What you can't do....
when your nervous system is dysregulated
"If our nervous system does not believe we're safe, no amount of mantras or positive thinking can get us to where we're wanting to go."
~Sarah Baldwin
I read the above quote on Instagram today and I think it bears repeating and some attention.
We can’t think our way into calming us down, always.
Full stop.
We can’t think our way out of depression or eliminate suicidal ideation because we have our daily affirmations.
Talk and thoughts only take us so far:
Now, I understand that CBT and DBT have their uses and purposes in therapeutic treatments.
But, honestly, the most powerful therapies that I have experienced with trauma-healing to calm my body down are somatic healing and energy healing, essentially body work.
If you’re dysregulated, then:
Your body and mind may be stuck in flight/fight/freeze/fawn stages—
If they don’t believe that the threat is in the past—
You’ll remain on high alert. You’ll be hypervigilant and not able to relax your body and mind if your survival switch is kicked on.
Essentially, you can’t think your way out of that. With a howdy do good attitude, with a peaceful mindset, even by adjusting your cognition patterns and behavioral patterns.
I’m not saying that those won’t help—
But if you are dysregulated, that’s not all there is to it.
We usually know this is the case if:
We have an auto-immune disease, inflammation, IBS, chronic pain condition—
Then current research supports that you need to be regulated and to address your body wounds as well.
As much as modern medicine and western science wants to treat these systems as all detached—
As much as they want us to believe that “it’s all in our head,” to sell us on medicines and traditional talk therapies, the truth is—
We are integrated, our minds and bodies, with complex systems connecting them and working them.
Our brains connects our bodies, and our nervous system links them.
Our microbiome and our gut connects our brain and body, via the vagus nerve.
Our body keeps scores of our emotional pain. It carries its wounds too, not just our minds.
If we haven’t addressed our traumas and we remain stuck, our bodies will let us know eventually.
To come full circle, one of the most powerful ways that it does so is through a dysregulated nervous system.
Ie—can’t relax? Can’t shut your mind off? Anxiety through the roof? Etc—
I’m not saying it’s the only piece of that puzzle as anxiety stems from many sources, but—
I believe it a missing component that we fail to address and are frequently not made aware of, in lieu of medication and psychotherapies/talk therapies of CBT and DBT.