Success (for me) is Stability.

How or relationship with our nervous system shapes our life.

My dear readers,

I am full of feelings and words suddenly that simply must be shared.

The current milestone that I would like to invite you to celebrate with me is stability. Let me be clear: nothing has significantly shifted in my living situation, any of my relationships, or with my finances. So what is different? Me!

For the last few years I have been studying and practicing (both personally and professionally), neurological regulation. What does that mean? Well, I have been becoming more attuned to my body and the sensations that it holds and emits. I have been familiarizing myself with what my window of tolerance is in regards to stimulation—stressful and pleasurable. I have been noticing the feedback between my mind and my body, and how the stories I am telling inform my body how to feel, and how the way my body feels informs the stories I am telling.

This process had been intimate, relational, solitary, stressful, joyful and everything in between. I have a counselor that I work with who has skillfully guided me into my own body, and encouraged me to trust what I discover there. Most recently I have gone from comforting myself when I feel dysregulated by telling myself “You’re okay”, to turning even more inward and listening to, and feeling, the sensations, symbols, and patterns that I discover there.

Oh, there is tension in my jaw, a stiffness in my neck and chest. There is roiling in my belly. All of those sensations are real. The stories I might make up about what the sensations mean may be less real, or they may be right on point. The point, however, is not to fixate on the story—how to complete or fix it, but to really care for the tenderness within me.

It occurred to me in the last couple of months that when I was telling myself I was okay when I really did not feel that way, I was subtly gaslighting myself, subtly and without malice, of course, but still not being fully honest, not fully tending to the tenderness.

My own anxiety can range from mind-numbing dissociation, fingernails dragging through the neurons discomfort (aka panic attacks) to slight stomach aches, migraines, and obsessive thinking, and behaviors, all the way to the low end of restlessness and difficulty focusing. As I have been learning about how to tend a hyper-sensitive nervous system, I’ve also coincidentally learned about neurodivergence under which diagnoses such as autism, ADD, and ADHD also fall. (I’m inclined to think I may have a touch of ADD, as well.) What all of those acronyms basically mean is that we who bear those labels have a different way of interfacing with the world.

One example that I have noticed in myself is the change in the way I engage in other people’s attention.

I will not deny enjoying attention, but the things that I want to be noticed for have dramatically shifted over the last couple of years. It used to be when I would go out for a drink, or go out dancing, I would inevitably wind up drawing someone to me who would either straight out cross my boundaries with undesired and inappropriate contact or would just drain me with the tone of the conversation. In these circumstances I often felt obligated to either listen endlessly or would freeze at the inappropriate interaction. In either instance, my nervous system was clearly dysregulated and I did not know what to do about it.

Over the years, I’ve gotten damn good with my no. I have developed a stare that, when observed on the face of the offender, would have you think they had been bitten by a snake. The first time that happened I watched a man remove his hand from thigh, from under the bar where we were both sitting, as if he had just been burned. Highly satisfying.

So I’m saying that boundaries are a part of this newly found stability. Honesty with myself and my feelings, too.

Another thing that has been deeply beneficial has been letting my hurt be as big as it needs to be. I am not talking about glamorizing and glorifying my trauma, actually quite the opposite has been true. Whereas I used to do a lot of writing for catharsis, part of this deeper regulation involves me holding myself and taking my pain and confusion to a more intimate circle to sort it out and share it.

Becoming more stable feels like an internal flexibility and assurance in myself, my feelings, and my choices that had simply been able to root deeply enough in me before to actually provide any real structure.

For anything to manifest in the external world, that energy has to come through our nervous systems first.

Our nervous systems are not actually as isolated as they may seem, buried deeply in our bodies as they are. They are also relational, and ecosystemical. In the same ways that trees communicate through their roots, we communicate through our nervous systems—subtly, energetically, and directly.

Neurological health is not a solo endeavor. We first learn to co-regulate before we learn self-regulation as children. And, as adults, we still need people who we can co-regulate with, as much as we need to be able to self-soothe. This is where a trusted coach, counselor, or healer can be of assistance, especially if we do not have other close relationships. This is also the work I do with my own clients.

I’m lucky to be able to count on a hand a few people who I can turn to soothe my distress or celebrate something. Not everyone has that, but it would behoove us to seek it out, to build it, to repair it when necessary, and to make it a priority. Our nervous systems did not develop in isolation, and in insolation we tend to whither. This is one of the reasons that the isolation of the pandemic over the last few years was so hard and so detrimental to so many. We are relational beings.

My own stability is not some individualist crowning glory. It is my ongoing journey into a relationship with life—with the seen and unseen, with other humans and animals, with the elements, with my own internal temple. It is a process of alchemy, the transmutation of what is not sustainable and supportive, the planting of seeds, flowers and fruits which nourish me, mind, soul and body.

Lotsa love,

~Justice

Embodied Boundaries

I will hosting a live meeting for paid subscribers, or anyone who wants to register for $28 on July 12, at 12PM MT.

Boundaries are internal, external, relational, self-oriented, and other inclusive. Boundaries invite others to come closer to us, to get to know us in mutually respectful and life-honoring ways.

If you have ever struggled with boundaries, with people-pleasing, with abusive relationship dynamics, chronic gut issues, trouble with weight and your relationship with food and other substances, or auto immune disease or symptoms, this class may be beneficial for you. We will discuss and workshop boundaries from the energetics, to how we embody them, to how we hold them internally with ourselves, and implement them with others.

This class will held through zoom, and will be recorded for anyone who cannot attend live.

To register Click Here