nervous system balance and creativity
How have you been nourishing your creative fire, lately?
Remember that what you feed with your attention, care, and focus, has no choice but to grow.
One way I've learned to generate sustainability around my creative practice is by cultivating a balanced state in my nervous system.
By balanced, I don't mean super calm and relaxed and zenned out all the time. Actually, some of my best creative work is channeled when I'm in an activated state; it's a little tricky to create something when I'm one with the floor.
We need activation in our nervous systems. That's what allows us to run, speak, dance, perform, and so much more.
You see, our nervous systems are constantly responding to what's happening in our surroundings as well as the demands we're asking of it, ie when we put things on our plates.
Stress, activation and tension aren't BAD, they're just usually over-represented in our nervous systems in this overstimulating world we live in, and a lot of us have trouble slowing down as a result.
How is this landing with you?
Maybe it's already something you're familiar with; I for one was fighting against myself for a long time because I thought that stress was BAD and if I could JUST GET RID OF IT ALREADY...
Much like everything else we are conditioned to reject, stress actually does serve a meaningful purpose and we can harness it to our advantage.
I wrote the below story based on a real experience I had in Nov 2024 to show you what I mean.
(Just FYI, if you're a little sensitive to high-contrast imagery - no gore or anything like that, but it could be a little spooky - or text descriptions of uncomfortable sensations and situations, you might want to skip to the very end where I summarize some takeaways.)
Mt. Halla is the highest mountain in Korea. It's a 9 hour trail to the peak and back down.
In Nov 2024 I visited a neighboring, less challenging trail with my cousin and got my ass handed to me on a silver platter.
It had been awhile since I'd last gone hiking, so I totally underestimated the experience. I chose to do a 10 minute qi gong practice over eating, so I went the whole ascent on an empty stomach. At the top I scarfed down a small bowl of rice that my cousin got me before starting the hike.
Also, it had snowed earlier last week so the trails were covered in snow. It was my first time encountering such a hike. My cousin and I split a pair of cheap 3000KRW climbing irons from Daiso and up we went.
It was literally a sparkling snapshot from a winter postcard. Hiking in snow was a totally new experience, and a challenge. I found myself in a magical, otherworldly forest and thinking to myself, this was not a good idea... while it was still reasonable to turn back. But one thing about me is - I'm not very prone to giving up on hikes.
As we reached stairs amongst a stunning open vista covered in snow and surrounded by clouds, I started noticing tightness in my chest, struggling to breathe fully. Later, a clenching headache crept around my forehead, spreading tension through my shoulders, traps, and neck. The stress compounded as I kept pushing, acknowledging the signals while understanding there was no choice but to keep going.
The hike pushed my body beyond its capacity, from my neuromuscular system to my energetic body, leaving me physically and emotionally dysregulated. Simply put, the hike demanded more than my body could handle in a balanced way. It was literally a psychedelic experience, one in which my physical and energetic body were squeezed in the way a thick rubber band is stretched to result in a dramatic snapping across the room upon release.
The further I went, the worse the tension became. Even when I encountered the surreal beauty of the alien landscape, I couldn’t fully appreciate it. The physical toll was too great. I caught myself not breathing one too many times. It felt like my body was holding onto more than just the stress of the hike — it was holding onto imprints from past trauma that were being exposed by the activating physical experience.
The tightness and clenching in my body reflected unresolved cycles of fear and unsafety stored deep within the fascial system of my body, which is connected to the autonomic nervous system, the branch of the nervous system responsible for automatic functions like breathing, blood circulation, and the fight flight freeze response.
smiling but at what cost…
The long descent down another trail was no relief; my body remained in survival mode. After we came back down, I could barely read the text on my phone. My legs were shaking and I was feeling sick. My forehead was throbbing with so much built up pressure. Taking a breath was like pushing against iron that outweighed me fivefold.
THEN my cousin made me run to catch a bus to the restaurant (to his defense, we really needed to catch that bus because of Jeju's lacking public transportation system). Though it was a short jog, it was brutal - a final blow to an already exhausted system. It felt like dying, like hitting a wall and still being forced to push through. By the time we reached a restaurant, I was so depleted I couldn’t function. My cousin ordered food while I sat, barely holding it together.
After eating, I went home, showered, and showed up for an hour-long yoga practice before collapsing into bed. As soon as I lied down, I felt my body start to unwind from the sustained tension.
It was like Alice tumbling down the hole into Wonderland, y'all. I woke up at 2AM from a nightmare, unsettled and afraid. Blearily confused about how little time had passed in my sleep, and exhausted, I fell back asleep. I woke up again at 4AM, sweaty, my heart pounding.
In my dream there was an unseen presence that glided through the halls of my home, that hung thickly in the air but dissolved as quickly as smoke every time I turned the lights on. I wrenched my heavy body out of bed and chased after it, reaching for a confrontation with all my might, but it was like trying to fight two industrial strength magnets to touch on the same pole.
I woke up frozen. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Just locked in fear. It’s hard to describe that kind of fear—it’s not just mental; it’s in your body. A deep, primal freeze. I badly needed to pee and rehydrate, but couldn’t get up. I was trapped in myself.
I. was. terrified. As if right then and there, someone would suddenly reveal themselves to be in my room and I’d need to fight for my life.
Do you ever imagine scenarios where you end up in a fight and it turns violent, like kicking in someone’s head in the pavement until they’re really not okay? And your whole body tenses up like you’re actually going to call out that entitled man on the street for not respecting your personal space? It was like that.
And in reality, I was totally safe. My body was responding to a past state of activation that wasn't reflective of the current situation, not unlike a false alarm, or an autoimmune disorder.
It was 4AM and I was alone with no one to turn to but myself and Existence. In that state, frantically googling for answers about my nightmare, I stumbled upon a blog where I was reminded of my somatics practice: meeting my body exactly where it was, without forcing change. My body was still going nuts, but my consciousness recognized what was actually happening.
It was as if I’d turned a key; even though I was still extremely scared, I knew what to do and I was able to do it.
I put a hand on my heart and started breathing into the tension, shallow for awhile, continuing to gently meet the edge of my tension, before my breath gradually started deepening. Slowly, a shift unfolded. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was real. The tightness softened into something squirming, something I could hold.
Tears came. Yawns. Clicking in my spine. Even burps. Strange sensations signaling, a softening. The stone-stiff tension in my chest diffusing into something more fluid. This tension wasn’t new— it had been there for years, squirreled away by my body to process at some future time when it was finally safe to feel fear or pain. I meet it every time I am able to drop into my body during a meditative sit, or honestly, every morning when I wake up to my body unfailingly in a state of contraction.
Release happens as a natural consequence of committing to unconditional presence for what’s really here; rarely does it happen when we focus directly on the release as the desired end result.
Healing isn’t about erasing trauma, or “fixing” my dysfunctions so that I can finally be the high functioning perfect poster child corporate success story among my mom’s friends’ children or graduating class from my prestigious alma mater. It’s about turning toward the so-called dysfunction. Slowing down enough to feel the contractions in your body, the places where you had to lock down to survive in response to unsafety. Meeting those vulnerable places with awareness, with breath, with kindness.
Our nervous systems aren’t static and linear-performing. It’s not “heal this trauma so that I can finally focus at my soul-crushing job without having to reach for the doomscroll-hole every five minutes." Instead, the intricate electrochemical interconnected web that is the human nervous system is living, dynamic, always recalibrating, and constantly adapting to perceived threats.
The goal isn’t to “fix” the problem and reach some idealized level of regulation where we will never be thrown off balance, ever, but to build resilience, to cultivate the capacity to sit with discomfort without turning away. To be accepting of and responsive to whatever shows up in the present moment, in a balanced and compassionate way.
Even states of activation serve us in certain situations - we need to fight off the honeydrunken bear that might wobble into your back yard at any moment, for example. kidding! Or yeah, because focusing on producing something meaningful requires you to be alert, focused, activated.
Building a conscious relationship with your nervous system means acknowledging that it's always doing its job, whether you’re soaring or crashing, and accepting yourself even when you're falling apart... honoring your needs for rest and stillness.
That night, at 4 a.m., with my hand on my heart, breathing into the fear, I wasn’t binge watching Glee or numbing with exorbitant amounts of greasy food (as I admittedly… do do sometimes). I was just there, present with my body. And that’s hard. In such a fast-paced day and age that thrives off of distraction, being still with yourself is a radical act. And it’s absolutely necessary in order to live consciously.
This experience cracked something open in me. Though I’m still reeling as I write this now, in the process of re-stabilizing back to equilibrium, I am a changed person.
Anchored in my system is another layer of the understanding that healing is a process— it’s nurturing a relationship with my body, with my nervous system. Healing is not linear or instantaneous, nor is it a fixed endpoint after which we will never have to worry about feeling incapable of meeting the increasingly inhuman demands of today's postcapitalist world. And that can be a hard pill to swallow when we've been living in an illusion where progress is linear and friction is to be avoided at all costs.
What's powerful is learning to trust that, given space and time, and real presence, the body knows how to heal itself.
I got my ass kicked by a mountain, but I also received a gift: a deeper understanding of what it means to be embodied, to listen, to feel, and to heal.
This is what people mean when they say that healing isn't fun. because it can get exhausting, and frankly, fucking sucks sometimes. LOL! and I don’t really have another option because I would still never choose to go back to the way my life was, before I started caring for my wellbeing in a system that functions by requiring its parts to not care for anything but continuing to feed that system.
Here are some takeaways :)
The body and the nervous system
Physical tension and stress can reveal unresolved cycles of fear and unsafety stored in the body’s fascial and autonomic nervous systems.
The autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for automatic functions (e.g., breathing and fight-flight-freeze responses), can react to perceived threats even when the body is safe, which reflects patterns of trauma stored in the body from past experiences.
Healing practices for nervous system balance
Somatic practices, such as placing a hand on the heart and gently meeting tension with breath, can help reconnect with the body and calm the nervous system.
Gradual shifts in breathing patterns and physical releases (e.g., tears, yawns, and burps) indicate the nervous system’s ability to balance itself when given time and presence.
Insights on nervous system function
The nervous system’s reactions, even in dysregulation, are purposeful and rooted in survival mechanisms.
Building a conscious relationship with the nervous system involves accepting both activated and restful states as part of its natural function.
Dynamic nature of the nervous system
The nervous system is not static; it is a living, adaptive system that constantly recalibrates in response to internal and external stimuli.
Healing is about nurturing a relationship with this dynamic system rather than seeking an unattainable "fixed" state.
Building resilience
The goal of healing is not to prevent activation entirely but to develop resilience—the capacity to sit with discomfort and recalibrate in a balanced, compassionate way.
Regulation involves honoring the body’s signals and allowing space for recovery rather than forcing a return to balance.
Trust in your body’s wisdom
Given space, time, and presence, the body knows how to heal itself.
Release and balance occur naturally when the body’s stored tension is met with unconditional awareness and kindness.
This doesn't always feel pleasant, but it's a necessary part of restoring balance to the body.
What did you think?
How can you apply some of the insights that resonated with you, to your creative practice?
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