Emotional Regulation from the Outside Versus the Inside
I'm seeing a lot of ads online for vagus nerve stimulators. They all tell me they can calm me down. And of course there are a lot of tv ads for Valium and Xanax, also promising to calm me down. Obviously, a lot of people are searching for a way to calm down.
These things will work to a certain extent. I haven't tried them, but by forcing the body to calm down it can calm down your mind. There are some problems with that though. It's a classic joke that the side effects for drugs and medications are longer than the benefits. That can be an issue.
There's another obvious issue. If when you need to calm down you need to go to something outside of you, the only obvious answer when you need to calm down again is to use again, and again, and again, and when you need to calm down more, you need to use more.
The key then is to choose something that isn't bad if you need to use it again, and if you need to use it more, and if you need to use it long term. Preferably it's something that also works on sorting out some of the deeper issues within us that keep triggering our need to calm down and we become stronger over time.
The nice thing is that we do have that ability. It's built into us. It's our mind-body connection. We already have it. We just have to learn how to use it purposefully. When you do that it's powerful. It changes you. It feels good watching clients discover that in sessions. They are surprised to find their own feelings, what those feelings are, and to see how they process and change with practice.
I'm not saying don't use outside things when you need them. I'm just saying there's something better that you can do too.
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