Co-Regulation, Self-Regulation, & Attunement
You may have noticed from the story how my guide on the river, with his dancing, flowing, embodied lightness, was in a coherent, agile state. My heavy, warrior-stance, rigid approach was a stress/incoherent state.
His coherent state (and the fact that there truly wasn’t any real danger in that section of the river) brought me up with him.
When we aren’t feeling safe, one of the most tried and true healing methods is to be around people that are regulated. They will help you feel safe and bring you into regulation with them. In psychology, this is called co-regulation.
“Good enough” parents offer this kind of co-regulation to their children, and eventually, the child learns how to do it for themselves—self-regulation.
The idea is that we are meant to find regulation first and foremost from our mother/parents and later from each other in community.
Co-regulation looks like this: A toddler’s having a meltdown because she can’t find her shoe. Her mother calmly and empathetically acknowledges the girl’s despair and helps her think where she left it. The girl calms down naturally.
When a child is stressed, but the parent is not, the child feels safer. Lots of those kinds of experiences about smaller things eventually teach us to tolerate our big things rather than feeling overwhelmed and alone with them.
In Maté’s book, Scattered, he explains,
“Self-regulation is not about being able to control your anxiety (for example) but being able to tolerate your anxiety.”
Another psychology word for this kind of co-regulation is called attunement. Maté and others theorize that unless a baby has a mother (or mother figure) that is attuned to and responding in real-time to the baby’s emotions and needs, the baby will be distressed, and their brain cannot develop properly (possibly resulting in ADD where the executive function of the brain is in a state of arrested development).
We already touched on emotional neglect a few chapters back, but I want to share with you a little more…
One poignant study between mothers and babies shows us clearly our human need for attunement. Watch this short video of what’s called the Still Face Experiment:
Whew! Powerful, right? Does this resonate with you? In your childhood and/or in your marriage now?
Remember that we each come into the world with varying degrees of needs—if you are highly sensitive physiologically, you may have higher and more nuanced needs than even your siblings, for example. The degree to which our mothers/parents were attuned to us as babies and children sets our relationship patterns for the rest of our life.
When a lack of attunement consistently marks your relationships, those unattuned relationships can be a severe and real source of pain.
The good news is that healthy relationships have the power to get us unstuck and heal those patterns.
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health.” — Bessel Van der Kolk
Being around safe people in your life might be the most powerful thing you can do for your healing. It’s also one of the reasons professional counseling or therapy is so beneficial.
If you can’t afford good professional counseling right now (or are curious about what it might be like), try listening to other people’s counseling. I know it may sound a little weird, but it’s helpful! I highly recommend Hillary McBride’s podcast, Other People’s Problems, as a great place to start. If you're curious about what co-regulation and feeling your feelings sounds like, start with Season 3, episodes 2-4.
From a spiritual perspective, I think we have a lot to gain from leaning into the motherly aspects of God (Isiah 66:12-13). Knowing that God always knows exactly what’s going on with you, how you’re feeling about it, and is not panicking about it can also be a regulating experience. God is perfectly attuned to you. You just have to tune in to God enough to notice.
There are also ways to help you self-regulate through your body like yoga, tapping, EMDR, and sound healing that can really help your body get there. You can learn about these online (just google it) or with a trauma specialist.
One of the things I love best about these ideas of regulation is that it’s not something you can just muscle yourself into.
We heal when safely let love in.
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