Building capacity
Healing is building capacity: the nervous system’s ability to handle activation without becoming dysregulated. A person with high capacity can experience stress, intense emotions, or challenging situations while maintaining access to their resources. They move into activation but can return to baseline.
We build capacity by developing our ability to regulate ourselves and with others, and by using resources effectively. Capacity isn’t fixed; it grows with practice.
How capacity is built
When the nervous system has the experience of moving through activation to successful resolution, it learns that activation is survivable. This is fundamentally different from having activation interrupted or suppressed.
Each time you experience activation and successfully return to calm, you’re teaching your nervous system that it can handle intensity and come back to equilibrium.
The key skills for building capacity are titration and pendulation, combined with a strong foundation of resources and self-regulation skills.
Titration
Titration means working with small, manageable amounts of activation at a time. Like titrating a chemical solution drop by drop, we work with activation in small doses rather than all at once. Too much too fast overwhelms the system; small amounts can be processed and integrated.
In practice, this looks like shorter sessions initially, working with body areas gradually, pausing before becoming overwhelmed, and building capacity over time. The goal is gradually increasing capacity to handle activation, widening our window of tolerance.
Pendulation
Pendulation is the natural oscillation between activation and settling, between distress and resource.
Rather than staying in distress, we move back and forth: touch into difficulty, return to resource, touch into difficulty again, return to resource. Staying in overwhelm re-traumatises. Pendulation allows processing without overwhelm.
In somatic practice, this might look like allowing activation to arise, then using grounding or resourcing to return to calm, repeatedly. This teaches the nervous system that it can move into activation and successfully come back.
Why intensity is not the goal
Some people assume that more intense experiences or stronger emotional releases mean faster healing. This is not the case.
Overwhelming the nervous system with intensity it cannot integrate is counterproductive. The goal is to work within our window of tolerance, building capacity gradually.
The nervous system learns from experience. When we repeatedly experience activation followed by successful return to calm, the system learns that activation is survivable. When we repeatedly experience overwhelm, the system learns that activation is dangerous. Choose experiences that build confidence, not fear.
Avoiding re-traumatisation
A session may be re-traumatising if:
- Fear and helplessness keep escalating without relief
- You feel more stuck and hopeless afterward, not less
- The experience reinforces that you cannot cope
- You are flooded with overwhelming material without the resources to process it
Little and often works better than pushing hard. This applies to session length, intensity, and frequency. Many gentle sessions over months is far better than pushing hard and creating setbacks.
What progress looks like
Building capacity is gradual. Changes often happen beneath conscious awareness, and it can be hard to notice progress from the inside. Looking back over weeks or months, the shifts become clearer.
Signs that your capacity is increasing include:
- Ability to stay present with more intense sensations
- Faster return to baseline after activation
- Wider range of emotional experience without overwhelm
- Greater ease in daily life
- Improved sleep and recovery
- More flexibility in responses to stress
- Increased sense of agency and choice
There will be times when capacity seems to shrink, often during periods of external stress or when deeper material is being processed. Trust the process and continue working within your window of tolerance.