that means for me. Physiologically, it means I'm pretty tunnel visioned. I my heart rate is doing different things, my breath rate I'm activated, and when I'm activated, my system is primed for movement, for mobility. So leaning in is maybe you quit trying to force focus and instead allow yourself to get up to go for a short walk around the office, maybe your internal dialog sounds like I'm noticing. I'm noticing my body's really activated right now. I'm going to allow this activation to be here. I'm going to lean in, allow and in doing. So you might notice that it lessens. Our nervous system likes to be acknowledged, but the goal is simply to be with the experience of, oh, okay, what is going to help me be with this better? Well, probably not to stay sitting at your desk, but maybe to get up and move and allow some of that mobilization to play out. Or, let's take anger, because this also lives in the yellow zone. Leaning in might sound like, okay, like I'm angry, and this feels really big inside me right now, so I am going to just clench my fists and take a really big breath and then release. And in doing this, you are letting your sympathetic nervous system know, Hey, I see you. I feel you. You're not wrong for showing up in this way to try to protect me. And. And then you are looking for the resources, the support that you need to be with. And as you are with this experience, you also move through it. 

Now on the flip side, let's say you notice I'm really, really activated right now, but instead of leaning in, I need to change course. I need to take the edge off. I need to become more regulated right now. And the reality is, sometimes this might look the same in practice as leaning in, but the intention here is different. So here you might also acknowledge I'm sitting at my desk. I'm feeling really anxious and overwhelmed about my list of tasks, or whatever it is, so I'm going to get up and go for a walk. Maybe I'm going to do a quick shakeout, but the purpose this time with going for a walk or doing a quick shakeout is to help discharge some of that excess energy, and so we might immediately follow that with taking a few deep breaths, running cold water over our wrists, anything from your toolkit that you know helps to downshift your nervous system. So for me, when I want to regulate from activation, it is almost always a small sequence of doing a quick shakeout, taking a few deep breaths or doing physiological sigh, and then some visual orienting, just helping my body get more cues of safety than stress. Changing the way that you breathe can turn on your body's relaxation response. And all of these instantly send messages to my brain, hey, we're actually more safe than maybe we thought we were, and it helps me to transition slowly out of that heightened state. 

So maybe you find yourself thinking here like Amanda, why does this matter? Both likely give me less intensity, and the answer is yes, and the purpose of leaning in is to ultimately give you practice being with challenging, uncomfortable experiences. And what this does over time is it builds up your capacity or your tolerance for uncomfortable sensations or emotions. How often have you gotten anxious about an anxiety symptom? This is really common for our clients, where their heart rate might speed up and all of a sudden it's oh my gosh, oh my gosh. This means I'm anxious. And it's almost the anxiety around the discomfort of a particular emotion or particular body sensation that exasperates and spirals out into anxiety or even panic. And so when we practice being with it gives us greater context to say, hey, we have the ability to be with these challenging emotions so that they don't need to be as overwhelming for us in the future, versus changing course, regulating. It doesn't do that. The sole purpose, the sole goal of changing course, reactively regulating, in the context that we're using those terms today for this conversation, the sole goal is to decrease the intensity of your experience as soon as possible. Because sometimes that's what we need. Sometimes that is what's most appropriate. Again, maybe you're in a place where you are feeling big grief, come on, but it's not a safe place for you to express or be with that grief. We need to distract from it. We need to de intensify it, and then hopefully hold space for it later. 

So I just want to hear reiterate the difference between leaning in and changing course and adding that layer of when we do have the skill set, the time, the space, the capacity, the ability to lean in, there is a slightly greater ROI return on investment, in my opinion, from learning how to do that, to be able to be with and to resource. Because over time. What that does is it increases our capacity. We're not as overwhelmed by these experiences as easily moving forward. And sometimes it's not the right place the right time to do that, and it can be really, really helpful to understand your nervous system, to understand your physiology, enough to be able to turn to specific tools that can de intensify that experience pretty quickly in the moment.

So now let's look at these two choice points when you are in more of a red zone or shut down state. We reach this state when our nervous system becomes overwhelmed or overworked, you might experience exhaustion, depression, feeling stuck, maybe disconnected from your body, maybe feeling apathetic, like you just don't care about anything, or you don't care about things you used to the protective mechanism of this state is here to immobilize and disconnect you so. And so when we can understand that, that can inform how we lean in or change course. So when we are leaning in to this shutdown state, we are acknowledging that our system is overwhelmed and overworked, we don't need to tease out, at least not right now, of why or how, or we just know it is that it is disconnecting and immobilizing in an attempt to protect us. It is trying to keep you safe from all of the sensations or the intense experiences. So what could you do in this place of shutdown that might allow you to be there better. Maybe with this context, you can allow yourself to be there without it being wrong or bad or a result of you being broken. Is there the time and space in your life right now to allow for yourself to take a break, to turn inward, to notice what it feels like to be disconnected, or to notice the heaviness of the state. You might also seek to resource yourself by finding a way to make yourself more comfortable in the immobilization. Can you find a blanket, turn off the lights, put on headphones, maybe to decrease the auditory stimuli of your environment, your nervous system is saying we need less. We need less. We need less. How can you offer it less? 

What our clients often find in this state is that they have default ways of immobilizing or disconnecting, things like Doom scrolling on social media. And there's often this layer of shame or guilt like, Oh, I'm I shouldn't feel this way. I have so much on my to do list, I need to be productive. And they try to strong arm themselves, maybe to their to do list, which oftentimes creates even greater shutdown. They're on the couch, scrolling again. And so one of the ways that you could lean in to this immobilization or this need to just disconnect from your world is to again allow yourself to do so. But maybe you do it with more intentional choices of media. Maybe instead of just forcing yourself to be productive to the point where you just get stuck in this freeze Doom scrolling, you say, You know what, I just need a break. I need a break from my life. I need a break from reality, and I'm going to do that intentionally with a show, with a movie that leaves me feeling good, or maybe encourages laughter. And maybe, instead of just ghosting my friend, because that's what I do when I get to this shutdown place, I am going to, instead, more intentionally communicate a need for alone time. Leaning in. This is about acknowledging the need of this state allowing it, and also the practice of exploring and being with some of the uncomfortable elements of it. 

And then the deeper work here, obviously being to to reflect on what is contributing to getting you to the place of this overwhelm and this shutdown, and what might need to shift so that you are spending less time, or that this is less of intense experience. Now the flip side of this is, what if you find yourself in shutdown, in a situation in your life where you really would like to not be maybe it's happening at work when you have deadlines or when you're actively caring for your children, and you need to not be so disconnected or dissociated. This is where you notice that you're shut down, but you want to come out of that deep immobilization. I need to remind you here, I need to reiterate here that this state happens as a result of overwhelm. If we try to strong arm ourselves, out of shutdown, out of freeze, out of these lower energy states too much or too quickly, it can reinforce the overwhelm and deepen the shutdown. So remember that the physiology of the state is immobilized and disconnected. So if we are trying to shift out of the state, asking yourself, What can I do in this moment to gently mobilize or gently connect, connecting to myself, connecting to my environment, connecting to other people. So when we talk about mobilizing, gently, mobilizing, this could look like visual orienting, just looking around your room, taking it in, mobilizing your eyes. It could be as simple as putting your phone down and getting up and changing the room that you are in. Mobilizing sometimes is. Choosing a simple task, I am going to go get the mail. I am going to respond to one email, one simple task to mobilize and just get the ball rolling. When we think about, what can I do to gently connect again? I love I love visual or handing. This is also a way that we can start to connect to our environment. Maybe you connect to yourself by focusing on your breath for a moment. Can you make eye contact with somebody around the office? Get up, start a conversation. So what are things you can do to gently connect to environment, to self, to others? And one of the things that I really, really love to do here is to get into my senses. So if I can to take a hot or a cold shower, maybe splash some cold water on my face or my wrists. If I'm out in public like I've shared before, I will sometimes keep sour candy in my mouth. This is something that I think can take the edge off panic. It also can be something that can bring you out of a more disconnected or shut down state, the intensity of a really sour candy in your mouth. Yep, that can bring you back online, bringing you to here and now. 

The other thing I want to review or reflect on that we've talked about before on the podcast, that I think especially plays a role in reactive regulation is tool layering. So rarely is there one tool that's going to get you from where you are to where you want to be. So tool layering is about meeting yourself where you are. So meeting yourself in activation or shut down, and then using a layer of tools, multiple tools that tend to have a more linear response to our nervous system. So for example, in shutdown, gentle mobilization, visual orienting. Then maybe you start to sway side to side. Then maybe you add in some activating double breaths, some in and out, in and out. And then you get up and you move to another environment or onto your next task, or with activation tool. Layering could be like I mentioned before, this small sequence of you start with shaking, and then you sway, and then you take some deep breaths, and then settle at your desk to finish your computer work. So meeting yourself in the low and walking yourself up, or meeting yourself in the high and slowly walking yourself down and doing the work for you to identify the unique tools and practices that can make up your tool layering sequences. And if some of these concepts, we have reviewed some old concepts, I've introduced some new ones in this conversation. If this feels confusing or complicated, but it feels right to you. These are things I feel that are best understood experientially. And this is the work that we do inside the membership and with our one on one clients every single day. And we have been having actually, a lot of things click for our clients around reactive regulation lately, it's different flavors the role that it plays in their unique healing journey. 

So to help you, hopefully bring all of the many pieces of this conversation together. In summary, in moments of dysregulation, discomfort or big emotions, you have two choices when wanting to be intentional about that experience. Number one is to lean in to practice being with and supporting yourself where you are. And over time, this can create greater capacity for uncomfortable emotions or sensations before they become overwhelming. The second choice would be to regulate, to try to change course in this moment. You've decided, hey, the state or the intensity of this emotion that it's happening, it's the wrong place and the wrong time. I want to do something to directly impact its intensity, or to shift my physiology towards more regulation, or something that's more ideal right now. And neither of these is right or wrong, good or bad, it's more appropriate to turn to one or the other in different circumstances or with different skill sets in our life. And neither of these come as a replacement to the deeper work of identifying and working with your patterns or proactively assessing and changing your life to promote more wellness, but building out your own regulation toolkit, and utilizing reactive regulation is also still a really valuable part of healing, especially early on, in trying to heal anxiety and depression through a nervous system lens, because this takes the edge off that frustration of like, oh my gosh, I'm so anxious right now I don't know what to do. These tools give you something to reach for, and they act as an invitation to start to have this dialog with yourself and with your nervous system, and to notice these patterns with compassion. 

Okay, let's wrap it up with our three takeaways. 

Number one, in moments of dysregulation, you have a choice. You can either lean into the experience and support yourself in. That state or change course by using tools to move toward a more regulated or optimal state for your circumstances, neither is better, they just serve different purposes. 

Number two, leaning in builds capacity and changing course shifts your state so leaning in over time, can cultivate your ability to be present with uncomfortable feelings and sensations while regulating is designed to take the edge off those feelings in the moment when appropriate and 

TAKEAWAY NUMBER THREE is when we know what to do in moments of dysregulation, we are not as likely to spiral out of control or to feel out of control. 

So this is my invitation, my encouragement for you to experiment with some of these tools and these practices and to start building up your reactive toolkit, because this will give you choices in the moments that you need it most, and if you would like more experiential support in this. This is what we do with our clients every day, inside the membership and inside restore, which is our one on one coaching program. And as always, I will drop links in the show notes for you to learn more about these programs if you'd like. And as always, thanks for being here. And until next week, I am sending hope and healing your way. 

Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space, or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you next time you

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