Creating safety webinar Pt 2

It was really helpful to have it pointed out that I was feeling confident until watching the webinar led to me questioning myself and then feeling bad. That’s really proven to me that how we think really does make a difference to how we feel.

After that initial bit of beating myself up and questionning whether I really was making headway with my nervous system regulation, I came to a few realisations –

Perhaps the reason why lately I have loved spending more time alone or within a much smaller social circle is that I have discovered the joy and peace that comes from being in that ventral vagal state and it feels very nice to stay in that regulated place. I suspect I may have spent much of my life prior in sympathetic and then dipping into dorsal from time to time.

Being able to access that more regulated state has allowed me to see the sharper contrast with going into activated and sympathetic state, and how unpleasant that feels in comparison. It has been hard in general for to me to stay regulated around others, other than my immediate family of my husband and daughters. So I feel the calmness and peace in my own bubble and then going beyond that and slipping into sympathetic feels challenging and perhaps leads to me doing less socialising than I used to.

I would actually love to be able to spend time with other people without so much dysregulation and less fawning and people pleasing. If that could be possible then I may be able to access that more social aspect of the ventral vagal state. Although I am content, I would enjoy more social connection, I think, if I knew that I wouldn’t find it tiring or draining. I certainly don’t feel that way when I spend time with my husband or daughters, but I feel safe and able to be fully myself around them.

Any thoughts on this much appreciated.

Answer:

What’s wonderful is that you know where your safe zone is and that it’s accessible to you when you need it. If you put “socially connecting” (and got specific about what that looks like for you) into the A line of a model, what would the rest of the model look like for you? How would you have to feel to be able to do that? What would you have to think to create that feeling? What result might you create? When you see this model, what comes up for you? Come back to us when you’re ready for more coaching on this with pt. 3.