The Recovered Nervous System

Let’s get really candid about something. Something that is so overlooked, so underwhelming in healing circles.

Your nervous system.

More and more, we are learning just how crucial our nervous systems are in regulating pretty much everything.

The somewhat new study of Psychoneuroimmunology provides a massive amount of information on how crucial both a healthy functioning immune system and a regulated and normalized psychological state, depend on the regulation of the nervous system.

This means that a dysregulated nervous system can and will make us both physically sick and emotionally unwell.

It’s a whopper.

Now…it must be very clearly stated that this nervous system business is not easy to crack. Most of us with nervous system dysregulation are so intricately wired in a particular way that even when we begin to learn about the nervous system, we will continue to live as imbalanced Beings until something within us or around us breaks.

This breaking point, of course, is meant to put us on our backs in order to get the deep rest that the nervous system is starving for.

But we don’t need to get to that critical point.

So let’s take a few steps back and take a peek under the hood of what life might look and feel like with a balanced nervous system.

The Need To Get It Right

Let’s just start at the very beginning. Everything is downstream from this overlooked and undervalued space.

The basic personality of the overstimulated or dysregulated nervous system type already feels not good enough. We already feel like we don’t do enough. It seems to be baked into the cake of our lives that we’re never quite enough.

This mindset or trauma-set leads to a never ending search on ‘how to be better.’ Even healing the nervous system, ironically, becomes this ardent and exhaustive search mission to get even this just right.

So let’s take a deep breath for a moment, shall we, and put on the brakes.

Let’s dispel the notion that there even exists a right way to do anything. Let’s throw away ‘getting it right’ to perhaps embrace a kinder paradigm shift:

To go from getting it right to offering ourselves the most loving option in any given moment.

Because there is a big difference between the two. ‘Getting it right’ is the trickle down effect of never feeling like we’re enough and trying to…finally!!!…be good enough.

Whereas offering ourselves the most loving option, in the moment, might actually be the more difficult or messier option.

That might look like cancelling plans at the last minute. Oh no! What might my friends think of me?!

That might look like not cleaning my house on the day that I’ve told myself it’s an utter disgrace. Shit! What if someone pops over and sees the disorder?!

That might include letting yourself do nothing but lie around and read all day. But…but…what would my husband think?!

The basic mindset of the amped-up nervous system type is already hyper-vigilant. We’re already ‘on’ ourselves before we’ve begun.

In fact, any effort to try and regulate ourselves will be a commando style effort that looks like (in our minds) a perfected version of ourselves.

So you see how we’ve fallen down before we’ve started. You see how this requires an entire paradigm shift.

To go from the ‘wrongness’ of our lives to the ‘rightness’ of our lives.

Tech and Information Overload

Oh man…this one is big. In fact, our technological age has created more imbalanced nervous systems than any other time in history.

We were never meant to be hyper-informed, hyper-connected or hyper-stimulated. It’s just too much.

Of course our minds will come up with all kinds of reasons to maintain our tech addictions.

It’s how I read the news.

It’s how I stay connected with people I barely see.

It’s how I stay informed on what’s happening in the world.

It’s how I advertise my business (I could write an entire blog post on why this not only not true, but it is actually getting in the way of your business).

Probably the best voice in this arena is Cal Newport, a Computer Science Professor at Georgetown University and author of several books on the subject of tech addiction, deep work, and living a meaningful life.

His Ted Talk named Quit Social Media, is one of the most-watched Ted Talks of all time and is an amazing commentary on why we not only do not need social media, but why it is hurting us.

I would also encourage you, if you do watch this Ted Talk, to go and read some of the comments below the video. It is really something.

I recently deleted all but one of my social media accounts. The one I’ve kept was and is the one I rarely go on and find very little ‘fun’ in, yet it is where my NIA Dance information comes through. I’ve wanted to do this for years but my tech habit (habit is a lovely word for addiction, isn’t it?) was hard wired. I’ve been off now for 2 weeks and, surprisingly, I don’t miss it.

Nutrition

As a Holistic Nutritionist, food is a big deal for me. As someone with an Crohn’s Disease, good food is just plain and simply non-negotiable for me. But as someone with a history of Nervous System Dysregulation, food can either make or break me.

Remember that big word that I mentioned earlier in this newsletter? Psychoneuroimmunology…well, it turns out that food is the “immunological” part of this complex equation.

Over 80% of our immune system sits in the lining of our gut. If that gut lining is compromised in some way…through permeability, also known as “leaky gut”…through an imbalance in the microbial community…through malnourishment…through just bad food…then we will be off at the very least, or diseased at worst.

When the gut is imbalanced, nothing in the body-mind works well. Trust me, I know.

An imbalance would include consuming foods that are known to cause disruptions - gluten, dairy, sugar, industrial seed oils, food colouring, highly processed foods, restaurant foods, food made while stressed, too much caffeine, alcohol.

Now, you might be wondering, what the hell am I going to eat? And will I even enjoy it if I had to cut all of this food out?

Well, it turns out, we don’t crave the kind of food mentioned above because we actually enjoy it…our microbes crave it. The microbes in our gut are running the show and when certain microbial communities become dominant in the culture (no pun intended) they will demand to be fed in a way that keeps them large and in charge.

When we change the way that we eat to clean, organic, home cooked foods, we will come to crave those foods. And when the gut comes back online in a balanced manner, the whole system rallies around that balance and begins to feel nourished.

In nourishment, we flourish. In flourishing, we flow.

Reconnecting With Nature

When we’re all amped up, we can’t calm down enough to really, really marinate in nature. Nature is such a simple, calming force. It’s beauty is unparalleled and it simply wants to give to us.

It’s one of the few things in this world that asks nothing from us but gives us so much.

Bare feet on the grass. The sun on your face. The sound of birds singing.

A revved up nervous system doesn’t quite know what to do with all of this stillness; with all of this aliveness. And yet, it is the revved up nervous system that benefits most from the natural world.

Did you know that, based on a study from 2016, that children in the U.K. now spend less time outdoors than prison inmates?

I’m guessing that number has since grown. And why not? When we have every easily won technological bit of entertainment instantly at our fingertips (the internet), why would we go outside?

But we’re finding out more and more about how crucial light and the sun is for our health and wellbeing.

If the sun went out tomorrow, every single life form on this planet would die instantly. Without the sun, nothing grows, nothing greens, nothing lives.

It sets up our entire circadian rhythm (which is intrinsically embedded into our psychoneuroimmunology) and is the primary source of serotonin production. Our pets know this. If you watch them while they are indoors, they will find the one patch of sunlight in your house and lie down there.

Of course, don’t get burned. But get your butt outside in the sunshine every day…for at least an hour. There is a reason Vit D is referred to as the ‘happy hormone.’

We’ve become crazed about the sun. I see my daughter watching Gen Z influencers who promptly begin their videos with, “Did you put your sunscreen on today?”

Why?

They’ve been told they’ll wrinkle in the sun - yet the sun, when used properly is anti-aging - and they’ve been told it will cause skin cancer. Yet, more and more research is emerging that this is not true.

Yes, if you regularly burn in the sun, it can change the cellular structure of your skin cells and puts you at risk for cancer. Yet, chronic exposure to sunlight (not intermittent…yes, you read that right), actually radically decreases the incidence of several heavy hitting cancers.

So if you’ve been told to ‘stay away from the sun’ you may want to revisit this advice.

Reacting and Over-Reacting

Do you take personally the comments, opinions, whims and behaviour of other people? What have you told yourself about yourself within the context of your relationships?

This is a big one. And it takes practice.

Nothing anyone ever did or said was ever about you.

Period.

But that requires presence and awareness, in the moment.

It also requires you to accept the people in your life for who they are…exactly as they are.

This, of course, does not mean that you stick around for abuse or for any relationship that has very obviously run its course.

No.

But if the love is still there, it behooves you to know that they are the way they are not because of you but because of their own journey.

When you feel yourself reacting negatively towards someone or something, can you stop, breathe, and allow it to be as it is without it meaning anything about you?

Can you give yourself that peace?

Can you be soft and loving with yourself and leave any reactivity at the door?

This goes a LONG way to recovering your nervous system.

And last but not least…

Having Faith In a Higher Power

This has been, hands down, the biggest game changer for me. Knowing that I am ‘of’ something beyond myself that loves me unconditionally; that only asks that I turn back around towards Him (name ‘it’ whatever you like) and receive this unconditional love; that asks only that I walk as He made me to walk.

And here’s the kicker: This Higher Power requires nothing in return.

This is a Selfless Love. Really take that in. This is a love that only wants its love for YOU to be known; experienced.

It asks for nothing in return because it is complete in and of itself. It is not so much a complete Being, because it is not a Being.

It is Completeness.

You couldn’t possibly give it power, redemption, justification, alleviation from pain…it requires none of those things. It created those things.

To really begin to see and experience the levity of this…the bigness of this is life-changing.

Putting yourself in these hands…resting in this Completeness, knowing that IT knows the way.

That it IS the way, changes the nervous system profoundly.

It says, “I’ve got you. You can stop trying to figure everything out. You can stop trying to control everything. You can REST.”

This, ironically, is the most powerful position we can possibly be in.

Forget the New Age ‘manifestation’ manifesto.

This is a path divorced from Oneness.

It never made any sense to me even when I was steeped in New Age ideology.

But this is for you to figure out. Try both paths on and see what feels better.

See what actually works.

We are given that option here. It is for us to see.

One final note…

This is not a plan for you to then try to execute with precision.

That would have you back in nervous system hell.

That is the precise gripping that got us all into this mess in the first place.

Try out ONE of these suggestions. Be gentle with yourself.

Make love the leader here, not perfection.

In fact let yourself move through your life imperfectly. Let yourself be a mess.

Let your nervous system be amped up if that is what is true right now.

Be gentle with yourself.

It’s just one step at a time.