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No thanks, I don’t want to calm down right now.
I want to know why the heck my body is screaming.
I’m a somatic trauma therapist—among other things—so naturally, I’m immersed in the wellness world, both online and off. And if you’ve spent more than five minutes on Instagram or TikTok and are remotely into mental health (which, since you’re reading this, I assume you are), you’ve probably noticed: nervous system regulation is everywhere.
The tools? Incredibly important. Sometimes life-saving—especially in a crisis. But beyond that, “regulation” can easily morph into “please be easier to deal with.” A calm nervous system becomes a strange badge of honor. And that’s where we’re missing the point.
We are not separate selves—one who heals and one who performs. We are one human, doing things. Living, creating, leading, loving. But the world often splits us. It pathologizes the parts in pain and rewards the parts that “optimize.” The nervous system becomes either a problem to fix or a tool to hack. But what if it’s neither?
What if the nervous system isn’t something to control, but something to be in relationship with?
We’re not here to regulate. We’re here to remember. When we treat regulation as the goal, we risk turning it into another performative duty. Another layer of control. Another subtle way to flatten the body’s intelligence so it fits our idea of “safe” or “functional.”
Control, even dressed in somatic language, is still control.
The nervous system—the body—doesn’t want to be managed. It wants to be met. So often, we fall into the trap of curating our truth instead of remembering it. But truth doesn’t arise from suppressing your voice—not the kind that uses vocal cords, and not the kind that speaks through breath, pulse, gut, or grief. What some people call dysregulation is often just raw aliveness. A whisper or a scream from deep within, saying: something here feels not right.
Shaking, trembling, crying, moving—these are signs of a body trying to process, not break down. When we label everything that isn’t “calm” as something to fix, we cut ourselves off from our own healing intelligence. We silence the very signals that are asking to be heard.
So what’s the alternative?
It starts with a shift in how we relate to our nervous system and to the difficult sensations and emotions we’re taught to get rid of. Not as problems to solve, but as guides to follow. As somatic expressions or parts of ourselves that need love and support. When we stop trying to regulate them away and start becoming curious about their stories, we open a different door: not regulation, but reconnection.
What if, next time we felt anything from the subtle ick to the unbearable overwhelm, we didn’t rush to silence our body but gave it space to speak?
Here’s how that can look in practice:
1. Pause before you fix. When discomfort rises, resist the reflex to regulate. Take one slow breath and feel where it lives in your body. Let the sensation be there—without making it wrong, without rushing to calm it. Curiosity begins where control ends.
2. Name what’s here. Give shape to the experience. Tightness. Fear. Heat. Collapse. Naming makes contact. It invites presence instead of avoidance—a way of saying to your body, I see you.
3. Follow the impulse, not the ideal. Your body speaks through movement, temperature, and rhythm—not through perfection. Maybe it wants to stretch, to curl, to cry, to walk outside. Honor that impulse. It’s not a breakdown; it’s intelligence trying to complete its cycle.
4. Let the need matter. So many of us were taught that having needs makes us needy. But your sensations are messengers, not inconveniences. If your body asks for rest, space, or slowness, respond as you would to someone you love. Regulation isn’t about enduring discomfort. It’s about remembering you deserve to feel safe.
5. Offer contact, not control. Place a hand where the feeling lives. Feel your warmth meeting it. No fixing, no forcing, just relationship. This is how the body learns safety again: through gentle, attuned connection.
And if tending to yourself—allowing your needs to matter—feels uncomfortable or wrong, notice that too. That friction is often the echo of old survival strategies, not proof that you’re broken. It’s a doorway back to the parts of you that learned to stay small to stay safe. Recognizing this is already healing. A quiet act of remembering. And there is no shame in reaching out for support to help reclaim those parts fully.
This isn’t about getting it right. It’s about getting closer—to the experience inside the tension, and the truth beneath it. Then healing stops being another thing to perfect, and becomes something else entirely. Not self-improvement. But self-tending. Self-care in the truest sense. A hand on the heart. A whisper to the ache: “Hey. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
That moment, the one where we stop trying to be better and start being with ourselves, that’s not weakness. That’s empowerment.
Healing isn’t found in perfection or in control.
It lives in the pause where we choose to listen. To follow the body with curiosity and let it lead us to the things we need to see, tend to, and reclaim. To honor what arises, not as evidence of failure, but as a return to relationship. As a step away from managing pain, and toward caring for it.
The parts that hurt are not in the way. They’re the most important passengers on our way back home. And on that path, regulation isn’t the destination—it’s the natural result of something much deeper: Embodied Empowerment.
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