Taming Your Nervous System: A Journey of Healing and Self-Discovery
Imagine your nervous system as a powerful dragon - sometimes wild and unpredictable, sometimes calm and controlled. What if you could learn to become its skilled rider, understanding its movements and guiding it with compassion?
Your Nervous System: More Than Just a Background Process
Most of us think of our nervous system as something that just happens in the background. But it's actually the conductor of your entire life experience. Every feeling, memory, and reaction is filtered through this incredible biological system.
Think about it like this: When you remember a delicious meal, it's not just a mental image. Your body responds with mouth-watering sensations, perhaps even a warmth in your stomach. That's your nervous system in action! It's constantly communicating with you through physical and emotional signals.
The Three Circuits of Your Nervous System
Your nervous system has three main circuits:
Ventral Circuit: This is your "just right" zone. When this circuit is leading, you feel safe, connected, and able to manage stress effectively.
Sympathetic Circuit: This is your "energy" circuit. When activated by fear or danger, it can make you feel anxious, restless, or panicky. But it's not always bad - it's also what helps you get out of bed in the morning or push through a workout.
Dorsal Circuit: This is your "shutdown" circuit. When activated by fear, it can make you feel hopeless, disconnected, or extremely tired.
Rewiring Traumatic Memories with EMDR
Trauma can be understood as experiences that get "stuck" in your nervous system. These stuck memories can hijack your autonomic nervous system, causing you to relive past experiences through physical and emotional reactions.
Imagine seeing someone who reminds you of a difficult past experience. Suddenly, your heart races, your breathing changes, and you're overwhelmed - even though you're currently safe. That's your nervous system replaying an old script.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based therapy designed to help your nervous system process and heal from traumatic memories. Unlike traditional talk therapy, which focuses on recounting traumatic experiences, EMDR rewires how memories are stored in your nervous system, reducing their emotional charge. By using bilateral stimulation, EMDR helps transform the way traumatic memories impact your body and mind, allowing you to recall difficult events without feeling overwhelmed. Effective for treating PTSD, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and more, EMDR works through a structured eight-phase approach that helps the nervous system release stuck memories and move from a state of distress into one of empowerment.
The Path to Healing: Building Nervous System Resilience
Healing is about teaching your nervous system a new way of responding to memories. Here's a "Preparation Hierarchy" for building nervous system resilience:
Safe Enough to Feel: Learning that it's okay to experience emotions
Notice and Name: Developing the skill to recognize and describe what you're feeling
Feel and Flex: Learning to sit with difficult emotions and use skills to navigate them
Trust the Process: Developing confidence in your ability to handle challenging experiences
Practical Ways to "Tone" Your Nervous System in Addition to EMDR Reprocessing
Just like you'd exercise a muscle, you can exercise your nervous system:
Breath work
Regular exercise
Mindfulness practices
Yoga
Learning emotional regulation skills
A Message of Hope
Your nervous system isn't something to fight against. It's not broken. It's doing its best to keep you safe, based on your past experiences.
By understanding and working with your nervous system instead of against it, you can create profound healing. You're not trying to eliminate your experiences, but to process them in a way that allows you to move forward.
Transformative Learning Opportunity
If this resonates with you, our Somatic EMDR Certificate program offers deep, transformative training in understanding and healing the nervous system. We provide practical, compassionate approaches to trauma healing that honor your unique biological experience.
Ready to become the skilled rider of your own nervous system dragon?
Interested in Diving Deeper?
Our Somatic EMDR Certificate program offers comprehensive training in Parts Work and trauma healing. Learn how to transform your personal healing journey and support others in theirs.
