Go As A River: Dynamic Equilibrium & Nervous System Modulation - or, the language of regulation is off-putting. Why would living beings choose to be regulated and by whom?

Language is always evolving, and language both describes and creates our sense of things. I notice the concept of “regulation” of the nervous system has become very popular, and every time I hear the word “regulation” I feel my body tighten. My body rejects this word. My body does not want to be regulated. This word feels like it speaks of restriction and a dominating relationship and evokes a sense of rules and fixed-ness as well as a mechanistic mindset.

I’m interested in how Life moves, and to learn more about how Life moves I look to Earth’s web of relations. I look to the Forest, to ecology, to the interwoven relations of creatures navigating weather and climate and Earth’s conditions. What I see is that Life moves as modulation not regulations. The Forest modulates in response to the seasons, in response to changing conditions. Birds modulate their feather and wing positions in response to the wind and weather conditions. Foxes modulate their fur colour in relation to the changing colour patterns of the landscape, much as Octopus in the ocean do.

There is quite a long history of humans speaking in mechanistic terms about human bodies. I hear many folks say we are “hard wired” for this or that. But are we hard-wired? And, is this a metaphor that feels good? My body rejects that idea. We are wired. We are not machines, not computers. We are living, breathing, heart-beating creatures; we are part of Earth’s animate wisdom. We are breath moving through our bodies, breath that is part of Sky, part of this moving viscose substance of Air created by all the plants and all the animals of Earth. No wiring needed. What is gained, what is lost in our sense of ourselves and our relations with Earth, with Life, when we use mechanistic language to speak of our living animal Earthy bodies?

Regulation can be defined as: “a rule or directive made and maintained by an authority” or the act or process of being regulated” and in the Cambridge Dictionary as “an official rule” or “the act of controlling something” (Oxford Dictionary)

Modulation, in contrast, is a change in the style, loudness, etc. of something such as your voice in order to achieve an effect or express an emotion, or a small change that happens in response to something or is intended to achieve an effect: or the ability to control, influence or change a particular physical process (Cambridge Dictionary)

Regulation has always seemed to me to be a tight and dominating concept, with a external idea of what is sought or preferred. To be regulated. Do we pause to inquire about what that actually denotes, or is there an assumption of that meaning something specific? Something fixed? Seems there is an idea of some specific state that is referred to as a ‘regulated state’. But, our conditions are ever changing, and ‘optimal arousal’ is context dependent. The state of being in my nervous system that is good for me will change depending on the context and the needs of my being in the specificity of context and in the web of relations I’m rooted in there. When my child is having a seizure, what is the optimal arousal level? When I am practicing yoga, what is the optimal arousal level? When I want to sleep, what is the optimal arousal level? How about when I am cooking two different meals simultaneously for my family with divergent needs? My point is that, as I move through my day of complexity, I need to modulate in response to the changing conditions in order to meet the challenges of the moment and flow. Who could possibly determine the optimal arousal level for me, other than my own being? What is needed is flexibility in my being, modulation ability. What would regulation mean in this flowing conceptualization of Life moving?

Homeostasis refers to living beings ability to create stability through “dynamic equilibrium” - continuous change, or modulation in response to the environment to sustain ourselves in as good health as possible.

When bombs are falling, climate is unravelling, and we need to protest against fascism what is the nature of optimal arousal? What sort of modulation is needed, is valuable, is appropriate, and according to whom? Does regulation become tone policing? How ought one to feel and speak when one is sharing their grief, their fear, their outrage, their heartbreak?

I find the idea of regulation off-putting. But I do love the idea of modulation, and the experience of tending my modulation capacity so that I have flexibility and can play the range of my expressive capacity, and work that dynamic equilibrium in response to the conditions I am travelling through.

Thich Nhat Hanh has a beautiful distilled teaching: Go As A River. Does a river go regulated? Or would that be like a damb? A river is free and supple and modulates in response to the riverbed, and the rise of the land and the stones along the way, and the number of fish travelling there…. I want to go as a river, and to help the folks I work with develop their modulation range and flexibility, as well as their own inner sense of what is right for them in a given moment in time in the present where life is unfolding.

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into the flow that is life moving through us…