Identity

Dysregulation

Expansion

Acceptance

IDENTITY

Underneath anxiety, panic, numbness, overwhelm and burnout is one simple emotion: fear. All fear is based on a false concept of who we are. Fear activates powerful structures in our brain that set off a cascade of hormones which hijack our normal functioning and often leave us feeling powerless in the face of overwhelming thoughts and feelings. Understanding our identity is the first step to breaking the hold that fear has on us. We need to begin with an appreciation of our true spiritual identity, and gradually teach our brain to act on that basis.  

Our brain is set up to tag all incoming information according to our beliefs about our identity. If I believe I am my body and I am my mind, then everything I perceive which potentially threatens my body or my mind (my concepts, opinions, memories, etc) will be tagged as a threat and will set off a cascade of stress hormones in my brain and body. 

By constantly returning to an appreciation of the reality that I am not my body or my mind, we can gradually begin to experience the reality of the self within. This appreciation and experience allows us more and more to step back from our environment and begin to make choices about how to respond. Rather than automatically and unconsciously reacting to a perceived threat, we can instead learn to witness the contents of our mind, witness our physical and mental reactions and respond from a platform of peace and calm within. 

We may feel that this state of consciousness is very far away, but in fact this state of consciousness is the closest thing to us. Consciousness of our true identity is not something we need to achieve by good works or superhuman effort. By surrounding ourselves with reminders of our identity, spending time with people who relate to us based on who we truly are, practicing stepping back from the activity of our body and mind and (most importantly) practicing mantra meditation on a regular basis, this consciousness will naturally and gradually unfold. 

“The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind. This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, all-pervading, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same. - Bhagavad Gita As It Is, 2.23-24”

Practices to revive consciousness of our identity: 

Awareness practice (“I’m aware that…”)

Who Am I Meditation

Silent Witness Meditation

Gauranga breathing 

Japa meditation

DYSREGULATION

Chronic fear is dysregulating. Dysregulation means that the normal functioning of our brain and nervous system are disturbed by the constant triggering of alarm signals. Imagine if you worked in a nuclear plant. On a normal day, even though the plant is managing a huge amount of energy and information, everything is proceeding easily and calmly. A vast number of highly complex tasks are being carried out according to each person’s training and expertise. This is how your nervous system is meant to run - it is highly specialized to take in, synthesize and organize vast amounts of information and then distribute and mobilize a huge reservoir of energy to move you through the world. Even though these tasks are highly complex, your nervous system is perfectly capable of carrying them out underneath the level of your conscious awareness as long as the working conditions are calm. 

However, what would happen in a nuclear plant if the alarm systems went haywire and started getting triggered constantly? A bunch of people would spring to attention and start running around frantically trying to diagnose the problem. Other automatic defense systems would kick into gear. If this kept going on, all the normal operations of the plant would get confused - no one would be sure if there really was an emergency or not, or what they were supposed to do about it. Many workers would just keep doing their same job routinely while trying to tolerate the noise and becoming more and more numb every day. Everyone would be confused, on high alert, exhausted and trying to figure out how to interpret and manage the constant blaring of alarms in the background. The regulation (normal functioning) of the plant would be thrown off. 

If we wanted to know how to get the nuclear plant functioning again, then it would help to know how it was organized in the first place. In the same way, if we want to get our nervous system functioning again, it helps to know how it’s organized. 

Principles of nervous system organization

• The nervous system is hierarchical. That means that our nervous system has a series of systems organized in a hierarchy which switch off or on depending on what our environment is requiring from us. This hierarchy of systems is sometimes called the “Ladder of Engagement.” When we’re at the top of the ladder, our brain has all the blood flow and oxygen that it needs. Our heart and lungs are connected and in sync, and we’re able to easily relate to others socially. When we take one step down the ladder into fight or flight, suddenly the blood rushes out of our head and into our limbs. We feel a rush of energy, agitation, anger or fear. We are tuned to our environment in a defensive posture, ready to run away or fight back. When we take one more step down the ladder, we go into freeze mode. This is the “play dead” survival strategy. Our brain starts sending signals to our body to conserve as much energy as possible. Our breathing gets restricted and our heart rate is no longer tied to our breathing and may become erratic. At the top of the ladder, we’re regulated - all our systems are organized appropriately and able to communicate with each other. At the bottom of the ladder, we’re dysregulated - communication has broken down and our brain thinks our goal is simply to survive until the threat goes away. 

• The nervous system is conservative. This means the nervous system is built to prioritize survival needs over all other needs. If your nervous system identifies an incoming threat, it will sacrifice all higher order cognition in order to meet the threat - and it will do this automatically, usually underneath the level of conscious awareness. Specifically, when your nervous system identifies a threat, it will initiate a series of actions in a fraction of a second which cut off the blood flow to your prefrontal cortex and kink the cranial nerves you need for complex social interactions. It does this in order to send more resources to your vital organs and your limbs. 

Back at the nuclear plant - let’s say you came in as the new boss, even if you finally turned off the blaring alarms, if this had been going on for 5, 10 or 20 years, there would still be a lot of work to do to get everything back into an organized state. You would need to update all the employees about the situation and start re-organizing all the previous processes which were thrown into chaos. 

In the same way, when we begin with understanding and cultivating an experience of our identity, we essentially step into the position of being the boss of our system. This is absolutely critical to the process of re-regulating our nervous system and is the foundation of everything else that we do, but it doesn’t mean that our nervous system will suddenly become perfectly regulated. When we step into the position of being the boss, we observe the processes of our body and mind. We will likely start to see where these processes have been conditioned by chronic threat and have become dysregulated over time. We don’t need to (and shouldn’t expect to) immediately “fix” all the dysregulated pathways. Our thoughts and feelings may remain dysregulated for a period of time. 

Depending on the unique configuration of our brain and nervous system and the patterns that we developed from birth and throughout our life, we may discover that certain threat pathways have been hardwired into us from birth or very early in our development. That just means we need to be especially serious about practicing witness consciousness and learning to step back from our automatic threat reactions. In a normal, healthy state our nervous system is dynamic and constantly fluctuating. The goal is not to arrive at some perfect, static state. By exercising the mental muscle of stepping back from the activity of our body and mind, we are able to retain our intelligence and make choices no matter what’s happening in our nervous system. And gradually by doing this, we can set our nervous system up for success so that more often than not it is operating in a regulated, organized fashion and supporting our forward motion in life. 

We do this by practicing the GROWTH Cycle. 

The GROWTH Cycle 

The GROWTH Cycle is a six step process for regulating the nervous system. It stands for: 

Ground

Resource / Reset

Orient

Witness

Tolerate / Titrate 

Honor 

The GROWTH Cycle is a re-creation of what our nervous system naturally does when it’s regulated. 

In a state of calm and balance, our nervous system will naturally cycle through these six steps underneath the level of conscious awareness, or prompt us to engage in a behavior that moves this cycle forward. For example, we may feel an urge to get outside, and we can understand that this is our nervous system seeking to ground. We may suddenly feel like reaching out to a friend, and we can understand this is our nervous system seeking a resource. We may suddenly have an intense curiosity about something or desire to make a plan for the day and we can understand this is our nervous system in the process of orienting. The GROWTH Cycle is a description of how our nervous system naturally moves the high volumes of energy and information that we need to meet challenges, play, form relationships, try new things, explore and build a life. 

However, when our nervous system is chronically dysregulated, these processes often become disturbed or stop working behind the scenes. Our nervous system may have been dealing with blaring alarms for years or decades and in response it has mobilized a huge amount of survival energy. When we don’t have an outlet to burn through that energy (often called blowing off steam) in a reliable way, the energy stays in our system and builds up over time. So if we just try to flip the switch and start regulating again, it is often very hard for our nervous system to move that huge backlog of energy and information through a system that’s been disorganized for a very long time. 

This is why many “self care” techniques don’t work or backfire for many people - because they move energy and information too fast through a system that isn’t prepared to process it all. 

If your system is already regulated, then it’s helpful to have habits and practices which move energy and information more quickly. For example, deep focus or mindfulness, yoga asanas or other heavy exercise, deep breathing or subtle energy work all aid a regulated nervous system in moving high volumes of energy and information. However, if your system is dysregulated and you’re holding on to a backlog of survival energy, any or all of these techniques can be overwhelming to your system. 

By learning the elements of the GROWTH Cycle and gaining some awareness of what’s happening in our body and mind, we can consciously adapt and make choices about what we want to process rather than dumping it all into our system at once. This allows us to gradually and steadily process the backlog of survival energy. As the backlog of survival energy gets processed or digested, the alarm systems start to fade and this allows our system to  re-regulate. As we practice the habits embedded within the GROWTH Cycle, gradually they become more and more automatic and fade back into the background of our lives which is where they’re meant to be. 

When we’re holding onto a backlog of survival energy, and processing all of it is overwhelming to our system, we need to find an entrypoint. If we notice that a particular action or strategy is too overwhelming, the GROWTH Cycle gives us a framework to find an alternative. Rather than feeling the overwhelm and then giving up entirely, we now have a way of diagnosing where we’re at and finding an entry point into the Cycle that’s do-able for us at that moment. 

EXPANSION (Window of tolerance) 

The amount of energy and information that our system can process in any given moment is called our window of tolerance. We find our best entry into the GROWTH Cycle by figuring out our current window of tolerance and then gradually expanding it over time. 

Here’s a practical example of a very common situation that’s caused by a narrow window of tolerance: 

When our heart rate increases, it pumps blood and oxygen through our body. The movement of subtle energy also increases. All of this movement causes a rush of internal sensory data that your nervous system picks up and has to interpret. 

If we have a narrow window of tolerance, our brain will interpret that increase in energy and information as a threat and it will rapidly begin to descend down the ladder of engagement. We may find that our heart rate spikes, we get a rush of adrenaline and then we start to feel our breathing constrict and our limbs get weak. Our blood vessels also constrict and our field of vision narrows. This means we’ve rapidly taken two steps down the ladder - through fight/flight and into freeze. 

By contrast, if we have a wide window of tolerance, when our heart rate increases our brain interprets it as an interesting challenge. No survival threat is detected, so we don’t descend down the ladder of engagement. The activation of our prefrontal cortex increases instead of decreases, so our thinking gets clearer and our field of vision increases. 

To increase our window of tolerance in this situation, we would want to intentionally trigger situations where our heart rate increases. By practicing witnessing, deliberately slowing our breathing and resetting our vagus nerve, we can gradually teach our brain that an increase in heart rate does not necessarily signal threat. 

This stage is called expansion because not only is our window of tolerance metaphorically expanding, but our physiology is literally expanding - our veins and arteries expand, our lungs expand and our field of vision expands when we interpret a high volume of incoming information as an interesting challenge rather than a threat. 

How do I know when I’m within my window of tolerance? 

If you can complete the GROWTH Cycle, you’re within your window of tolerance. The easiest way to do a quick check on this is to notice your attitude. If you’re able to meet a challenge with a positive attitude, you’re within your window of tolerance. That doesn’t mean you like everything about that particular challenge - but you can witness your own reactions, you can tolerate the challenge and the feelings being brought up and you can honor the learning opportunity and find something to feel grateful for in the moment. 

As soon as you find yourself unable to witness, tolerate and honor then you know you’re outside your window of tolerance. You need to step back and start by getting grounded, and then figure out how to chunk down and approach the task in a way that allows you to stay within or just at the edge of your window of tolerance. 

Artificial window of tolerance

Very often, people learn to live in what’s called an “artificial window of tolerance.” This can happen when we grow up in an environment with a high amount of emotional stress. Our nervous system adapts and learns to operate in the world while all of our alarm systems are going off.  

This is like if the nuclear plant had the alarms blazing for twenty years and all the workers just gave up trying to fix it and figured out how to function around it. Some people would be constantly frazzled, other people would wear noise canceling headphones, everyone would probably be talking very loud. As new hires came in, they would just accept that this is how things work. However, even though people would be technically functioning at their jobs, it would be organized chaos.. There would be high turnover as people got burned out and left. Lots of things would be falling through the cracks. There would be massive miscommunication across the whole system. So this is what it’s like to function in an artificial window of tolerance - to the outside world, it seems like the plant is functioning fine, but as soon as you step inside, you can see that the situation is actually intolerable and major sacrifices are being made. 

How do I know if I’m in an artificial window of tolerance? 

Signs that you may be living outside your window of tolerance include physical symptoms of burn out like exhaustion, dysregulated eating and sleeping patterns or emotional numbing. Mentally and emotionally, a person may have two faces - the face they put on out in the world, and how they really feel inside. Hopelessness, cynicism and despair are often signs that someone is living outside their window of tolerance. 

How do I get back into my window of tolerance? 

Regularly practicing the GROWTH Cycle will allow you to gradually sense the difference between being out of your window of tolerance and being in or at the edge of it. As you learn how to adapt various self care strategies in a way that works for your system, you will want to start incorporating more and more of them into your routine. 

Doing a hard reset

If you have the flexibility in your life, doing a “hard reset” on your nervous system is an accelerated way to find out where your window of tolerance actually is in real time, so you can then design an expansion plan. 

A hard reset means strictly monitoring your energy and your attitude, and taking 3-5 days to only engage in activities which are clearly within your window of tolerance. In order to do a hard reset successfully, you will need the basic foundational skills involved in the GROWTH Cycle. Essentially, a hard reset is a data gathering task. You need to stop all unnecessary activity and strictly monitor your nervous system reactions, and then adjust according to the data you’re getting from your body and mind.  If you aren’t able to step back from the activity of your body and mind, then you won’t get the data you need. If you aren’t familiar with the steps of the GROWTH Cycle then you won’t know what to do with that data. 

ACCEPTANCE

The final stage of the IDEA Framework is Acceptance. Acceptance comes as a natural result of developing all of the above skills. Acceptance is a natural result of Witnessing, Tolerating and Honoring and it is most perfectly summed up by the Serenity Prayer: 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The courage and discernment described in the serenity prayer are all skills we can master. By embracing the IDEA Framework and the GROWTH Cycle, we can steadily and reliably build the mental, emotional and spiritual muscles to achieve deep peace, poise, grace, confidence, presence and purpose in our life, relationships and careers.