Your Nervous System Isn’t Broken-It’s Responding to Your Terrain

I am a fairly skeptical person naturally, especially when it comes to things that go mainstream. The end result: people are taking a list full of supplements and have books upon books about coping mechanisms, and yet they still wake up every day feeling miserable. There is always a cure-all supplement or a new type of therapy to try. I would know, I have tried it all.

Despite years of talk therapy, a full list of coping skills, analyzing and figuring out why I do the things I do, reliving and retelling traumatic incidents in an attempt to process it all, I still found myself in the exact same place every day. Surviving.

Surviving looks different for everyone. For me, it was a dark pit of fear, despair, hopelessness, suicidal thoughts, and of course lots of wine. Most days I woke up feeling like utter shit. The kicker was that I tried to feel better. I tried to be better. For a long time I didn’t run from what I was feeling. I tried to integrate it all, process what was in front of me the best that I could. I would quit drinking for long blocks of time, only to find my way back to hell.

My goal was never to silence what I was feeling. I have, after all, enough knowledge to know that I couldn’t outrun whatever it was that I was feeling. The issue was that nothing was giving me relief. I knew the amount of stress, fear, and anxiety I was carrying was not sustainable. specially since wine was part of the equation. I was not the wife or mother that I so desperately wanted to be.

I analyzed everything. I journaled it, I meditated, and I talked in therapy for months. None of it touched the actual issue because the problem was never just in my head. It was in my body. I was trying to analyze and think my way into a new body that didn’t feel like a prison. It was like continuing to put bad gas in an engine and wondering why it wasn’t running optimally. I ultimately realized I wasn’t giving my body physically what it needed.

Imagine you have a car that started running terribly. You fix all the parts, everything is new, and then you put bad gas in that engine. Despite all the new parts it’s really not running great. You put bad gas in there again and again. Yeah, the car still runs but there is always an issue. It is obvious you need to fill the car up with better gas. Our bodies work the same way.

I can do all the analyzing, talk therapy, meditating, working out, and nervous system regulating that I want. But, if I am not nourishing myself, my body is going Eto keep breaking down. And that can look different for everyone. For me it was debilitating fear and anxiety, and eventual panic attacks.

I cannot go a day without someone talking about regulating the nervous system. Everywhere you look there is some new tool to regulate the nervous system. The body is so intelligent and that has sort of been lost. I was drowning in interventions, supplements, and coping tools to the point where it became so overwhelming that I had yet another breakdown. I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling feeling completely defeated. I didn’t know what to do and that scared me.

The truth is, I believe my nervous system was doing exactly what it was designed to do. It was regulating based on the terrain it was working with. Our nervous systems are not broken. They are working with the terrain they were given, working extremely hard and efficiently.

Let me give you a real life example.

It’s been made abundantly clear that I used wine to silence my inner turmoil. It was the last tool in my toolbox. Most days I would wait until 5pm or so for that sweet relief wine gave me. Now, alcohol is extremely hard on the body it is an actual poison (this article isn’t about the impacts of alcohol though so I digress), and the body has to prepare for that. Our bodies are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. My nervous system was going to work overtime to compensate for the alcohol whether it was one glass of wine or a bottle. Alcohol boosts GABA — a calming neurotransmitter — and triggers a massive dopamine release. Side note: magnesium and zinc both do this naturally. The nervous system has to prepare for this instant shift. Within hours, the body then kicks into overdrive to try and clear out the alcohol. Alcohol is also a diuretic, so it is depleting your body of everything it needs which for starters we are most likely not getting enough of to begin with. It damages the gut lining, which is responsible for absorbing the minerals and nutrients we need. Alcohol leaves you depleted, and the nervous system does the best that it can with what it is given.

As you can see, the nervous system isn’t the issue. The nervous system does an excellent job at pattern recognition and adapting to those patterns. The issue lies in what we are feeding the terrain. (Accountability is important.) This is only one small part of a much bigger concept. Terrain is everything — minerals, hormones, circadian rhythm, what we feed ourselves, which emotions we carry. It is literally everything.

Suddenly, true healing doesn’t seem so impossible when we look at it from the terrain perspective. If we are able and willing to give our bodies what they need and then get out of the way, true healing is likely to occur.

I am not here to judge. We develop patterns and behaviors for so many different reasons.M ore often than not, those reasons are rooted in survival. Those reasons exist because we are struggling internally and don’t know what else to do. So if you are reaching for the sweets or the alcohol and you don’t even want to — there is a pattern at play, and you can reprogram it. It isn’t easy, but it is possible.

I am not anti-therapy. I am not even anti-coping skills. Box breathing is still a go-to tool that I love when I am feeling overwhelmed. I am just a living example of how talk therapy was not enough. I first needed to want to change, and then I had to embody that change. A support system and knowing you aren’t alone can truly make a difference, and that is something I provide.

Sending you so much love and healing,

Brittany

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