Hello everyone and welcome back to Needy No More, the podcast
dedicated to healing the anxious attachment style.
I'm your host, anxious attachment style coach and
author Chris Ratcliffe. I've helped thousands of people
across 6 continents to end the cycle of anxious attachment
through my books, workshops, digital downloads, and coaching
program. I'm excited to carry on that
mission here, sharing tools and techniques, principles and
ractices for you to explore on your journey to growing more
secure. Welcome back everyone.
I am really excited about today's episode because it is
one of the most important things to consider when you're talking
about exploring healing. You're anxious attachment style,
and that is nervous system regulation.
We're going to be talking about dysregulation and regulation.
Just generally, what causes us to get triggered, what makes us
resuscitate pain from the past? These are really important
things to unpack when it comes to healing anxious attachment
because we're getting to the root of it.
So far in the show, we've been exploring the cycle of anxious
attachment that I outline in my book, Needy No More, the Journey
from anxious to secure attachment.
We've already explored trauma, abandonment, and codependency,
which are a part of the main cycle of anxious attachment.
There are still three steps remaining in the cycle that
we're going to explore, starting with today's episode on nervous
system dysregulation, because it really is the connective tissue
among all of the other steps. Now, there are some questions
that I want to answer in today's episode, so here's what we're
going to unpack. First, what exactly is nervous
system dysregulation and how is it connected to being triggered?
Next, we'll explore what are the causes of nervous system
dysregulation, both in the past and in the present.
From there, we'll explore how has nervous system dysregulation
shown up in my life. I'll share some examples with
you that can hopefully resonate with your own story.
Then we'll unpack how is nervous system dysregulation connected
to anxious attachment, and we'll close by talking about some ways
that you can regulate your nervous system.
That's sort of what we'll continue exploring for the
remainder of the show and in future episodes, but I'll give
you a couple of takeaways for today when it comes to the
basics of nervous system regulation.
The first thing I'm going to do is to read a chapter from the
book Needy No More, which is all about nervous system
dysregulation, and that chapter is titled Nervous System
Dysregulation. There's an entire section in the
first part of the book that's dedicated to dysregulation, and
this is the intro chapter there. So without further ado, let's go
ahead and dive in. At its core, the most important
function the body serves is to keep itself alive.
After all, what could be more important than survival?
This is what the body believes and how it behaves.
In fact, everything we do serves this mission.
We eat to fuel our body so we have energy for survival.
We connect with others to have strength in numbers, which
supports our survival. We procreate in order to ensure
the survival of our species. The list goes on and on.
Of all the systems in the body, the nervous system is the
commander in chief, in charge of helping us to achieve the
fundamental goal of survival. Centered in the brain and
running via numerous nerves throughout your body, the health
and regulation of your nervous system is an overall indication
of the extent to which you're either thriving or surviving,
stable or unstable, present or preoccupied.
For anxious attachers, the very name nervous system is an
apartment one. Having learned our needs won't
get met due to inconsistent and unpredictable relationships, we
tend to be constantly nervous, anxious and on edge, always
ready for our next heartbreak. Over time, these experiences
leave imprints, conditioned impressions that prime us for
the future. Like an overly sensitive smoke
detector, our nervous system becomes hyper vigilant and
learns to sound the alarm at any threat, no matter how small,
that might pose danger to our health and well-being.
These are survival mechanisms, ways that our system adjusts to
be ready for any future danger, whether it's real or something
we've perceived. Here's what this means.
If your past was chaotic, your body quite literally expects
your present and future to be chaotic too.
When it comes to survival, preparedness is the name of the
game. Like an overprotective older
sibling, your nervous system will step in and do its best to
protect you and keep you safe and alive.
For those with an anxious attachment style, danger is only
ever one perception away. One Instagram story, one text, 1
misperceived facial expression or misconstrued tone of voice
can do the trick. The nervous system is naturally
perceptive, intuitively vigilant.
For anxious attachers, it's hyper vigilant and overly
sensitive, many times sensing danger where there is none or
far before a response or corrective action is warranted.
This is the essence of a trauma response, an action from the
nervous system motivated by survival and fueled by a flood
of chemicals, hormones, and energy in the brain and
throughout the body. While there are innumerable ways
to be triggered and thereby have our nervous system activated,
there are only four nervous system responses, fight, flight,
freeze, and fawn. As an anxious attacher, you're
likely familiar with all of them, having lived in survival
mode far more than the average person.
The brain wires the way it fires.
This is why repeated instability, inconsistency, and
invalidation is so damaging. We come to anticipate it and
expect it. This is also why folks who have
experienced relational and emotional trauma have such a
difficult time welcoming someone warm and affectionate into their
lives. They simply aren't accustomed to
it. It feels like a farce, an
uncomfortable charade inside what should be a comforting
reality. Our brain isn't wired to expect
it, and it feels deeply unusual and is sometimes even
unbearable. This is also why many anxious
attachers run away from emotional availability, even
though it's what they crave most deeply.
Your nervous system will almost always choose an uncomfortable
hell over a comfortable heaven, mostly because it seeks out
what's familiar, what it knows how to tolerate.
In this way, we often end up recreating traumatic dynamics in
the desperate hope to heal them, only to find that we've further
reinforced the wiring that led us to engage in the dynamic to
begin with. Trauma thwarts our natural
compass for safe relationships, turning the world upside down
and making it difficult to navigate with any real clarity.
In this way, we become like a pinball in a machine, bouncing
from 1 unsafe relationship to the next, further reinforcing
our perceived lack of worthiness and further strengthening the
pathways in the brain that anticipate this danger in the
future. And round and round we go.
Nervous system and emotional regulation, which I will use
interchangeably throughout the book since emotions are based in
the nervous system, have become cliche and even confusing
phrases used across the Internet, on social media apps,
and in circles centered on emotional healing.
Here's what it really means. Nervous system regulation is
nothing more than the extent to which you've learned to be
present with your feelings and your body.
Regulation requires attunement, flexibility and safety, and the
extent to which we learn how to do this is largely based on what
is modelled for us by our caregivers and later reinforced
in adult relationships, most of all with our romantic partners.
The nervous system asks to what extent can I trust both myself
and those around me? Do I believe my emotional needs
will be met most of the time? More often than not, do I feel
fundamentally understood? The answers to these questions
shape our relational model, and that model has lasting effects
on our capability to connect easily with others and also
ourselves. It's also become cliche to say
that if you change your thoughts, you can change your
life. While this isn't wrong per SE,
it's actually backwards. You have to change your life to
change your thoughts. You have to structure your
day-to-day in such a way as to have a healthier relationship
with your mind, your body, and your spirit.
You have to prioritize slowing down long enough to feel instead
of trying to think your emotions.
You have to allow your body to regulate itself and provide the
opportunity for the energy to work its way out of your system.
You have to discover and practice ways of building in
more flexibility and tolerance of discomfort.
You have to surround yourself with people who are safe and
stable and consistent. At least most of the time.
That's how you create the change you're seeking.
For anxious attachers and other trauma survivors, healing
doesn't start in the mind. It starts in the body.
Without feeling your feelings, without learning to navigate
uncertainty and discomfort, and allowing your body's natural
stress cycles and survival responses to complete
themselves, you'll only make incremental changes instead of
transcendental ones. You'll only partially heal.
You'll feel that gap between what's happening in the mind and
what's happening in the body. Emotional healing is roughly 20%
cognitive and 80% somatic or physiological.
Our stories aren't just written with words, they're imprinted in
our reactions. Look no further than how you
react when you're triggered to see the story your body is
telling you in that moment. It's saying I feel threatened.
This reminds me of something in the past that hurt me deeply.
I don't feel safe here. I don't have the capacity to
manage this. Listen to your body and learn to
recognize when your energy is shifting.
It will tell you all you need to know.
Dysregulation in the body drives distortions in thinking in the
mind. In this way, under feeling leads
to overthinking. We start to take things
personally. We catastrophize.
We jump to conclusions. We keep score.
We minimize the good and maximize the bad.
We think in extremes. We dissociate.
It's much easier to rationalize than it is to feel, to go up
into the mind, then to be down in the body.
In the end, we have nothing to show for these exhausting
efforts, as they are a distraction from the real issue
of focus on the effect rather than the cause.
Truth is, if you really want to better navigate your mind, you
have to learn to better regulate your body.
In this way. The phrase should really become
learn to be more at home in your body and you will change your
life. The more present we become in
our vessel, the more centered and grounded we become
emotionally. Our inner world becomes settled
instead of shaken, resilient instead of restless.
This naturally improves our relationship with ourselves,
including and especially with our mind.
Our relationships with everyone else around us follow suit, as
our ability to be present and connected with others is a
direct reflection of our ability to be present and connected with
ourselves. If you've struggled to advance
on your healing journey, it's likely because you've been
focused on your mind instead of your body, on your thoughts
instead of the dysregulation in your nervous system that causes
those thoughts to begin with. Expand your focus to include
techniques that don't just treat the symptoms, but also treat the
'cause. That includes techniques like
meditation, breath work, body movement, exercise, cold
exposure, and more. We'll dive deeper into these
techniques in the second-half of the book.
For now, make a mental note and remember this.
You can't think your way out of a feeling and you shouldn't try.
Not only is this a form of self invalidation, but it doesn't
address the actual issue. To do that, we must dig deeper.
We must feel, We must regulate. There's your physical age and
your emotional one. The former is self-explanatory
and commonly understood, the latter is not.
Your emotional age is a reflection of the level of
emotional maturity and acuity you've developed based on
previous experiences and relationships.
In other words, it's a representation of how skilled
and secure you are in communicating with others and
expressing feelings, as well as the ability to hold space for
others and experience discomfort within yourself.
Those of us who have experienced trauma become emotionally
trapped at the age we were when the trauma first occurred.
Our ability to regulate our bodies and experience our
feelings, especially challenging ones like invalidation and
rejection, frustration and disappointment, becomes stunted
in this way. You might be a successful
20304050 or even 60 something, but your ability to cope is
reflective of the skills of a typical 5-6 or seven-year old.
To add insult to injury, those of us who didn't have healthy
relationships and emotional regulation modeled for us often
unconsciously seek out similarly painful relational dynamics,
which only further reinforces our level of immaturity.
Human beings are impulsive, reactive, and reflexive
creatures. That's because at our core,
we're emotional beings, as much as we want them to.
Emotions don't make sense and don't abide by the firm rules of
logic and rationality. They aren't based on fact.
They're based on experience. And what could be more
subjective than our individual myopic point of view, than our
personal experience? The limbic or emotional center
of the brain is one of the first areas to develop, and that's
because it's also one of the most primitive.
It's no wonder then, that we feel so deeply.
It's no wonder that our emotions hijack us.
They're located in the driver's seat at the very center of the
brain. Using logic to control our
emotions is like trying to drive the car from outside of the
vehicle. It just doesn't work like that.
When you're dysregulated and your emotions have you in a
chokehold, all you can do is sit in the passenger seat and let
the car run its course. At some point, we have to stand
up and take accountability for our participation in the
perpetuation of these dynamics, in the persistence of our
patterns. Contrary to how it sounds, this
is not about blame, which keeps us locked in victimhood and
shame. It's about stepping up and
taking responsibility for ourselves.
As I remind my clients all the time, if you didn't have healthy
relationships modeled for you growing up and you haven't had
safe and stable partnerships in your adult life, where were you
supposed to learn how? We learned through our
experiences. If you've lacked safe, connected
experiences throughout your life, it's natural for you to
expect more of the same and to not know how to show up in a
healthy and secure way. It's natural not to know how to
navigate conflict and relational repair.
It's natural not to know how to talk about your feelings.
Even though relationships are critical for health, wealth, and
happiness, many of us have no clue how to actually build and
sustain healthy ones, how to navigate conflict situations or
express ourselves emotionally. We certainly don't emerge from
the womb this way. To say that we are born a blank
slate means that our nervous system is brand new, a fresh
page upon which the outer world can make an impression.
Sadly, for many on the insecure side of the attachment spectrum,
this impression becomes a dark one defined by instability and
invalidation, an inconsistent environment in which we learn to
expect the worst from those who are supposed to give us their
best. Many of us learned to expect an
insecure home base instead of a secure one.
This doesn't happen overnight. Over time and across
experiences, we become conditioned to believe that our
needs won't get met and in fact, never mattered at all.
It's no wonder then, that we become triggered at the first
sign of abandonment. While there are innumerable ways
to become triggered for the pain of the past to claw its way up
to the surface, there's only one healthy way to respond to it,
and that's to learn to regulate your nervous system.
Think about it like this. Being triggered, being put into
nervous system dysregulation can work in two different ways.
We can either experience hyper arousal in the form of
overreacting or we can experience hypo arousal in the
form of under reacting. Hyper arousal takes place in the
sympathetic nervous system, which activates our body and
brain and causes us to go into fight or flight mode.
Hypo arousal happens in the parasympathetic branch of the
nervous system and causes us to deactivate or go into freeze
mode. It's also possible to experience
a blended state of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic
systems, whereby we simultaneously experience hyper
arousal and hypo arousal. In other words, it's possible to
experience a blended state of both fight or flight and freeze
responses. This state is commonly referred
to as a fawn response. Together, these survival
responses represent how we react to triggers in our environment.
To regulate the nervous system and get ourselves back to
baseline, we must down regulate out of hyper arousal and up
regulate out of hypo arousal to become flexible enough to
experience anything that occurs, but in particular the
sympathetic fight or flight response and the parasympathetic
freeze response. In addition to our response to
present dysregulation, it's vital that we actively expand
our capacity for it in the future, growing our ability to
manage discomfort and stress. We'll expand on ways to do this
in the second-half of the book. We'll also expand on the
importance of both self and Co regulation.
For now, just know that nervous system regulation is not only
possible, it's imperative for you to advance on your healing
journey and develop a secure attachment style.
And it's often the missing link so many people are searching for
on their healing journey. It was Bessel van der COK,
psychiatrist and author of the number one New York Times
bestseller The Body Keeps the Score, who famously wrote that
trauma comes back as a reaction, not a memory.
The evidence of this truth is written in the impressions left
in our bodies, the dysregulation in our nervous system that
arises when we're triggered by an external stimulus or our
internal perception of it, or both.
Every anxious attachor alive has felt this empirical truth.
Look no further than what most upsets you in the present to
point you in the direction of what traumatized you in the
past. Your triggers are guideposts to
your trauma. They resulted from it.
They are tiny pockets of residual energy leftover from
the initial wounding events, working their way up to the
surface to be released. Your reactions in this moment
tell you precisely what's rising that requires your attention,
what needs integrating and healing.
Triggers are external stimuli that bring up internal
impressions from similar situations that have previously
occurred. Something happens that reminds
you of being hurt in the past and it creates a trauma,
survival, or stress response in the body.
The nervous system is activated and energy is mobilized to
respond to the threat. Keep in mind, your brain and
nervous system can't tell the difference between a perceived
threat and an actual one, and you will have the same response
regardless of whether it's necessary or warranted.
Triggers are present reminders of past pain.
Contrary to how that sounds, looks, and feels, triggers are
actually incredibly valuable. They not only show us what
matters most to us, they also demonstrate where we could most
benefit from working to heal. Triggers are pockets of energy
from prior traumatizing experiences coming up to the
surface to be released. When treated with consciousness,
compassion, and care, these experiences can help guide us to
a more grounded and secure place from an emotional standpoint.
When they're not treated with curiosity, love, and intention,
they can wreak havoc on our relationships, our bodies, and
our lives. Do your best not to judge
yourself for what triggers you. Every trigger is an opportunity
for your healing because it shows you where you need to let
go and let be. That said, there are some common
triggers that I often see in my work.
Anxious attachors tend to be most sensitive about
communication, inclusion, and prioritization, and that's
because our wounds are often based on feeling rejected, UN
prioritized, and left in the dark throughout our lives.
Dysregulation and regulation are neither good nor bad in the same
way that desiring connection and being wired for survival is
neither good nor bad. They're a part of human nature.
However, repeated dysregulation can cause undue stress on your
body, bring you out of the present moment, and even take
years off of your life. Your body doing what it believes
it needs to do in order to survive is not wrong, but like
all things, it does come at a price.
Staying in survival mode means staying in stress mode.
Staying in stress mode means burning through your body's
energy and finite resources. That's a heavy burden for you to
bear, for your mind, body, and spirit to carry.
All the more reason why learning to regulate your nervous system
and use your body's resources efficiently has its upsides.
Doctor Steven Porges, who's renowned polyvagal theory goes
into depth on how the nervous system operates and heals, says
trauma compromises our ability to engage with others by
replacing patterns of connection with patterns of protection.
This is why the dysregulation that is caused by trauma is so
damaging. Not only does it cause us to
overprotect and remain in a survival state, it also prevents
us from experiencing the very connection we need in order to
heal the pattern. And so it continues to repeat.
This is the same cycle I introduced just a few chapters
ago, one marked by the stages of trauma, codependency, and
abandonment, and driven by dysregulation, addiction, and
stress. In order to heal, we have to
address these core experiences. In the end, we repeat what we
don't repair. The body naturally defaults to
survival. For those of us with an anxious
attachment style who've repeatedly experienced trauma
and disconnection throughout our lives, that default becomes even
more deeply ingrained. Until we can no longer focus on
thriving at all. Until we lose ourselves in our
relationships, Until we become hypersensitive, hyper aroused,
hyper vigilant, and then we know little else.
OK, so that chapter helps to not only introduce nervous system
dysregulation, but also answer some of the core questions that
we're hoping to address in this episode.
That includes what is nervous system dysregulation?
How is it connected to being triggered?
Those are those pockets of pain from the past that are coming
back up for release. Now, what are the causes of
nervous system dysregulation in the past and present?
So a lack of communication, a lack of inclusion, a lack of
prioritization, etcetera. I want to transition though to
answering the next question, which is how has nervous system
dysregulation shown up in my own life?
Personally, there are some things that still trigger me.
Maybe not as deeply as they used to, but there are still some
things that really just hit at some core wounds for me, and
that includes when people are distant or inconsistent.
When folks switch up their energy on me, it hits me deeply
and I find it to be hurtful. I'm sure many people listening
to this or watching this can relate to that as well.
I also find that I grow most dysregulated when I'm out of my
normal routine. So maybe I've been traveling,
maybe someone from out of town is visiting.
Maybe I'm just busier with social engagements and or work
than normal and just have less time for myself.
Maybe something throws off my sleep schedule and I'm tired and
cranky, but no matter what it is, when I'm not getting the
basics down, things like sleep, breath work, hydration,
nutrition, it can throw off my system.
And I find that this is also true for the clients that I work
with. So when they might be in a
particularly busy or stressful time at work, when they're not
sleeping well, when maybe they just got back from a vacation or
maybe even business travel and they just haven't had a whole
lot of time to themselves, it makes it a lot easier to slip
into a state of nervous system dysregulation.
So just clock that for yourself because making sure you're
focusing on the essentials is critical.
If you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right?
Like getting your needs for food and shelter and breath and water
met are essential. So if you're out of your normal
routine and you're super busy and you're not drinking enough
water, and if you're not sleeping well, of course that's
going to throw everything off. And I definitely noticed that
for myself. Now in terms of the question how
is nervous system dysregulation connected to the experience of
anxious attached, remember that it is a part of that cycle of
anxious attachment that we've been unpacking in the show so
far by talking about trauma, abandonment, codependency, now
nervous system dysregulation, and we'll also talk about stress
aversion and addiction in future episodes as well.
But we've been going through this step by step, and we've
gotten to this point in the process to nervous system
dysregulation, repeated experiences of trauma, which is
one of the other steps in the cycle of anxious attachment,
abandonment, another step, and codependency, yet another step
'cause our nervous system to become hypersensitive and to
expect similar experiences to occur again.
Dysregulation is also a reflection of our relationship
with stress and the extent to which we are relying on
addictions to help us cope with our emotions.
So you can see how all of this fits together.
But nervous system dysregulation might be the most important
aspect of the entire cycle because it really causes
everything else. Let's unpack a concrete example
here. So let's say that your ex
cheated on you. I think we would all agree that
experiences of infidelity in a relationship can be really
damaging and hurtful because their experiences of abandonment
and many people listening to this or watching have likely
experienced that. But I think we'd all agree that
experiences of infidelity are incredibly challenging and
obviously would cause us to go into a state of dysregulation.
But when that happens, we tend to become hyper vigilant.
We're then looking for signs to prove our theories right or our
hunches. So we start snooping and
stalking and sleuthing. We might go through our partners
phone or e-mail or their social media accounts.
Eventually we find out the truth and we might confront them.
Usually we're met with defensiveness and deflection and
denial. This kind of instability and
lack of safety in a relationship erodes self worth and self
trust, and it makes it harder to trust people and connect with
folks in the future because our nervous system is primed and
ready to protect us in case it might happen again.
I know this because it happened to me.
I caught an ex of mine sending explicit pictures and exchanging
lewd messages with dozens of guys and it devastated me.
Not only was I unable to trust him again, which ultimately led
to the demise of our relationship, but I then
expected other guys to treat me the exact same way.
I was always on alert after that.
I asked invasive questions about who they knew and what they were
doing or not doing. I checked in constantly.
I asked them if they'd ever cheated on anyone before.
I made it clear that I wanted monogamy in a relationship.
And while these aren't bad things per SE, they did
demonstrate that I needed to work on accepting what had
happened and also provide my nervous system with the safety
it needed, which was not the responsibility of the people
that I was just getting to know. While I know that's an extreme
example, you can insert other things that might be triggering
like lying or withholding information or being not super
available in terms of scheduling dates or seeing one another,
spending quality time together. And you can see similar patterns
emerge here. It causes a hyper sensitivity
and a hyper vigilance. We're then scanning the
environment for any signs we might get left or abandoned or
hurt again. And then the cycle continues
raging from there. And This is why when you go
through experiences that lack the safety and stability and
compassion and comfort and consistency that anyone would
need in a relationship, especially folks who have been
through trauma, you can see why. This then starts to create a
pattern of protection within yourself where you're not
connecting deeply with the other person and you're expecting them
to treat you like your ex treated you or like other people
treated you. At the end of the day, all know
what nervous system dysregulation looks and feels
like. There are a ton of examples in
day-to-day life that if you just stop and take a step back and
reflect on them, you can see very clearly that they're
dysregulation. But it naturally begs the
question, OK, Chris, what can I do about it now?
So let's talk about how you can learn to regulate your nervous
system. The thing about nervous system
dysregulation is that once it starts, it snowballs really
easily. And that's because nervous
system dysregulation depletes us, and it makes it more
challenging to focus on the things that will be replenishing
for our system. Take sleep, for example.
When you're dysregulated, it becomes challenging to sleep
well. Even if you can fall asleep, you
probably won't stay asleep for long.
You'll toss and turn. Things are weighing pretty
heavily on you in this state. Your system is activated and
that survival energy won't let you get a good night's rest.
Your mind is going to be racing and you can't really turn that
off. It's very difficult.
But when that happens and you lose sleep, it depletes your
system even more and causes further dysregulation.
This is why one of the best things you can do when you're
dysregulated is to meet your basic needs.
So this is the first step with nervous system dysregulation.
Focus on sleep, hydration, nutrition, connection, breath
work, and body movement. Drink water, eat nutritious
foods, call your best friend and go out to dinner with a family
member. Sit and breathe deeply for a few
moments. It's cliche, but it works.
Put down your devices and go for a walk.
So many of us are super triggered by the news and
compare ourselves constantly to other people.
Put your devices down and go touch grass.
Literally. Take some magnesium or
ashwagandha and go to bed early. Give your body what it needs to
replenish itself and restore a sense of balance.
And I do need to say that when it comes to taking any
supplements, please make sure that you consult a medical
doctor or professional before taking any kind of supplement.
The next thing I want to recommend when it comes to
nervous system dysregulation is a very simple tool.
It is just a couple of questions which are what is it that I need
in this moment? What would help me feel safer
and more secure right now? Notice the language I'm using.
What is it that I need in this moment?
What would help me feel safer and more secure right now?
This is about learning to turn inwards and to ask yourself,
what is it that would be helpful right now that I can give to
myself? So the first movement is
inwards, then we go outwards after that.
But many people switch these things up and they go to other
people and they expect them to regulate them in a state of
frenetic energy and dysregulation.
When they're all over the place. That's really hard to do.
It's very difficult for other people to sit with that kind of
stress and energy. So the first movement is always
in words. Always in words.
So ask yourself, what is it that I can give myself right now that
would just help me to feel calmer, more at ease, and safer
in this moment? As I mentioned in the chapter
that I read from the book Needy No More nervous system
regulation is about cultivating presence for discomfort now as
well as building tolerance for discomfort and stress in the
future. I think it's important to note
that there's a reason why repeated created experiences of
trauma lead to PTSD and see PTSD or complex PTSD.
The PTS in PTSD stands for Post traumatic stress.
That means when a similar stressful situation happens now
that reminds us of something that happened before, it can
throw our entire system off and make us feel like we're right
back in that previous experience.
In the book The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der KOK talks
about how yoga and other kind of Eastern approaches or
alternative approaches can really help with this.
So I recommend that as well. That's why I have my clients
meditate because learning to sit with and notice the sensations
in your body is incredibly helpful for being able to hold
space for stress when it comes up in the future.
And those of us who are anxious attachers know that it comes up
very easily and there are many ways that it can be triggered.
So that's another thing to consider here to learning to
build presents and also tolerance for discomfort in the
future. One of the techniques that I
find most beneficial for doing this is actually cold exposure,
and I wanted to single that out because so many people don't
even consider what cold exposure can do for them.
When you take a cold shower or submerge your hands or head in
ice cold water, it puts the body in a stress response.
Your nervous system gets activated and you're triggered.
So it gives you an opportunity to practice your response to
that stress reaction or trauma response.
And why this is important is because you can learn to breathe
through that and practice it in a controlled way.
It's one of the best ways I've found in terms of techniques
that can help to increase your nervous system's capacity for
better managing stress. It's sort of like a workout for
your nervous system that builds the muscle of tolerance and
expands your window of tolerance for stress.
So keep that in mind as well. I also find that maintaining a
proactive daily nervous system regulation practice is critical
for this very reason. One of the very first things I
have my clients do when they enroll in my coaching program is
to start a daily nervous system regulation practice.
This helps to provide the safety and stability so many of us
crave and end up projecting onto the relationships around us.
That same practice that I have my coaching clients complete is
available for download with my Anxious Attachment Style Healing
Tool kit. If you go to
cracklift.com/starter kit, you can download that and you'll get
the daily nervous system regulation practice as well as a
tracker to help you to hold yourself accountable and to do
the 9 steps every day so that you're teaching your nervous
system again proactively, that it does have safety in that you
are consistent and that your needs will get met.
The more that you do this, the more you can write over a lot of
the pain from the past. There are also 5C's that I want
you to remember when it comes to better regulating your nervous
system. They are as follows.
Compassion, consistency, clarity, communication, and
collaboration. The first C is compassion for
yourself. Being softer, gentler, and more
compassionate with yourself helps tremendously.
And yet, as anxious attachers, we tend to do the exact
opposite. We're really self-conscious,
self judge, mental and self critical.
We're really hard on ourselves and apply so much pressure.
We're some of the most self deprecating people I've ever met
or I've ever known. Learning to do the opposite
helps tremendously. So catching ourselves when we're
about to beat ourselves up and instead validating our
experience is a game changer. It helps a ton if you catch
yourself being super self critical, stop in the middle of
the thought and replace it with I'm learning to be more
compassionate with myself. I'm learning to be more
compassionate with myself. The second C is consistency.
Consistency is the language of safety.
The more consistent you are with yourself, and the more
consistent others are with you as well, the safer you will
feel. Your nervous system will learn
that things are stable and secure.
Consistency now can write over a lot of inconsistency from the
past. The third C is clarity.
Transparency is a love language for someone with an anxious
attachment style. Having someone proactively
manage our expectations and provide clarity about how
they're feeling is incredibly thoughtful and loving, and makes
us feel considered, satisfying, a deep need for inclusion that
many of us hold dear. It's also important to stop and
get clear about how we're feeling so we can express that
with others as needed. Speaking of the fourth C is
communication. Being able to talk about
anything at any time with someone who is important to us
is a huge weight off of an anxious attacher.
Knowing that you'll be greeted with receptivity and open arms
cultivates emotional security. But rarely, if ever, does
opening up about how we feel come without fear or doubt or
insecurity. Recognizing that these are signs
that we're doing what we need to do, rather than signs to shut
down, is important. The 5th and final C is
collaboration. Teamwork is the name of the
game. The more you feel like you can
work with instead of against one another, the healthier that
particular relationship will become, and the more secure and
regulated you will feel as well. This also means learning to
collaborate with your own nervous system, and that means
meeting it where it's at. As I remind my coaching clients
all the time, you have to learn to work with the energy of your
system rather than against it. So stop fighting against
yourself. If you're upset, you're upset.
Don't try to convince yourself that you're not.
Don't try to invalidate yourself into regulation.
It doesn't work. Stop and say, I'm feeling very
deeply right now. I'm a little upset.
I'm feeling triggered. I'm going to sit with this for a
couple of minutes. A final thing I want to note
today is that nervous system regulation isn't just about self
regulation. Of course that's important, but
Co regulation is also essential. We need other people.
I've been saying that again and again in the show because I
really want you to understand. Wanting connection with others
and wanting to talk through things with others is not a bad
thing, and it is a valid desire and need to hold dear.
But as with anything, it's necessary to find a balance
between the two, so between self and Co regulation rather than
just living at one or both extremes.
And that means leaning on others just as much as leaning on
ourselves. And because as anxious attachers
we tend to be so dependent on others to the point of
codependency and loss of self or self abandonment, the work
really is about learning to lean on ourselves and learning to
self regulate. And there you have it, nervous
system dysregulation. It is connected very deeply and
very deeply ingrained into the experience of anxious
attachment. I hope you found some of the
techniques and tips from today useful, and if so, would love if
you could rate and review the show, maybe leave a comment on
Spotify, and perhaps share this episode with someone that you
think it might resonate with. As always, I am deeply grateful
and I'm sending love to all of you.
I'll see you next week on the Needy No More podcast.