Growth & Regulation: a Relational Approach.

Meeting and tending our edges with courage and compassion.

Sometimes the thing we want or need to grow is going to be triggering for us.

This can be as true for intimate relationships as it for professional opportunities.

I am all for creating safety in our life and environments as much as possible. And our growth edge is just that—an edge.

This is actually what regulation is about: titrating sensations so that our bodies and nervous systems can handle more. More pleasure, more joy, more discomfort, and more success.

I recently had an opportunity to speak about nervous system regulation for an upcoming summit, for which I will share the details when it occurs.

Aside from the 30 minute conversation on a topic that I am well-versed in, there is my own history that comes into this experience, and that is how it is with anything we engage in. We bring our histories with us. We carry them in our bodies.

The day of the interview I awoke a bit agitated. I tend to project that type of agitation onto a specific person, but given that I have no reason to feel that way at the moment, I got quiet and instead asked myself, “What’s up?”

A skittering of nervous energy around the interview I was to participate in made itself known. I sent off a quick text requesting support, and then went about some basic soothing rituals: writing in my journal while sipping my coffee, taking a long, hot shower, shaving, then moisturizing, mindfully applying makeup, and dressing. I chose a green-patterned silk vest layered over a camisole, and tucked a green feather into my hair.

Positioning my computer in front of the window for natural light, I opened Zoom. The interviewer was dressed all in white, with a white background. She was lovely with dark hair, and she seemed quite poised. She asked about my history; it is a bit unusual. My background includes being raised in a New Age cult, and then going on to become an addict for a stretch of time in my late teens through early twenties—all severely dysregulating experiences—before becoming a mentor and healer, myself. 

We touched on several points which we agreed upon, like how addiction (of any kind) is a search for regulation, but when she started saying, “We do this ‘work’ so we can know everything is inside us”, I disagreed. We do this work to be more functional in relationships, and to develop the discernment to know who is safe or not.

Hearing the “spiritual” idea, everything is inside us, transposed onto nervous system work irritated me, and in retrospect, I feel that her presentation of herself all in white surrounded by white, actually triggered my own religious trauma: the purity paradigm. She wasn’t speaking typical white-lighter bypass BS, on the other hand, she was speaking the language of embodiment, but still something affected me.

A trigger is not rational, it evokes memories from our unconscious and elicits a physical reaction through our body.

When I  feel back to the conversation, I can acknowledge I felt disheveled compared to her (an old feeling from my childhood). Then I remember times when I felt physically out of place in more stable environments when I was young, as if some part of me knew that those children had “different” parents than me. I did not consciously know that their families would have sit-down dinners, and family homework hours, but my body knew something was different.

There, in that interview, those unsettling memories, and my old tendency to compare myself to someone who seemed more “put together” awoke.

It wasn’t only that some ancient sense of deficiency in me stirred, it was that my own deeper sense of knowing was activated as well. I know nervous systems—like tree groups, fungi, and the creatures of the forests they inhabit—are communal organs.

We, humans, are ecosystemic creatures, like everything else alive on this planet. The isolated self is a myth.

I found myself gently contradicting the interviewer on this idea of people being “self-sourcing”. And I realize it is a nuanced concept.

Yes, we each have a unique connection to Source that is wholly our own, in which we are whole. And we need each other. However, no one, in a practical sense, is self-sourcing. Even if you can somehow manage an existence in which no other human life is required to sustain yourself (and who actually can), you are still part of a bigger ecosystem.

I also made a point, in the interview, and will reiterate it now: feeling our feelings is part of being regulated—the whole emotional spectrum from anger to joy, and from excitement to boredom.

Neurological as well as emotional regulation (because to speak of one we must speak of the other) is about resilience. It is about recovering well when we are thrown out of our groove, it is about feeling our feelings, acknowledging and appropriately responding to danger. It is about knowing who is healthy for us to turn to, and engage safely with. 

Deep regulation is about belonging to life and to each other. 

Regulation is not about closing things out because they make us uncomfortable or “canceling” people we disagree with; it actually indicates a severe lack of regulation if we think we can make ourselves more safe by controlling others.

Now that the anxiety and rumination is passing, the richness of this experience is more fully unfolding.

Thanks to my own ability to appropriately pin the source of my discomfort that morning, prior to this interview, I allowed myself to request support, instead of inaccurately projecting distress at a person who in no way deserved it. That is discernment in action. And that request, which felt a bit vulnerable, acted as an invitation for my person to offer encouragement, which I gratefully received.

This was in profound contrast to past experiences when a former partner would tend to be hyper-critical of my work and professional endeavors. And when I previously worked for my father who, too, tore me down over similar professional experiences. I learned through trial by fire that neither of those people, nor the positions I had afforded them in my life at that time, were safe for me.

The clarity emerging—not only from participating in this interview, but in my own review of all that it means to me—continues to brighten my mood, as well as illuminate how much growth my life actually contains. This, too, is evidence of better neurological regulation. 

When we can hold our stories—without slipping into shame, judgment, and punishment—we move into a new state of being within our bodies, our nervous systems, and with each other.

The night after the interview I woke around 4 am with my inner critic shredding me for "wasting an opportunity". Next the imposter syndrome raised its head, and that was quite the party. What I can see now, though, is these parts from my past asking to be “caught up” with my current reality. They were asking not only to be held by me, but to include people who have proven themselves to be caring and trustworthy.

And for me, the “work” really comes home in the grounded aliveness bridging my inner and outer worlds.

I know that due to my willingness to care for myself, I can courageously open the door for others to do so as well. And I can face my fears, discomfort, and edges with deeper trust and even love.

I am excited to share this interview with you when it comes out! 

I am now relaxing into the belief it will benefit those it is meant to. Maybe that will be you. I know it continues to root and grow in me, and I will continue to share the flowers and fruits it produces. 

Lotsa love,

Justice

If you want to learn more about my healing and creative mentoring services, please visit www.bedheadmystic.com