Why I'm Rethinking "Nervous System Regulation"

There's a phrase I've been using less and less lately: nervous system regulation.

It’s not that I've lost faith in the work itself - the practices, the healing, the deep somatic shifts that happen when we learn to be with our bodies in new ways. The results of what is commonly called “nervous system regulation” still deeply matter to me.

What's feeling increasingly off is seeing "regulation" as something we “do” instead of “experience” with certain supportive causes and conditions.

Think about what regulation actually means. To regulate something is to control it, to maintain it within certain parameters, to keep it steady and predictable. We regulate thermostats. We regulate machinery. We regulate systems that need to be kept within acceptable ranges to function properly.

But we're not machines. We're living, breathing beings with rhythms that ebb and flow, with responses that are meant to be dynamic, with bodies designed to move through states rather than maintain them.

It’s hard to shift words that are so ingrained in the healing world because so many people know what they mean, but here's the thing about language: words aren't just neutral containers for ideas. They shape how we think, how we feel, and ultimately, how we approach healing. The words we choose carry subtle assumptions that seep into our nervous systems, into our expectations of ourselves and others. When we keep using language borrowed from engineering and control systems to describe something as alive and relational as human healing, we're already starting from a framework that doesn't quite fit.

So I think it’s time for new words.

In my programs and with clients I’ve started using the term “nervous system support”.

Most often, support is something we reach for outside ourselves: a hand to hold, a wall to lean against, a friend who sits with us in the hard moments. It implies relationship, connection, something or someone beyond just our individual efforts.

And that distinction matters deeply, because here's what I keep coming back to: self-regulation doesn't actually exist.

I know that might sound provocative, particularly in our individualist culture that says we should be able to handle everything on our own, but stay with me.

Self regulation doesn’t exist.

Nervous systems don't develop in isolation.

From our very first days, the steadiness or soothing we experience happens because someone (usually a primary caregiver) attunes to us. They meet our cries, match our rhythms, mirror what they see in us. Our nervous systems sync with theirs. It's in that back-and-forth, that somatic call and response, that our capacity for presence begins to grow.

As we move through life, yes, we become more independent. We learn to navigate more on our own. But we never stop needing external support - we just learn to reach for it in different ways. A conversation with a friend. The feeling of bare feet on earth. The steadiness of a tree we rest against. The presence of a therapist or bodyworker who knows how to be with us. Even the rhythm of our breath connecting us to the air around us.

This is why nervous system practices can feel genuinely helpful in the moment (which is wonderful), but for sustainable healing, we need something outside of ourselves. We need relationship. We need resonance with another being - human, animal, or the living world itself.

What our bodies are really asking for isn't ‘regulation’. It's support. Reflection. The felt sense of not being alone in it - our struggles and our successes and everything in between.

What About Co-Regulation?

You might be thinking: "Okay, but what about co-regulation? Isn't that the relational answer?"

I've used that term thousands of times. I love being present with my clients and offering my steadiness to lean on through the challenges they're navigating.

And yet... in the same way that "nervous system regulation" feels off, "co-regulation" does too.

Because regulation (even when it's "co") still implies management. Containment. Making something more palatable. It still suggests that something needs to be fixed or changed or made orderly.

And that's not what I'm doing with the people I support. We're not trying to "manage" their symptoms or experience. We're not trying to "contain" their trauma or emotions. We're not trying to fix anything, because nothing is broken.

What we are doing is offering presence. We’re tending. Creating permission for whatever wants to move or be felt. Allowing the fullness of their experience without rushing to change it. Tending to what emerges. Being with them in the messiness and the beauty and the uncertainty of it all.

Perhaps I'd shift to call it something like co-resonating. Co-tending? Co-creating? Witnessing together.

And outside of a therapeutic context which is necessarily a little more one-way, perhaps I'd call it offering and receiving mutual support. Community care. Holding each other. 

Words that honor our moment-to-moment experiences and our human relationship with each other and with life itself as alive and dynamic, not something to "regulate" and control, but something to move with. Dancing with our eyes closed as we feel the music, instead of following an instructor up the front who's showing us specific, regimented steps.

What I'm reaching for is this: relational nervous system support isn't about managing each other. It's about being present with each other. Attuning. Resonating. Witnessing what's actually here.

I know this can feel harder at first than the idea of "regulation." Regulation offers us something concrete: a goal, a sense of control, predictability. It gives us a sense of belonging within certain circles because we share a similar language and orientation. When we let go of that framework, we're moving into something more fluid, more uncertain. And uncertainty can be uncomfortable, especially if we've been taught that our worth lies in our ability to manage and control our inner experiences.

But here's what I've found: when we stop trying to ‘regulate’ and instead learn to ‘be with’, something shifts. There's more room for what's actually real. More space for our full humanity - the parts that are messy and wild and don't fit neatly into acceptable ranges.

And this is important, because one of the biggest misconceptions about nervous system work is that the goal is to be calm all the time.

This is definitely not about being calm all the time

The goal is not calmness - that's never been the point.

What we're really talking about is capacity - the ability to be with the full spectrum of being human. The rage and the tenderness. The fear and the ecstasy. The boredom and the grief and the joy that makes it impossible to sit still. All ten thousand sorrows and all ten thousand joys.

When our nervous systems have real support (through attunement, through relationship, through connection with each other, with our pets, with the land we live on, with the more-than-human world) our capacity naturally expands. We become more able to feel it all, to move with it, to let it express through us without shutting down or fragmenting.

Nervous system support isn't about shrinking what we feel. It's about expanding our ability to live it fully, as the dynamic, whole beings we are, with what I like to call… range. Here… we have choice.

So what comes next?

I'm not here to hand you one perfect replacement word. I don't think there is one. And honestly, I'm not even sure we need one.

What I'm more interested in is opening up the conversation. Inviting us all - practitioners and people in their own healing journeys alike - to get curious about the language we use and what it's actually pointing toward.

What if instead of regulation, we talked more about:

• Tending

• Resonating

• Soothing

• Supporting

• Liberating

• Witnessing

• Flowing

• Expressing

• Expanding

None of these is the word. What matters more is that our language creates space for imagination, for relationship, for the messy, beautiful reality of being alive right now.

And look, I still use the word regulation sometimes. It's in my website copy, on my social media, occasionally in my speaking. Partly because it's what people are searching for and learning about. Partly because old language takes time to shift. Partly because we’re so beautifully full over here focusing on presence with clients instead of updating web copy.

What I'm trying to do is build a bridge. To honor the beauty and power of the practices so many of us have learned under the banner of "regulation," while also beginning to expand what's possible. To move toward something more precise. More honoring. More true.

I don't have all the answers. But I'm here for the questions. And I'm deeply curious about what wants to emerge when we let our language grow a little more connected to the relational truth of how healing actually happens.

What language feels alive in your body when you think about nervous system support? I'd love to hear what resonates with you.