The basics of responding - not reacting

So grateful to have so many tools to deal with challenging moments! It’s always so interesting how little moments can make us feel so much emotion.

Yesterday I was feeling quite irritable.

I’d just come back from a session with my acupuncturist where she brought healing to some life long, deep seated trauma and it made sense that I was hypersensitive.

I was trying to get some work done but I couldn’t focus.

I remembered what I’ve been reading in “Anchored” about how we can get so much information from our autonomic nervous system if we learn to track it.

The body reacts to danger cues first, and then the brain creates a story about the danger cues.

I’d set an intention in the morning, offered by Deb Dana, to practice tracking the different states of regulation.

And because I couldn't get anything done anyway, I decided to stop and notice what was going on with me.

Once I felt the irritation as a sensation in my body, I got curious.

I asked myself if there was something specific that activated my nervous system, since in the morning I felt connected.

I realized that I was feeling insecure because I didn’t get a response to something that I asked about several days ago.

Then I had the radical idea that instead of sitting in my irritability, I could just reach out and ask if my message went through, because for all I know they didn’t even see it.

They responded and I could feel my whole system calm down immediately.

In addition to being reassured by the individual that my request mattered, the little insecure me felt really good for being taken care of by my older, capable self and let me tell you: nothing beats that!

I know, it sounds banal, but great things happen when we pause and listen to your nervous system! Btw, I highly recommend Anchored!