The Nervous System has become quite a hot topic on social media. We need to acknowledge  that the NS and building NS flexibility are complex! I see frequent messaging that includes: 

• “If you struggle with X it means your nervous system is dysregulated” 
• “Try this hack to regulate your nervous system” 
• “This 1 thing will regulate your nervous system instantly” 

NS flexibility and regulation are so much more than a tool, quick fix or hack. At a foundational level this is about developing a relationship with self. We can’t navigate dysergulation or build NS flexibility if we don't understand our own NS is to begin with! 

Heres what regulating the nervous system and building flexibility is NOT about… 

• Elimination of pain, discomfort or hard things 
• Not being impacted by things 
• Being happy and calm all the time 
• Never experiencing dysregulation or any symptoms of dysregulation 
• Never getting triggered 
• Blindly trying tools and skills bc someone on social media tells ...

When we experience rejection and failure it is NATURAL to think about it. We are going to want to process it and as you have seen from my other principles I am a big fan of this. We need to process and we need to think. But what many of us experience post rejection and failure is actually rumination and THIS can be tough. 

What is rumination? Rumination is when our thinking becomes a bit more obsessive, persistent and repetitive. Generally rumination has a negative tone and it creates anxiety for us. For me, it evokes physiological symptoms like an increase in my heart rate and feeling on edge. Rumination can be exhausting. But what differentiates rumination from processing is that it’s not really processing. You’re getting stuck. I love this description from Elizabeth Scott PhD (2020)  “What distinguishes rumination from productive emotional processing or searching for solutions is that rumination doesn’t generate new ways of thinking, new behaviors, or new possibilities.”  I SO r...

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.”

Gabor Mate

Accept vs Resist. 

Let’s start with Resistance to our experience. 

As Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer explain in their book The Mindful Self Compassion Workbook (2018)  “what we resist, persists.” 

What does it mean to resist our experience? We run from our emotions. We don’t like our experience. We deny our experience. We avoid, numb and block out what we actually feel. For me, resistance can look like trying to “rationally” or “logically” explain my way out of a feeling. Oftentimes I find myself adding more things than I can count to my schedule and running on “go go go” mode so that I don’t have TIME to stop and feel. I find myself avoiding being alone because when I am alone that means I actually have to be with myself and my feelings. I get irritated, I’m on edge and I find myself getting frustrated with simply having emotion.  It’s all resisting. 

We resist because feeling is hard. It is incr...