Ep 126 Nervous System Care vs Regulation: Why I'm Rethinking the Language

In this episode, I'm exploring a shift in language that I think matters more than it might first appear... the difference between nervous system regulation and nervous system care.

We've all heard 'regulate your nervous system.' But what if that framing is quietly telling us that activated states are problems to fix... even when they're actually appropriate?

In this episode:

→ Why 'regulation' language can become a sophisticated form of suppression

→ When your activation is actually your body doing its job correctly

→ What nervous system care looks like instead

→ How this changes the way I use breathwork in practice

→ Three questions to help you know what you actually need right now

This one is close to my heart. I hope it gives you permission to stop pathologising your own responses, and start caring for yourself instead.

If you'd like to explore some Breathwork demonstrations, you can find them on my Youtube channel here >> https://www.youtube.com/@carlykillencoaching

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

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Transcript

Carly 0:46

hello and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly, your host and midlife guide, and this week I'm sharing something I've been sitting with for a little while now. And if you are a regular listener, you've probably noticed I'm doing this a lot lately. It's something that's been nagging at me. Every time I see a certain word pop up in my feed or in a real a caption course, titles all over the place, it kind of bugs me. And so I've been sitting with it, as I said, and that word is regulation, and I mean in terms of the nervous system. So before we start, I want to be super clear about something. I don't believe the word is wrong. I don't believe the work of nervous system regulation is wrong. The nervous system work, breath work, somatic practices. I've been working on this in some capacity my whole life and I absolutely give all my attention to this stuff right now, but it really has changed me and it's changed my nerve system too. But I feel like that word, the, the way it's framed these days. That's where I've started to just notice something that's making me a little uncomfortable. And that's regulation as if you are faulty, like a faulty thermostat that needs adjusting back to a correct temperature. And I've been asking myself like, what if that's not it? What if the goal is never to be regulated, but to really feel cared for, to feel capable, to have access to your full range of. Emotions of life experiences. I mean, that's what I'm all about. Opening up the whole of life and making sure that anything that's a barrier to that is something that we can work with. So that is what today's about the difference between nervous system regulation and nervous system care and why I think the words do actually matter. So let me start by asking you something. When you hear regulate your nervous system, what does that mean to you? For most people I speak to, it tends to mean calm down, bring it down, get back inside the window of tolerance, and there's real science behind that window of tolerance. So there's nothing wrong with that on one hand, so I'm not throwing it out, but the way it's used, the. Frame has kind of become maybe a little problematic, perhaps even a little sHullow with overuse, or perhaps because this concept is becoming more widely known, but not necessarily more deeply researched. Not by everybody anyway. And I don't claim to be the expert here and I'm definitely not a therapist, but I have thoughts to share. But for me, that regulation language does seem to imply, even though we don't mean it to, but it implies that maybe there is a correct state to be in and that that state is calm, measured, settled. That anything outside of that is a problem to fix. So I'm gonna share with you an example of where it started to unravel for me on a personal level. And there was a period where I had some quite big decisions in front of me. Well, many more than one period of time, but there's not time to share them all here. The things that, if I'm honest, I didn't really wanna look at and I noticed I was doing all the practices, breathing, meditation, the whole thing, ticking the box of I've looked after myself today and I was going to the gym. I was eating well in terms of wellness. I could probably give myself an A star and I really liked that. And I was relatively calm on the surface. Genuinely calm. Underneath. I was using that calm to not look at the thing the practices had become without me realizing it. Quite a sophisticated way of avoiding, I was using regulation as a hiding place. And because it looked like self-care from the outside, it took me a while to clock it. And I think a lot of us do this. Maybe you can relate. Because we've been told sometimes quite explicitly, sometimes culturally, that emotions that are too big, too loud, too messy are a sign that something's wrong with you. But what if that's just another version of calm down? What if nervous system regulation as we are currently being sold, it is sometimes just a more sophisticated way of being told to be quieter. So something that I've come to realize is, or perhaps coming to realize, is that your nervous system is not broken when it activates, and actually it is doing exactly what it was designed to do. If you look around at the world right now, the instability, the injustice, the genuine uncertainty about things that we've took for granted, for the most part. It makes complete sense that your system is activated. Anxiety isn't always a malfunction. Anger is often quite rightly justified. So isn't always dysregulation and that grief you're feeling if you're processing that right now, it isn't always a sign that you haven't processed enough. Sometimes your nervous system. It's telling you the truth about what's happening. And sometimes that's something we need to live alongside for a while. But it doesn't mean it needs to stop our lives'cause there is a difference, which is really important to notice because that difference between appropriate activation and being stuck is what affects how we can do our life. So when we look at appropriate activation, you, you're responding to. Real threats are injustice. You can notice a real situation that requires something of you. The system's doing its job. It's noticing your external environment and monitoring your internal environment too. But if it's a bit stuck, perhaps the threat has passed. Logically, you know everything's okay, but perhaps your nervous system hasn't got the memo. You could actually be running an old alarm in a new moment, and there's all sorts of. Data and things you can read about our neural pathways and how these things develop, which are outside of the scope of today's podcast, but with that nervous system work, when we do it properly, it can help you with that second one without suppressing the reality of the first. And also just to add joy, by the way. It's also a kind of dysregulation when we look at it. A huge spike of excitement, a burst of laughter, that feeling when something finally comes together, your system activates there too. We don't call that a problem, do we? So why do we only pathologize or ones that feel uncomfortable? Something to sit with. But you are absolutely welcome to reach out if you'd like to share your thoughts. So if regulation isn't the goal. What is then? Well, I've been feeling into using the phrase nervous system care. It sounds more subtle, but it does help to shift a few things. I mean, to me, care means something different For me, care means supporting, but not controlling. It means giving your system what you actually need in the moment, not forcing it towards a. Predetermined correct state, and you might notice that when you see the shoulds coming in, it also means access to your full range, the softness, your fierceness, rest and action, quiet and fully, unapologetically, loudly, you, we need all of it. A nervous system that can only calm is not necessarily a healthy nervous system. It's more likely to be a suppressed one, and also nervous system care. It can look like building capacity, which is a really big one for me. The goal isn't to never feel activated. For me, the goal is to build that capacity, to hold that intensity without it completely flooding you. To be able to feel the bigness of something and still have access to yourself, and of course that ability to return to your base camp. I use this image a lot, so it makes a lot of sense to me. The idea of a base camp on a mountain, and we don't necessarily want to live at base camp all the time, okay? It gets boring, right? You can go up the mountain, you can go out in the world, but when you know you can return. You know, there's a place that's yours that holds you, you can come back to, that's what nervous system care truly creates. Not a permanent state of calm, but that sense of a place to return to that sense of capability, not just calm and quiet. So if you're a woman listening to this, especially because the women I work with, women in midlife. Women who spent decades managing everybody else, I would love this for you. I would love you to feel capable, to be able to feel whatever is there, feel that thing, and still be able to make a decision that feels like yours. To be able to speak up when your voice shakes and to take that next step, even when you're not fully feeling the confidence just yet tends to come afterwards. Because we're not just here to regulate, but if we provide care and we feel cared for, even by giving this to ourselves, this is when we can do the stretch. This is when we can reach out.'cause we know where we're coming back to. So this is where my breathwork practice has really supported me. Um, when I started thinking this way. Because if you've heard of breath work, or perhaps you might have heard these breath work messages yourself, but many people associate breath work as a calming tool, and it absolutely is. It does work like that. But that's not all that breath work can do for you. There are practices that can actually activate you. There are practices that can help you meet the energy that's sitting unexpressed in your system, practices that move something through rather than pushing it down. So I'll share a couple of them with you. So we have the physiological sigh or the sip, sip side breath as I like to describe it. So this is kind of like a bit of a yawn with an extra inhale and a sigh out. You might actually find yourself doing that. Do you ever feel like you wanna take an extra inhale after a bit of a yawn? I find myself doing that, and I think the body is super clever by getting us to do this.'cause this is a way to regulate. It can be a way to help you wake up a bit. Maybe if you've been in a meeting and you've drifted off a little bit, or perhaps you've been holding your breath and it's just time to stretch those lungs out again. So again, with a. full-ish. Inhale, a little sip in and to relax. Exhale, you can help your body find where it wants to be before you're trying to do those slow breaths that many people talk about. The other breath, which is a really fun one. I call it the breath of joy, and it's basically three. Pretty sharp inhales in through your nose. If you can, you can do it through your mouth if you want. Just careful. If you are someone that's prone to dizziness, um, maybe do it. Sat down the first time you have a go, but you bring your arms into this as well. So yeah, maybe it's not a subtle one you can do in the meeting, although if you can get your colleagues doing this, I think meetings would be so much more fun. So with these inhales you're bringing. Arms up to the front of you, out to the side, then up over your head, and then you exhale and just let those arms fall down past your knees. Again, just minding how your body feels. Don't to force anything, but it's that inhale and release, bringing the energy in and then just letting whatever needs to come out to essentially come out. And this is the kind of breath work. Where you can come out feeling like you've genuinely moved something rather than just managing everything all the time. And then of course, there are practices that are more settling,, the extended exhale. This signals to your system that the threat has passed. Box breathing, coherence, breathing. These are all. They work, they have plenty of science behind them. And if you head over to the show notes, I will link to my YouTube channel where I demonstrate these on video.'cause there's only so much I can demonstrate on the podcast. But the question I ask here in my own practice and when I'm working with my clients isn't, how can I regulate? How can I get this person in front of me regulated? The question really is for me is what does this person actually need right now? Are they stuck in that shutdown, in that freeze? Are they feeling like they're in collapse? Sometimes what they need is activation breath that helps'em come back online, feel a body access some energy. Are they running on empty or relentlessly pushing? Perhaps the settling practices that permission to exhale can be really supportive here. And perhaps they're responding appropriately to some genuinely difficult stuff. And the job isn't just to fix that feeling, it's helping them find their own place of resource to help them feel held enough to meet what's there. This is part of what I do at Still Space Hull. This is the concept that still Space Hull was born from, and I was thinking about what I wanted that space to be. The studio, the community that's slowly growing around it. I knew I, I didn't want it to be a place where people come to just be calmed down and sent back out again. I wanted it to be a place people could come and actually meet themselves where the breath is a tool for care, not just management. The place to return to, not just a place of escape. And that is the difference between going out for an experience to get away from your life and incorporating something that helps you live your life more fully. So how do you know what you actually need? So let's look at this practically. How do you start to use the idea of nervous system care differently? So I'm gonna offer you three questions to sit with, not like a checklist or another thing for your to-do list, but three gentle invitations. And again, take what you need, work with what resonates the rest. Just let it go fast forward if it's not really for you as well. So the first question to consider, is my activation appropriate to what's actually happening? Am I responding to something real, something that genuinely needs a response from me? Or am I returning to an old pattern, an old alarm, in a situation that is actually safe? They're both valid, but they perhaps call for different supports. And again, try not to judge the situation. It doesn't have to be a horrendous situation for it to be real. Just notice what's really in front of you. Again, we don't need to make it worse than it is, but also we don't need to pretend that you're not feeling what you're feeling. So if you're feeling anxious by opening your emails, this is actually potentially a genuine thing. Perhaps the level of response might want to change over time, and this is where this nervous system care can support you. The next question you might to sit with, number two, can I move between states? Or do I feel stuck in one? Can I access rest when I need it? Can I access action when I need that? Does it feel like I'm just locked into one gear? If you're always switched on, always doing, always vigilant, then notice that, and if you're feeling pretty switched off, heavy, withdrawn, disconnected, that's also worth noticing. So neither is wrong, but it's information. And do go gently with yourself. As you notice these things offer yourself kindness, and if you need to perhaps tap into what you might say to a friend if you notice them in this situation, that helps me a lot as well. And the last question, number three, am I supporting myself or suppressing myself? Again, this is perhaps a subtle one because it can both look the same on the outside. So it's a time to really maybe feel into yourself and again, put the judgments aside. But suppression might sound like, I shouldn't be feeling this. I need to calm down, I need to regulate. But when you are coming at this from a perspective of support, that's probably gonna sound a bit more like, I can feel this. What do I need? How might I support myself to move through it? One way closes that door, the other helps it to open. So let me leave you with something today, my final thoughts. You are not a thermostat. You are not a machine that needs to be calibrated back to a correct temperature or way of being. You are a whole complex feeling. Human being who is living through a genuinely complicated time in your body, in your life, in the world, your anger might be appropriate, your grief might be appropriate, and your heightened awareness could well be your system doing exactly what it's meant to do. And the work here, the real work is not to regulate that away. It's to care for yourself enough to be able to feel it, move through it, and still know why your base camp is. Still no way you can return to yourself. And that is nervous system care and I genuinely believe it's a more powerful practice. So if today's episode landed for you, I'd love to hear about it. Come find me over on Instagram and still the Strong Bones coach on there. Or if you are part of the still space community, bring it to one of our sessions. It's exactly the kind of conversation we're here for. So until next week, may you meet yourself with Compassion Walk with Presence. And remember, you already have everything you need. Take care.