New Year, New Nervous System!
A Free 10-Day Autonomic Super-Challenge
Day 4: Capacity
Hey Regulators!
The other day, my husband reminded me of the rubber band analogy. The more elasticity a rubber band has, the more opportunity for stretch, range, and space to grow. In this way, we can also think about building the scope of what our Nervous System can tolerate, without getting engulfed by what it presents physiologically. If the rubber band has no more latitude, it will snap. If the Nervous System gets devoured by sensation, we end up retraumatized. Building the capacity of what our Nervous System can handle is how we can open up the spectrum of what we are capable of holding.
For years, the car was a huge trigger for me. This makes sense considering I'd been through a slew of car-related traumatic events. My nervous system began registering the car as a threat. So anytime I got near one, let alone in the driver's seat, I'd panic. My heart would beat out of my chest, making me feel faint. My physiology didn't care what my mind knew to be true– that the car was not the culprit. But still, the response persisted, which deeply affected my life, severely limiting my freedom due to fear.
I didn't drive a car long distance on the freeway for ten years. After I started studying Trauma and the Nervous System, it became clear, the only way out was through. I had to go toward what my body was telling me to run from so I could see it was actually okay. This meant I’d have to enter some level of this seemingly terrifying situation with my newfound awareness and somatic tools to override what my physiology was telling me to act on. And I’d have to do it in a way that didn't retraumatize me, and make the survival responses inside, stronger.
Titration is a word we use often in the Somatic Experiencing World. It's mostly used in Chemistry lexicon to describe what happens when you add one liquid or compound into another unknown liquid or compound, VERY SLOWLY, until the reaction reaches neutralization. You don't want to add too much, too fast, because you don't want anything to explode. So, if trauma can be thought of as something that's too much, too fast, that overwhelms our systems, healing has to be the opposite. There is a way to titrate the exposure of our systems to the things that overwhelm us, so we don't go through the whole overwhelming cycle again. In this way, titrated exposure therapy can be an antidote to some of the traumas lingering in our Nervous Systems. (Please remember that all of this is parenthetical. Sometimes we can never go toward the things that have hurt us because frankly, they’re too gruesome. But there’s still a variety of ways to work on calming down activated physiology regardless).
Okay, so how was I able to start driving again? Well, I had to titrate that shit! First, this meant I had to be brave! My desire and willingness to get better had to outweigh the fear (a physiological response to threat) arising in my Nervous System near the car. Because I’d already laid down my baseline; the understanding of what was playing out inside, I knew the systemic loop I stuck in was outdated. Now, I had to challenge my physiological story. This is the real hero's journey!
The first time I got in the car with the intention of driving, I started crying. Instead of interrupting the tears, I let myself have the response until it was fully complete, and my body was settled in the front seat. I didn't get out and run away from it. I just sat there with all the feelings arising and processed some of my grief around the things that happened to me in a car. I let it out rather than held it in, and I stuck with it until it settled. I also started tracking and naming what my body was doing, and where I was feeling the sensation. That allowed me an opportunity to not get caught up in the content of my car story, but rather split my attention to something less overwhelming. It's a healthy distraction in a sense. Trauma Therapists use Dual Attention all the time in trauma work so clients don’t get gobbled up by their physiology.
When I first drove on the freeway again, I did so with my husband in the car. Our first line of defense is always each other. So, in order to face this challenge that was in front of me, I needed support. I needed a safe-house. For me, that was my husband. You should find a safe-house too. It will definitely help your process. For months, I only drove with people in the car beside me. But eventually, I proved to myself I could do it, which also challenged the story of my nervous system. Every time I got in that driver's seat and drove, I felt less afraid, and more capable of driving. I was proving my own physiological narrative wrong, increasing the capacity of my own nervous system. We have to face our fears, otherwise they strip us of our inherent freedom.
Eventually, I felt ready to go at it alone. But as soon as I got in the car, my heart was palpitating. I started slowly, softening my body, tracking the tension, rolling my neck, loosening the grip on the wheel– so as to not trigger my system into more of a threat response. I started humming, to stimulate my Vagus Nerve (the conduit to our Parasympathetic NS– more on that later), and began initiating a deep, low belly breathing exercise to slow my heart rate down. Doing all of these things and trying to drive is so physical, it's hard to focus on much else (also a variation of Dual Attention).
I wasn't going very fast, and I didn’t make it very far. But it was a start. And it's this very start, and these very tools done consistently, that finally allowed me to drive on the freeway alone again and gave me my freedom back. This doesn't mean I didn't panic a little when I finally entered the freeway landscape. It just means I knew how to meet myself in a way that helped stretch my own capacity beyond what was comfortable.
We have to challenge our neurological and physiological programming, in order to rewrite our somatic stories. These days, I drive anxiety free down the freeway with Taylor Swift blasting, and the wind blowing in my hair. It feels good to be free. And I know that freedom is available for all of us– if we can just learn to access it.
Practice Day 4: Breath-Work To Simulate States
In this Video, I shared four different breath practices. The first is a variation of Sudarshan Kriya. I'll link the entire Kriya below if you want to do it to specifically target the Vagus Nerve. Then I did the 405 traffic breath (that's what I call it) where you breathe deep down below your diaphragm for ten seconds in and ten seconds out, ten to twenty times, or as many times as it takes to get you through whatever you are going through. Next was the shining skull breath for 150 counts, and then 30 rounds of Wim Hof. (In case you want to replicate)