So welcome everyone.
And thank you.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for being here.
I want to talk to you today.
About the reactions.
You've been at war with,
We've been at war with.
The wave is sometimes spiral.
One small thing goes wrong.
And suddenly your whole system is flooded.
Catastrophizing,
Spinning.
Far past anything the situation seems to warrant.
The way certain situations make you feel unsafe for no reason you can point to.
Your heart racing,
Your body braced.
A sense of danger with no visible source.
The way you get overwhelmed,
Shut down,
Go numb,
Sometimes fall apart at moments that other people seem to handle fine.
And maybe even the physical things,
The tension,
The stomach knots,
The pain that flares,
The exhaustion that arrives out of nowhere.
And I imagine because this is what almost everyone does.
That you've spent a great deal of energy treating all of that as evidence of something wrong with you.
As a flaw,
As a weakness,
A brokenness.
Why do I react like this?
Why can't I just be normal?
What is wrong with me?
Everyone else copes.
Why can't I?
So I want to offer you a completely different way of seeing every one of those reactions.
And it's not a reframe in the cheap positive thinking sense.
It's not look on the bright side.
It's something more real,
Raw and even more clinical.
And in my experience is far more freeing also.
So let these words land.
Your dysregulation makes perfect sense.
Your dysregulation makes perfect sense.
Every one of those reactions you've been fighting.
The spiraling,
The feeling unsafe,
The overwhelm,
The shutting down,
Even some of the physical pain is not a malfunction.
It is a nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do.
Responding intelligently to something real,
And it makes sense.
It has always made sense.
And when you finally see why it makes sense.
Something happens that no amount of fighting has ever achieved.
It might begin on its own desorption.
So let me show you why.
And let me show you that you were never broken.
So here's the thing about your nervous system that changes everything once you really understand it.
Your nervous system's entire job is to keep you safe.
And to do that,
It learns.
It takes the experiences that you've lived through,
Especially the frightening ones,
The overwhelming ones,
The ones where you genuinely were not safe,
And it remembers them.
Not as a story.
Not as a tidy memory with a date on it.
It remembers them as states,
As body patterns,
As a kind of implicit knowledge held beneath thought.
This kind of situation,
This feeling,
This look on someone's face,
This tone of voice,
This was once dangerous.
Be ready.
And here's the crucial part.
Your nervous system cannot always tell the difference between then and now.
Because it doesn't have a clock.
When something in the present moment Resemble something from your past,
Even faintly.
Even in a way your conscious mind doesn't notice,
Your nervous system fires an old alarm.
It responds to the present as if it were the past.
Because to a system built for survival,
A possible danger,
Recognized early,
Is better than a real one recognized too late.
So when you spiral.
When you feel suddenly unsafe.
When you're flooded with overwhelm in a situation that shouldn't cause it.
Very often what's actually happening is this.
Something in the present has reminded your body of the past.
Some resemblance,
Some echo,
Some familiarship.
And your nervous system faithfully has fired the response it learned back when the danger was actually real.
So,
You are not overreacting.
You are having a completely proportionate reaction to your past.
Your body is reacting to the then in the clothing of now.
That changes the whole meaning of the reaction,
Doesn't it?
It's not that you're broken or too weak or too sensitive.
It's that something happened to you once.
Something your system found overwhelming or unsafe,
And it hasn't been fully processed.
It's still held in your body,
Unfinished,
And it surfaces when the present brushes against it.
The reaction isn't a flaw,
It's a message.
It's your body saying,
There's something here that was never resolved and this situation just reminded me of it.
So,
I would argue your dysregulation is intelligent.
It's your nervous system faithfully protecting you from a danger it never got to learn was over.
Of course it makes sense.
Given what your body has lived through,
It makes complete sense.
So let me take a moment now to honour each of the specific reactions,
Because I want each one to feel seen for what it actually is.
When you spiral.
When a small thing floods you and your mind races to catastrophe.
That's not you being dramatic.
That's not you getting triggered.
That's a nervous system that learned,
Once,
That things could go very wrong very fast.
And staying ahead of every possible disaster was how you survived.
The spiral is old vigilance still trying to protect you.
And it makes sense.
When you feel unsafe for no visible reason,
Braced,
On guard,
Uneasy in a situation that seems fine,
That's neuroception,
Your body's threat detection,
Picking up some echo of an old danger below your conscious awareness.
So your body isn't lying to you,
It's just remembering something,
And that also makes sense.
When you go numb,
Shut down,
Disconnect or you feel nothing,
That's absolutely not coldness or laziness.
That's your system's oldest,
Deepest protection.
When something was too overwhelming to fight or flee.
The body's last resort was to shut down.
Go still.
Disconnect from what was too much.
If you numb out now,
It's because that once kept you safe.
And that also makes sense.
And even some of the physical things,
The chronic tension,
The knotted stomach,
And the pain that flares under stress,
Even these can be the body holding what was never processed.
The body keeps what the mind couldn't metabolize,
And it speaks in the only language it has,
Sensation.
So those pains so often make sense too.
None of it is random,
None of it is brokenness.
All of this is a nervous system faithfully carrying something unprocessed and responding to the present through the lens of a past.
Every reaction you've fought.
Was intelligent all along.
It's a possibility.
Now let me tell you why fighting these reactions has never worked.
And why understanding them does something the fighting never could.
When you treat your dysregulation as an enemy.
When you're ashamed of it,
Frustrated by it,
At war with it,
Demanding that it stops,
Think about what message that sends to your nervous system.
You're adding threat.
You're telling a frightened system that it's also now wrong.
It's also bad.
It's also failing.
A system that has been attacked.
Even by you.
Even from the inside.
Cannot settle.
Shame is a threat signal.
Self-criticism keeps you in the very state you're trying to escape.
Fighting your dysregulation is pouring petrol on it and wondering why it won't go out.
But understanding does the opposite.
When you meet your reaction with recognition instead of war.
When you can say,
Of course this makes sense.
My body is remembering something,
No wonder I feel this way.
Very slowly,
Something shifts at a physiological level.
Self-compassion is a safety signal.
Recognition tells the nervous system You are not in trouble.
You're not being attacked.
I understand you.
I'm on your side.
And a system that receives that signal can begin at last to slow down,
Stand down,
Heal.
And this is the quiet revolution at the center of this whole thing.
Understanding is regulating.
The very act of seeing that your reaction makes sense,
Really seeing it.
In your body.
Not just agreeing with it in your head.
Is itself part of how the reaction softens.
You don't soften your dysregulation by defeating it.
You soften it by understanding it.
By turning to the frightened,
Faithful,
Hardworking system inside you and saying,
I get it now.
Of course you reacted that way.
You were trying to protect me.
Thank you.
So,
That's the doorway.
Not the fight,
The understanding.
Now if some of this resonates.
Let me take you through it in the body gently.
Wherever you are.
You don't need to close your eyes or change anything.
Just let your body settle now for a few seconds.
And let's move from an understanding.
That I'm simply checking in with my body today.
Just checking in.
Just feel whatever is holding you right now.
Maybe it's the ground?
The weight of your body.
You may be supported by it.
Let yourself be held by it now.
Feel the ground holding you.
The weight of your body.
Support it.
Let yourself be held by it.
I am here.
I am supported.
In this actual moment.
I am safe.
I'm here.
I am supported.
In this actual moment.
I'm safe.
Very gently,
Very slowly now.
Just bring to your mind,
To your awareness,
Lightly.
One of your reactions.
One of your triggers.
One of the ways you get dysregulated.
Whatever it is for you today.
The spiral.
To overwhelm the shutting down.
The sudden unsafe feeling.
Your irrational fears.
Just let them come lightly.
Just bring them to mind.
That thing I do.
That reaction I've been fighting.
See it,
Sense it,
Feel it.
That thing I do.
That reaction.
I've been fighting.
Now notice how you usually relate to it.
Notice the frustration maybe?
The shame?
The why do I do this?
What's wrong with me?
Notice that you've been at war with it.
And just see that without judgment.
That war has been running a long time.
Every time I'm in this situation,
I do this.
Every time that comes up,
I do this.
I don't want to but it happens anyways.
And then.
.
.
I beat myself up for doing it.
And then I tell myself something is wrong with me.
Just be present with that thing.
Just for now.
Just for today.
I want you to try offering that reaction something completely different.
And set up the war.
The recognition,
The acknowledgement.
Say to it or receive my words.
Of course you react this way.
It makes sense.
Something happened once that my body found overwhelming and it never got fully processed.
And this reaction is my body remembering.
Trying to protect me from a danger it never learned was over.
You were always trying to keep me safe.
Of course you react this way.
It makes sense.
Something happened once that my body found overwhelming.
And it never got fully processed.
And this reaction is my body remembering.
Trying to protect me from a danger it never learned was over.
You were never broken?
You were always trying to keep me safe.
I just want you to notice what happens in your body when you offer that.
When you stop fighting the reaction and start understanding it.
There might be a softening.
There might be a loosening somewhere.
A small easing.
As some part of you,
That's been braced against its own responses for years,
Finally is hearing today.
I understand you.
You make sense.
And I am not going to fight you anymore.
I understand you.
You make sense.
I am not going to fight you anymore.
You might even place a hand now gently.
Somewhere the reaction lives in your body.
Maybe chest,
Maybe belly,
Maybe throat,
Wherever.
Not to fix it at all,
Just to let it know that you are here and you now are open to understanding.
I see what you've been carrying.
It makes sense.
You can soften now.
I've got us.
I see what you've been carrying.
It makes sense.
You can soften now.
I've got us.
Now.
The softening.
Or that easing that you may feel.
Is not you defeating your dysregulation.
If it had to work,
It would have worked by now.
It's you understanding it.
And the understanding itself is letting it settle.
That's the whole medicine.
Let me be honest with you about what This does and does not do.
Because I'd rather be useful than sell you something.
This does not mean you won't be dysregulated ever again.
You absolutely will.
The old reactions are deep.
And they'll still fire when the present brushes against the past.
That's a nervous system doing its job perfectly.
Something fundamental might change.
Because now when the reaction comes,
You won't pile shame on top of it.
You won't go to war with yourself for poor petrol on the fire.
You might recognize,
Oh,
There it is.
My body is remembering something.
This situation reminded it of a time that it wasn't safe.
Of course,
That makes sense.
That recognition.
That understanding.
Will itself begin to settle the very reaction you used to fight.
You'll have replaced the self-talk,
The negative self-talk,
The shame,
The fight,
The war,
With understanding,
Acknowledgement,
Safety.
And in time it might begin to loosen or soften for you.
One more thing to be mindful of.
Just because I can see,
Observe myself falling into a reaction,
Or just because I can acknowledge I am dysregulated,
Doesn't mean it'll stop.
At least not in the beginning.
So for some of you,
You still might react a certain way in a certain situation and it might be hours,
Days before you have the space and the time to self-reflect.
And then acknowledge that that day my body remembered something because these things they come up very strongly and they're overwhelming so this shift might take time so it doesn't mean you're failing you're just doing this at your own pace over time.
As the old material gets met with understanding again and again.
Often with the help of your own acknowledgement,
Maybe some somatic work,
Because some of what's unprocessed is best processed with a skilled practitioner,
Especially if the nature of what you experienced requires a professional to help you go to those places.
What gets understood and met.
And field safety.
It slowly gets processed.
Slowly.
And what gets processed stops needing to fire the alarm.
The past finally becomes the past with time.
But it starts here.
The single most important thing you can offer a dysregulated nervous system,
Unfortunately,
Is not a technique.
It's not breathwork.
It's not those five vagal tone exercises.
It's not that real somebody forwarded you.
It's not reading another book.
But it's simply acknowledging that this is my body remembering something.
Something happened at some point that I didn't fully process.
This situation,
This person,
This situation is simply reminding my body of that time.
You were never broken.
And of course you react this way,
Because this makes sense.
So rest here for a while with this understanding.
If something in you,
If this has opened a door in your awareness,
If this is guiding you to look at some things in your life,
Some of your reactions differently,
You let that understanding come.
With whatever you understood and with whatever softened.
You don't have to fix any of it.
You don't have to be regulated right now.
You don't have to go and buy something or do something.
You've done the deeper thing already.
You've begun to understand and to stop the war.
And that really is the beginning of everything.
Once again,
You were never broken.
You were only ever protecting yourself.
And it always,
Always,
Always,
Always made sense.
So here's what you carry out of here.
And it's the end of a war you've been fighting often your whole life.
Your dysregulation makes sense.
The spiraling makes sense.
The feeling unsafe makes sense.
The overwhelm,
The shutting down,
Even some of your physical pain,
All of it makes sense.
Because all of it is a nervous system faithfully carrying something unprocessed.
And it's responding to the present through the memory of the past that it still feels in your body.
You were being protected by a system that loves you enough to have never stopped watching.
You were being protected by a system that loves you enough to have never stopped watching.
So you can stop fighting yourself now.
That was never the way.
Next time a reaction arises,
The spiral,
The freeze,
The flood,
The me getting triggered,
You can meet it with the words that actually help.
And be as creative as you want,
Come up with your own words.
Of course this makes sense.
My body is remembering something.
No wonder.
And in that understanding.
That self-compassion.
The reaction can finally begin to do what fighting it never allowed.
Soften,
Settle and then be processed.
It's not something to be fought,
It never was.
And you are the only person actually who can finally understand it.
Who turns towards the frightened,
Faithful system inside of you and says,
I get it now.
You can rest.
I've got us.
Be gentle with yourself.
You might be carrying something unprocessed and you might have been reacting exactly as anyone with your history would react.
And you might have been calling it brokenness when it was really just protection.
Set that down now.
You make sense?
You always did.
Go gently.
And when your body remembers something,
Because it will.
Try and meet it with understanding.
And that's where the softening always was.
So thank you for listening.
And until next time,
Namaste.
