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Nervous System • The Work
Nervous System Regulation: The Preparation
What this season is actually asking of you
Winter Solstice 2024
Nervous system regulation isn’t just another wellness buzzword—it’s the foundation everything else depends on. And right now, there’s a quality to this moment that feels like the week before a move. You know the boxes need to be packed. You know life is about to reorganize. But you’re still in the old house.
Don’t rush the packing.
I know the temptation. However, more courses, more modalities, and more information about what’s coming won’t help if your system can’t receive it. Here’s what I’ve learned through my own journey: the intensity of your seeking is often the dysregulation itself.
What you need this winter isn’t more access. Instead, it’s more digestion.
The very desperation that drives people toward deep work is evidence that they’re not ready for it. The system’s urgency—”I NEED answers,” “I HAVE to understand,” “I can’t keep living without knowing”—is often a sign of how dysregulated they are, how little capacity they have to receive what they’re asking for.
The collective is already activated. Political polarization, economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, AI disruption—nervous systems everywhere are running hot. As a result, many people are seeking solutions frantically: more courses, more modalities, more information. The wellness industry is booming with people desperate for answers.
But here’s what I’ve come to understand: The desperation itself is the problem. The intensity of the seeking IS the dysregulation. True nervous system regulation requires slowing down, not speeding up.
Research from the National Institutes of Health confirms what somatic practitioners have known for years: the vagus nerve and autonomic nervous system directly impact our capacity to process and integrate experiences.
Who Needs Nervous System Regulation This Season
For those just starting
You’re noticing something is off. Your old ways of coping aren’t working anymore. You might be googling “nervous system regulation” for the first time.
Good. You’re right on time.
The work starts with one thing: learning to come back to center when you’ve left it. That’s it. Not a certification. Not a complete understanding. Just: Can I return to myself when I’ve drifted?
For those already on the path
You’ve done some work. Maybe therapy, maybe meditation, maybe ceremony. But if you’re honest, you’re still easily knocked off center.
This is the season to stop seeking NEW modalities and start DEEPENING what you already know. Therefore, focus on completion over accumulation.
Think about it: If you’ve been doing inner work for months or years, you likely have a backlog of unintegrated material. Books you’ve read but haven’t embodied. Insights you’ve had but haven’t lived. Ceremonies you’ve sat but haven’t fully processed.
Now is the time to complete what’s already open.
For those with solid foundation
You’re the ones who will be needed. Consequently, this season is for building reserves.
You’re going to be called to hold space for others as things intensify. Rest now. Deepen now. You can’t pour from an empty cup—and you can’t regulate someone else’s nervous system when yours is running on fumes.
The Key to Nervous System Regulation
Before asking what you need to access, ask: Do you have room to receive it?
This is what I call S1—the first singularity. Can you regulate your own nervous system? Everything else depends on this foundation.
S1 is THE key that unlocks everything—not a key, THE key. In other words, without nervous system regulation, no amount of information or insight will stick.
Most people skip this because it’s boring. It’s repetitive. It doesn’t feel like “real” spiritual work. But I spent 18 months—two gestational cycles—building this foundation after my husband died. It’s the only reason I’m able to do what I do now.
The Foundation
Not because something terrible is coming—but because the capacity you build now becomes the foundation for everything that follows. Nervous system regulation is preparation, not prevention.
Practices for Nervous System Regulation This Season
If You’re Saturated (Most People)
- STOP consuming transformation content for one week. See what happens to your nervous system.
- Complete ONE thing from your backlog before starting anything new
- Practice the most basic regulation: extended exhales, feet on floor, cold water on face
If You’re Building
- Daily regulation practice—build the habit before you need it
- Notice where you’re still easily knocked off center—that’s your curriculum for nervous system regulation
- Find ONE person who can co-regulate with you
If You’re Holding Capacity
- Rest. Genuinely rest. You’re going to need reserves.
- Identify who in your life might need your steadiness in coming months
- Deepen your own practice—not more tools, deeper relationship with the ones you have
The work you did in the dark—the shedding, the seeing, the staying with what was hard to look at—that wasn’t wasted time. That was preparation for deeper nervous system regulation.
You’re not the same person who entered this year. Your nervous system learned things. Your patterns got named. Seeds got planted in soil no one else could see.
The longest night is not a failure of light. Instead, it’s the turning point toward it.
If you’ve been in the long middle—able to see your patterns but not yet shift them—know this: that phase doesn’t last forever. The capacity you’ve been building in the dark is about to meet the light.
2025 isn’t asking you to start over. It’s asking you to begin—with everything you now know about yourself and your nervous system.
Not sure where you are in the process?
Take the free Phase Assessment. It takes about 3 minutes and helps you see what your nervous system actually needs right now—not what your seeking mind thinks it needs.
Take the Phase Assessment
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