Through my Gestalt training I began to understand the concepts of the sympathetic and parasympathetic states of the nervous system. Parasympathetic includes our rest and digest functions, while sympathetic rules our impulses to fight, flight, and freeze. I realized that I have been unknowingly living in a sympathetic state most of my life. Now that I am aware of it, I can’t ignore the signals.
It was 2017 and I was living in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles. I was stressed about my acting career, working too much, and disconnected to nature and authentic humans. My body started degrading . I experienced new levels of anxiety and depression that I tried to fix with workaholism. Ultimately, I slid into the kind of depression that I couldn’t get out of, and realized that something was off. It took a month at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, lots of Gestalt therapy, and consistent rest for me to return to the parasympathetic state. My nervous system regulated and I committed to a more healthy and whole life. I started my journey back to the body.
Why did it take a deep depression for me to recognize that something was off? How did I not see the signs earlier?
With how our culture operates, I thought a lot of my signals were normal. Culture teaches that everything can be fixed with more doses of hard work, denial, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals. Being overworked and exhausted is glamorized and endorsed, so I kept after it.
We aren’t taught to seek our internal agency. From kindergarten we are taught to sit down, stay quiet, and do as we are told. Listen to your parents (no matter how much they’ve been traumatized) and your doctors, because they know more about your body than you do. Your coaches and personal trainers glamorize pushing through fatigue and pain and neglect your body’s need to rest and heal. Your bosses echo your teachers and tell you to sit still, work hard, and do what you’re told. The news and Netflix feature bloodshed, scary viruses, betrayal, and deceit. Everywhere you turn, you find separation.
I’m not advocating for anarchy here, but it’s no secret that there is some kind of malevolent conditioning going on in America that needs change. Some parts of us are so lost in what others say we should be doing, thinking, feeling, that we have no register of our own internal compass.
The practicality of slowing down
Gestalt is an awareness practice. After a session, I always send my clients with a thing to practice in their awareness taken from the content of our session. For example, notice how you are when you spend time alone. How does your body feel? What kind of thoughts do you think? From that simple training you can start to unlearn the perpetual ignorance that we have programmed into our bodies. You awaken to things that simply don’t make sense, but you have accepted as the status quo. There is no magic pill, but subtle shifts of thoughts and feelings help us course correct toward a more relaxed life.
I have not completely conditioned myself out of my addiction to the stress hormones of the sympathetic state, but I am trying. I am constantly checking in on my work levels, and routinely practice parasympathetic activities. This involves slowing way, way down. With all the stimulation in our world - from sugar snacks to TikTok - I have to make a conscious choice to disconnect. I take a walk, a bath, or go to my breath.
The majority of my gestalt sessions start with some sort of breathing and quiet time, we have to slow down first in order to find the internal agency and awareness of our body. I encourage clients to start with expressing just a couple things going on in the body first, because it is usually the last place we look. It only takes a few moments for my clients to go right back up to the racing thoughts in their head. At least we looked first at the signals in our body, and we end up doing so at least three more times before the session is over. Repetition is the key. Again, there is no magic pill. Just like you trained yourself into a sympathetic state, you will need to train yourself out of it through repetition.
Dis-ease is just a body that is not at ease. The dramatic rise of auto immunities, cancer, and heart disease over the past three decades didn’t come out of thin air. We’ve spun out of our bodies, and therefore not able to maintain the homeostasis between sympathetic and parasympathetic that our bodies were designed to balance.
The good news is, no one else can be in your body. No one can steal your focus, attention, and time without your consent. You are in control of that thing beneath your head, and it’s probably calling and asking for some rest. It is probably asking you to slow down.
I am writing this blog on a plane on my way back to California for a wedding. My fiancé, Whitney, jokes about the low level through line of stress that is always present throughout a wedding experience. I intend not to lose myself in it. I will walk the beach the day before. I will be present with who I am talking to. I won’t drink or eat anything that will stress out my nervous system (ok maybe just one piece of cake 😊). I will do my best to stay in line with my internal agency. Sure, I will mess up, but that’s part of the journey back to the body. I will walk slow, making small, steady steps on my journey back to my body’s rite to rest.
oh my god LAHV <3