Maxine to add / edit intro…
Welcome to Nervous System Notes; Norwich Yoga Festival Part Two.
Following on from last weeks email, here is Part Two of what I shared at my talk:
‘What I Wish Everyone Knew about their Nervous System.’
First a little recap of where we left off in Part One:
You are not stuck in a pattern of self sabotage, you don't lack will power, your nervous system is choosing familiar to keep you safe.
Your nervous system subconsciously will choose FAMILIAR patterns of protection over UNFAMILIAR patterns of connection, every single time. Whatever change you desire in your life has to start with creating safety in your nervous system for that change.
So, how do we do that? How do we build our nervous system capacity?
By changing the nervous system inputs.
You can think of your Nervous System as having three steps:
Inputs - Interpretations - Outputs
Outputs like lack of mobility (Range of Motion), muscle tightness, pain, emotional reactions (particularly reactions that feel disproportionate to the situation), your inner critics thoughts, your beliefs about yourself, all of those outputs mirror your current nervous system state.
If you want to change these outputs, you need to change the inputs and importantly, help your nervous system interpret the inputs more accurately.
If an input is interpreted as a threat, the output will be a survival strategy - which takes us back to the beginning of this email, ie: a familiar pattern of protection. For you that might be people pleasing or it might be dissociation, there are so many different ways our nervous system adapts our behaviour to survive.
I'm going to dive deeper into these inputs next week, but for now, briefly below are some of the ways your nervous system collects data. This data is interpretated and then determines if you are safe or not. We do not consciously choose safe or unsafe, our nervous system creates the output based on our previous experiences. For example, if being ‘good’ or being ‘busy’ kept you safe as a child, being a good adult and being a busy adult will be your familiar pattern of protection.
Not safe = survival pattern output. Safe = more ease, connection, ability to deal with stress, more capacity for living!
Nervous System data comes from:
Interoception - your inner world.
Exteroception - your outer world.
Proprioception - your body's relationship to gravity and space.
The better quality the above inputs are, the more nervous system capacity you'll build, which overtime, changes your nervous system outputs.
Maxine to add ending and sign off
