In my own life, I had to learn how to tolerate the fear and discomfort I felt when I was physically distant or perceived myself to be emotionally distant from a loved one, especially in my romantic relationships. If I sensed a break in my connection to a partner or perceived that they were upset with me, I assumed I was likely to blame, a presumption that caused my body to tense up and my ego story of how unconsidered I was to flood my mind. Physically and emotionally, I was taken back to the young girl who had been emotionally abandoned by her mother. Without the words to describe the memory, my body enacted my deep pain in uncomfortable embodied sensations and behavioral reactions.
As I became a conscious witness to these sensations and reactions, I started to teach myself that not all distance in relationships is bad. In fact, some distance is necessary to create relational balance. Every human being needs time and space in solitude away from others to recharge and replenish their individual energy stores, even if only for a few moments at a time.
Starved for emotional connection, I noticed a related pattern of forcing myself to be receptive to others whenever they were available for or desiring connection and shaming myself for the moments when I didn’t feel open or available, for whatever reason. I am now learning to allow myself these moments of desired space to enjoy being in my own presence by listening to calming music through headphones, driving myself to the lake for a few hours, or even taking a solo staycation at a nearby hotel. I’m learning ways that I can support myself emotionally, too, even if it’s just by going on a walk or taking a bath when I feel internal agitation (those moments when I’d proclaim “I’m bored” from years ago) instead of looking to others to blame or expecting them to help me feel better. I can now see these moments for what they are, an indicator that I may need some time alone to soothe and reconnect with myself before I can more fully connect with those around me.
Soothing ourselves, or finding our way back to safety, whether alone or by co-regulating with another person, is foundational to the embodiment of true compassion. Whenever we feel unsafe or threatened, we become hyper-focused on ourselves, seeing experiences only from our own perspective and as they relate to our immediate survival. As a result, we can end up acting in ways that hurt those around us. The same is true of those we love, and if we can learn to have grace and compassion for ourselves, we can extend it even to those that have hurt us. The harmful things they reactively do when they feel scared, stressed, overwhelmed, or angry don’t reflect who they truly are, either.
Compassion is an embodied response that’s dependent on nervous system regulation and safety. To feel true compassion for others and to want to support them in their suffering, we must first be able to feel or attune to their suffering. To emotionally attune to others, we have to be able to climb out of our own body’s survival state so that we can see the experience from their perspective. We can do this only when our body feels safe enough to allow our mind to shift its attentional focus away from our own experiences. Extending compassion and patience to ourselves while we develop this new practice of embodying safety is especially important for those of us for whom safety itself is an unfamiliar experience. As with anything unfamiliar, both our body and our mind will try to resist these new experiences and attempt to return to their familiar, more stressful habits as we venture into the threatening unknown.
Embodying safety and compassion is particularly helpful in moments of active stress or conflict. If we can stay calm and grounded within our body, we’re better able to depersonalize other’s stress reaction, understanding it as the threat-based adaptation it is. As a result, we’re less likely to scream back, force them to connect, or shake them out of it, knowing that these types of behaviors will likely only escalate their internal stress level and we’ll be more likely to respond compassionately.
How can we create safety when someone else is upset? We have three options when we know someone’s nervous system is activated in a stress response:
We can hold space for them while consciously reframing our experience of the situation so that we don’t take their mood, words, or reactions personally. Understanding they’re in a stress response often allows us to remain compassionate and responsive to their pain. We’re less likely to become reactive ourselves and more likely to be able to join them in their emotional experience.
We can remove ourselves from their presence until they’re regulated. This is often the best approach for someone in Eruptor mode. To remove yourself without being condescending or dismissive, you can say, “I need to take a break from this interaction or experience right now.” Though doing so may further aggravate someone in Eruptor mode, especially if they’re already activated, it’s critical to communicate to them that maintaining your own safety is a priority for you. And remember, if you ever begin to feel that you’re in physical, emotional, or sexual danger, it is important to call emergency services.
We can co-regulate using the techniques already explored and those that you’ll learn more about now.
ACTIVELY CO-REGULATING WITH OTHERS
Our ability to co-regulate with others on an ongoing basis is the foundation of emotional safety and security within our relationships. If we were modeled emotional reactivity or disconnection in childhood, we may find it difficult to remain connected to others during times of disagreement or perceived conflict. But we can develop this “felt” emotional trust over time by consistently repairing or returning to emotional safety and connection after conflict occurs. This return to a safe and secure connection is foundationally important, especially for children, who are often left confused, alone, and overwhelmed by reactive or explosive emotions, like being yelled at or given the silent treatment when a parent is upset.
While much of co-regulation happens largely through our body’s unseen signals and our own nervous system safety, we can begin to intentionally choose to actively co-regulate with others by hugging, holding hands, exchanging loving looks, sitting close-by in shared silence, or practicing the heart-centered exercise here.
If you choose to co-regulate with another person, it’s important to anticipate some possible resistance, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the concept. To introduce the practice, it’s helpful to have a conversation with your loved one when they’re not actively upset, asking if they’d be willing to practice during future times of conflict or stress. Below are some basic facts about this practice, which you can share with your loved one to help them understand the power and potential of co-regulation.
FIVE FACTS ABOUT CO-REGULATION
Our body is wired to connect with others.
Co-regulation is a process that helps provide us with the safety we need to feel open to connect.
Our body’s nervous system communicates with other people’s nervous systems through electrical, hormonal, and energetic signals that we can’t see.
When we struggle to soothe our emotions (or regulate our nervous systems), we can use the peace and calm of another’s body to help us calm down.
We can start to use various tools and practices to feel safer with and more connected to each other right now.
Heart-Centered Co-regulation Exercise
Below is an easy exercise to help you practice co-regulation with a loved one. When you begin this practice it can be helpful if one of you is in a calm or parasympathetic state.
Sit across from each other and place a hand on each other’s heart or chest area. You’ll feel each other’s chest rising and falling, allowing you to synchronize your breath.
Breathe slowly and deeply.
Begin to visualize your nervous system sending signals of peace and calm to your loved one. And then visualize your nervous system receiving your loved one’s peace and calm.
This exercise is especially useful to do before potentially difficult conversations or stressful experiences because it increases our feelings of connection and can help rebalance our relationship’s collective energy.
CO-REGULATION MENU
The following is a list of some more things you can do to co-regulate with a loved one during times of stress or conflict.
Smile or send calming glances to each other, increasing the signals of safety and helping activate the ventral vagal state of everyone around you.
Practice breathing slowly and deeply in sync with each other while sitting facing each other or with your backs together.
Lovingly touch or cuddle with each other to activate the “love” hormone oxytocin while increasing feelings of trust and connectedness.
Look or comfortably gaze into each other’s eyes.
Ask a loved one to play with your hair or calmly stroke their hair to soothe and connect.
Hug each other to increase oxytocin and help relax any tension in your muscles.
Kiss each other to increase oxytocin and decrease cortisol levels.
Go for a walk with each other, focusing on syncing your pace and movement rather than on having an active conversation; this can help reduce stress and promote relational connection and communication.
If you are alone or unable to co-regulate with another person, you can imagine a moment of connection with them, which will also increase oxytocin and feelings of safety. You can even connect with an animal’s regulated nervous system to help you find safety in your own body. Petting, brushing, or even lying next to a relaxed pet can help you achieve the same calming effects.
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As we’ve been exploring together, it is only when we understand the influence our nervous system has on those around us that we can take steps to create true safety and security within our relationships. Embodying a sense of safety enables us to better navigate conflict with others, often without saying a word, and can help us become more collaborative partners. By extending safety to others through the process of co-regulation we can begin to shift our interactions and dynamics with another, even during moments of stress, hardship, or disagreement. As we reconnect with the compassion that lives in our heart, we empower ourselves to begin to break dysfunctional patterns in any of our relationships.
9
Empowering Your Relationships
In the introduction, you read about the five love languages, created by Dr. Gary Chapman in the early 1990s. He theorizes that each of us has a preferred way of receiving affection that, when communicated to our loved ones, can create or sustain the love we seek. According to Dr. Chapman, our five love languages are:
Words of affirmation. We want verbal affirmation or praise from our loved one.
Quality time. We want to spend frequent, preplanned, or mindful time with our loved one.
Receiving gifts. We want our loved one to give us visible or quantifiable symbols of love.
Acts of service. We want our loved one to perform chores or other favors for us.
Physical touch. We want our loved one to show us affection through physical touch or other intimate acts.
This life-changing concept helps many of us recognize that we each have separate, often distinct preferences. Some of us have even used these categories to directly communicate our emotional preferences within our relationships and transform our interpersonal experiences. Recognizing the uniqueness in our experiences, preferences, and perspectives opens us up to infinite possibilities in self-expression and emotional connection. But there’s a big difference between communicating our emotional preferences to others and expecting them to meet our needs in a specific way.
When we ask our loved ones to change their natural way of expressing themelves, we can close ourselves off to other kinds of emotional expression and opportunities for connection. When we overlook what comes naturally to those we love, we inadvertently limit the space we provide others to be themselves.
Complicating things, the ways we’ve all learned to feel valued or loved by others are based on our past conditioning and experiences. When we limit ourselves to these familiar displays of affection, we’re often simply asking our loved ones to re-create our earliest relationships, or what love feels like to us. Expecting others to treat us in these familiar ways, we risk re-creating our childhood dysfunctional dynamics.
