Attuning to Our Nervous Systems
Wisdom from the Animal Kingdom
I have a newly found deep affection for octopuses. Did you know that two-thirds of an octopus’s brain is in its eight arms and nearly 2000 suckers? Those suckers can feel and process complex stimuli, like texture, taste, smell, and even the physiological signals that underlie emotion, such as heart rate, skin chemistry, and the presence of stress hormones. I have deep respect for this unlikely sensitive being, whose body is mostly water.
Octopuses recently came to my attention through the novel Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (I highly recommend the audio version and the book in any form, more than the movie of the same name) and the 2020 documentary My Octopus Teacher, available on Netflix.
For me, there is an unexpected bridge between what an octopus can do and what we humans can do: detect sensory states and use that information to guide our actions.
I was listening to a talk recently about how to use mindfulness when we are triggered emotionally, when we feel stuck, confused, disengaged, not present, or dysregulated in some way. Which, for many of us, happens on a daily basis.
The suggestion is that to begin feeling more centered and grounded, we first need to recognize when we aren’t – being aware of our current experience. For some of us, we may not realize we’ve been off-center until well after the fact. Maybe this led to a bad interpersonal interaction or a harmful choice we made. Not noticing that we’re ungrounded is usually part of being dysregulated.
The good news is there are internal signals or ‘gauges’ we can identify for ourselves that help us not only to recognize when we’re lost in that trance of dysregulation, but also to avoid it in the first place.
Psychologist, author, and trauma specialist David Treleaven describes gauges as “…a way to help people evaluate their response to different stimuli in the present moment, and are thus an invaluable tool for supporting choice, agency, and ultimately helping create healing conditions …”
Beginning with something basic, or trivial, can train us to listen to ourselves and identify what guides our actions. Try this: before taking these actions, ask yourself how you know what you want when –
Reaching for food or drink
Getting dressed in the morning
Choosing what to watch or consume on television
Entering a room for a meeting and choosing a seat
Meditating with eyes open or closed; or sitting, walking, or lying down
We sometimes phrase this simply as: what are we in the mood for? The key is coming to understand how we know this; what internal and external cues help us answer these quite basic questions?
It’s not just saying, "Tonight, I’d like Chinese food," and leaving it at that. It’s what are we listening for? This can be maddeningly difficult to pinpoint; we aren’t used to doing it, nor are we trained to be attuned to ourselves in this way.
Many of us are conditioned to lean on our mental faculties, to use reason or logic: “I ate pasta yesterday, so today I’ll go for salad.” Or, habit: “I always eat eggs for breakfast.” Or beliefs: “I wore this yesterday, so I definitely cannot wear it today.”
But we can listen to other parts of ourselves beyond logic, habit, or beliefs. We can listen to cues coming from inside us, from our bodies, our nervous systems. Training ourselves to tap into that can be a more reliable way to navigate choppy waters, to understand ourselves better in important ways, and to better take care of ourselves.
Once we get familiar with this internal listening, we can apply it to those more important moments when we are triggered, uncertain, dysregulated, or about to become so.
A meditation practice can help sensitize us to these cues by slowing us down and helping us be in stillness. It’s amazing what we can hear and learn by going inside, being attentive, and opening our awareness to our current internal experience.
Here are some example gauges people may use:
I feel heaviness or lightness in my body
I see things more brightly or dimly
I feel jittery or calm
My gut is tight or relaxed
These are all sensory experiences. Our bodies speak to us in sometimes very loud ways, but more often in very subtle ones. We can learn to attune ourselves to these subtle messages. It takes practice, but by learning our gauges, this attunement comes more readily and can help us avoid becoming or staying dysregulated.
We are familiar with the classic hair-raising cue when we sense danger. What about whether someone is safe to date, or to trust with sensitive information, or to form a friendship with? Or whether saying ‘yes’ to a particular kind of activity may be emotionally or even physically harmful. We can attune ourselves to listen for these internal cues, which can help us avoid dysregulation or harm or help us come back into regulation and safety.
We might say this is simply relying on intuition, but I suggest it can be helpful to tease that apart more. Part of our ‘brain’ is in our extended nervous system, having its own kind of intelligence. We would do well to listen to it! The more we practice listening deeply to our internal felt sense, the more successfully we can navigate life, especially when things are challenging or threatening. Like our octopus friends, we can listen to what our nervous systems are telling us.
What internal, sensory signals or gauges can you identify for yourself that guide you through both simple and significant moments in your day and life?
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