Over the last few years, nervous system regulation has been having its moment, with a cascade of online advice offering the tantalising hope that if we learn the right breathing techniques, somatic hacks, and self-talk, we can unlock the key to settling anxiety, soothing our emotions, managing our stressful lives, eliminating burnout, and expediting healing.
A regulated nervous system has become something of a holy grail.
Many of us, myself included, have spent years learning all the skills and tools to regulate our own system, from complex pranayama, to icepacks and cold plunges, bilateral stimulation to mindfulness.
Believe me when I say I have tried it all.
Much of it has been very helpful, but despite all the knowledge, for a long time I struggled to figure out why my anxiety still spiked so high at times, and why some days none of the tools seemed to ‘work’.
There are a lot of incredibly valuable resources out there. But the skills and tools are only one part of the picture.
The word regulation is problematic in itself. It implies that the aim is to have control over our nervous system, which is an appealing idea in theory, but was never part of our biological design. Our nervous system is wired to operate a little below the level of conscious awareness. It’s built to respond quickly, instinctively, and reflexively, enabling our system to mobilise faster than our thinking mind can weigh up the evidence in a situation. It’s designed so that, if a predator comes out of the bushes, we can harness energy for fight, flight, or freeze before the thinking mind can work through a course of action.
It straddles both conscious and unconscious processes. Which means we can have influence over the system, but not control.
This is one of the reasons that regulating our nervous system is harder than we expect. And it’s why I’ve come to prefer words like settling, nudging, or influencing, over the word regulation.
And there’s another piece we are often missing.
This came into sharp focus for me when I began a much more relational form of psychotherapy. A therapy where the work focused on what was happening between two people in the room.
We come into the world as babies without the ability to settle or soothe ourselves, and our nervous systems are built to co-regulate before we can self-regulate.
We first borrow the nervous system of a settled, safe other, and, with repeated experience over time, we eventually internalise this as a capacity to soothe ourselves.
Many of us did not have this need sufficiently met in childhood. Not necessarily because of abusive or traumatic environments (though sometimes this is the case), but often because the carers who met us when we were distressed did not have that internal calm themselves. They may have been exhausted, stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed. They may simply have never internalised the capacity to soothe and settle from their own childhoods. Nervous systems are intergenerational, both through our genetic inheritance, and through the modelling and mirroring that happens between carer and child.
Our nervous systems are contextual and relational. They are responding to internal and external environments, and they are in continual conversation with the nervous systems around us. We are influenced by the people we are in proximity to, and this shapes our nervous system range and capacity.
If you have been reading, absorbing, and practicing all the fabulous nervous system tools out there, and wondering why some days none of them seem to work, it may be this:
We were never meant to do this all alone.
Some years ago, I was lucky enough to attend a week-long meditation retreat with senior teachers at Spirit Rock in San Francisco. I arrived on the back of a few weeks of travel, navigating Google maps, and driving on the opposite side of the road in an unfamiliar country. I arrived into a very large group of restless, chattering, nervous strangers. I had no idea what was in store. As I took my seat in the meditation hall on the first evening, my heart was racing, palms were sweating, and anxiety was spiking high. The teaching staff arrived, took their seats on the front podium and gazed silently around the room, taking in the sea of faces before them. Within moments, I felt my entire being become quiet and steady. And I felt this energy move like a wave through the room. This is the power of being in the presence of a very anchored nervous system. We hadn’t even begun the formal teachings or practice, yet an entire hall full of people had dropped into silence and steadiness.
This is co-regulation. When you feel it, you know it. And it is the precursor to self-regulation that many of us have missed.
The container of co-regulation acts as a bridge that prepares our nervous system to function independently. It can happen with any settled and safe person, but it’s not something that’s always available. Steady nervous systems are something of a rarity in our world, which is why we sometimes need to source this co-regulation with a skilled therapist or mentor.
In relationally focused therapy, we get to slow down an interaction, tune in and notice the dance that happens between two (or more) nervous systems. We can notice the places where we are pulled off centre, where we lose ourselves, where we begin to subtly scan the other and the environment for cues of danger.
When we can inhabit this place in the presence of other people, and slow down enough to observe the ebb and flow of safety and threat, this can gradually begin to generalise to other relational situations. Then all of those skills and tools we’ve learned have a place to land. We get to experience ourselves more anchored and grounded in the world of relationships, not just in a solitary practice at home. We get to carry our practices off the meditation cushion and into the world of work, life, and connection. This is when the real shifts can begin to happen.
In our quest for self-regulation, and in the booming industry of self-help, the relationship piece is often missed, but I believe it’s crucial if we want to integrate an ability to find safety and calm into our daily lives. It’s the foundation upon which our capacity to self-soothe can be built, and when it’s missing, no amount of breathwork or ice baths can fill that hole.
Thank you for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. What are your experiences with self-regulation and co-regulation? How have you found doing this work by yourself versus within the container of a relationship? I always love to hear your experiences and perspectives.
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Disclaimer - Content is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not a substitute for individualised mental health treatment or advice.
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