How To Do The Work: Recognise Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self

In addition to all the health issues associated with this chronic stress state, people who struggle with an overactive sympathetic response system (what is known as poor vagal tone) report hosts of troubling issues. Some of the most common emotional and relational patterns include:

People pleasing. Once you meet the demand, the stress is (temporarily) gone. Anger or rage. If you can discharge the emotion onto someone else, you’ve released it.

DO THE WORK: ASSESS YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM DYSREGULATION

DO THE WORK: IDENTIFY YOUR CHILDHOOD WOUNDS

SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

This loss of Self can manifest in a number of ways in adulthood, and I’ve seen it play out most often as either severe indecisiveness and procrastination or as an obsessive need to succeed.

Having a Parent Who Cannot Regulate Their Emotions

Having a Parent Who Does Not Model Boundaries

THE ARCHETYPES OF CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

Coping with Our Traumas