In oppressive times, is ‘regulation’ what my nervous system really needs?

“You cannot breathe your way out of patriarchy. You cannot cold plunge your way out of structural oppression. You cannot meditate, journal or yoga your way out of conditions that were designed to dysregulate you” – Ailey Jolie

This moment in history feels like a pivotal and frightening one. The Overton Window has shifted from a place where the words ‘far right’ were typically followed by ‘extremism’ to one where they have a central place in law, policy, and international relations. The world’s most powerful country is being ruled by a despotic narcissist who is showing alarming signs of steep cognitive decline, and reactively lashing out at any person or government that displeases him. Protest in countries including the USA, Iran and, increasingly, the UK, is being aggressively shut down, in some cases with peaceful protesters being murdered by the state. Families and unaccompanied children are being kidnapped and taken to concentration camps. Hard won rights for women and LGBTQI+ people are under serious threat. It’s important to pause here and note that much of what is horrifying people with more privileged (i.e. white) identities has long been, and continues to be perpetrated against many people of the global majority.

I don’t know about you, but the act of witnessing and writing about this, even from the comfort and safety of my own home, has my body gearing up in preparation to deal with, or escape from this looming threat. It feels urgent, and I find myself needing to ration my engagement with it in order to prevent getting stuck, immobilised in a ‘freeze’ response. I need to enter a negotiation process with my Autonomic Nervous System – I’d like it to recognise that the threat to me is not imminent (for now), and switch off the sirens so that I have access to my thinking brain. After all, if I’m incapacitated, everything that my nervous system is responding to will carry on exactly as it was, but I will be less able to function. I’m reminding myself that oppressive systems rely on keeping us in a state of perpetual overwhelm, burnout and powerlessness. I feel like I understand this on an intuitive, as well as a cognitive level. And yet, there’s something uncomfortable about the idea of having to 'regulate’ myself in order to have a ‘good enough’ response to injustice, violence and instability. I want to acknowledge the hard work that my brain and body are doing to try to keep me safe. And I don’t want to be caught in the trap of teaching my system to ‘keep calm and carry on’, to look away and wait for things to go back to normal. There’s a sweet spot to be found between getting stuck in ‘freeze’, attempting ‘business as usual’, and burning out by over-committing to being part of the solution. Some anchors I keep returning to in all of this are:

·        This is a healthy reaction to an extremely unhealthy situation… But I don’t have to get stuck in overwhelm

·        Connection is way out of feeling isolated and powerless

·        My body has wisdom to offer and I can work with it to stay safe and connected to my power

This last point feels crucial at a time when we are more useful to rich despots if we are quiet, compliant and disconnected from our power and wisdom. If we’re fighting amongst ourselves, and even fighting against our own brains and bodies, there is little time and energy left to stand up to bullies. Divide and conquer works, and it can begin at an individual level. Finding ways to connect with and trust ourselves and our own wisdom feels like an important place to start, before connecting with the wisdom and support of others.

I also feel encouraged by seeing more and more therapeutic practitioners, social change leaders and others flipping the script by reminding us that it’s not always necessary to look within ourselves to find the source of our discomfort, or to rely entirely on tools that soothe the symptoms without looking at the causes. They are shining a light on the ways that psychology and ‘wellness’ can be weaponised and used as a way to keep people quiet and compliant. Pathologising cultural practices and responses to injustice and trauma is a tactic often used by colonial and patriarchal systems. Positioning resistance as aggression, or overwhelm as hysteria is a useful way to silence anyone who might get in the way of the powers that be. And so it is with the concept of nervous system regulation. As someone who supports others with finding ways to move from overwhelm to a calm, grounded place, I find the concept of learning to work with our Autonomic Nervous System responses enormously helpful. But there’s something to watch out for in this realm – there is a fine line between learning to prevent and recover from panic responses or getting stuck in ‘freeze’, and learning to quieten or control emotional responses because they’re messy, inconvenient or even subversive. We need tools and resources to support self and collective care, perhaps more than ever. And alongside this, there’s a case to be made for creating more space for dysregulation, rage, grief and the messiness of existing in an environment where big feelings and lack of regulation threaten to become a privilege only afforded to ultra wealthy men who lack emotional literacy and real human connection. It seems that this tiny, if powerful minority is asking the rest of us to hold the emotions that they can’t tolerate… Refusing to do so, and instead tending to our own and each other’s grief, rage, power and hope is, in itself, a form of resistance.