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Show Notes

In this episode, I explore one of my favorite nervous system skills: coregulation — how we borrow steadiness, safety, and connection from the world around us. Even though co-regulation is often talked about in the context of other people, in this episode I break down the many ways we can co-regulate with place, nature, movement, breath, and even small moments of beauty we notice in the environment.

I share what co-regulation actually is on a physiological level, why it works, and how we can use it in daily life when we’re overwhelmed, shut down, anxious, or just… spun out. We talk about the myth of “self-regulation,” the relational nature of the nervous system, and why humans aren’t designed to do this alone.

Throughout the walk, I weave in winter sensory cues, orienting practices, a few personal examples, and some gentle reminders that you don’t need to be perfectly calm to co-regulate — you just need one small place to connect.

Timestamps

00:00 — Welcome to the snowy walk & introduction to today’s topic
01:30 — What co-regulation actually is (and what it isn’t)
03:00 — Why humans are built for relational nervous system support
05:00 — The limits of “self-regulation” and why it’s not a realistic expectation
07:00 — Co-regulating with nature: trees, light, color, movement
09:00 — How to feel for external anchors when you’re overwhelmed
11:00 — Positive environmental cues vs. neutral cues — and why both help
13:00 — A small example: letting the crisp winter air shift your state
15:00 — Co-regulation with animals, posture, and shared rhythm
17:00 — How environment changes our physiology without us trying
19:00 — Why you don’t need to feel “good” to co-regulate effectively
21:00 — The power of pacing, breath, and simply being in motion
23:00 — Micro-moments of connection as nervous system medicine
25:00 — How co-regulation builds capacity over time
27:00 — What happens in the brain and body during co-regulation
29:00 — Using co-regulation as a bridge back into your own body
31:00 — Everyday co-regulation practices you can use instantly
33:00 — Closing reflections & a reminder to look for one small point of connection today

Resources Mentioned

Resources Mentioned

• Free Coregulation download 

Submit your questions for the Q&A [here]

Photos and links from this episode: www.mindandmountain.co/podcast 

Transcript:

Sarah 0:01
Hi there. Welcome back to co regulation conversations. I am doing this episode a little bit differently today. I'm in my office with a microphone, and feels a little bit more like a traditional podcast style, because, well, it is just a world of ice out there outside my house right now. In here in Anchorage, we had such a nice start to the winter. This the early part of our winter. We got snow early, and it stuck around and firmed up, and skiing was great and just really beautiful winter conditions, until just recently, when the temperatures warmed up and what could have been snow turned to rain, and It rained on all of our nice snow, and now the roads are ice instead of what they used to be packed snow, and they've melted down in in a lot of places, except for like in the neighborhoods and on the trails, so the walking is tricky getting down and even out to my car is kind of tricky because I like want to slide down the driveway. We really need to put some gravel out, and I haven't yet gotten my micro spikes out for the season. So that's what needs to happen next for me to be able to get back into walking in the ice world. So I thought today, instead of, instead of making that happen, I would just work here from my desk, and that actually gives me the opportunity to use a resource that I have been wanting to bring in for this next piece of the somatic skill series that I started way back in some of the early episodes. I did a couple somatic skills episodes specific to orienting and resourcing. And so today I want to bring the next piece of that in and talk about the somatic skill of CO regulation, which, I mean, we've been talking about that all along. Of course, co regulation is just one of these big themes here and inside of the way I work with nervous systems, inside of my body of work, in general. But you know, we can always go deeper into it, and with all of these practices, there is just always more to be gleaned from spending more time both deepening into the understanding of what co regulation is and then expanding our body's ability to access it. So that's what I have in mind to do today. I'm coming back from a really nice long weekend on the Kenai i which is down where I grew up, about three hour drive from Anchorage here, and we go down there as a family over the Thanksgiving and indigenous people day holiday weekend here. So we did that last week, and it's just a really nice ritual. We have some family friends with a really beautiful house that is on the on the Kenai bluff overlooking the beach and the sound there. It's a beautiful spot, and we're all able to, like, pile into this nice house and share the meals and just you know, we're doing puzzles and playing games, and also have time downtime for naps and reading and playing with my niece and nephew. It's just a really nice time. And the location of it being right there on the beach is just so nice to the the winter beach in Kenai, there's, you know, there was quite a bit of snow before things warmed up. So the the high parts of the beach where the tide doesn't reach were all snowy and and kind of, once it started to warm up, it it was like crusty snow. So kind of like, not ideal snow conditions at all. But the the tide, you know, it comes up and down and so as if you time your beach walk for when the tide is going out, and there's some, there's then some of that sandy beach exposed and kind of amazing in the middle of winter, when we've been like, only walking on like ice and snow now months to be. Able to walk on this beautiful, soft, sandy beach and watch the waves come in and out and the mountains across the inlet and that I've been looking at my whole life, just a really, really special place and time down there. So I was, for sure, co regulating with nature on my weekend beach walks. I mean, you all know how important nature is to my experience of well being in general, it's like one of the things that brings me the greatest joy is spending time outside and the chance to go to a like a new but like a new old place, very familiar place, but when I don't spend a lot of time in these days, it feels like a new environment to be on a beach. Since here in Anchorage, I don't spend a lot of time in that kind of environment. And the I find that like going somewhere, like switching into a new ecosystem or a new environment, really like amplifies my ability to appreciate something because it has this quality of novelty to it, and then because it's like new and different from my day to day, then it's like my those those curiosity, the neurons that are trying to orient, you know, they have to work a little bit more because it's like something they haven't seen regularly in a while. And so that instinct to look around and to take it all in and really appreciate it and connect with the feeling of awe for the natural beauty that's that's available, it's just amplified because of it being new and different, and also knowing that it's a it's a short term thing, and I'm going to go back to the city soon, so that I feel like that all just kind of pumped up the the way I felt like I was able to, like, just really be in the moment and appreciate it and soak it up, and maybe because of that and and also the nice restful time with family and friends, I came back feeling really restored and grounded in a really nice way. So that was a that was a really nice experience. And I had some when I was thinking about talking to you about CO regulation today, specifically, I realized that there from the CO regulation with nature experience that I had in that beautiful, spacious outdoor Beach, space co regulating with the beach and the ocean and the mountains across the way, like really I was feeling into the way that that environment has just so much space inside of it. And I had gone into that weekend feeling pretty heavy, like weighed down by, you know, work's been busy, and the state of the world is really intense and hard to witness and know how to engage with act in you know, know how to engage with productively. Maybe you can relate. And then there's also this, this personal piece, which I'll just you know the I've spoken a bit on this podcast about my fertility journey and the way that like that. Just we put a lot of effort in that direction, and kind of thought that was where our lives were going to go. And then it just hasn't worked out that way for us. And when I am spending a lot of time with my family, and especially with my niece and nephew, who are the, oh my gosh, they're just the the most amazing kids that you can imagine. They're the kind of kids that make you think that, like, you could actually have kids, and it would be like, not A, not a totally like, intense experience all the time. Of course, it does look like a lot of work, but it also is, like, very clear

Sarah 9:51
how beautiful it is to raise these delightful and loving children. So when I spend time with. Them. There's, there's often this, like two part experience happening for me where I'm just like, oh my gosh, I can't get enough of it. And they, I love being around them, and they bring so much joy to my life. And, yeah, yeah. And, and also, there's the part of me that has a bit of heartbreak often when I'm hanging out with with kids and and almost feeling like this weekend, there was almost like, a sense of of what that timeline could have felt like. I, you know, I had this at one point, had this kind of future projection where I thought that I'd be coming to Thanksgiving with, with my kids, and they would get a chance to have spend this like special weekend with, with their cousins, you know, my niece and nephew, and that there would be this way that we were sharing in in this experience, through watching this next generation do it, and it's it's really something to hold, the This, the sadness that comes with that and the there's grief and also love, and I just found that I it needed the support of the spacious beach and ocean and and mountains in that environment to kind of help me be with the the scope, the size of these, these big, big feelings of the sadness that's a part of that, and also the Love and the and the joy.

Sarah 12:00
It's definitely a lot to be human, and in some ways more than our little human bodies are, like, really capable of holding on our own. I mean, I think that's why we feel overwhelmed and taken out by the experience of feeling, feelings and oh my gosh, by the experience the version of the world that we're living through right now too. It's just a lot.

Sarah 12:42
And I, I mean, it circles back to me, to the concept of CO regulation, because it's just, it's just too much. Otherwise it's the there's, there's like, no real way to be with everything that we have to contend with, emotionally or in our modern life, that just there, it's too much to hold alone, that's just like, that's just real. And when we practice when we can, we can. We can, like, let go of the expectation of trying to do it all alone or hold it all ourselves. Then we can open up to the possibility of accessing support and connection and relationship, like different, different ways to recognize and help our bodies feel into how we really aren't alone with everything that we're we have to hold. And you know, I spent time on these beach walks really like feeling into the way that the land was had potential to support me as I was holding all of this over the weekend. And it really helped. I could feel my system kind of attuning to the fact that the ocean has a lot of space to hold and and, you know, water seems to have, like the quality of, for me, at least, of being able to help move feelings through. I was walking with a friend too, which helped a ton. I mean, just I had a lot of good support there to help those experiences be held and metabolized. And I'm really grateful for it, because there was also this really sweet moment when my little niece, who is three, and she was a. And she was pretending to be a cat named Meow, meow. And at one point I was, I was at the end of this book I was reading, so I was on the couch trying to finish this book up, and Meow, meow came over and wanted some attention, and I, I invited her to curl up on my lap, like a cat would while I was reading and and she did, she like, curled up on my on my chest, and we just laid there and cuddled for a while. And this, this really sweet experience of CO regulation with her, but I don't think I would have been able to hold it like I was also feeling the the part of me that grieves not having a child of my own to share those kind of moments with and when, when I was instead, well, not instead, but when I was in that experience of holding her close and and also feeling the complexity for myself in there. The I was like, I need help holding all of this and, and I used some of these co regulation techniques to help my body recognize that it had support in that moment to hold all of this. And you might have heard me talk about how I use, often use back support as a as a co regulator and a resource. But I was so I, like, zoomed out to feel the way that the couch was supporting me, so that then I could it if my actual physical body was supported by the couch and then by the land as well under us. It's like all of that kind of helps the at least in for me, it helps that my body feel like it's it's not just my body, it's like we're all kind of holding this together. And with that, some of the grief felt like it had like room to be alongside this super sweet experience that I was having, and let that sweet, the sweetness of that cuddly niece cat experience like actually into my system so I could receive it a little bit more, rather than it be kind of blocked by The harder emotional experience that I was also having. And yeah, I mean, to me, that's the power of CO regulation. And I really have come to believe that there is no other form of regulation that our nervous system as a social animal is designed to to need support, and not always through the human realm. I mean, co regulating with other humans is is amazing, and one of the greatest options available to us if we have it, and also if we can kind of get get creative in the way we think about CO regulation, and bring in, almost like an animist perspective to it these other forms of support, whether it's the couch or the land or the ocean or your pets. I mean, this is what I want to spend time talking about today. But the if we can realize that our nervous system, this is so I think about this at through almost like an animus lens. But truly, our nervous systems are able to access the sense of support in many different ways. And I mean the ones I'm naming here, some of them might resonate with you, and some of them might just feel like a little bit too much of a stretch. And that's like completely and you, you are always welcome here to, like, take what works for you and leave the rest and inside of your own nervous system. Journey. I'd be just like, inviting you to have this kind of open lens or curiosity about what kinds of support is my body available for noticing, and even right now, we can just take a moment, and I'll just like. Drop that question in, and let's just see right now, if there's support that you are experiencing right now that your body might be able to it with some time, actually recognize that that's actually happening. Because that's the thing with the mind and the body is that the mind might be able to, like, take in this stuff at a pretty fast pace and realize, like, oh yeah, I know you're seated on a chair right now, or I know that you are, like, wearing a comfortable layer, or maybe you're standing and what's supporting you is the ground underneath you, but there's like whatever, the whatever you can find, let's just take a moment to give the body a chance to come into relationship with the support that you're feeling. Mm, slowing things down enough so that you can feel the parts of your body that are in contact with whatever it is that you're noticing.

Sarah 21:25
And it's it's not like telling the body to relax, because it's got that support. But see if you can kind of go from the opposite direction and notice the way there is support there. Notice the places where your body's contacting support.

Sarah 21:53
And then we just see like, see what happens next, see if the body when it comes into awareness of that relationship that it's having. If there's something that shifts

Sarah 22:28
taking note of what that shift might be. Sometimes it's softening of muscles or fascia. Sometimes a deeper breath kind of emerges.

Sarah 22:53
And it might be really subtle, and that's totally fine. It might be really micro. Sometimes, with this work, what we're learning to do is notice the micro, the subtle nuance shifts, and bring awareness to them, so that we don't just rush past them. We actually notice that something something happened there. So little bit of like down regulation, potentially, we want to really catch that when it happens and enjoy it.

Sarah 23:39
Okay, so if you found, through that little exercise, a little bit of an embodied experience of CO regulating with support, then you you got a sense for what I'm talking about here. Because we can co regulate with the chair, you know, with the ground underneath our feet and we, we do want to kind of build the muscle, build the attachment potential for CO regulating with the the animal world and the human world. And every, every where that you have access to co regulation, let's just go with it and and practice that and like the muscles of being able to receive the nourishment from a co regulatory experience. We're we're building the any, any way we access that sort of sense of a little bit of support. So that might even be like a centering question for this practice. Would be anytime you're experiencing stress, activation challenge would be to drop that question in, like, what kind of support do I need right now? Or what's, what's a type of support that I could either bring in or already maybe have access to right now, that I might be missing

Sarah 25:35
because it's it can get sort of discouraging or overwhelming to start to if we think, like, what kind of support do I wish I had? And then it's like, oh, I have a laundry list of all the things that I wish I had. And like, that's actually the problem is, like that I don't have the childcare or the finances or the support by my partner. You know, there's, like, we're often pretty skilled at maybe recognizing the things that are that we don't have. We could call that even, like, the problem aware mentality. And those things are very real, like, let's be honest, like, that's and those that's pointing at some serious systemic conditions in a lot of ways, that that are very real and also deserve our attention for sure, and we're going to be more available, More more skilled at engaging with those bigger systemic problems when our nervous system has some awareness of the of the fact that it's not alone. Right now, there's like one of the most primary like red flags inside of a human nervous system is the feeling of lack of support. I mean, just like, when I'm naming that laundry list of things, doesn't that like already kind of create a little stress response in you just imagining like, all the all those realities of like, ways that that like, we could be better supported. Like, that's a real scary thing on the on, like a subconscious, like limbic system level, feeling like alone and unsupported. So if we are going to be effective engaging with like solving some of these big problems, or like being an effective community member or a family member inside of a reality where there are a lot of like social problems and things that need our attention. The skill here is to like, recognize the ways that we do have levels and layers of support that we might be not our bodies might not yet know how to notice or how to receive or how to how to like actually be supported by them. So it's a practice, right? And and it's a practice of noticing the the ways that there are moments of support or supportive experiences that are available now they might not be like the perfect everything like ideal situation, but anything that is able to like come into our awareness that helps the body recognize that it's not alone And that it has access to support of some kind is going to really help shift that nervous system out of a threat response and into at least a tether to some degree of safe enough type of feeling that helps Open up the brain allow blood flow into that Angular cingulate that connects the back of the brain, the like lizard brain, to the prefrontal cortex, where we can, like, think and strategize and remember things, think bigger picture. And when that, when, when that Angular cingulate has blood flow, and we have a some awareness that we've got some safety available, then we can we've got access to more of our brain, and we can do the like, full adult human thinking that might help us, like, actually get to where we want to go. So. So let's talk about how we can build our CO regulation muscles. For one, it's like super beautiful when we are able to have a co regulation experience with a human that feels safe and nourishing and supportive for our for us, that's like the whole, there's a whole branch of the nervous system that's devoted to that, the ventral vagal branch. It's the branch of the nervous system that innervates the face and the all of those, like facial expressions, I'm touching my face and like making expressions right now, maybe you can sort of hear that in my voice, but these, all of the nerves and the muscles in the face are part of the ventral vagal system, and the front of the choke the throat and the chest where the heart is, that feeling of like warmth and love that You get in your heart, in your chest, when you're experiencing like, connection that feels really good, or when you have a moment of awe, and your like, chest wants to lift and you just want to, like, show someone this beautiful thing that you just saw. Or, like, this happens when you're scrolling too, right? You're like, oh my gosh, somebody else has to see this, and you like, really want to show like, ah, is one of the things that opens up that ventral vagal nervous system, and that branch where that it lights up that frontal part of the body, and it promotes Social Engagement. Sometimes that's called the Social nervous system, super beautiful branch of the nervous system, and you might get a sense, like, sometimes you can get a sense for, like, where you're at in your nervous system, depending on how available you feel for social connection. That's like you're getting when you're reading that it's like often has to do with how online that ventral vagal branch of that nervous system is, and it's one that often isn't very active when we're feeling under threat, though, there is a way that it comes online When we utilize the stress response of the fawn, where we like go toward the threat and use our social nervous system and our ventral vagal system to help the person who is like stressed out or like reading as threatening for our nervous system, help them feel seen and heard, and then maybe they might calm down and be less disruptive and be less of a threat. Like that's that might be like a fawning response of our ventral vagal social nervous system under threat. Generally, when we're experiencing the ventral vagal social nervous system inside of safety and accessing either we're being, like, supported by a friend, validated when somebody is celebrating us, or listening well, attuning in a way that feels well matched, like, oh, that stuff feels so good. And it might just like, warm up that part of your body that's in, in that frontal area your face might want to smile or soften. You know, your eyes get a little like, lots of little things happen in that the area of the body where that ventral vagal system is is working. Maybe you can already kind of get a sense, if you think about having a having a sweet experience with someone that you that you care a lot about, and or, you know, a pet or a place even, and there's just, like a way that the the body is able to, like, kind of like soften. And I feel like there's the way of like imagining kind of like nuzzling in to how yummy that feels when you're having that kind of shared experience with someone that's actually somewhat advanced on the CO regulation continuum.

Sarah 34:23
Because not everyone has access to co regulation with other humans, you know, for various super valid reasons related to our attachment styles, our early attachment wounds, potentially developmental patterns. You know, humans have the potential to be really supportive and and CO regulating for us, and they also have the potential to really hurt us and cause some of our deepest traumas. And. And whether they're life threat traumas or the little T traumas that accumulate over time and cause significant wounds through their persistence and repetition, a lot of that comes to other humans. So it makes sense if we have a an aversion or a distrust of a co regulation experience with other humans that's often part of a healing process is, is helping the nervous system come into, like, right relationship with other humans and figuring out how to co regulate with them well, because, like, not everybody's a good co regulator. Like, there's some people out there that are, like, not very good at this, so we don't want to co regulate with them, or look for CO regulation from them, because we're just going to, like, be really disappointed. It's like, going to a taco stand and ordering lasagna. They're probably not going to do a very good job of it. And so, like, that's not the place to go. Co regulation needs and and there is a way that the skill, part of the skill of CO regulating is learning how to feel, where that's available from, and what, what good co regulation, attunement feels like, and what it doesn't, and recognizing when you're not experiencing it, if it's time to like, let that relationship shift and go in a different direction. So it's not a place that you're looking for CO regulation from, or if there's a relational depth that needs to be added, if there's some communication that needs to happen, or a repair process, or, like, if something needs to happen, so that that, so that there the potential for CO regulation could be improved. You know, there's, there's quite a bit of skillfulness involved there, but on the pathway toward helping our bodies and our nervous systems feel available for CO regulation, there's, there's a lot of steps, sorry, co regulation with other humans I'm talking about here, one of the ways to build toward co regulating with other humans is CO regulating with other beings, pets and, you know, animals really, really good. There's also the this concept of contact, nutrition, this as comes from the body of work of Diane Poole Heller and one of my teachers, Carmen Spagnola. I really want to bring Carmen on the podcast, so hopefully I can get her on and we can have a conversation with you around this, because I've learned a lot about, well, a lot of a lot of what I bring to my work comes from Carmen's work. She taught the group facilitation training that I was a part of last year, and informs all of my group somatic work, and then all of her work around attachment. And somatic somatics of attachment is really, really good. So, so look forward to that. So just really quickly, concept nutrition is the idea that, like as you're building attachment, you do that through nourishing your body with the nutrition. Of there's five forms of contact nutrition, and they are kind eyes, vocal prosody. Vocal prosody is like the warmth in your vocal tone, the like inflection. It's all the different ways we use our voice to signal that we're safe together, safe touch, shared rhythm. I love shared rhythm, because if you are someone who likes to go outside with other people, that's some of what you're doing. There is sharing a rhythm with other humans. And there's something that feels good about that. You might also notice that there's something that feels like not as good about that when you're experiencing a lack of shared rhythm and your pace is different. You know, there's my whole got to do an episode sometime about weakest link syndrome, because that is essentially the experience of feeling like we don't have a shared rhythm, and that's landing as a threat inside of my nervous system. So but the experience of shared rhythm can is one of the forms of contact nutrition, and then ingestion behaviors is the fifth one, and that means like eating and drinking together and spending time. I am over food together, which, you know, we we eat and drink when we're safe, because if we're fleeing or like fighting for our life, our digestive system shuts down a bit, and we don't need to take time to feed ourselves, because we have to survive. So there's this cue to the system when we sit down and eat and drink together, that there's some safety present. So those five forms of contact, nutrition, those anytime we're practicing those experiences, we're building we're nourishing our system. We're building the muscles of secure attachment, and inside of that opens up our ability to co regulate and be in a relationship with another human, wherein we're able to be supported and feel that support as a resource, let it in and let it nourish us, and then also reciprocate, probably, you know, give, give some back when you have capacity to So, so that's the sort of attachment, human to human element of CO regulation, and some of that is accessible through co regulating with pets, because pets also have the potential to give us safe touch and kind eyes and shared rhythm. And I don't know, do we eat and drink together with our pets? Maybe? Do we have vocal prosody with pets? We sure COO at them and maybe they, maybe they make some sounds back cats purr on you. There's some that's like a version of vocal prosody. So for sure, we're getting some of those contact nutrition factors through engaging with our pets. And you know when, when you're hanging out with your pets, you also have all of these aspects of, oh, like shared experiences, and they're the safe touch of them being alongside you and maybe petting their fur feels good, and watching them play delights you and fills you with awe. So those there's a lot of nourishment inside of the relationship that we have with the animals in our lives. I think that's essentially why we have them is because it feels good for our nervous system to spend time with them, and that's happening because we're experiencing co regulation and some settling inside of that. And then there's all of the like, more than human world that is also part of what we have available for CO regulating. And I want to point you to I wrote this all up years ago for an Instagram post, and then we, we kind of added to it and added some resources and included a bunch more in and made it into a PDF resource that's available for free on my website. I'm going to link that in the show notes if you want to, like, read through more of this. But the the way I'm thinking about, like, co regulating with the more than human world and these, all of these other kind of non traditional ways of CO regulating. These are super important and, like, really valid ways of helping your nervous system access this muscle of

Sarah 44:04
CO regulation and of receiving support, like truly, we don't always have access to other humans or other animals. We might be able to, and you might be able to become skilled at bringing in the experience of human or animal support into your nervous system's awareness through what we call the image channel, which basically means through your imagination, like feeling and like seeing that they're here with you, whether or not they like actually are our nervous system. You know, our body doesn't actually really know the difference between a physical reality and an imagined one. So we can access a lot of the same nervous system, shifting impact through bringing these. Co regulating relationships into our awareness, in our imagination. And that's a that's like a one of the practices that we're in inside of my longer term programs is like building the relationship with resources, with CO regulating, with sometimes it's called a competent protector, someone who can look out for you and take care of you at the same time and oh my gosh, does it feel good inside of a nervous system to have a competent protector around. And it does not have to be physical, because we might have that experience sometimes, but we often need to, like, pull it into our awareness through that image channel. For a lot of people, it's an ancestor practice feeling the support and the enthusiasm of the way that our well ancestors can be at our backs while we're doing the hard work of living our human lives right now, so we might be able to access the even the human co regulating potential through the image channel In that kind of esoteric, imaginatory kind of way, and learn to let our bodies experience the resourcing and the nourishment of that experience. That's a really effective tool for a lot of people. It takes some it can take some practice. If this isn't something you're used to doing. If you're like, used to living a little bit more like linearly or like logically, we we might have to do some work to help that part of your brain realize that there is an impact possibility if it opens to that image channel experience. But for the physical, the nervous system, those are very real. So, you know, it's one of the one of the ways I use my competent Protector, who I have a variety of one of them, but one that I lean on a lot is the image of a either a wolf sister, one of just one wolf sister, or a pack of wolf sisters. And often I bring them into my image channel when I like, especially I'm thinking about times when I've been like, out on a ski that felt really like harder than I thought it was going to be, and my I'm getting tired, or my nervous system is getting a little bit overwhelmed, and I can sort of feel like, Oh, I could slide into a nervous system, collapse or freeze right now, but I don't want to do that because we're out skiing, and I want this to be a good day. So sometimes I'll I'll remember to bring in the experience of wolf sister being alongside me, and I'll just like imagine that she's kind of like plodding along beside me while I ski. And that experience of like having some company of this resource and this animal that I trust and is pacing right along with me, right at my pace. It shifts. It shifts something inside of my system and and it can really be helpful in wrecking like, getting that feeling of like, okay, I'm I'm not alone here. I i I can do this. It feels easier now that my system is like oriented to the fact that it's less alone. So, so yeah, so I don't know, is that CO regulating with humans, or is that CO regulating with the imagination? I don't know. Like however you want to think about that. Go for it, but it's one of the ways that can be really, really useful for accessing this CO regulation when we don't have like, the exact human experience available that we need. And then in this PDF document, there's a whole bunch of other like, non traditional co regulation strategies here. Um, co regulation with nature, co regulation with pleasure, co regulating with the Earth, co regulating with touch. You could access that one now we can just play with that for a second, if you want to feel like if, if there's anywhere right now that feels like it could use a little bit of support for your physical body. And just see if there's see what it's like to bring a hand there. And just let that hand be present and accompany the area of the body that's feeling a lot it's feeling tense or just feeling like it could use a little bit of company. We often are accustomed to using our touch to change something about our bodies, to, like, massage a tight area, or, like, make something happen. But it might be supportive. Might be nice to this time, just let your hand be there in a kind of a gentle presence kind of way.

Sarah 50:56
Sometimes I'm at I imagine this as like sitting beside each other on a park bench, just like sitting there and being with rather than trying to change or make anything happen.

Sarah 51:21
And we might just give it some time. You're welcome to hit pause if you want to spend a little longer with this. And you might notice some shifting, maybe a little bit of softening under your hand or an opening. Maybe it wants a little bit more time to land. You know, I've been in practice of this a long time, and so these shifts often happen fairly quickly for me, and it's it's a little hard to tell for me if it's like that the shifts are happening quicker as I've practiced, or if it I have become more skilled at noticing the subtle shifts and catching those it's probably both to some extent. But you know, those are, those are always things that we're we're working on strengthening the noticing of the subtle and the body's ability to receive

Sarah 52:28
and then taking note, and especially being in the pleasure of anything pleasant that's happening track that pleasure pathway.

Sarah 52:46
And, yeah, stay with that for as long as you want little bit of CO regulation with touch. That's a really nice one, and is always available. There's a couple more in this document, the CO regulating with a friend or a loved one and CO regulating with your inner child, which is a really good one for when we have like, young parts of self, young nervous system responses that can be hard to move Through if the we're not able to like, help that young part of self feel like it's not alone and it's got an adult around to help it be heard by taken care of, listened to, and like, realize that it doesn't have to be in charge anymore. That's That one's like a little mix of somatics and parts work. And yeah, a really, really nice one, especially if you've already started down the road of inner child healing or internal family systems work. We are when we're tending to our parts, we are practicing internal co regulation with the different nervous system impulses that our system has. So you know, if you start to think relationally about all of this, this is where I come around to the fact that, like everything, all regulation is CO regulation, because we're either co regulating with our internal eternal parts, or we're co regulating with our external reality and working our attachment system, or we're co regulating with these other experiences that our body's having in Nature or in our life, whether it's a chair or of tree, and like this existential question that the body is always asking is like, Am I safe? Am I alone? Do I have support these like we're when we're tending to our body in whatever way we're. Attending, it's, it's by adding different types of support in and then helping the body notice that and and become aware of the support that's available. And you know, it's often a little imperfect, because very rarely do we have these experiences of like every type of support that we need? But the skill here is to catch the ways that we are supported and help the system notice that and be resourced by it, be nourished by it, open up a different nervous system state, and from there, you get to decide about, like, how we engage with the situation at hand, or these, like, bigger social problems that we might want to be a part of making a difference with. Okay, so that is the somatic skill of CO regulating. It fits, for me, it fits inside of the orcas framework. So you might want to go back to that orcas episode. Or I have a webinar that I did on the orcas model, orienting, resourcing, co regulating, activation and settling. So far, I've done full episodes on those first three, and I'll do another one on the next two in the near future. And then we'll just keep building out this somatic skills series, because there's, of course, more, but those, for those orcas ones, are the foundational ones that I am in practice of myself all the time, kind of always tending to these five, especially the those first three, of orienting, resourcing and CO regulating, kind of all the time throughout the day, having this question of, like, what more support do I need? Do I need to, like, spend some time noticing the support that's here, and as you do that and spend time in the practice of it, your life will change. So enjoy. Thanks for being here. Let me know if you have any ahas or things you want to share about what you noticed while we played with CO regulating today, I always love to hear the comments on Spotify are super fun place for me to get feedback for from this. If you're on Spotify or send me a DM on Instagram too. I always love to hear from you, and I am still collecting questions for Q and A's in these episodes. So don't forget, drop your questions in our question box that's also in the show notes. I love hearing from you, so send any questions over. Maybe I'll do a full Q and A episode one of these times. Okay, thank you so much for being here. Happy co regulating, and I'll see you next time.

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