Imagine this scenario…
You receive exciting news of a promotion at work and are looking forward to sharing the news and excitement with your partner once you get home. You walk in the door so excited to share the news!
But when you see your partner, they are preoccupied and barely greet you. They let you know they can’t talk right now because they have a work deadline. Oh!... and “Can you cook dinner?” — They forgot to pick anything up. Suddenly you find yourself getting heated. You start yelling at your partner. You call them names and end up storming out.
Your relationship with the person you were so excited to share your news with is now in distress.
So, what may have happened here?
Let’s look at emotion dysregulation from the perspective of the nervous system (a.k.a., your body’s command center) and how it influences our social relationships.
The nervous system is constantly scanning the environment for both danger cues and safety cues. It speaks to us before our conscious mind does. As humans, we are hardwired to connect and communicate in order to feel safe. When we receive physiological cues that our relationship is in danger, we shift into an activated state where our capacity to listen or reason is compromised. Nervous system dysregulation can have a huge impact on communication with our partners and is often what leads couples into distressing fights.
In the example above, your partner’s preoccupied response sent your nervous system a danger cue — you perceived a message that you didn’t matter and that you couldn’t rely on your partner. These are terrible ways to feel about an important relationship. So what did you do with this cue? Your nervous system became dysregulated and you lashed out, expressing your hurt through anger, yelling, and leaving.
Sometimes, when dysregulated and out of sync with our partners, a great place to start is by getting in sync with ourselves. We need to move from danger to safety by working to actively regulate our nervous system.
Regulating our nervous system is beneficial for our individual wellbeing, as well as how we communicate, both verbally and nonverbally, with our partners. A regulated nervous system can help facilitate more mature, effective communication. When in a calm, clear, safe state, we can be more open and willing to hear our partner out, take a leap of faith, articulate our experience, speak from the now versus the hurt, and to fight more fairly.
There are multiple ways to regulate your nervous system, many of which stem from mindfulness practices. One fundamental practice is that of breathwork.
Here’s a simple mindful breathing practice to try:
Start with an inhale to a count of 3
Exhale to a count of 5, making your exhale longer than your inhale
Continue this breathing pattern…
Inhale… 1… 2… 3…
Exhale… 1… 2… 3… 4… 5…
After you’ve repeated this pattern a few times, try adding in a grounding component by gazing at your feet and speaking aloud, “I am here, grounded and safe.”
The next time you begin to feel activated, ask yourself, “What is my physiological response right now? Is my nervous system dysregulated and in fight, flight, or freeze mode?” If the answer is yes, it’s time to try a regulation technique like mindful breathing.
Getting curious about your nervous system and befriending it can aid in this process of regulation. Creating rituals to support your nervous system is one way to make this a practice so you can have healthier communication in your relationships.
Check out the following resources for more info on nervous system regulation:
Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory by Deborah Dana
Guided Mindfulness Meditations with Tara Brach
Article by Sarah Imparato, MA, LMFT Associate