An opportunity to uncover your Autonomic Story

Let's start with an overview of the relationship between your Autonomic nervous system and your way of relating in life.

The way we process and navigate life, is via our Autonomic nervous system picking up information from from our experience and environment through something called Neuroception, (Porges, 2017). Our brain then takes the information from our nervous system and uses it to make some sort of sense out of it. This then becomes our cognitive story and the one we tend to make decisions from.

This process has been happening for us on a subconscious level since conception and has been generating memories, implicit and explicit, emotions and beliefs that inform our way of being, who we believe we are and how we relate in life. Meaning our entire life experience from conception is held within our Autonomic nervous system and it holds the impact life has had on us.

Whether our mind remembers experiences or not, our body/ nervous system does, and this informs how we move through and forward in life. The stories we hold about ourselves, others, the world, emerge from our nervous system; this is our autonomic story, the one we embody.

Our embodied story is the one without words, it is automatic and hence we can’t 'think' our way out of it. It informs our thoughts, feelings, behaviours and beliefs.

So often people come to therapy with their cognitive story- the one they may have retold, and even re-lived through the re-telling, multiple times. Yet fewer people come with their autonomic story, usually because it’s the one they aren’t aware of. However, since our brain uses our autonomic story as it’s reference to make its cognitive story in our present, it makes sense that your body and what it holds is going to significantly influence how you experience life in your present. Are you beginning to see the link between the biology of your being and the psychology of your being?

80% of the information is from the body to the and brain, and the brain returns 20% of that information back to the body. (Dana, 2018). Therefore your nervous system has significant influence on how your brain interprets your world.

When working with clients I offer the following perspective; it is not what has happened to someone, i.e. a particular event etc., rather it is what their nervous system’s unique response was to that thing, which mostly determines how a person moves forward in their way of being and their life.

When unintegrated experiences and unprocessed emotions from different parts of your life experience remain unconscious, this creates a build up within your nervous system and can result in conditioned behaviour and dysregulation from those past 'parts' being carried into your present and potentially limiting you to various degrees. You might find it hard to respond from the true present moment or become easily triggered (expressing a past reaction to a present situation).

This can lead to feeling you have little choice to in how you respond in life, and perhaps finding yourself in states of prolonged dis-regulation. It can also manifest as a decline in physical health and the onset of physical pain in the body. A point to note; conditioned behaviours and ways of being have often become habitual, and whilst they may be limiting in your present, they were once needed often as a survival response to threat. Holding this in mind appreciates the intelligence of the body and it's systems, and recognises how your automatic nervous system is always working for you with the information it has.

When you can understand the biology of your personal nervous system, it reduces shame and encourages and creates space for curiosity, compassion and empowerment.

It also creates an intimacy with yourself, and a shorthand for knowing where you’re at at anyone time. This level of Self acceptance and understanding for how your body has always worked with the resources its had to keep you safe, can be a gift and the foundation for future change to become possible if that’s what you want. It is empowering to work consciously in this way.

It’s very hard for anyone to create change in themselves and their life when their nervous system is not open to it, and that’s why I invite you to start from the bottom and pave the way forward, step by integrated step moving towards more of what you want in yourself and in your life.

Next steps...

Some questions for you to reflect upon if you choose;

How aware are you of your autonomic story?

What comes up for you, thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions when you consider the role of your autonomic nervous system in how you relate in life?

Getting curious is a first place to start, and if you feel inspired to start uncovering more of your autonomic story, I invite you to click the link below and get in touch to schedule a free 15 minute discovery call where you can ask your questions and find out more about how we can work together.