Is It Regulation Or Ownership? How To Use Both

I noticed some really powerful observations that you had there throughout your journey of learning everything about healing and regulation from both the East and the West-

Mm

... that there's a really clear observation of how tempting it can be to seek outside forces, whether it's through addiction, whether it's through another person, whether it's through performance, in order to feel safe.

When did you start to realize that that external information, while being useful, there can be a big difference between seeking the external to soothe versus true regulation and a true felt sense of safety, I think was the term that you used earlier.

It's quite an interesting space because we wanna feel safe, but sometimes we don't wanna face the choices we have to make to create that safety, and those choices can look like leaving a relationship, putting in a boundary, leaving a job, stating your needs, removing yourself from a situation or a place that you've garnered some form of safety from previously.

All I see in the world, if I'm really clear now with your listeners, is we only ever operate from two states.

We're either safe or we're not safe.

We're either thriving or we're surviving.

And when we're surviving, we have no access to actually the brain structure, the neurological structure to make clear choices about how we should live our life.

All we're actually looking for, all we're actually really scanning for is, where can I feel safe? What is everybody else doing? I'm gonna do what them, and that's gonna include me, then I can feel safe.

Mm.

So feeling safe as a felt sense is really important.

For someone who's just starting to tease out that thread between feeling safe versus performing regulation or performing healing or performing the successful elements of what a relationship should look like on the outside, how would you start introducing to them to the difference between performed calm versus felt safety?

safety?Perform calm will only ever be a stopgap.

It'll only ever be a short-term intervention program rather than a long-lasting space where you don't actually have to continue to go back to the program.

So let's just look at, in my experience for me personally, breathwork.

So when I used to go to breathwork, I would feel amazing for, like, that afternoon, and then the next morning.

And then my old coping structure would come in.

It's the three coffees, it's the 100 emails, it's the 10 calls, it's the whole structure of my day jumping in at me.

Mm.

And so then I would go, "Oh, my life." It's the relationship that wasn't going well.

It's like, oh, no, no, okay, I'm gonna take this stress and this bubble that I'm feeling, I'm gonna go and take it over here and get rid of it.

Whereas when you have a true understanding and a true connection to the felt sense of safety, you're able to see how your behaviors are creating the structure that you're currently living, and then you will get the courage or gain the courage to start to really prioritize what's most important-

Mm

... and remove anything else that's just taking up space for you because you believe you have to be performative there to get your needs met.