Dysregulation Isn’t Wrong: Honoring the Wisdom of the Nervous System
About a 7-minute read, just right for a cozy corner moment 📖
As a therapist with a background in somatics and yoga, my approach is influenced by creating embodied practices and making space for both the mind and the body in sessions. This often looks like exploring the states of the nervous system, how they show up in the room, and how they ripple through a client’s daily life.
With the growing popularity of nervous system education and approaches like Polyvagal Theory or other somatic-based practices, there is a lot of messaging around “regulation” and “dysregulation.” While learning tools to regulate is helpful, if we only focus on “getting back to calm,” we can miss the deeper truth:
Dysregulation is not bad; it is information. Dysregulation tells us how our body has been shaped by past experiences, how it protects us in the present, and what it longs for in the future.
What is Dysregulation?
When we talk about “dysregulation,” we are describing survival states or times when our nervous system shifts into protection mode.
It is important to know that feeling your feelings (or emotions) is not the same as being dysregulated. Feeling anger, joy, grief, or frustration and being able to experience them and move through them is part of being human.
Dysregulation occurs when certain survival states take over, and the body or brain moves into a state of fight, flight, freeze, or collapse. Polyvagal Theory gives us a way to map these shifts on the “ladder” of the nervous system:
Sympathetic (fight or flight): you might feel your heart racing, your words speeding up, or a restless urgency that makes it hard to think clearly.
💭 Reflection: What does mobilization look like for you, and where does it tend to take you?
Dorsal vagal (shutdown or collapse): You might feel heavy, foggy, disconnected, or like you want to disappear.
💭 Reflection: What does immobilization look like for you, and where does it tend to take you?
Ventral vagal (connection and steady enough): This is not a dysregulated state, but it is important to name as the baseline we move in and out of. Dysregulation shows up when we slide down the ladder into sympathetic or dorsal states.
These states are nervous system responses, not character flaws. They are signs that your body has shifted into survival mode.
For many folks, especially women, non-binary, transgender, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, chronically ill, and disabled communities, the messages they receive, directly or indirectly, are to suppress their feelings to appear “regulated.” This can contribute to confusing or even conflicting messages when trying to understand the best or safest ways to experience or give space for regulation and dysregulation.
While suppression often reflects dysregulation, showing up as shutdown or collapse, these responses are not wrong or faulty, and they likely serve an important role in keeping you safe in certain spaces.
Neuroception: Our Internal Surveillance System
Our nervous system is constantly scanning for cues of safety and danger, often outside of our awareness. This process is called neuroception, and it works like an internal surveillance system that takes in cues from our body, environment, and the people around us.
When cues of danger show up, our autonomic nervous system reacts first before our thinking brain has time to catch up. We often feel the response before we can make sense of it.
Bringing attention to the present can help us reflect on the purpose of these responses and how they are showing up now. While a response may have once kept us safe, we can gently ask: Is it still needed in this current season of life?
Dysregulation as Protection, Not Failure
The autonomic nervous system is designed to help us survive, and different arousal states are your body’s adaptive ways of trying to keep you safe.
These states include:
⚡️ Hyperarousal, which might look like being restless, anxious, or on high alert.
🌫 Hypoarousal, which might feel like slowing down, fogginess, or disconnecting.
✨ Dissociation, which can serve as a protective form of stepping back when things feel too much.
These shifts often connect back to earlier life experiences when we first developed or relied on these strategies. For example, there may have been a time in your past when staying quiet felt safer than speaking up. That survival response may now show up as shutting down or losing words in safe relationships.
Emotional Regulation vs. Suppression
When it comes to emotional regulation, it is not necessarily about silencing or shutting down emotions but more about identifying and attuning to what we feel, and choosing how to respond rather than react.
It can be common to confuse suppression with regulation, but they are not quite the same:
Regulation: being with our feelings, noticing them, and finding steady ways to respond.
Suppression: pushing feelings down, which often leads to disconnection or collapse
When suppression is praised as “regulation,” it can keep us stuck in protective states rather than helping us move through them.
Why We Don’t Want to Bypass
It can feel natural to want to regulate right away, but sometimes that can cover over what our body is trying to share.
Dysregulation invites us to pause and notice:
🌱 What feels unsafe right now?
🌱 What need is being signaled?
🌱 What am I protecting myself from?
Bypassing can skip over the wisdom of the nervous system. It can also reinforce patterns of suppression, especially for those who have been told their feelings are “too much” or not welcome.
Healing asks us to make space for what we feel, not to get stuck in it, but to honor what is here. Regulation then becomes less about silencing responses and more about creating choice and giving them space to move and complete.
Co-Regulation & Therapy as a Space for Flexibility
Co-regulation happens when another person offers a steady presence, like an anchor in the waves. They do not “regulate us,” but their steadiness can remind our nervous system that safety is possible.
Therapy, or any supportive space where co-regulation is possible, can also become a place to practice autonomic flexibility. This is the ability to notice patterns and gently experiment with shifting between states, such as mobilization or collapse, while staying connected to someone steady. Over time, these small experiments help us resource ourselves and expand our capacity for choice.
In my work, co-regulation often involves creating a space where clients can gently explore their nervous system patterns while feeling anchored in a sense of connection. The experience of being with a steady, trusted other makes it possible to notice survival responses without being overwhelmed by them.
For some, healing can begin here in co-regulation. At the same time, we cannot regulate our way out of systemic oppression. Regulation and relational safety can support healing, but they do not erase the very real conditions that impact our bodies and nervous systems every day, which is why we want to be mindful of how we explore the pathways towards regulation.
Curiosity, Self-Compassion, and Befriending
Trauma often creates ongoing protective responses that keep the nervous system on high alert. This might look like hypervigilance, shutdown, or self-blame. While they can feel exhausting at times, it is important to know that they are not flaws; they are survival strategies.
Compassion is important in this work, but it can feel tender or out of reach at first. Sometimes curiosity is the gentler doorway. Rather than judging what shows up or rushing to change it with grounding strategies, I often encourage simply noticing and acknowledging what is present, getting curious about its function, and making a little more space for it as long as that feels tolerable.
Small shifts also matter here. For some people, it can begin with identifying the nervous system state that is present, even if it occurs later after the moment has passed. From there, it might look like noticing the body-based sensations that go with that state, remembering it has a purpose, and gently asking what it might need. These small ways of beginning create space for change without forcing it, and they honor that everyone’s path will look different.
If dissociation or shutdown has been protective, rushing to “get back in the body” may bypass the wisdom of that protection. Instead, it could be helpful to try to befriend this protective strategy and turn toward the nervous system with curiosity and care before exploring somatic-based practices more deeply.
Regardless of your path, having the space to be allows for integration to occur. It is through small, steady shifts that our bodies, minds, and nervous systems slowly start to learn what feels most supportive for our current season of life.
Closing Thoughts
Through many different methods, our nervous systems and bodies have learned ways to protect us. While some of these protective strategies may not fit the season of life you are in now, that does not mean your nervous system is broken. It is working hard to keep you safe and supported. When dysregulation shows up, it is another way your system is doing its job. This is not failure, but rather protection, information, and sometimes even an invitation for support or connection with yourself or a trusted other.
Support from a trusted other, or in therapy, can be one of the spaces where you begin to explore these patterns. Here, you can experience co-regulation and experiment with small, steady steps toward flexibility. At the same time, healing, safety, and connection are always deeply shaped by the contexts we live in.
Though healing looks different for everyone, it is not about staying regulated all the time. It is about listening, honoring, and slowly building trust with your body’s wisdom, creating space to be with all of it, just as you are, while developing nervous system flexibility. It is about allowing yourself to honor all parts of you, not only the regulated ones, but the dysregulated ones too, because they are all part of your becoming.
Gentle Reminder
This blog is meant to be educational and it is not a replacement for therapy or professional care. If something here stirs big feelings, I encourage you to bring it to a trusted therapist or support in your community. You do not have to sort through it all alone.
