Rewiring my Nervous System
My earliest memory is a disturbing one. I was about 3 and had just woken up from a terrifying dream. I still remember the details of being with a spider on a barren landscape and each time one of its legs touched anything it exploded into a million pieces. It touched lots of things like that as I watched. Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom! It was coming for me and just as one of its legs reached out to kill me, I woke up. I was shaking, disoriented, and breathing hard—maybe crying.
Once I realized I was alive and alone in my bedroom, I ran to my parents’ room. I woke up my mom and told her of my dream and how scared I was. All I wanted to do was crawl in bed with her and my dad and feel safe. My mother, one of the kindest people in the world, sent me back to my room to go back to bed. No doubt she had been reading books that said parents should never let their kids come in bed with them. As a three-year-old, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t go back there alone as scared as I was. I’m sure I begged to stay with them but they insisted I go back. It seemed like the longest journey of my young life up to that point. I lay awake, curled up in my bed for a long time after that. The dream seemed very real to me, and it took a long time for me to go back to sleep.
We all need love and in many traditional cultures, love and safety go together. In our culture we have lost some of the basic elements our nervous systems need to be safe, especially for babies and children. (More on this another time.) My little 3-year-old self needed love AND safety that night. Cognitively, I could have told you that my parents loved me, but I did not feel safe that night with the people charged with loving and caring for me.
This memory has shown up in my awareness many times over the years. Usually, it’s a flash as I see myself sitting up in bed, waking up the moment before the spider exploded me to death. I could also picture being by my mother’s side of the bed and a kind of total disbelief that she would send me back to that scary room.
As I have aged, I have imagined both my parents lying in bed, also awake, knowing that their darling tiny daughter was terrified in her room across the hall. Perhaps they wondered if they did the right thing as they felt whatever disturbance was in their own bodies. All their mammalian instincts would have wanted them to bring me in bed with them. They had the power of parenting books saying what they did was best for everyone. But if those books were right, why did everyone feel so awful?
One day as these images arose yet again, this time in meditation, I decided to give that little girl (me!) the attention she had been longing for. We took it slow and I listened and empathized with her at every turn.
Oh darling, that dream sounds so scary!
Of course you were wide awake and scared!
That spider sounds so terrifying.
Then I re-imagined what happened. As I went to my parents’ bed, my mother leaned over, saw how scared I was, and pulled me into bed with her and my father. She listened to me briefly, hugged me up against her and told me I was safe now and could go back to sleep. My father agreed and said he would take care of the spider if it ever came back. We all just snuggled and went back to sleep. I felt loved AND SAFE again as the grownups were now rightfully in charge.
Then I did something that I had never done before—I drew a stick figure picture of the scenes—me coming to the side of the bed and them bringing me in. The drawing somehow imprinted the feeling of safety even more into my body; the drawing made it feel more real. Perhaps because I have never thought of myself as a visual artist, the feeling of making the drawing was even more powerful. This was not art that someone else would judge; this was for me and my own wellbeing.
After this short practice, I felt different and I steeped in the difference. Instead of feeling terrified in the fetal position in my bed, I felt luxuriously connected to my parents, safe in their bed. I wrote in my journal that day, “ahhhhhhhhhhhh.” That feeling of safety was so deep. I was loved and I was safe.
The Polyvagal and Re-Adapting workshop coming up on Sunday, May 7 will give you a chance to have a similar experience in the love and safety of community. I have never taught this material before and am excited to do this work together. You can join us in person (only a couple more spots are available) with unlimited spots livestreaming. Those who register will get a more information about simple preparations closer to the time.
