We Have More Control Than We Think

One Conscious Breath: Issue 13

One Conscious Breath: Issue 13

On the sympathetic nervous system and the power to modulate our own energy.

AN INVITATION

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Before we begin, I invite you to take one conscious breath.

Feel the cool air as it enters your nostrils. Follow it as deeply as it goes into your body.

And then exhale. Slowly out of your mouth. Elongate the release as much as you can. And as you exhale, feel your shoulders drop. Feel your jaw soften. Feel your feet firmly on the floor.

Now pause.

Before we go any further, notice what's happening in your body.

Bring your awareness to your chest. Do you notice your heart beating? Do you feel a hum of urgency? Or a gentle rhythm? Feel into your muscles in your arms, neck and shoulders. Are they bracing? Even now, in this moment of stillness? Or do they feel relaxed and flexible?

Maybe you notice nothing at all. All we're doing in this moment is noticing.

There's no right or wrong here.

In this moment, I'm simply inviting you to check in with your sympathetic nervous system. The part of you that generates your mobilized energy, your drive. Because once you feel into it and recognize how it is operating within your own body, you can begin to have it work for you instead of against you.

And from this place of embodied curiosity ~ let's begin.

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Our sympathetic nervous system runs below our level of awareness. It's always there, doing exactly what it was designed to do: mobilize us for action. And prepare us for threats. Automatically. Repeating patterns in service of our survival. In service of staying safe, staying connected, staying acceptable to the people we depended on.

Past tense here is intentional.

Because this system began wiring very early on and continues to repeat the pattern until we show it an updated way. Until we rewire it to the present, showing it that we have more safety, choice and resources now than we ever did then.

And although we know this system follows a familiar pattern, each one of us is wired differently. What signals threat or urgency in my body may feel completely neutral in yours. By tuning in, we're able to begin to discern if our body is releasing the right amount of energy for what is called for in any given moment.

When we encounter what feels like a conflict, a threat, a demand, the sympathetic nervous system increases in activation. Our heart rate quickens. Our muscles tighten. Mobilized energy floods our body. It's preparing our bodies to meet whatever demand is in front of us.

And when this demand passes, when any immediate threat is over, it's designed to return us, with flexibility, to an inner state of safety. To restore and resource our energy so that the next time it rises, it rises from fullness rather than from depletion.

Flexibility is its natural rhythm.

Imagine a car engine that is stuck in high RPMs. It's not designed to run there for long. It's meant to increase speed when needed. And then return to a steady pace. The intensity of high RPMs will wear down the parts faster and eventually burn the engine out. To preserve the engine of the car, flexibility is key.

Similarly, many of us have been driving at a high rate of RPMs and it's burning us out. When we notice and feel into the state of our sympathetic nervous system, we can release where it's stuck and begin to return it to a state of flexibility.

And when we do this, we shift the dynamic entirely. Immediately. With just one conscious breath at a time. This seemingly simple shift begins to move us through life experiences with more ease, grace and flow.

The problem isn't only that the pattern is stuck. It's that it's stuck protecting a much younger version of us. A version that needed protection from experiences we have more resources and capacity to navigate as adults. What protected us then may be keeping us stuck now. This isn't a judgement. It's an invitation. We have more choice now.

We can stop being mere passengers. And become the drivers.

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Here's how.

Pause before you move on to the next thing. Bring your awareness from your thoughts back into your body. If it helps, imagine a spotlight on your forehead and gently redirect it away from your mind and down into your body. Remember: our minds are powerful. And our brain and body cannot differentiate reality from a thought. And since the state of our nervous system oftentimes creates the stories in our head, we want to make sure our thoughts are working for us, not against us. It's faster to bring our body back into safety than to change our thoughts. And once our body feels safe, our thoughts naturally begin to follow.

Feel into your heart beating. Notice your breath. Your muscles. Your jaw.

If it feels like there's too much energy pulsing through your body, you can slow it down by elongating your exhale. This will automatically pull the brake and signal safety to your system. Do this as often as needed, tuning in each time to feel how your body responds to the signal you are sending it.

And, alternatively, if it feels like you don't have enough energy in your body, you can increase it by inhaling deeply. This simple act will send the signal to your body that it is safe to move. That it is safe to begin increasing energy needed to mobilize.

I'm not simply teaching you a breathing technique.

This is conscious modulation of your own nervous system. In real time. You can tune inward and activate it at any moment. Using the one function of the autonomic nervous system that is both involuntary and under your conscious influence.

Your breath.

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What's actually happening each time we do this is not just managing a moment.

It's updating. It's rewiring. It's returning our nervous system to its inherent state of flexibility.

And every time we actively, intentionally choose a different response, we are undoing an old pattern and creating a new one. Teaching the nervous system a new truth ~ one it can only learn through direct experience, never through intellectual understanding alone:

It is safe to be here. It is safe to return. It is safe to feel flexible.

One breath at a time, we widen the space between the old pattern and the new response. And in that small space something different becomes possible.

The work now ~ after any immediate threat is over ~ is to return our nervous system to safety. And with each intentional exhale and every deliberate inhale we are building its capacity for flexibility. Flexibility that it never got to build when we were small.

That one conscious breath is the beginning of taking the wheel.

The slower we go, the faster we get there.

One conscious breath at a time.

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With love,

Jody