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#write28days of Nervous System Regulation – Day 5: Safety

#write28days of Nervous System Regulation – Day 5: Safety

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Welcome to #write28days where I am writing on the topic of Nervous System Regulation! Today’s focus is: Safety.

The topic of safety is a huge one in nervous system regulation. In fact, the whole reason your nervous system gets and sometimes stays dysregulated is that it feels it is not safe.

Now that is a *good* thing if you are truly unsafe in the moment. I’m not going to list ways that could be — I’m sure you can imagine an instance where your body needs you to make a quick decision for your immediate safety. But today’s stressors are often less in need of an immediate run for safety and are more cognitive stressors: a job loss, a chronic illness, or even too much to do and not enough time to do it. Or it could be that you had severe stressors in your past and not now, but your body is “stuck” in fight or flight. These can all lead to a chronic feeling in your nervous system that it is not safe.

What we need to do, that I briefly touched on in Day 1 of my Nervous System Regulation series, is develop a deep sense of “felt safety” in our bodies.

Who, me?

You may not even know you need this, because you have had nervous system dysregulation for so long, that being in fight/flight is like the air you breathe – it is there all the time and you don’t know any different. I know this was the case for me. I have even learned that in many instances when I *did* feel calm, it was actually me dissociated to such a huge degree that I wasn’t really “all there.” But more about that another day.

This is a good video by therapist Irene Lyon regarding developing a sense of deep safety in your body.

Some things I am doing to enhance my sense of safety

Feeling completely safe in my own skin is something I’m not even sure I fully understand, as I don’t believe I’ve ever felt it. But I am beginning to feel inklings of it. I’m confident with patience and continued practice I will get there.

Some things that help me are:

*Scriptures about and knowledge of God’s power, particularly Psalms 91 and 23, and Exodus 14:14.

*Employing embodiment practices : sometimes simply sitting and focusing on the sensations I feel in my body, sometimes qi gong, or Feldenkrais exercises. I don’t believe everything typically talked about in the qi gong videos, but I just say my own thoughts about God or prayers during those times. Sometimes I just breathe slowly and move about with my breath however I feel like.

*Sitting with curiosity about about my symptoms like I discussed here.

*Slowing down, especially my breathing and internal “intensity”. I have a sticky note on my wall by my door that says, “Slow everything down by 10%”

*Learning about and practicing boundaries. This is not easy and did not make me feel safe at first, but the more my body and self know that I will stand up for it, the safer it starts to feel.

*Being patient with myself. Again, and again, and again.

And…again.

Because you can sometimes feel worse before you feel better, I recommend you have some guidance or help with this, or at least do a lot of reading on the topic before you just pick a practice to try on the fly.

All that and a bag of chips

All that and a bag of chips

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Late last week my son came home from school sick – turns out it was THE virus. He’s handling it well, but we worry due to the immune suppressive drug he is on. His fever is gone now, and today he woke up and was like, “Can I have a sandwich? Make it filling!” He was finally really hungry after not eating much for days. Yay!

So even though I had little energy and I had just sat down with a hot cup of tea, to kill off whatever germs might be lurking in my own throat, I happily went downstairs and made him a sandwich with all the fixings, cut up an apple, and even found one of those little bags of chips he takes to school and put it on his plate. I was so relieved he was feeling better and that made it easier to ignore my own tiredness and desire for my tea, and serve my son with joy.

I brought it back upstairs to him and realized just how hungry I was at that point. I also remembered my now cold tea. “I spent my last bit energy on my family, as usual,” I thought, a little dejected. “All those stairs. Oh well, I’ll just drink the cold tea and grab something easy.” (And most probably not good for me, I’ll add here.)

*Record Scratch* Wait! Let’s back this truck up. This ^^ above is not the person I want to be, and I am working hard toward right thinking and true self care.

To me right thinking is gearing my thoughts towards ultimate truth, as far as I can see it. Like the truth that I am as worthy of my own care as my son is, even if I’m tired. I was tired when I made HIM his meal, wasn’t I?

There were two main problems with my thinking, as I see it.

First, when I began trying to turn my thoughts around, I initially thought, “OK, stop feeling sorry for yourself” — I got to the “you” and stopped myself. Am I really feeling “sorry for myself”? Or am I just having feelings?? Ladies and gentlemen, it is OK to have emotions, and to feel them. When people tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself, usually they are just *uncomfortable* with your feelings and want you to move on. I don’t want to be one of those people, to myself or others.

Instead I thought, “What am I actually feeling — what are the individual emotions?” Today I was feeling tired, lonely, a bit frustrated and sad about some things, along with great relief and joy for my son. I realized those feelings were valid considering my situation, and allowed myself to feel them.

Second, I noticed that I always default to “I’m too tired to do anything good for myself, I’ll just do the easy thing.” But when my son said, “I’m hungry!” I immediately had enough energy do complete the task and helped him happily. Am I so worthless that I can’t muster some joy for myself to get me through some lunch making? NO! If it was another family member I would have gone down and made them a nice lunch as well. I am not healthy, and the truth is I deserve at least as good a diet as I make for my loved ones.

So I questioned myself, am I really *too* tired, or am I my usual tired, but also sad and a little lonely, and struggle with self worth? It was the latter, and so I realized I *could* make myself a sandwich, with joy. And I did! A nice one just like my son’s. I also reheated my tea so I could enjoy it.

I didn’t give myself a bag of chips though.

I opted for a cookie. 😉

………………………………………

Are you learning to care for yourself too? What do you find easiest to do for yourself? Hardest? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Learning to Swim

Learning to Swim

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I was watching a Brave Writer video the other day on copywork and learning disabilities (linked below). In it, speech-language pathologist Rita Cevasco is talking about choosing the difficulty level of your students’ work when she says,

“You’re not learning how to swim when you are drowning.”

You are not learning how to swim when you are drowning.

Is anyone else having bells go off in their head when they hear that?

Not just about your students, but about you?

How often we are drowning as HSPs and moms??  The noise, the smells, the chaos and lack of sleep? The never-ending-ness of it if you are also homeschooling? Or have littles and are up at night so one day just blends into night and into the next day?

And how many of us just push and push through, telling ourselves that it shouldn’t be this hard, so we must be doing something wrong…it’s US so we’ll just keep trying to be like the non-HSPs next door.

Yet *denying* that that is my reality, that I am sometimes (often) drowning and not swimming, doesn’t help me any!  “I should be able to do more! I should be able to stand this!” Saying these things does not make them true.

We need to learn to live within our abilities, even if they are less than we want, even if others are shaming us for them, even if we are “disappointing” people.  In the end, that is on them, not you.  It absolutely hurts when the condemnation gets aimed at us, but *they* are wrong, not you.

I know there are so many things we can’t drop if we are mothers and homeschoolers.  SO. MANY.

But maybe we can jump way back, out of the minds of others where shame and condemnation live (sometimes our own minds are the worst for this), out of the culture that bases worth on productivity and usefulness, and think about ourselves and our own needs.  Pray for wisdom about what is yours to carry.

When I’m not drowning, the gifts God has gifted me with get a chance to shine and be used.  Little by little I’m learning to swim.

 

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Here’s the Brave Writer Video.

 

 

Surviving the Holidays as a Highly Sensitive Homschooler – Parting Thoughts

Surviving the Holidays as a Highly Sensitive Homschooler – Parting Thoughts

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How is everyone holding up?  For many of you the holidays are beginning to reach a crescendo, with Christmas a few days away.  Maybe others of you are done for the most part – enjoy watching the rest of us run around like crazy people. 😉

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Surviving the Holidays as an HSP – Part 3, Self Care

Surviving the Holidays as an HSP – Part 3, Self Care

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Welcome to the third part in my Highly Sensitive Homeschooler series on surviving the holiday season.

The first two parts can be found here:
Surviving the Holidays Part 1 – The Homeschooling
Surviving the Holidays Part 2 – Know Your Lines

This third part will focus on something I know so many caring, sensitive moms have trouble with – self care. 

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