Our Nervous System
is what can be considered the control system of our entire being. It is the part of our bodies that depict how we react in situations that are calm, frightening, angry, or whatever emotion arises.
It handles all of our communication, and initially is carried out based on our experiences and whether our needs were met as a child. Needs such as safety, nourishment, emotional etc.
We are a direct representation of those early years.
I am somebody whose emotional needs were not met growing up. I was taken care of and grew up fortunate that my family loved me and would never intentionally cause me harm, but the way that they were taught to stuff it down and keep our emotions at bay, transpired to me, transpired to a woman who didn’t treat herself very kind because she didn’t know how to experience whatever was being felt.
That is, until the healing work began.
You see, when you start to do some healing, some things happen:
you recognize your worth
which transpires to doing things that make you feel good (movement, stillness, whatever you need)
which transpires to teaching your nervous system different ways
which transpires you (or me in this case) to be confident in what I have to say rather than freezing/ fawning at any type of confrontation (big or small).
My little definition of freeze: stopping in your tracks; saying nothing because it is the “easier choice”
My little definition of fawn: going along to get along, doing something that you have no interest in because you don’t want people to be upset with you
Some tools for calming your nervous system:
1. Make nature a part of your regular routine - start to pay attention to what the season have to teach us
2. Using pure tools as a support to calm us (I take a drop of copaiba daily) +whatever oils aligns with what I am going through or doing
3. Pausing for deep breaths
4. Movement (whatever that looks like for you)
5. Listen to your body, rest if that is what you need (remove the narrative that this is lazy).
