On The Limits of “Regulation": Shifting From Coping Skills to Somatic Transformation
There is so much conversation these days about nervous system “regulation.”
Regulate before you communicate. Regulate before you create.
Regulate so you can stay calm, grounded, productive, focused.
And while the intention is beautiful, it’s clear that “regulation” has become synonymous with being calm, being composed, being okay.
But as a somatic practitioner, both in my own practice and in my work with clients, I understand something that mainstream wellness culture does not:
“Regulation" is not actually about being calm all the time.
And being calm all the time is definitely not the goal of somatic healing.
What folks call “regulation” I prefer to hold as the practice of “attunement” and it is the practice of coming back into connection with yourself and with the present moment, whatever that may contain.
Sometimes that connection feels calm. Sometimes it feels fiery. Sometimes it feels tender, shaky, or raw.
Regulation is not about always feeling “good.” It’s about feeling. Period. And about staying with yourself, with what is, while you do.
The Limit of Coping Skills
Mainstream wellness culture teaches us that if we’re dysregulated we “just need better tools” :
breathing techniques
grounding
cold plunging
meditation
journaling
vagus nerve hacks
Tools can definitely help, but they can also become yet another way of trying to control or avoid what we don’t want to feel. What we think of as “tools” or coping skills can stabilize you in a moment. And sometimes that’s what is needed.
But the cookie cutter tools we often hear about don’t necessarily transform the deeper nervous system patterns living underneath.
I’ve worked with so many people who know the tools to “regulate" in the moment, yet still find themselves:
looping the same emotional cycles
returning to the same freeze or shutdown
overwhelmed by the same triggers
stuck in the same relational patterns
unable to create the change they intellectually understand
Why? Because coping skills can help you manage the state you’re in.
Somatic work, on the other hand, changes the baseline your system returns to.
Why Insight Alone Might Not Shift Somatic Patterning
You can be extremely self-aware and still feel stuck in the same patterns.
You can understand your trauma and still feel triggered.
You can analyze your behavior endlessly and still repeat it.
The limitation with insight alone is that our rational minds only have so much access to the parts of our brain/nervous system where survival patterns live.
“Knowing better” doesn’t necessarily equal “feeling differently.”
“Being aware” doesn’t necessarily equal “having capacity.”
This isn’t personal failure, it’s physiology. True change happens when your body has a new felt experience of safety, connection, and choice... not just when your mind has a new insight.
What Somatic Transformation Actually Means
Coping skills and somatic transformation are not the same thing.
Somatic transformation is the gradual, relational process of truly healing your nervous system so that you can reliably act from your values rather than your conditioning.
What if “regulation” isn’t the practice? What if relationship is.
We don’t do somatic work to be calm all the time. We practice so we can deepen our capacity to be in conscious relationship with what is actually here and alive (in ourselves and in others.)
We don’t do it to never get triggered. We do it so we can meet our triggers with more choice and less reactivity.
With lasting somatic transformation at heart, I’m offering a 3-month program called Somatic Restoration: 12 one-on-one sessions for anyone craving a different kind of support than traditional coping skills or insight/mindset shifts alone can offer.
This work helps you unwind long-held nervous system patterns, strengthen your felt sense of safety and ease, and expand your capacity to meet life with presence, care, and aliveness.
This program is 3 months because this work is slow and relational by design. Most nervous system change happens over time, through consistent practice, at a pace that your system can sustainably meet.
If you’re feeling the pull toward this kind of work, then book a Discovery Call here