Nervous system regulation isn’t about ‘good vibes only’

Somewhere along the way, we decid­ed that a reg­u­lat­ed ner­vous sys­tem looks like a per­fect­ly-coiffed wife and moth­er sip­ping herbal tea in her immac­u­late kitchen while the world col­laps­es around her. She does not doom­scroll or yell. She’s very spir­i­tu­al. Very evolved. 

Her flight gets can­celed? She breathes through it. 
Her neigh­bor votes for a fas­cist? She prac­tices com­pas­sion. 
The news talks about cli­mate change? She notices the sen­sa­tion in her chest and sets her phone down. 

This par­tic­u­lar fan­ta­sy of enlight­en­ment con­fus­es being unboth­ered with being well. 

A reg­u­lat­ed ner­vous sys­tem isn’t one that has stopped respond­ing to life, but one that can respond with­out being hijacked by every pass­ing storm.

Now, before we throw the med­i­ta­tion cush­ion out the win­dow, let’s be clear. Breathing, mind­ful­ness, and com­pas­sion prac­tices work. Learning to rec­og­nize our trig­gers, soft­en our reac­tions, and meet our­selves with kind­ness are incred­i­ble prac­tices that give us tools for nav­i­gat­ing dif­fi­cult emo­tions with­out being com­plete­ly con­sumed by them. They help us pause before we react, find steadi­ness when we’re over­whelmed, and remem­ber that a feel­ing is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a com­mand. This is beau­ti­ful, nec­es­sary work. 

But it’s spir­i­tu­al bypass­ing to think it is all the work. 

We’ve man­aged to con­fuse emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion with emo­tion­al sup­pres­sion. We’ve turned peace into a per­for­mance and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty into an elab­o­rate exer­cise in mak­ing our­selves more palat­able to a world that deserves some of our fear and anger. 

Enter the tyran­ny of good vibes only, where your grief is wel­come, pro­vid­ed it doesn’t linger past brunch. Your anger is accept­able, pro­vid­ed you can trans­mute it into a les­son about per­son­al growth. Your fear is under­stand­able, pro­vid­ed you don’t make any­one uncom­fort­able by talk­ing about it. And your despair? Have you tried grat­i­tude journaling? 

There is some­thing pro­found­ly absurd about telling peo­ple to raise their vibra­tion while their lives are falling apart. It’s like hand­ing some­one a scent­ed can­dle while their house is on fire and sug­gest­ing they focus on the fra­grance. Sometimes life is beau­ti­ful. Sometimes it is bru­tal. Most often, it’s both. A reg­u­lat­ed ner­vous sys­tem means we can rec­og­nize what’s burn­ing, decide what needs sav­ing, and act with­out set­ting our­selves on fire in the process. 

The goal isn’t to feel less, but to become more capa­ble of feel­ing what is actu­al­ly here. That means we can expe­ri­ence anger with­out let­ting it make every deci­sion for us. We can grieve with­out believ­ing we’ll drown. We can feel fear with­out auto­mat­i­cal­ly sur­ren­der­ing to it. We can be dev­as­tat­ed by injus­tice and still find our­selves laugh­ing with friends at din­ner. We can hold grief in one hand and won­der in the other. 

We become less reac­tive, but not less respon­sive. 

And some­times, a reg­u­lat­ed response looks noth­ing like the serene, soft­ly smil­ing per­son we imag­ine when we hear the word mind­ful­ness. Sometimes it looks like set­ting a bound­ary. Sometimes it’s say­ing, “No, actu­al­ly, that is unac­cept­able.” Sometimes it’s cry­ing in the car, call­ing a friend, orga­niz­ing a protest, or final­ly admit­ting that the sit­u­a­tion you’ve been try­ing to breathe your way through requires a change. 

Breathing can help you tol­er­ate dis­com­fort. It can­not, by itself, make an intol­er­a­ble sit­u­a­tion healthy. 

Compassion can help you under­stand anoth­er person’s human­i­ty. It does not require you to give them unlim­it­ed access to yours. 

Mindfulness can teach you to observe your thoughts with­out believ­ing every one of them. It does not ask you to become a pas­sive observ­er of your own life. 

There is a dif­fer­ence between find­ing peace with­in your­self and demand­ing that you remain peace­ful about every­thing hap­pen­ing around you. One is a prac­tice. The oth­er is spir­i­tu­al bypassing. 

So take a deep breath. Be grate­ful. Practice com­pas­sion, espe­cial­ly when it feels dif­fi­cult. Learn to rec­og­nize when your ner­vous sys­tem needs rest. 

And then get back out there.