These 3 ideas are foundational to the way I apply nervous system science to my daily life.
1. There’s no problem to fix (inside us, there’s plenty of problems out there)
Your body and its stress responses are not a problem. These parts of ourselves need compassion, not judgment. We cannot control our body or our stress responses - the idea that we can or should is a lie from dominance culture (hyper-individualist, capitalist, patriarchal, supremacist culture)
2. Intentional co-regulation is the most impactful somatic practice.
Most people didn’t get enough co-regulation in childhood and this created a neuro-developmental delay which makes the body more likely to get stuck in stress responses. Maturation of the nervous system through co-regulation can happen at any point in life if we have access to regular and consistent co-regulation (many hours per week). Co-regulation can be with animals and other elements of nature as well as with “safe enough” people (people who are in a coherent flow state).
3. Cultivating nervous system attunement over time creates secure attachment with self.
Attunement is how we know which somatic exercises to use, when a helpful time to use them is, and when to skip pre-scheduled somatic exercises. Attunement is checking in with our body to see what it needs based on the signals and cues we’re getting and then doing our best to meet those needs (exactly like attuning with a child). Doing scheduled somatic exercises without attunement can cause trauma. Over-riding our body’s needs to do Polyvagal exercises is never helpful. I can’t develop a schedule of somatic exercises that will work for anyone else - I can only do that for me because I’m listening to my body (and the schedule of exercises has to be flexible enough to change when my body’s needs are out of sync with my usual schedule).
