Would you rather listen than read today?
I recorded a short, informal audio reflection this morning about capacity, healing, and the subtle pressures so many nervous systems are already carrying.
If listening feels easier, you’ll find the audio here.
And if reading is more your thing today, the transcript is below.
Well, hello.
This morning, I’m having a very different experience of myself than I did yesterday.
Yesterday, I spent several hours creating a blog and audio reflection around safety as an emergent quality, and honestly, I loved every moment of it. I was in the flow. I felt energized, grateful, excited, and really deeply connected and present to what was emerging from me. The time just flew by.
And today feels different.
Today, I feel more… not exactly tired, but slower. And today I’ve got a lot of non-NeftTi things that require my attention.
And so honestly, I would say my capacity feels different today. Not better. Not worse. Just different.
And as I sit with that this morning, I find myself thinking about this word capacity because I’ve noticed recently that more and more people in therapy spaces, coaching spaces, online spaces, and even business spaces are beginning to use this word.
Which is exciting to me because it’s something that at NeftTi we’ve been speaking about for many years.
There’s a quote associated with business leader and Instagram entrepreneur Alex Hormozi that goes something like:
“If in doubt, build capacity.”
And honestly, I think there’s something deeply true about that.
But I also think that in Conscious EFT we mean something a little different when we use the word capacity.
Because capacity is not simply:
how much stress we can tolerate,
how much we can produce,
or how much we can push through.
To me, capacity is about how much of life we can remain consciously present with without collapsing into our time-honoured protections.
How much of life we can remain consciously present with without activating and collapsing into our beautiful, intelligent protections.
And one of the things I keep noticing is how many people seeking healing are already working unbelievably hard before they ever arrive in a therapy or coaching session.
And I was certainly no exception to this back in the day when my own life had just crashed and burned.
People are reading books.
Taking courses.
Trying meditation.
Trying mindfulness.
Trying breathing practices.
Trying to think positively.
Trying to heal correctly.
This idea that:
“I’m not acceptable until I have healed.”
And that’s one of the things NeftTi is so interested in:
How do we begin to tease out and become more aware of the subtle ways that our helping fields are still often operating from a paradigm rooted in “what’s wrong” and “how do we fix people?”
A paradigm often unconsciously infused with judgment.
This morning I found myself remembering when I first came across David Treleaven’s work around trauma-sensitive mindfulness.
I think this may have been pre-COVID when his book first came out, and at the time it felt really revolutionary to hear someone openly acknowledge that mindfulness itself could actually become destabilizing for some nervous systems.
Not because mindfulness is bad.
But because readiness matters.
Capacity matters.
And honestly, that’s what Conscious EFT has been speaking about for years.
Sometimes the organism is already working so hard to hold itself together that even one more “helpful” intervention begins to feel overwhelming.
Not because the organism is broken or flawed.
Not because it is resistant.
But because the nervous system is already carrying more activation than it currently has the capacity to organize.
And I’m excited that this is part of what we are slowly evolving toward understanding in the helping professions.
That healing is not simply about offering more and more interventions.
That sometimes, in fact, very often, healing begins by reducing pressure.
Reducing demand.
Reducing the signals that tell the organism it has to become different in order to finally be okay.
And perhaps capacity grows slowly and organically through many small moments – what in Conscious EFT we call sparks – where the nervous system discovers:
“Oh…
maybe I don’t have to brace quite so hard right now.”
Anyway, those are just some of the thoughts I’m sitting with this morning as I drink my coffee and ease into a very full day.
I hope you’re well.
Take care now.
Nancy