Let Yourself Feel Dysregulated
without becoming dysregulated
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Recently, in conversation with a friend, something I’ve been noticing was named and spoken to without projection - which inevitably created the space to relate to it, to see it more clearly. The noticing is that while there’s a lot of emotional dysregulation and intensity afoot in the world (understandably), there’s also the stern gaze of the puritan, judging these experiences. This gaze has (mis)appropriated the language of somatics, specifically the word “regulation,” in the context of the nervous system, which is now being used as a perfectionism stick to beat ourselves and each other up with and create shame around having a human experience.
We have to be perfectly, rigidly emotionally “regulated” all the time. If we’re not, we’re somehow deficient. We’re somehow failing as friends, partners, parents, as humans in bodies having experiences in this physical dimension of high sensation. Meanwhile, in the world of somatic experiencing, the healthy, adaptive state is to be able to navigate between regulation and dysregulation. To put it more precisely, regulation is not a fixed state. Regulation is the ability to move and navigate between healthy settling and healthy activation. It’s an ebb and flow.
What’s meant by healthy settling and healthy activation is that we’re not stuck in a fight/flight/freeze threat response in either state. There isn’t a buildup of overwhelm in either state. If we’re always trying to be perfectly “regulated”, trying to conform to some dull, externally defined notion of what this looks like, we’re likely disassociated and overriding or suppressing our organic moment-to-moment experience. We’re in functional freeze, which is simultaneously caused by and perpetuates a buildup of overwhelm. Physiologically, this is having the same effect on our bodies as being stuck in dysregulation, namely excess adrenaline and cortisol, which leads to all sorts of other symptoms.
We’re probably more familiar with the impact of being stuck in dysregulation - originating from one or a combination of fight/flight/freeze - leading to the same buildup of overwhelm, adrenaline and cortisol in our systems and bodies.
It bears repeating: from the perspective of somatic experiencing, to be regulated means to be able to move and flow through the range of our moment-to-moment human experience, to have the capacity to be with what feels intense and dysregulating, to bring breath, movement and presence to it, to witness it and not get stuck in it by becoming identified with it. And it also means having the capacity to be fully present with our calmer experiences, to allow the system to feel, receive and resource from those moments, to breathe into them also, without getting rigidly attached to staying there.
Just like our breath, nothing in Nature is static and fixed. If we get stuck on the inhale or the exhale, we cut off oxygen supply and life force energy, creating entropy and death. So too with our nervous systems, which become resilient, resourced and flexibly rooted via the ebb and flow movement of Life.
Another thing that’s worth mentioning is the propensity for false projections when we’re stuck in either dysregulation or distorted “regulation”. Because both are essentially arising from a lack of capacity to be with the ebbs and flows of Life, because both are simultaneously caused by and creating a buildup of overwhelm, there’s no space to feel and be with our emotional and somatic experiences and responses. This is when we project the more intense ones onto other people, with blaming, shaming and guilting, leading to an inevitable escalation of aggression.
Yes, perhaps someone or something else is responsible for an unfortunate circumstance. This isn’t about denying causality (at this relative level of existence), or about not holding them accountable. This is about being with our discomfort and our dysregulation first and foremost. To breathe and allow ourselves to have that experience instead of running away from it, to allow the body to move or shake - free from judgment and control. This is about creating that space between stimulus and response, and our capacity to choose our response, to paraphrase Viktor Frankl, who not only survived the Holocaust, but thrived after it. As we cultivate the capacity to witness, feel and be with our experience, instead of becoming the contraction and letting it take the wheel, we’re interrupting the pattern of unconsciously reacting with our projections. We can still hold those responsible accountable, but with a completely different, life-affirming energy that’s more likely to de-escalate aggression.
Similarly with distorted “regulation,” because that’s coming from a place of suppression and being in functional freeze, we don’t have the capacity to feel and be with our experience. We’re not allowing our bodies to move the stuck energy through it. Perhaps we internalize the blame or silence ourselves (which creates more inflammation-causing cortisol,) all the while holding our mask of disassociated regulation in place. We’re pushing our experience into the shadows and making it unconscious. Consequently, it will, sooner or later, come out sideways as projections onto the other, or explode into our lives in the form of some future circumstance. Suppressed experiences and stuck energy are always, innocently, naturally, seeking resolution and completion in our systems.
The antidote is the same: pause, breathe into our organic in-the-moment experience free from judgment. Be with it, feel it, witness it, free from identifying with it. Allow the wild, wise body to slowly move as it wills to release and open the stuckness and constriction. Create capacity and space, and compassionately acknowledge your human experience, however emotionally intense it is. This generates flow instead of suppression. And then, when you feel ready, address it in the external with whomever or whatever has caused it.
Peace includes our moment-to-moment human experience. True regulation calls us back to the dynamic, life-affirming, ebb and flow of Life moving through us.
Ultimately, none of this is about conforming to externally mandated and unnatural standards of perfection. It’s about knowing ourselves as Nature, where the cycles and phases of these ebbs and flows and peaks and valleys create the conditions to nourish and support the dynamic movement of Life.
With love,
Rohini
p.s. If you have questions, insights or reflections from this email, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reply, comment or DM me in the Substack app.
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A beautiful reminder of what's what. Thank you for naming this, Rohini. I am still making room for my own self-talk and chatter around how things "should" be. The perfection sneaks in; I brace and constrict against "what is"; I return to relaxing my body; and gently, I deepen into a kind of acceptance of things. My embodiment practice is broad enough to hold the messiness of it all.
Thank you for your wonderfully articulate description of what it means to be regulated. In the parlance of hypnotherapy, the build up of overwhelm, triggering FFF, results in hyper-suggestibility, aka trance/hypnosis. We can become suggestible to our own negativity and distress, reinforcing our need to check out, distract, or escape from what we feel. This is an especially important discussion with people challenged by anxiety. You beautifully describe the antidote: "Create capacity and space, and compassionately acknowledge your human experience, however emotionally intense it is."