When One Person Regulates the Room...

In this episode of Soul Medicine: Healing Out Loud, Angela expands the conversation from individual awareness to relational and environmental impact.

Nervous systems do not operate in isolation.

The way one person responds—through tone, presence, and regulation—can influence the emotional climate of an entire room.

When one person is regulated, it creates the possibility for others to settle. When one person is dysregulated, that activation can also spread.

This episode explores how regulation functions within relationships, teams, and everyday interactions, and how individual awareness becomes a powerful influence on collective experience.

Through clear explanation and real-life application, listeners are invited to consider not only how they regulate internally, but how their presence affects the spaces they enter.

Because regulation is not only personal.

It is relational.

And sometimes, one regulated nervous system is enough to shift the entire room.

Thank you for listening to Soul Medicine: Healing Out Loud.
 This is a space for reflection, awareness, and intentional living.

If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to sit with what you’ve noticed.

Until next time, remember—Regulation Before Resolution™

 If you’re ready to take the next step, you can find more resources and ways to connect at aaspiringwellness.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Good day. And welcome to Soul Medicine. Healing out loud. Let's get grounded. Feet flat on the floor. You're in a comfortable chair. Just allow it to hold you. In through the nose, holding for four. And then we're going to exhale longer than we inhaled. Just let it all out. Okay. Deep breath in through the nose. Three, two. Exhale. What are you noticing? We're not fixing. We're not judging. Simply noticing. Welcome to episode three. When one person regulates the entire room? Have you ever walked into a room and instantly felt responsible for everyone's mood? How did that feel? Micromanaging thoughts that you don't even know exist. Being hyper-vigilant about what you are feeling? Uncomfortable? Who taught you that it was your job to stabilize the atmosphere? Was it an overworked parent returning home? Was it a moody sibling? Was it the weight of leadership responsibilities? When did vigilance become your value? Is actually the most overburdened. In many systems, the most put together, the most organized, the most regulated looking person is actually the most overburdened. Think about a business meeting where there's decisions to make, and one person is orchestrating the entire meeting, the decisions, and taking the weight of the outcome. Piled up in front of them before they even get a chance to sit down. And also, I wonder what everyone in this room is thinking. Someone in the room is fouling their nails. Another person puts their hand up to their mouth and yawns. Someone else just rolled their eyes. But we're not going to stay there. As you take a seat, as you notice what's going on inside of you. Always trying to regulate everybody else in the room and holding space for everyone else's idiosyncrasies, trying to anticipate everything. The one that they call when conflicts happen, the one that has to let someone go. I wonder what does it cost that high performer privately? Okay. Now let's look at a team. Can you handle that? And you bob your head up and down, knowing you got a million things on your desk already? So proud that you got that promotion. But why is it that control masquerades as leadership? Hand flailing in the air. I'll do it. Nobody moves fast enough for you. Time doesn't even move fast enough for you. I need them to look at me. How does hypervigilance end up looking like competition or competence? I often remind high achieving, high performing individuals that you're so good at your job is not a compliment. Because after a while, that efficiency, that's hypervigilance, and that so good at your job is anxious, over functioning, starts to wear off into resentment and silent quitting. Trauma informed leadership actually looks like understanding what's going on inside of you that no one else can see, and what's going on in the organization that may be first hand or vicarious trauma injury. Feeling psychologically safe is a holistic care model. It's not just about how you are in your familial relationships or your romantic relationships, it is also about how you take care of your nervous system in your business relationships. How do you set boundaries for you in the workplace? Are you overperforming in hopes that the next progression is yours? Are you overperforming to cover up a disability? Or is overperforming simply something that you were taught in the many rooms that you've been in? How are you when you leave that building? Are you amongst the many rage drivers because of everything you suppressed in that meeting? Because of the code switching you had to do, or the smile that you had to put on your face when you didn't get the raise, when you're the one regulating for everyone else in the room. But mostly it's at a disservice to yourself. When one person regulates, the others undevelop. Dependency increases. However, what I found is that when regulation is distributed, voices expand. And people that feel heard can take ownership. And ownership breeds loyalty and resilience. A team where only one person breathes deeply is not a healthy team. The team is healthy when the leader is healthy. But the leader cannot be the deciding factor on everyone else. So what did I mean? I don't know if you all remember the movie I Am Legend with Will Smith and the experiment that went wrong. Well, there is a scene in that movie where Will Smith's dog runs into this building. And that building is like a forbidden zone because the people that have gotten ill, they stay in that building. It's dark in that building. It's cool in that building. As he goes in looking for his dog, you notice something. There is a group of about fifteen to twenty huddled in a corner around one another, and they are breathing in sync. So what this showed me is that although it may look like everyone in the room is individual. Everyone in the room is doing their own thing. So if one person is dysregulated, eventually, one by one, each nervous system can get dysregulated in that space. Are you the one holding the emotional temperature for your family, your friends, your organization, your relationship? What would happen if you stepped back slightly? Who around you needs to develop their own regulation muscle? Are you outsourcing your regulation to someone else? Expecting one person to stabilize you. As always, I'm Angela, aka the Healing Advocate, thanking you for listening. Stay regulated.