Self-regulation
Self-regulation is the ability to manage your nervous system states: to notice when you’re becoming activated, and to have tools to return to a regulated baseline. This is distinct from suppression or control; it’s about working with your nervous system, not against it.
How self-regulation develops
Self-regulation develops throughout life. As infants, we have almost no capacity for self-regulation and depend entirely on our caregivers. Through countless experiences of being soothed, our nervous systems gradually internalise this capacity.
By adulthood, most of us have some ability to regulate ourselves, though this capacity varies enormously depending on early experiences and subsequent learning.
Self-regulation can be learnt and strengthened at any age. If you didn’t develop strong self-regulation early in life, you can build it now. Somatic practices are one way to develop this capacity: each session where you successfully work within your window of tolerance strengthens your regulatory ability.
Awareness
Noticing your internal state (body sensations, emotions, arousal level) is the foundation of self-regulation. You cannot regulate what you cannot sense.
For many people, this awareness doesn’t come naturally. Chronic stress and trauma can disconnect us from bodily sensations, leaving gaps in our ability to sense what’s happening inside. The good news is that body awareness can be developed with practice.
Body mapping
The brain maintains an internal map of the body that represents its size, shape, and position. This map is built from sensation and can become distorted through chronic stress or trauma.
To explore your body map, sit or lie quietly and turn your attention inwards. Can you sense the size and shape of your body? Are there areas that feel clear and vivid, and others that feel vague or absent? Compare left to right, top to bottom, centre to periphery. Approach what you find with curiosity rather than trying to change it.
Common distortions include:
- Missing or absent areas — Legs, feet, belly, or pelvis may feel disconnected or hard to sense
- Size distortions — Hands or feet feeling too big or too small; head feeling oversized
- Distance distortions — Limbs feeling too close or far away from the centre of the body
- Asymmetry — One side or one limb being clearer than the other
- Diffuse boundaries — The whole body feeling vague or hard to locate
These aren’t fixed. Touch can help wake up areas that are difficult to feel: try rubbing, tapping, or placing a hand on the parts of your body that feel absent.
As you develop embodied awareness through somatic practice, your body map can expand and become more integrated. Areas that felt blank may gradually come alive with sensation.
The WOSI tool
WOSI is a framework for systematically exploring body awareness. It offers four dimensions to check in with, moving from the most external to the most internal. Practise exploring each for a few minutes.
- Weight — Can you sense the weight of your body? Where do you feel most grounded? Where feels absent or floaty?
- Outline — Can you sense the boundary of your body, where you end and the air begins? Are there areas where the outline is clear and areas where it feels fuzzy?
- Skin — Can you sense your skin, the layer that contains you? Can you feel temperature, texture, clothing against your skin?
- Inside — Can you sense your internal sensations: breath, heartbeat, gut feelings, warmth, tension? Which areas feel accessible and which feel blank?
Some areas may feel vivid while others are harder to sense. The goal is not to achieve perfect awareness but to develop the habit of checking in with your body and noticing what you find.
Recognising dissociation
Dissociation is a disconnection from bodily experience. It exists on a continuum, from feeling slightly numb in one body part to complete detachment from the body.
Signs of dissociation include:
- Numbness or disconnection
- A floating sensation
- Losing the sense of your skin as a boundary
- The body feeling too big or too small
- Difficulty staying with body sensations
- A dreamy or spacey quality
The pleasant, dreamlike quality in dissociation can be confusing. People sometimes enjoy being dissociated and may misinterpret it as an expansive, spiritual experience. In genuine depth states, however, body awareness may become diffuse but remains accessible. In dissociation, the body is escaped rather than expanded.
If you notice signs of dissociation during somatic practice, use grounding techniques to return to embodied awareness.
Grounding
When you are grounded, you are present in your body and connected to your surroundings. You can experience intensity without losing yourself in it. When you are ungrounded, you may feel floaty, distant, or caught up in thoughts or emotions.
Grounding techniques bring you back: they interrupt escalating activation, counter dissociation, and reconnect you with the here and now.
Sensory grounding
These techniques use exteroception (your external senses) to anchor you in the present:
- Look around slowly, including behind you, letting your eyes rest on whatever draws your attention (orienting)
- Name things you can see, hear, or smell
- Feel your feet on the ground and the support of the surface beneath you
- Rub or squeeze your arms, legs, or face to restore skin sensation
- Press any part of your body firmly into the floor or a wall
- Hold something cold or textured
Breath regulation
The breath is one of the few autonomic functions we can consciously control. Slow exhalation activates the parasympathetic system and promotes calm; rapid breathing does the opposite.
When you notice activation rising:
- Lengthen your exhale (longer out than in)
- Place a hand on your belly and breathe into it
- Sigh audibly
Pausing
Knowing you can pause at any time creates safety. When you have the option to slow down, you can go further than when you feel trapped.
In somatic practice, pausing might mean:
- Taking a break when sensations become too intense
- Slowing down movements or reducing their range
- Opening your eyes or changing position
- Returning to grounding or resourcing before continuing