Today I’ve got a little story about recognizing my own dysregulated nervous system out in the wild. (It’s a long one. So, there are resources at the end so if you ain’t got time for all this yammering, then head down there!)

In case you don’t know, I am a trauma therapist. The way we are different from any other therapists is that we work in the world of the nervous system-how to regulate it and make friends with it so that we’re not always reliving the stuff that throws us into fight, flight or freeze.

Even when people don’t come to me for “a trauma”, we still work on regulating our nervous systems, because we all need that. Ever felt rage out of nowhere because of literal spilled milk? Do you ever immediately go from singing along Car-Concert-Style-Calm™ to Jersey-Tough-Level-Cursing™ when someone cuts you off in traffic? How about cried in the Macy’s when you got a whiff of your mother’s perfume? (Maybe that’s just me.)

Raise your hand if you’ve frozen at the doctor’s office or the hair salon, or mid-gyno-exam, when they said or did something that made you uncomfortable, unable to speak up for what you want? Yeah, that’s all dysregulation of the nervous system. That’s my jam in my office.

This is why I ask the questions I ask. Why we talk so much about what you learned as a kid. It is why, we stop for frequent deep breaths or why I tell clients to push against walls, or walk around the office while we talk. I heard someone say the other day, “no one teaches us how to just be” and I realized that was my personal mission: To help people just be.

Now that you know all that, you should also know that as I hold space for people I take on some of that hard stuff they’re dropping ad the reason I can do this is because I learned to take excellent care of myself before I became a therapist.

One of the ways I do this is monthly (or every 6 weeks spending on the calendar) massages. Trust me when I say these are therapeutic-not relaxing. I need to get the stories of everyone else out of my muscles and fascia lest they tie me in knots that make it impossible to live, and Kevin (funny name, right?) at the massage place knows what I do for a living, and he provides massage therapy accordingly.

Ok, now ready for the story? A while ago, Cindy was my massage therapist but then she had a baby and she left me with two referrals for my continued care. I went to the first person she named because I trusted Cindy to know what I needed. I had zero concern that it wouldn’t be a right fit because Cindy recommended her.

There I lay on the massage table and within seconds I knew it was wrong. Very wrong. Three words:

SO. MUCH. LOTION.

Her hands were so lubed up I could hear that squishy sound lotion (or mayonnaise) makes with each pass even if she was nowhere near my ears. Also,my body felt like it was covered in Hellmans, nothing was absorbed and I felt ready for 20 minutes at 350 in the air fryer.
In addition, she talked through most of the session and ever her chatter couldn’t drown out the sound of my own inner-voice criticizing me for putting up with it all. Ugh.

In the moment, I couldn’t get over any part of this enough to get any relief from the massage. I also felt completely trapped and powerless to do anything. It was the opposite of nervous system regulation. I was in full fight or flight; fixated on how awful this experience was and yet frozen in time with my inner voice was screaming at me for not doing anything about it.

Good times.

I wish this story had a great ending where I stood up for myself, asked for what I needed or, at the very least, made up an excuse to end the torture early. Alas, all that came out of that experience was deeper learning. I saw that we’re never finished learning how to take care of ourselves, and our nervous system is never regulated 100% of the time, even if we’re “experts” in the field.

It was good for me to learn about myself but also I wanted to share it with you because I think often we’re so hard on ourselves when we don’t get it right all the time. We learn something new or implement a change and then, we have a human moment and we beat ourselves up for it.

Hot take-no amount of therapy, or coaching, self-help books or even self-care is going to guarantee we never feel uncomfortable feelings, or sometimes yell at the poor, sweet, defenseless, puppy even if we know they didn’t mean to mess up our morning. (Again, maybe just me.)

Here is the thing that was different about this experience than what would have been true if it was ten years ago: I never went back to that woman but I did keep going back to the place and tried a new therapist.

I didn’t stay away from there forever because of this one instance. I used to do that. I hid from hair places, doctors, gyms, and even nail salons for years when I felt foolish over some human moment. Not anymore. I may not have spoken up in the moment. But I refuse to settle for what doesn’t serve me and that includes not retuning to a place I need to go because one person wasn’t a fit. I’m grateful for that growth, to not be afraid to seek out what I need. I’ll make sure to remind my inner voice of that if it happens again.

In the meantime, I’ll relish in the wonder I found in Kevin, who uses just the right amount of lotion and doesn’t talk at all.

How about you, friend? Are you beating yourself up for being human? Here’s a challenge: to be gentle on yourself and love you, however you show up today.