Regulators

I believe the single biggest impediment to my success has been failure to regulate my nervous system. The most defining feature of my entire being is the way in which I chemically respond to my environment.

For a long time I thought my problems were lack of confidence, social anxiety, an inability to speak up, an aversion to risk. But let’s face it all of these are simply fear by another name. It all comes down to fear. The only thing that changes is the context.

A healthy animal recognises when danger presents itself and reacts in a way that removes the danger, either by eradicating it (fight) or by taking themselves away from it (flight).

An unhealthy animal repeatedly imagines danger and experiences a detrimental chemical response to the imagined danger. Since the danger is purely imagined and therefore no fight of flight is required, any fight or flight response is unhelpful and merely makes the animal fearful.

I believe that I have lived most of my life in a state of fight/flight/freeze. Simply recognising this has been somewhat liberating. Learning to control my nervous system, my chemical responses has been further liberating. I can see it now as clear as day; not wanting to be picked out in class to answer a question – see the chemical response as I blush furiously, desperately trying to go about life without being noticed, the rigid awkwardness in work meetings, the excruciating social ineptitude, the refusal to participate, the solemness. I experience a kind of physical and mental rigor mortis in most social settings.

Every failure, every missed opportunity can be linked back to an overly alert nervous system. Every risk I’ve avoided, every fear I’ve conceded to. My system sees threats everywhere.

My failures are many

I ended University scraping a very poor third-class degree. I missed a lot of lectures and even more of the interactive workshop type lessons. I didn’t mind lectures as I could hide away at the back of the lecture theatre, but the workshops required active participation and group working and caused me dread. The more workshops I missed the more conspicuous my presence when I did attend hence the more workshops I missed.

I truly despise any kind of networking. Towards the end of my time at university companies would come to the college to recruit graduates as part of the so called ‘milk round’. Blushing, sweating, somehow both stuttering and being mute, a blank, catatonic expression on my face (I imagine), my performance at these events was truly woeful. Of course, I never got hired.

Friendships – I have very few, boarding dangerously close to having no friends. The friends I do have tend to be the husbands of my wife’s friends. According to my daughter who likes to mock me for my lack of friends, these don’t count as real friends. She’s probably right.

Promotions – I’ve had one promotion in my entire life. I never put myself forward for promotion hence I never get promoted. I live in some ridiculous Peter principle vortex where I believe that literally any promotion will elevate me to a position where I am incompetent. 

Public speaking – the thought of public speaking brings me out in sweats and hives such that I appear ill. Such that I am ill. If I ever became a successful public speaker, I would consider that the ultimate success for me.

Writing – I always wanted to be a writer, but I am the GOAT of procrastination. I cannot be defeated when it comes to procrastination. Certainly not today and probably not tomorrow.

Fitness - I used to thoroughly enjoy attending martial arts classes. But as the class would approach, I would develop anxiety, and I’d go back and forth in my head arguing for and against attending the session. The back and forth would only exacerbate my anxiety and I would usually end up not going. The best way I found to alleviate the anxiety was to build up some momentum by attending classes regularly, back-to-back. This would quiet my anxiety and quiet my protesting inner-voice. However it would only take one missed class for the haranguing self-talk to start up again.

Speaking Foreign Languages – I have learnt several foreign languages in my life but have never been prepared to actually speak them and hence my progress has always been limited. I’m happy to read the foreign language and to learn the grammar but to actually speak it, no, non, nein.

Even to this day I often delay certain interactions (normally work meetings) until as late as possible because my system is triggered by the thought of them. Manana is always my favourite day for meetings. I should say to I have made significant progress with my confidence in meetings such that I sometimes enjoy them, hell sometimes I see them as an opportunity to express myself.

It’s hard to do well in life when you prefer not to participate, when you hold back, when you delay. It’s hard to win the game when you are not prepared to play. It’s like a kid heading off home in a sulk with his ball tucked under his arm whilst everyone else carries on playing with another ball.

How I am gaining mastery of my nervous system

We don’t need to see danger everywhere. We need to be open enough and trusting enough of ourselves to recognise and respond appropriately to danger when it appears. Most days I practice layers of sound meditation, where one focusses on sounds, first distant, then nearby, then internal. What often happens is that I try to hear sounds. Sometimes I will say to myself oh I usually hear birdsong, can I hear birdsong. Oh I usually hear aeroplane noise, can I hear aeroplane noise. Other times I am so open and relaxed that the sounds come to me. When the sounds come to me I am not selecting certain sounds to hear and therefore excluding other sounds. I am hearing all sounds. It's that relaxed, openness that I believe is the optimum state for me.

It's the difference between planning what you are going to say on the one hand and trusting yourself enough to speak eloquently on the other. There’s a level of confidence where you are perfectly comfortable being wrong or misspeaking and you effortlessly style it out. 

Have you ever had that feeling that you’re trying so hard to be alert that you miss things, and you wonder how you could have missed them because you were trying so damned hard. The solution is not to try harder but to try less hard, to relax. But you must prime yourself to exist in a state of alert relaxation. My morning routine primes me. Meditation, giving gratitude, manifestation techniques, breathing exercises, walks in nature. Healthy eating and drinking, moderate exercise.

I haven’t experienced any great external success since adopting these routines and this lifestyle except that I’m no longer fearful and I’m no longer resentful. I speak up in group settings. I push back, I set boundaries. I can picture myself as successful and not feel embarrassed. I can picture myself giving a well-received public speech. Those people that wronged me in the past and the hurtful comments I endured, no longer hurt me. Previously I wanted the hurt. Now I can barely remember them. I don’t try to remember them, but if I was to try I would find it hard to piece together those images in my mind. They are like a dream I know I had but can no longer remember. If I do remember a painful experience, I don’t feel that spiky chemical response, there is no tightening, no hatred, no fear. There is calmness and peace, a smile, a nod of remembering.

My procrastination is disappearing. It sounds odd that something which is characterised by nothingness can disappear but it’s true that I can’t find it. My procrastination is alleviated not by discipline or willpower or giving myself pep talks, but by having a healthy nervous system. My system needs to be in a calm/alert state for me to do deep work. Not a jittery anxious state.

I’m different now. I can feel it in my walk, in my gait, in the ease across my shoulders. I can see it in the way that people look at me and respond to me. Most beautiful of all I can see it in the way I respond to myself. My self-talk is effortlessly positive and uplifting. Previously I would tell myself to talk positively to myself, but after a very short while I would forget. It’s like the Headmaster telling the bully to behave, but before long he is bullying again. Mindfulness practices make my positive self-talk natural and effortless, the way my negative self-talk used to be.

If no further external benefits come my way that’s ok, because in the words of James Brown, I Feel Good.

When my nervous system was running in an anxious state, I previously felt the need to dampen it with drink and drugs. But of course the drink and the drugs only exacerbated my problems. Hangovers are a personal nihilism. That feeling of being lost and disconnected.

It has taken a lot of work to regulate the function of my nervous system. It continues to take work. My old fix of drink and drugs is much more immediate. But this other way, daily mindfulness practice, is more elegant and more effective.