If you have a history of trauma your thinking brain may automatically think “there’s something wrong with me”, rather than “there’s something wrong with this situation”, when you face stressors today.
When the thinking brain’s belief is “you need to do or be more to be complete” you may frequently find your arousal limits go to the point of overwhelm and exhaustion.
It’s sometimes necessary to push yourself outside your comfort zone to grow, or to work through challenges. This can build resilience and improve the function of the vagus nerve if there’s time to recover fully from the activation and complete the stress response.
But if you have a history of trauma and you’re frequently in survival mode and ignoring your limits, allostatic load can build. This is the wear and tear that accumulates in the mind-body system.
Autonomic awareness gives you the ability to see things as they really are, rather than internalising you’re falling short and should be doing more.
This stops you swinging between the highs of anxiety and overdoing and the lows of shame and not enough-ness.
You can learn to work on an even keel. You learn to see that your responsibility is only to see the current situation as it is and to work with it to the best of your ability.
The more clarity you have about the reality of a situation and the reality of your neurobiological limits, the less you’ll buy into the belief that there’s something wrong with you. You can work with your nervous system rather than being driven by the fear and shame that can drive overdoing and burnout.
You can learn to see reality just as it is.
Learn more about recovering from trauma in the Vagus Nerve Masterclass.