How To Regulate Your Nervous System; A Starting Point

A disregulated nervous system is not just a feeling. It is a combination of brain and body processes working together to communicate one message: “I am not safe.”

A stress state is typically made up of four interconnected parts:

• Thoughts: The words running in your mind, often focused on urgency, pressure, or problem-solving.“I’m behind.” “I need to fix this.” "What's next?" “Something’s wrong.”

• Breath: Shallow, held, or inconsistent. Often barely noticeable until you look for it.

• Emotions: Anxiety, irritability, pressure, or a sense of shutdown.

• Posture: Another word for somatics. The body braces, the jaw tightens, shoulders lift, the stomach contracts, and your attention pulls forward.

  
  

These don’t happen separately. They reinforce each other, creating a loop that keeps your system in a state of activation. Regulating your nervous system is not about forcing that loop to stop. It is about becoming aware of it and interrupting it—just enough to let your system know it can rest.

Lilypadding: A Way To Stepping Out of Autopilot

When you’re in the current of your life, your awareness is focused on navigating what’s in front of you. You take in the present, pull from the past, and combine them to decide what to do next. It’s a state of going and doing. It’s easy to live there for so long that you lose track of how you actually feel. “I’ve been in go-mode for so long, I don’t actually know how I am.”

We tend to believe we are either moving forward or completely shut down. Swimming in the river or collapsed on the bank. And somewhere along the way, we absorb the idea that if we just keep doing the right things, pushing a little harder, staying in motion, everything will eventually feel better. Which, in reality, keeps the system running.

Lilypadding is a three-step practice that pulls you out of that current. A Lilypad is a moment outside of momentum where you shift from navigating your life to noticing yourself. Not just what you’re thinking, but what your body is doing, what your breath is doing, and what emotional tone is present underneath it all. It’s not just analytical. It’s experiential, informal, and once you get the feel for it, takes very little time and feels good.

How to Lilypad

This is a simple way to interrupt a stress pattern in real time. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and it doesn’t have to be linear.

1. Verbal Cue: Start by saying the word “okay” out loud. Not in your head, out loud, into the space around you. It's not a magic word, in fact you can use any word you'd like, but saying it out loud brings your thoughts from forward thinking back into the present moment and ecosystem. Let yourself hear it land in the room. This isn’t about convincing yourself of anything. It’s about interrupting the mental loop and re-orienting to where you actually are.

   
   

2. Visualization/Mantra Cue: Now bring in a phrase or image that actually feels believable to you. Not something overly positive. Something that lands.“It’s okay to fail or do something poorly.” “I don’t have to try 100% all of the time.” Or even something visual, like a memory or image that represents safety or zero urgency. Let it replace the tone of urgency, even slightly.

   
   

3. Somatic Cue: Now notice where your body is gripping. Jaw, shoulders, chest, stomach. Pick one place and put your hand on it, informally. Invite it to relax even a small amount. Your jaw doeesn't need to be ready to speak, your shoulders dont need to be ready to move, your stomach doesn't need to stay clenched.

   Let them soften. You’re not trying to fully relax. Just interrupt the pattern.

   
   

   Regulation is not one big moment where everything resets. It’s small interruptions like this, repeated over time, that allow your system to recognize that it does not need to stay in a constant state of activation. And over time, that message begins to change.

   
   

   Understanding the depth behind each part of a stress state is something explored more fully in somatic psychotherapy, where we deepen our connection to each layer – thoughts, breath, emotion, and body – and begin to understand not just what is happening, but why.

   
   

   And from that understanding, change becomes possible.

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