The Road Back To You

Stress can cause us to think, feel, and behave in ways we're not proud of. Studying the relationship between Memories, Emotions and Stress can help us understand two things. 1) Why does stress make me feel like a different person? 2) What practices will help me feel like myself again?

Window of Tolerance as Background Information

As a Reminder, the Window of Tolerance is a visual tool to help us picture emotional state. Inside the window is the place we are regulated, clear, connected, and compassionate. We can respond flexibly to the events of day to day life. I call this the flow zone. Outside of the window is when we start to get stuck in unpleasant emotional states. They can be high energy emotions like anger or low energy emotions like sadness. You can read more about your window of tolerance here.

Your Emotional Bank Account

Memory Storage is Like a Town

Your brain has a complicated filing system for memories, but I find it easiest to think about the mind as a town. Each building represents an emotion. The flower shop is joy. The coffee shop is connection. The spa is relaxation.

Inside Each Building (Emotional State)

An emotional state is a network of data that come together to form a memory just as construction materials come together to create a building. Here are some examples of these materials:

The five senses

What did we see, hear, feel, taste, or smell?

Body Sensations

Were your muscles tense or relaxed?

Did you have a pit in your stomach or butterflies in your chest?

We also assigned meanings to these memories.

What does this experience say about me, you, or the world we live in?

These pieces of data come together as the walls, floors, and other structures for the house.

Life in Town (Inside the WOT)

Lets walk inside the relaxation house. Each room will contain a different memory of relaxation. One room is the beach. Another room is drinking iced tea on the porch. Another is a beautiful sunset. You will see repeated construction materials (sensations) from room to room. This creates the house theme or aesthetic.

Example Sensations: At the relaxation house, I feel a heaviness like I could go to sleep. I feel a coziness like I could curl up in a blanket. I feel a limp-ness in my neck and arms. I believe there is no rush. I believe I have as much time as I need. My thoughts sound slower and softer and the mind is quiet. This is a peaceful aesthetic.

 Just like the main street of town, the emotional buildings are going to be high traffic and well-functioning. This gives our memory processing all the supplies it needs to create new houses and upgrade rooms as we add new memories.

New Construction (adding new memories)

In town, the construction crew has all the materials it needs. When you have new experiences in the relaxation house, the crew can immediately get to work - adding new rooms, updating the furniture, or connecting hallways between similar rooms. The beach room might get a new window that looks out to the sunset room, creating easy pathways between related peaceful experiences.

Transportation In Town (Moving Between Emotional States)

There are well-paved roads with clear street signs connecting all the houses. You can easily walk from the relaxation house to the joy house when something good happens, or appropriately visit the concern house when there's a real problem to solve. You're the mayor of this town - you get to choose which house to visit and when.

Town Maintenance (Healthy Processing) 

Every house gets regular maintenance visits. Old rooms that no longer serve you get updated or converted. The childhood bedroom in the fear house might get renovated into a wisdom room as you understand your past differently.

Life on the Outskirts of Town (Outside the WOT)

On the outskirts of town, we will notice the environment is not as pretty or functional. The roads aren't paved and it's hard to get back to the main street. When we go into these outskirts houses (emotional states), we will find structural issues. Some houses have holes in the ceiling or backed up plumbing. Other houses may need need significant work as the construction materials (sensations) are unavailable in a stressed state. The farther outside of town we go, we may find houses that are completely unlivable (intolerable emotions).

New Construction in the Outskirts (Adding Dysregulated Memories)

The construction crew is either missing entirely or working with poor materials. New experiences get built with whatever scraps are available. You might end up with rooms that have no doors (you can't get out of the memory), rooms with holes in the floor (missing pieces of what happened), or rooms built on top of each other in confusing ways (memories that blend together incorrectly).

Road Systems in the Outskirts (Dysregulated Movement Between Emotional States)

The roads become muddy, winding paths with no signs. Sometimes you end up at the fear house when you tried to be somewhere else. Other times, you get stuck in one house and can't find the exit. You're no longer the mayor making conscious choices - you're more like tourist who got lost.

Neglected Properties (Unprocessed Trauma):

Some houses on the outskirts haven't had maintenance in years. These houses might have rooms that are exactly as they were left - sometimes decades ago. Walking into these rooms feels like time travel because they haven't been updated with your current adult perspective and coping skills.

There are many ways to repair the outskirts of town. The construction crews will need to get new materials to rebuild, repair, and update these broken down homes. But first, we need to create roadways from the main street to the outskirts of town. This will allow us to transport the materials needed.

Repairing the Outskirts Starts with Paving New Roads (Healing Pain, Widening WOT)

When we experience pain, a hormone is released that splices up the building blocks for memory processing and puts it to a halt. This is the essence of a trigger. Painful experiences that never had the chance to finish processing. When we are "triggered" we are sent to an unfinished building with major structural issues. This leaves us with impulsive, unhinged, or illogical states of mind.

To solve this problem, we need a cement that will do two things:

1.mold building materials back together

2. connect us to the main street of town.

Dan Siegel calls is this cement the 4 S's of attachment. Feeling safe, seen, soothed, and secure.

How Do We Pave New Roads?

For most people, learning the 4 S's is a multi-step process. It is highly unique to your own story, personality, needs, pains, and desires. Regulation exercises are a great way to start (or uplevel) the journey.

Regulation exercises help collect materials needed to repair and restore these broken down houses. They also assist in building new roadways so it will be easier to transport needed materials in the future.

This is the purpose for all of the resources you will see in the CALManac. They are practical tools that help you learn to signal safety, create security, and self-soothe so you can get out of the stuck place and feel like yourself again.

Take Me To The CALManac