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How to avoid having flashbacks
When you’re prone to crisis/freeze mode cycling, your nervous system set point is running pretty high. The general rule is that the higher your activation the less time you can spend in a resource.
Here’s why.
First it’s important to understand that the nervous system operates within a range. Each of us lives our lives within a range that is arranged around a set point. The high point of this range is where we get stressed out. The low point is where we relax. These two points are connected.
For instance, it would be impossible to have chronically high activation and be able to relax like a yogie.
Secondly, it’s important to understand that the nervous system is always fluctuating around a baseline. This baseline is your nervous system set point. It’s where you are at rest when you are neither stressed or relaxed.
When you begin to “stretch” the edges of this range, as you do when you’re resourcing, the nervous system will naturally bounce back up into an activated state. It’s like a compensatory reaction. In clinical practices, we use the phrase, “as high as you go, is as low as you go”.
Your “range” if you’re highly activated is restricted. The distance between where you get stressed and where you relax is shorter than it should be. That means you can only spend a short time feeling good (i.e. resourcing), before your nervous system cycles back into an activated state.
Therefore, it’s normal with high activation, to be feeling good one moment and the next feeling your heart pounding.
Now, here’s where you might run into some problems. If you spend too much time resourcing before your nervous system is ready, you run the risk of having a flashback or panic attack.
With high activation, your capacity to “contain” stimulation whether it be positive or negative is limited for any given period of time.
Let’s take the example of having a hot bath. In the bath, you bring your awareness into the present. You’re enjoying the letting go. As best as you can you’re focusing on the soothing feeling it gives you. In this moment of resourcing, you’re stretching the edges of your capacity to relax. We know the nervous system is going to compensate by bouncing back up into an activated state.
However, this artifical resource went deeper than your nervous system could contain. You neglected to track the bounces back up. By the time, you’re out of the bath lying in your bed ready to sleep, you’re having a flashback.
Staying too long in a resource when your nervous system is not yet regulated potentially risks going outside your activation level and – into the crisis zone where you may be prone to a flashback.