Last week, we left off talking about our thermostat setting for how good we can stand it.

When life gets better than our setting, we tend to unconsciously do something to bring ourselves back to a setting that’s familiar.

Remember the story of me praying on the bathroom floor for my critical thoughts to stop torturing me during my dreamy vacation with my husband? (If you missed it, the full Dispatch from last week is included at the bottom of this email.)

Before I get into how to change your thermostat setting so you can actually receive and enjoy your desires when they show up, I want to shout out Gay Hendricks for his book The Big Leap that helped me understand this thermostat concept a couple of decades ago.

(Gay and I have become Instagram friends and this fact makes me so happy!)

When I started studying the nervous system, I was able to add the next layer of understanding about how to reset your thermostat and make your up leveling permanent (instead of whip lashing from expansion to collapse and back.)

For this week’s installment I’m here to tell you how to change your thermostat setting – ready?

So you find yourself in resistance. It might show up as picking a fight, procrastinating on something important to your goal, going into collapse, being super distracted, numbing behavior, or, if you’re me, torturing yourself with fearful thoughts about your marriage 🤷‍♀️.

The first step is to realize that you have a choice about your behavior.

Dr. Britt Frank says that the purpose of regulating our nervous systems isn’t to be calm. It’s to be at choice.

What does that mean?

Having enough capacity to get some space between you and whatever is going on and choose a response from your wisest, most whole, most loving self.

Sometimes we don’t have the capacity to be at choice and that’s how we know we’re dysregulated.

The great news is, nervous system regulation is a panacea (aka a cure all.)

And it’s the very thing that helps you change your thermostat setting for good in your life.

When you find yourself at the edge of your level of comfort (ie, just about to or experiencing something you desire that you’ve never experienced before) simply acknowledge that this is a moment to build capacity.

And then do something to signal safety to your nervous system.

Your nervous system is the part of you that’s in charge of the thermostat.

When something happens in your life that puts you above your thermostat setting (like a luxurious, relaxing, loving week away with your incredible husband that’s beyond anything you’ve gotten to have before) your nervous system interprets it as unsafe because it’s unfamiliar.

So that’s the moment to practice a regulating tool.

I have a few favorites and they include stopping and noticing how gravity feels on my body, shaking my whole body vigorously for a few minutes, and/or breathing into my lower, back ribs.

(Sometimes you need to upregulate and sometimes you need to downregulate. Not all tools will work for everyone all the time. The nervous system is complex and beautiful and that’s why I teach about it in my programs and have a resident nervous system healer as part of our company to support our students in this area.)

The basic concept is that your nervous system is in charge of your thermostat and the more you learn to regulate your nervous system (or expand your Range of Resonance, as Tele Darden says) the more you’ll be able to increase your thermostat setting for feeling good and having good in your life.

Next time you find yourself being super negative, contracting in a big way, numbing, feeling super anxious, or just feeling crappy or out of whack, start with your nervous system.

When I was on that hotel floor obsessing anxiously about my marriage, no amount of finding a thought that felt better was gonna get me out of the loop.

My nervous system was afraid because I was moving into unknown territory.

It didn’t understand that it was a territory I desperately longed to traverse (deep connection, rest, and pleasure in the lap of luxury.)

The nervous system isn’t logical. It’s primal.

If we want to make our up leveling more or less permanent, we have to work on the level of deep safety and foundational regulation.

And when we do, we can just keep expanding, signaling safety, expanding again, and experiencing levels of joy, abundance, pleasure, peace and wholeness that we’ve only ever dreamed of.

Our bodies and brains are intricate and delicate and beautiful.

When we take the time to understand them and take exquisite care of them, they really can support us in all we want to be and experience.

Here’s to your safety and expansion,

Kate