It’s a State, Not a Trait
There's nothing wrong with you.
It is too early on this autumn morning for the sun to be peeping out through the tall trees. I am sitting on the back porch at 5:00 am hiding under the eaves to escape the torrential downpour of rain. Our 3-month-old puppy, Sugar Maple, is nestled on my nap in the warm folds of my fuzzy bathrobe. We are outside to avoid having yet another potty accident indoors. Speaking of which, I’ve never used so much Nature’s Remedy Urine Destroyer in my life. Ugh.
As I sip on my hot coffee, I set my timer and began to meditate. Within minutes, memories from my college career began to bubble up to my awareness.
Early in my college career — I say career because I went to three colleges to complete my degree — I blamed myself for being a failure when I was cut from the drama program. Looking back on it now, I realize I wasn’t a failure. My nervous system and internal system were simply overwhelmed.
The state of our nervous system dramatically influences how we view ourselves and the world. When we are in fight/flight mode, the world can seem hostile, competitive, unfriendly. We become critical and judgmental of ourselves and others. And, often anxious. When we are in shut down/overwhelm, the world seems life threatening. We feel defeated and hopeless, devoid of energy and depressed. When we are in positive connection to ourselves, our environment and others, we feel safe, relaxed, confident, enthusiastic, even joyful.
In my sophomore year, I carried nineteen credits, which was more than a full-time load. I was commuting to the University of Santa Barbara forty-five minutes in each direction, making for early mornings and late nights. The constant demand on my schedule left me exhausted and anxious. So anxious, in fact, I started ‘hearing voices’ and began having panic attacks. I later learned from a therapist the ‘voices’ were a common symptom of severe anxiety. In my forties I learned that these voices were not just racing thoughts, they were actually internal parts of me screaming out for help.
We all have many internal parts. It’s natural. But at the time, I thought I was going crazy and I was too scared to ask for help. I kept pushing myself. Believing if I worked harder I could reach my goals. I kept overriding the cues from my body and nervous system that told me I was exhausted and needed to rest. As far as I was concerned, slowing down or resting were not options.
The acting classes were aimed at ‘breaking us down’ emotionally, to ‘open us up’ to our inner depths so we could become good — even great — actors. The problem was, unbeknownst to me, I had quite a bit of unresolved childhood trauma. Breaking me down is exactly what happened, but not in a positive way. Instead of the rigors of the acting program turning me into a good actor, it began to give me a breakdown.
Today, I see that time period as an uncovering — without processing — of the childhood trauma I didn’t know I had experienced. Additionally, trying to keep up with all the classes along with the accompanying emotional and mental upheaval kept my nervous system working overtime in a constant state of fight/flight/freeze. Hence, the constant anxiety, panic attacks, and migraine headaches. As we say in the South, I was a hot mess!
It’s no surprise that when it came time for me to audition in order to move forward in the theater program, I flubbed my performance and was cut from the program. Cutting students from the program was meant to prepare us for auditions in the ‘real world.’ I get it. But it was actually quite unfair to cut a student before she has even learned her craft.
I experienced so much embarrassment, humiliation and shame I wanted to go into permanent hiding. I saw myself as a BIG FAT FAILURE and concluded I must have terrible character traits. I told myself stories about my flawed character: There’s something wrong with me, I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy, I didn’t work hard enough. I am guessing that many of you reading this blog post can relate to a time in your life when you felt similarly, perhaps even now.
I wanted to drop out of school, move to NYC, share an apartment with my older cousin, and pursue my other dream of dancing professionally. But my father was authoritarian and intimidating. I allowed him to redirect me to a small private college in Menlo Park, California. I am grateful he did so. Once I reached Menlo Park, located on the lush south peninsula of San Francisco Bay Area, my nervous system started to calm down. Unlike the 30,000-student campus of UCSB, Menlo College had only 800 students. The campus was gorgeous and spacious, the classes were small, and the professors actually learned my name and were encouraging and supportive. I joined an aerobics class, started cycling, joined the theater club, and made deep connections with new friends.
Once again, I excelled academically and personally. The anxiety and panic attacks abated. My confidence returned. I felt successful and hopeful about the future. What I didn’t know about myself at the time was that I was an introvert and Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). As such, my nervous system easily overstimulated. Smaller classrooms, a beautiful quiet campus and individual attention contributed greatly to my success.
As I view my college career through the paradigm of the nervous system, I can hardly blame myself for becoming fearful, anxious, and overwhelmed. When viewing college through the paradigm of the Internal Family System model, I see it is not my fault that my young ‘parts’ within had not had the opportunity to heal. Their old coping strategies were inadequate and dysfunctional.
Once I left my family-of-origin and entered the world at large, these strategies no longer worked. This gave rise to the unresolved trauma and shame in my internal system. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t a failure. And neither are you now nor have you ever been a failure.
However, introverts and HSPs are the first in line to judge and criticize ourselves when we perceive we have failed or we didn’t do well in a situation. Because we are more sensitive than 60-80% of the population, we feel things, both somatically and emotionally, with more depth and intensity than the average person. In fact, our brains are constantly processing our surrounding environments in acute depth and detail and on multiple levels. The majority of this processing occurs below the level of consciousness. Naturally, we conclude that if something isn’t working in our lives or environments, it’s our fault. It’s not. Please stop telling yourself this message. It’s not true and it’s not helpful.
When I was meditating this morning, reflecting on my early college days I felt a tremendous amount of self-compassion arise toward my younger aspects of myself. I began to consciously extend this compassion to these parts reassuring them that they did the very best they could. I reminded them that when they were young, there was no one there to help. There was no one there to extend the beautiful qualities of Self to them: compassion, courage, clarity, connection or confidence. But I AM here now with an abundance of those qualities to give to my younger parts. I began to relax and feel a sense of positivity.
I invite you to begin to extend self-compassion and acceptance to yourself. Because, my dears, your sweet, young innocent parts deserve it. They haven’t done anything wrong. It is not their fault if there was no parent to consistently connect with in a safe positive way. Your parts are worthy of your compassion and love. And the more you are able to calm your nervous system and to extend acceptance to yourself rather than self-criticism, judgment, blame, shame and hatred, the more you will begin to thrive and prosper in all areas. Trust me. I know from experience, not only from personal experience but also from helping thousands of clients over the years discover this truth for themselves.
It is not negative traits driving your experiences. It is the state of your nervous system. In other words, it’s not psychological. It’s biological. Your nervous system is doing what it is designed to do by nature. Viewing your world and experiences as driven by your biology takes away the shame and blame. Now, this isn’t to say your past, your thoughts, and unhealed wounds don’t play an important role. They do. But it as an HSP, you need to understand the power of regulating your nervous system. It is 80% more sensitive than the general population. Regulating your nervous system will also provide emotional regulation. This is a process. Each day we are offered a new opportunity to learn about ourselves, to learn self-acceptance and self-compassion.
If you would like to learn more about how to regulate your nervous system, let’s talk.
In the meantime, take care of that good heart of yours.
Xo Martina
