The light/love/hope thing is spot on. When I was at my greatest level of despair, so many people told me to just have hope, or "there's hope", and while I understand the idea of encouraging someone not to give in to their despair, leaving it at "there's hope" is SO ineffective. You're leaving them with nothing at all! "There's hope" doesn't do anything to proactively solve my problems! It doesn't stop the abuse. It doesn't do anything at all. It was so damaging to me to hear that, because really it felt like they didn't understand at all the magnitude of what I was going through. If someone is trapped in a second floor bedroom and their house is on fire, you don't just shout up to them, "have hope! Have faith!". That doesn't help them at all.
I do believe that when someone has disordered, unhealthy attachment from childhood trauma, then some of the healing must take place in relationship because the trauma is relational. But lots of healing can be done independently, and probably needs to be done independently. Thank you for this video. Lots of good info here.
Dear Irene, your advice about not forcing our breathing was one of the most powerful things to me. If you have a freeze response as a default response, don't force your breathing, it can make you feel even worse and more freezed. 😢
Lately I've been seeing more and more health coaches using the term nervous system regulation when talking about/promoting the modalities they teach, as if every healing modality can offer nervous system regulation. It seems to be a buzz word at the moment. A part of me thinks "is that true, that any healing modality could potentially be regulating for someone?" But then i guess that means any healing modality could potentially be dysregulating for some people too. And the other part of me always remembers what you say about nervous system regulation. Sometimes it feels a bit confusing now that everyone is throwing the term around.
Sheridan Beverley, Jen here from Team Lyon. It can be confusing for sure, and hard to know when someone is truly trauma trained or if they've watched a video or two about trauma. Here's a related video of Irene's in case you want to check it out. What it means to be trauma-informed. Special Topic Lecture with Irene Lyon - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3hhRBaeLn94.html
THANK U IMMENSELY FOR UR CONTENT ❤ These are the pieces of information I needed in this phase of my healing journey. I’m in a marathon of your videos right now, watching them when I’m taking those scary steps into the external world. They are giving me hope and a tool to use to understand myself better and to find harmony again. At 22 I began to experience intense anxiety and panic attacks on the train, on the bus, in the car, at shops, at school and with people. From 22 to 25 I never saw my friends or went to the grocery store. I was a 25 year old adult completely dependent on my parents. No job, no social life, no nature, no money… I’ve been diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder, agoraphobia and so on but my therapists were saying to me the same thing “u have to do the things u are scared of”. But for me it was more complex than that. Learning about the nervous system and the dysfunction it can go through has lead me to understand better what’s going on here. And now I’m starting to take action but in a more conscious way. It’s hard, let’s be honest but there’s hope ❤
Joan, it's uplifting to hear how helpful Irene's resources have been for you as you explore this phase of your healing journey. It sounds like you're pretty familiar with her channel, and I wanted to make sure you were aware of this playlist of success stories as sometimes it's helpful to hear from others that change really is possible. SmartBody SmartMind Success Stories - ru-vid.com/group/PL_tIcR-r0CU7G51ry_oM3bX3jWMqPk--x I also wanted to make sure you were aware that Irene is hosting a Drop In classes tomorrow. The classes are a great way to experience Irene teaching live, be in a field with others on this path, and you also receive a recording you can review at your own pace after the class. The classes are $19 USD. Here's link in case you want to learn more: irenelyon.com/drop-in-class-1
Great I learn new things every video, I have held so much self hatred for my body reactions ( nervous system) and mind all my life. Now is all starts to make sense .
Oh boy i love this work so much 😭🥰😭🥰😭🥰 i ve been told like billions of times just to be grateful n everything will work out and it definitely has not worked out at all 🤣😑🤐😮💨 thank you 💖 so much good info, so much validation and yes, the real solution/proper education around this whole nervous system stuff.. 🙏🙏🙏
I realise I have said some of these things to someone before that are really struggling. Do you have any advice and or tips on how to support someone who struggles with these biological, cellular things you mentioned without feeling like I'm replacing the role of their caregiver they have never had growing up cause it's weighing on me to have to be the regulated one and the one giving regulation all the time.😢I am aware maybe this is something deeper going on in me for tlwhy I start to feel responsible for them and struggling to know what and how to set bounderies in order not to just sound mean or tell them something like "I don't wanna be around you rn" and I'm thinking about going to see a therapist about this. And Thanks for the great video.❤
Thanks for all the good work Irene on regulating the nervous system. However, it is well documented that animals in a species have different cultures when they live in different ecosystems. Look into dolphins for example. Respect for other species goes along with respect for ourselves.
I appreciate Irene's being up front about how long it took her husband to feel safe at a cellular level (seven years). Just wondering if this is typical?
Hello, Sophia from Team Lyon here. There is really no set timeline for a person's healing, as we are all so different and with diverse backgrounds. There is no one size fits all and no "right" amount of time. What you will find is that this work is ongoing, as different layers keep coming up, even for experienced practitioners.
What I understand to be breath work is not what you described. For instance, see Michelle D'Avilla. You mentioned simply taking some deep breaths which I've never found helpful for myself and generally see as more self control than self regulation. But during a time in my life when I went through a lot of trauma re-living, I found Breath work very helpful (because my system was stuck in holding my breath and had a rigid diaphragm. What I understand to be Breath work is to sharply inhale twice, then release, for about an hour. It's very intense and very different than just taking a few breaths. One of my students was elated about this method to process grief trauma. I don't know particular research about this. But working with the breath has so many forms (e.g., see yoga methods). It would be helpful if you could be clear about what you mean when you talk about these concepts.
Hello Irene. I'm little confused right now. When we are triggered and we can't feel that emotion because we don't have the capacity, we can breathe so we can calm down before we react. Isn't that ns regulation? If we dont have the capacity to feel overwelming emotions, what else can we do? 😊
I think she refers to this as a coping mechanism. If you need to do something to cope, you are not regulated. If, you can regulate yourself, by coming down from fight or flight in a healthy amount of time (which we are designed to do as humans), without a coping mechanism, then you are regulated.... I work with the nervous system- I have yet to work on someone who is regulated.
Milica Sinadinovic, Jen here from Team Lyon. It may be helpful to remember that nervous system regulation is a spectrum, it's not a fixed experience. Growing nervous system capacity and regulation involves both growing access to parts of our physiology that may be less familiar (including the ventral vagal and low-tone dorsal vagal nerves) and working with our underlying survival responses. . As we do this, there may be times when we need to shift attention away from our experience and consciously take a breath because we feel overwhelmed, there may be other times when we can focus on something supportive or use some self touch to support a feeling in moving through, and as regulation and capacity continue to grow the feeling may just move through on it's own without a lot of fanfare. Shifting attention when we feel overwhelm and supporting oneself in feeling can both be part of the process of growing regulation and capacity. You asked about what to do when we feeling overwhelmed. I mentioned shifting attention away. I'll link to a few of Irene's resources that can help with this, and also to her 21 Day Nervous System Tune Up course in case you want to check it out. 4 Simple Steps to Calm Overwhelm - irenelyon.com/4-steps-to-calm-overwhelm/ DIY: Ancient Anxiety Medicine - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0ICsbXUCKmM.html 21 Day Nervous System Tune Up - 21daytuneup.com/
Hi Hope, Seth here with Team Lyon. It depends on the counsellor. If they are giving you all the in depth education about your nervous system, and the sessions are effective, and they are also giving you practical tools to work with at home then there may not be too much difference. However, most practitioners don't bother with the education piece at all, or give homework. Also, Irene blends the extremely potent trifecta of Somatic Experiencing, Somatic Practice, and Feldenkrais all together is a way that is VERY hard to find in any practitioners out there, simply because most have not done all that training.
I just bought the 21 day last week... is it too late to do the smart body smart mind? I am also listening to Awaking the the Tiger... it's a lot ...I feel like I need more time.
While breathing in itself doesn't fully "reset" the nervous system...it DOES help the nervous system to activate the parasympathetic aspect and switches off the sympathetic. The less time in sympathetic over-activation, is better. Also, in a moment...it absolutely can help. I've had panicked patients about getting injections, do deep breathing and they absolutely reset the mode. They were able to tolerate & not further perpetuate the fear response correlated to injections. I use breathing and yoga daily for a tool as well. Is it the only thing? No, it's far more extensive from a neuroscience perspective...however, some people may think you don't see too much value in those, as tools, that actually can help support them.
@irene lyon can you please respond to the question about breath work because I have heard you say this before and I trust everything you teach, however what you describe as breath work is NOT what is taught as a healing modality by breathwork practitioners. I do not like breathwork but have done some classes and it is different patterns of intentional breathing to release stuck emotions. And millions of people swear by it.
