How to Actually Regulate Your Nervous System

How to Actually Regulate Your Nervous System

A trauma-informed guide to real healing, emotional regulation, and lasting change

If you’ve been searching for how to regulate your nervous system, you’ve probably tried a lot already.

Talk therapy.
Somatic practices.
Breathwork.
Alternative healing.
Yoga.
Supplements.

And maybe you’re quietly wondering…

Why hasn’t it worked the way I hoped?

Let’s talk about that honestly.

Because true nervous system regulation does not begin with fixing yourself.
It begins with accepting yourself.

Why Nervous System Regulation Hasn’t Worked (Yet)

There is nothing wrong with you.

Many people who struggle with anxiety, trauma responses, emotional overwhelm, or chronic stress believe they just haven’t found the “right” technique yet. They assume they need a better therapist, a stronger mindset, or more discipline.

But here’s what often happens:

You enter therapy already trying to change yourself.
You start somatic work already trying to calm down.
You practice meditation already trying to feel different.

That intensity to fix, to force, to override your current state is often a trauma response itself.

When you’ve lived in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn for years, urgency feels normal. Pushing feels normal. Trying to “get better” fast feels necessary for survival.

But nervous system healing does not respond to force. It responds to safety.

And safety begins with acceptance.

True Regulation Starts With Radical Self-Acceptance

Before anything shifted for me, I had to admit something hard.

I had trauma.
And that meant trauma responses were part of my daily life.

Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn.

My house was messy.
Some days I didn’t brush my hair or my teeth.
Some days I stayed in sweats and a baggy t-shirt in bed watching TV.

Have you ever noticed that in our worst moments, we turn toward art?
Movies. Music. Stories. Something that feels human and alive.

I felt defeated. Broken. Ashamed of the “low” quality emotions I was experiencing.

Anxiety. Collapse. Fear. Financial stress. Grief.

But the shift did not begin when I tried harder.

It began when I said:
Okay. This is where I am right now.

I let myself feel anxious.
I let myself feel terrible.
I let myself feel broke without deciding that meant I was broken.

Every human being touches these states. No one gets through life without experiencing fear, shame, sadness, or helplessness. And the truest gift is this:

They do not last forever.

You will feel happy again.
You will feel safe again.
You will feel strong again.

But usually, we have to accept what is real before anything can change.

Acceptance creates space.
And space is what allows nervous system regulation to begin.

Emotional Regulation Is Not Suppression

When we resist our current state, we tighten around it. The nervous system interprets resistance as threat.

But when you say,
“This is what’s happening right now,”
without judgment,

Your system softens.

You stop fighting your anxiety.
You stop shaming your freeze response.
You stop forcing productivity during collapse.

You begin working with your nervous system instead of against it.

That is where real healing starts.

Working With the Body vs Working On the Body

Many people approach healing like a self-improvement project.

They try to optimize their nervous system.
Hack their stress response.
Override anxiety.

That is working on the body.

Healing happens when we begin working with the body.

The body is not malfunctioning.
It is protecting you.

Trauma lives in the nervous system, not just in thoughts. This is why cognitive therapy alone sometimes is not enough. As explored in the influential book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, the body holds patterns of survival that must be included in the healing process.

Van der Kolk developed Trauma Centre Trauma Sensitive Yoga, often referred to as TCTSY, which integrates the body directly into trauma recovery.

I eventually trained in Trauma Sensitive Yoga myself because I experienced firsthand how transformational it was to include my body in therapy.

When I stopped forcing therapy to “work” and started accepting my capacity at the time, something shifted.

Therapy began to actually land.

Trauma-informed yoga and somatic healing gave me space to feel sensations without being overwhelmed. I could notice anxiety without collapsing. I could experience emotion without believing it defined me.

Working with the body means:

• Moving at the pace of safety

• Allowing sensations without forcing release

• Building capacity gradually

• Honoring limits instead of pushing past them

This is how nervous system regulation becomes sustainable.

The Paradox of Regulation: You Stop Forcing It

One of the most powerful truths about healing trauma and anxiety is this:

The need to urgently change yourself is often part of the dysregulation.

When you soften that urgency, even slightly, you create room for integration.

It might not change in a day.
It might not change in a week.

But every time you say,
“This is where I am right now,”
you build internal safety.

And safety is what shifts the nervous system out of survival mode.

You Can Heal From Trauma and Live Fully Again

If you are living with chronic stress, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, or trauma symptoms, healing is possible.

You can feel safe in your body again.
You can experience freedom from constant anxiety.
You can rebuild self-trust.
You can create emotional resilience.

Transformation is possible.

Not forced.
Not rushed.
But real.

Nervous system healing is not about becoming someone else. It is about returning to your natural state.

A state where you feel grounded.
Alive.
Capable.
At home in yourself.

A Trauma-Informed Path to Regulation

In my coaching work through Embodied Union, I guide clients through trauma-informed nervous system healing that integrates:

• Emotional regulation skills

• Somatic awareness

• Trauma Sensitive Yoga principles

• Gentle nervous system retraining

• Self-acceptance practices

• Sustainable transformation

In my program Unstuck, we focus on working with your nervous system instead of overriding it. We build capacity gradually, reduce shame, and create real safety in the body so change becomes natural rather than forced.

If you have tried therapy and felt like it didn’t “work,” it may not be because you failed.

It may be because your nervous system needed acceptance first.

From that place, everything changes.

Final Thoughts: Regulation Is a Relationship

Nervous system regulation is not a technique.

It is a relationship with yourself.

You do not regulate by shaming your anxiety.
You do not heal by hating your freeze response.

You begin by saying:

This is where I am.
And I am allowed to be here.

From there, healing becomes possible.

And slowly, steadily, your system remembers what safety feels like.

And life opens again.