| Part One… |
| Let’s talk relationships, family, friends and ‘the holidays” and the nervous system. Over the next few weeks many of us will gather for some ritual, whether a traditional one or one we’ve created ourselves to mark a change in seasons, a religious event, or some cultural tradition. Maybe you look forward to it. Maybe you dread it. If you are like me, it’s a mixed bag of emotions – some hope and excitement, some anxiety and worry. With our new pandemic normal – we are negotiating even more than before when we choose to gather with friends and family. We are calculating even more about how to care for ourselves, set boundaries in relationships that allow for real connection. I recently heard someone say – “boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me.” That relative who does not share our political views, drinks too much, makes us uncomfortable and angry when they say certain things, how our families don’t talk or small talk or avoid, that one person who’s too loud or says nothing. These are already a major stressor that we navigate. Add in where you stand on vaccines and masking – What will so and so do? What if they want to hug me and I don’t want to hug? Will we all stay healthy? It is a recipe for a LOT of potential personal GROWTH. How do we do that? How do we make room to love ❤️+ 💜 ourselves and others? There is a cascade of responses we cycle through under stress. Our Autonomic Nervous System responds to stress unconsciously (and in part consciously). It includes the social, sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the nervous system. It keeps us safe in the world – alive. It takes in and ‘remembers’ previous situations and gives us bodily signals when we encounter anything that was previously experienced as unsafe or too much to digest all at once. This is why gathering with people you have a shared history and experience with is SO MUCH HARDER than starting out with new people. The first thing the Autonomic NS wants to do under threat is to join with others. If that is not a good option and not one where we will be safer, then we will choose to fight or flee. If they are not good options, we will freeze, numb out or disassociate. We have all been in a low-level freeze through the pandemic. Running to others for safety has not been an option. We have all had to make BIG choices about who we are willing to be with, in what situation. who we can talk things through with, and how we can gather safely over the past few years. It has NOT BEEN EASY. Early on when my nuclear family was trying to figure out how we would work, go to school, socialize gather while staying healthy – I decide that the phrase ‘we are being really careful” needed to be unpacked. What did it really mean to each person who said it? Most likely something different. I decided that disclosing to our friends or family what that meant to us each and every time was the only way to go forward. Letting people, who we wanted to make plans with, know what we were doing so that they could decide if they felt ‘safe’ with us and us with them seemed the best practice. It was awkward , but it only seemed fair. I was in high school during the Aids crisis. During that tragic time, I was taught how to have the ‘safe sex’ talk. If you are not familiar with this – we were encouraged to have an open and mature discussion with our sexual partners about what our safe sex practices were. We knew little about how HIV was spread, but some things about how not to contract it. Before you engaged in any sexual contact with someone, you would explain what you were doing to care for your health (and for your potential partners). With honesty and integrity, everyone could make an informed decision to care for themselves and what factor of risk they were comfortable with. I have spent the last 2 years having the covid version of the safe sex like talk with many people. If I choose to gather, as I will, with my extended family over the holidays, in order for me to feel like I can wisely choose on behalf of myself and my kids and allow others to do the same, I will have that chat with them. It is awkward. The family members I share political views with – easy. There’s very little conflict so the conversation is not hard. The family members I don’t share political views with – it is a real challenge. Things are super polarized in the US right now. This has affected all of us and made it hard to find the points of connection and to feel like we can chat about our disagreements. Add in masks. The social nervous system reads the face – especially the lower part of the face (think smile vs. bearing teeth). It also scans the left side of the face where most emotion is expressed by the right hemisphere of the brain. When neuroscientists temporarily paralyze the left hemisphere, the only emotion expressed on the right side of the face is anger. We want to see more than anger right? Our social nervous system is scanning the face all the time – is this person on our side? Do they like me? Understand me? Can we trust them? Are we safe? We’re scanning like this for info both consciously and unconsciously. Certainly, you have had that experience. Wondering “what did that look on their face mean?” during a conversation . In terms of the cascade response from the social branch to the parasympathetic nervous system response here’s what it can often look like for a holiday gathering: ✅join the group for safety (social nervous system) ✅ditch group = run away and create my own thing (flight) ✅join but name my conditions (fight) ✅do nothing, numb out, drink too much and pretend it is not happening (freeze or shut down) All the above are good options. Each situation and person have a range of what works for them. AND no matter what we choose, our nervous system will unconsciously respond to take care of us in the best way it knows how based on our past experiences. But what if we want to grow and shift things some – how can we lean into our growth edges? How can I find safety and connection with people who are acting in the world in a way that is different from my own? (Please know I am not talking about connecting to anyone who has abused you. I am not suggesting that is what you need to do in order to grow. Only you can decide what is best for you. Always.) I consider growth transformative when a person can take something new and expansive, into other settings outside of the context where it was learned and repeat the action with consistency. When I graduated from my Feldenkrais Professional Training program, undoubtedly my life had been transformed. Not all I experienced in my training became habit in my day-to-day life, but key aspects of me had made a considerable leap forward, and I began to experience my life differently. It was better. I will never forget the first time I was aware that I was staring out the window of the car pouting when a family member had said something that offended me. The pouting, with crossed arms and flexed spine, was a familiar response to the situation, but the awareness that I had a choice was completely new. No longer was my only strategy to focus my energy on telling the person how their actions made me feel, waiting, and hoping they would change. Over years my response to that situation and person evolved. My impulse to pout, get defensive, change my breathing or posture, dissipated. In places that I had felt stuck and unable to progress in the past, I was changing, becoming the person I wanted to be. It was remarkable. I watch this process with my students – in their relationship to me. Sometimes when I ask them what they want to do during our time together, they defer to me. Often this is because they think that is the relationship they are supposed to have with a ‘teacher’ – one where they defer their power to me. I explain that that is not how I work. I am more like a midwife. I am there to support what they want to grow or birth. Many students don’t know what they feel or want. They would be happy for example if someone else ordered their meal for them rather than decide for themselves. This is something they adapted to for survival growing up. We work incrementally finding the safe places to pay attention to their sensation slowly and building from there. When students are first learning to attend to themselves and set boundaries around what they like, don’t like, want or don’t want, it can be expressed in a strong way. Maybe they are short with me, even rude at times. I keep clear boundaries. As their teacher who wants nothing more than for them to have agency in the world – I am thrilled to witness a student begin to attend to their likes and dislikes. When I see them step into awareness of their sensations, and their bodies, they begin to build their autonomy. The dots connect and they begin to see where they have options. Having choice is everything. If you want to change your emotional state and response to life – you need only change your muscular skeletal posture. It is not only fundamental to change and growth, it is the simplest way forward. I wish you the best. More to come on relationships and the nervous system soon… |
