What I would offer someone navigating a dysregulated body
So if the system was never set up to support your capacity, and exhaustion isn’t the sign of a moral failing but an inherent capacity mismatch, what do we do?
The first time I heard this, I dove headfirst into fixing mode. I was determined to do everything “right” in order to grow my capacity, get a bigger cup, and then be able to do everything else right. Remember how I said how you do one thing is how you do everything? Yeah, that…
It’s laughable now, but from where I was at (with the starting point of already having reduced capacity from living in a high needs body) it was the only thing that made sense because it was all I knew. My entire life had been consumed by fixing, editing, and controlling. It’s like the saying when the only tool you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. That’s how I felt. I didn’t know how else to tackle what I felt was a problem.
The thing is I didn’t need more tools. I needed a way to be able to stay with myself under pressure. At the first sign of push back I collapsed, which led to me blaming myself. I didn’t have the capacity I needed to put all of those tools to work. The way of doing things wasn’t working because I didn’t have the frame to support it.
I could not positive mindset my way into being able to hold what was being asked of me, nor would any treatment plan provide sustainable change if I didn’t have the vessel needed to hold it without spilling over. A body cannot will itself into transformation; it has to be resourced into it.
When I think back to the girl I was then, at the very beginning of this journey all those years ago, the first thing I would tell her is you are not a problem to be solved.
She wouldn’t have believed me, but once I internalized those words the game changed. If it’s not a problem, I don’t have to fix it. If it’s not a problem, maybe it gets to be a signal. Maybe it gets to be an invitation into something else. Maybe it’s story, and communication. Maybe it’s a relationship.
I would remind that girl, and you if you’re resonating with this, that you’re a human, not a machine. And I know we live in a society where productivity and hustle is praised, and everything is reduced into being as efficient as possible but you were not designed to work that way.
And if you’re not taking care of the whole person of you first, your cup will always end up leaking. You can have all the tools in the world, and if you aren’t embodying them they mean nothing.
Taking capacity into consideration changes the name of the game. It’s not about not having the tools, it’s about not being able to use them. So where does that leave us, if it’s not about knowing more or becoming better or gripping our way into healing?
The answer is surprisingly simple, and also the hardest thing to do.
If capacity is the foundation, the answer isn’t found in forcing yourself into shapes before you can hold them. It’s in building the conditions that allow the holding of that shape to become possible.
