A client was telling me that people exhaust her, or affect her mood. That is is hard to stay connected to her own heart path when she’s around others.

The Guides took over in our chat. It’s kinda cool the way it works with them– they send information but it’s filtered through the person they send it to. I spend a lot of time learning about trauma and nervous systems and such, so it gets filtered through my mind and worldview.

They responded with something that utterly, entirely blew my mind. I’m sharing here because if you’re anything like me, and think about the same kinds of topics I do, it might blow your mind too.

Part 1. Co-regulating.

You are constantly tuning yourself and regulating to the world you live in. The thing that usually regulates you is the thing that is loudest, or most visible. The thing you’re habitually trained to regulate to.

Think of the things you regulate to on a regular basis: the news, social media feeds, other peoples’ stressors. Basically, humanity. We co-regulate to the noisiest, loudest, most agitated aspects of humanity. It’s biological– the assumption of the body is that if somebody around us thinks there is danger nearby, there’s probably good reason for it, so we should all get activated and ready.

Of course these rules were made up a long time ago, before people were getting agitated by traffic, or instagram posts.

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When we are the ones agitated, we want other people to join us!

Some people will spend a lot of time and effort trying to make you understand that their stressors are important and should be paid attention to by you, too. You’ve noticed this, right? The lowest common denominator (in this case, the worst feeling emotion) often wins, because it is what your nervous system is programmed to– if there is danger, we all need to tune to it to act on it.

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We are social creatures. From an early age survival is tied up in things like approval, having our needs met, being a part of a community. Communities co-regulate to each other. Any movie about the high school experience gives a fun example of this, where different group behaviours, mannerisms, perspectives, and nervous system states, all start to reflect each other.

Now think about yourself, out in the world, as an adult. With all the habits of co-regulating to other human stress states. Is it any wonder that you could finish meditating, feel so deeply connected and guided, then step out around other humans and lose the connection immediately (I’m not the only one this happens to right?).

Here’s the thing about nervous system states:

It’s not a passive thing at all. We act like we’re subject to the whims and energies of the world around us, when in fact we have the ultimate control over our own nervous systems.

This is a super complex topic, with many many layers of nuance that I’m not going to get into– trauma, people pleasing, passiveness, power among others– but, we are rarely ever taught how to actively focus on our own state of regulation as the first, most important, most essential thing.

Connection requires active focus.
Not effort, but attention, and focus.

This is something that can be learned.

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Part 2. It gets bigger. A bit more mind-blowing.

It does not just work to say ‘I will no longer regulate to agitated human nervous systems’. It is too deeply engrained– as social creatures it is a part of the fabric of who we are to attune to that which is around us.

Our nervous systems are always going to be looking for something to attune to; are incapable of NOT attuning. Or, if you were to NOT attune, it would be cutting your heart off, putting yourself in a fortress (which many people do as a means of self-protection). The fortress also cuts you off from experiencing the vitality and beauty of life.

So you need to find something else to attune to.

Let’s take a look at the universe for a second.

-Think of yourself, on the earth. The earth is a giant living being, its energy pulsing like a heartbeat.

-Then picture the earth, spinning in its orbit. In harmony with the movement of all the other planets.

-Then the solar system, spiraling out there at the edge of the galaxy. Then our galaxy, moving in sync with all the other galaxies.

-The entire cosmos is moving in an intricate flow of energy that is unchoreographed, yet perfectly in coherence with itself.

Then, laid on top of that, is the chatter of the human nervous system as it is stressed out and focused on whether some guy is calling, or who said something that offended you, or all the people clamoring for attention on social media. Feel how this chatter is all coming from a different place. I think of it as scarcity– it’s ALL scarcity– the idea that things have to happen a certain way at a certain pace and certain time in order for things to work out the way WE want them to, because we, with our silly cute adorable human brains have decided we know best. This tiny little thread of human chatter is trying to wrestle control of the flow of the universe.

(If we could, we’d probably change the course of the planets themselves, thinking we know better somehow.)

And the thing is, the rest of the entire cosmos of being, it’s pretty big.

The weight of that. The momentum of that. The force of that– the unfolding universe itself– isn’t something that can actually ever be resisted.

This larger flow of energy is unfolding perfectly.
The cosmos itself is unfolding perfectly.

Your Heart path is the path of the universe unfolding through you.

When you are in a regulated (ie feeling calm, happy, open-hearted, good) state, you can feel and allow this path. It unfolds the most rapidly, the most beautifully, the most magically, when you learn to trust and allow it. When you do not tune to the nervous systems of others, but stay tuned to yourself, your heart, the earth, and the cosmos.

We all need something else to tune to, because there is no vacuum. You can co-regulate with the cosmos itself, through your own heart.

Want to learn what that feels like? Come and have a session, or, if you want to learn how to live this way, I have one long-term client space opening up starting next week (hit reply to ask about it).

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Big hugs,

Rebecca

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ps. I’m in London till October so my times are more Euro-centric right now. If you really want a session and none of the times work, shoot me an email and we can try and work something out.