Everyone talks about it — but few have truly met it.
“Regulate your nervous system.”
It’s the mantra of our time — in podcasts, therapy reels, and parenting books.
Yet for many, regulation still feels like a mythical creature: everyone swears it exists, but hardly anyone knows what it actually looks like.
What Regulation Actually Means
Regulation simply means that your body feels safe enough to stay present.
It’s not about being calm all the time; it’s about being able to return to calm after activation.
Neuroscientist Daniel J. Siegel calls this integration — the emotional and rational parts of the brain communicating instead of competing.
In Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, it’s the body’s capacity to shift out of fight-or-flight once safety is restored.
Or, in plain language:
Regulation is your system’s ability to come home to itself after the storm.
When Regulation Is Missing
Most of us live inside that storm.
Emails, news alerts, group-chat pings, and endless social-media dopamine hits keep the brain on permanent standby.
Add motherhood to the mix — broken nights, no recovery time, a body doing double duty — and calm becomes a rumour.
Lack of sleep alone is a form of torture; add emotional inheritance on top, and you have the modern recipe for chronic overload.
Dysregulation rarely announces itself.
It looks like snapping at your child because the shoes won’t go on fast enough.
Or cleaning the house at midnight because mess feels like danger.
Or scrolling until 1 a.m. because stillness feels unsafe.
These aren’t personal flaws.
They’re ancient reflexes.
Your nervous system is trying to protect you — not wisely, but instinctively.
It interprets every discomfort as potential threat and activates defence: anger, control, shutdown, perfectionism.
It’s doing its job — just using outdated instructions.
Why It’s So Hard Today
Our bodies evolved for survival, not for 247 notifications.
When an ancestor met a tiger, the stress response was clear: fight, flee, freeze.
Adrenaline surged, muscles tensed, then—once the danger passed—the body shook, cried, or rested and returned to balance.
Now the “tiger” is an email marked urgent, a crying baby, or a calendar reminder.
The body reacts the same way but never gets the release.
There’s no sprint, no cry, no shaking — just another ping.
So the survival energy stays trapped.
As Bessel van der Kolk wrote in The Body Keeps the Score, unprocessed stress doesn’t vanish; it lives on in the tissues.
Thomas Hübl and Mark Wolynn add that trauma repeats because it’s seeking completion.
The trigger isn’t punishment — it’s the body’s way of saying, “Can we finish this now?”
But most of us interrupt the loop again and again, mistaking repetition for failure instead of invitation.
No wonder “just relax” never worked.
What Regulation Looks Like in Real Life
Real regulation isn’t a perfect morning routine or a ten-step evening ritual.
In fact, the obsession with “perfect routines” is often a subtle trauma response — control disguised as calm.
Regulation is humbler.
It’s noticing your heart racing and choosing to slow your exhale.
It’s catching yourself mid-shout and whispering, “Wait.”
It’s apologizing afterward and asking, What happened in me just now?
It’s learning to say, Give me a minute, before you drown in overstimulation.
Each of these moments teaches the body: I am safe enough to notice.
That’s real progress.
The goal isn’t never being triggered — it’s knowing how to come back.
Beyond Techniques
Breathing, grounding, meditation — they’re useful, but they’re entry points, not the finish line.
Because sometimes the nervous system isn’t overreacting; it’s re-enacting.
It’s replaying fear, grief, or vigilance stored generations ago.
Energy teacher Oliver Niño explains that the brain often deletes neural pathways to traumatic memories, so we can’t consciously recall them.
We don’t need to remember what happened to heal it; we only need to notice when the reaction feels too big for the situation.
That’s the moment to ask:
“Is this mine, or is this inherited?”
And then decide what support is needed: therapy, energy healing, breathwork, RTT, kinesiology, Chinese medicine — whatever helps the body complete the old cycle instead of repeating it.
That’s the work we do inside The Body Knows™ — helping the body release what it no longer needs so regulation becomes the natural state, not a daily project.
A Simple Experiment
Once a day, pause and ask,
“Do I feel safe enough to exhale right now?”
If yes — savour it.
If no — place a hand on your chest, take one deeper breath than usual, and notice what shifts.
That tiny act begins rewiring safety.
Regulation starts here — not in perfection, but in noticing.
And if you find you’ve never truly met that version of yourself — the one who feels safe in her own body — you’ve just spotted the Modern Yeti.
✨ Book a Discovery Call
Together, we can finish those loops, release what your body has been carrying,
and help you return to calm that lasts longer than a breathing exercise.