by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The Real You is Often Hiding Behind an Unreal Relationship with Your Nervous System
Most of us think we know what we want: a bigger house; a promotion; the approval of people we don’t even like – but have you ever stopped to question whether what you think you want is really your own REAL desire or if it’s just a distorted signal from a dysregulated nervous system?
Here’s the truth: when your nervous system is out of balance, your perceptions are skewed, and so is your relationship with reality.
A dysregulated nervous system sends ‘You’ into overdrive, making you chase things you don’t need and to avoid things you should confront. This just serves to disconnect you from the natural rhythm of life, leaving you stressed, fragmented, and further away from your real self than it’s healthy to find yourself.
The good news, though, is that you can change this if you want!
When you take steps to regulate your nervous system, you don’t just feel better – you see better. You start to perceive reality more clearly, free from the distortions of stress, fear, and avoidance and the illusory internal and external ‘threats’ that appear to follow you everywhere. Instead, you can start to see and experience your own natural rhythm – the one that connects you to realness, balance, and growth at all times
Let’s explore how to find that rhythm – and why it matters more than you think:
Why a Dysregulated Nervous System Distorts Your Reality
The nervous system is your body’s command centre. It regulates everything from your heartbeat to your mood and is constantly scanning your environment for safety or threat.
But when it’s out of balance – overwhelmed by chronic stress, unhealthy habits, or unresolved emotions – it gets stuck in a loop of survival responses.
A dysregulated nervous system can trap you in two extremes:
- Hyperarousal (Sympathetic Dominance): You feel constantly on edge, reactive, and driven by a need to do more in order to deal with the ‘threats’ you perceive everywhere (including inside yourself as you fear facing your own emotional ‘stuff’).
This can lead to impulsive decisions, overthinking, and chasing external validation to calm the chaos within (and a bunch of mental and phsyical symptoms). Essentially you go into FIGHT or FLIGHT mode and stay there. - Hypoarousal (Parasympathetic Shutdown): You feel detached, numb, and stuck. Instead of confronting reality, you avoid it through distractions like binge-watching, overeating, or scrolling endlessly on social media. Essentially, you go into FREEZE mode and stay there.
Neither state allows you to engage with life as it is. Instead, they create a distorted perception of reality – where your desires, thoughts, and actions are shaped by stress and avoidance rather than truth and a sense of being PRESENT with it.
Finding Your Natural Rhythm: The Key to Realness
When your nervous system is regulated, you move into a state of balance where both your sympathetic (activation) and parasympathetic (rest) systems work together.
This is your natural rhythm and it looks like this:
- Healthy Activation: You feel energised and focused, with a clear direction to move toward.
- Inner Peace: You experience a sense of rest and trust, even while taking action.
In this state, you stop chasing illusions or running from discomfort. Instead, you start living in alignment with what’s real.
How to Regulate Your Nervous System
Regulating your nervous system isn’t a one-time fix; it’s a process of consistent, focused action over time.
Here are some practical steps to help you get started:
1. Exercise: Moving the Energy
Physical movement is one of the most effective ways to regulate your nervous system. Exercise releases stored tension, balances your hormones, and creates a natural rhythm for your body to follow.
Whether it’s yoga, running, or weightlifting, find a form of movement that aligns with your goals and values. The key is to approach it with intention, not as a punishment or escape.
2. Learn to Breathe
Your breath is the bridge between your body and mind. When you consciously control your breathing, you send signals to your nervous system that you’re safe, which helps deactivate survival responses.
Try this simple exercise: Inhale for a count of seven, hold for four, exhale for eight, and repeat. Over time, this practice helps you find calm and clarity.
If your breath is calm then your nervous system has to be calm too…
3. Let Emotions Flow
Unprocessed emotions create blockages in your mind-body system, keeping you stuck in survival mode. The more you suppress or avoid them beause you think they’re a ‘threat’, the more fragmented you become.
Instead of resisting your emotions, let them move through you. Journaling, therapy, or even a good cry can help release what’s been trapped.
The key to remember is that many of the threats perceived by a dysregulated nervous system are just emotional discomfort, not actual physical danger.
4. Manage Your Thoughts
Negative or distorted thinking feeds a dysregulated nervous system. Start by becoming aware of your inner dialogue – are you catastrophising, overgeneralising, or judging yourself harshly?
Practice reframing your thoughts. Instead of thinking, “I’ll never get it right,” try, “I’m learning as I go.” Over time, this shifts your mental state from resistance to acceptance.
I have a free tool that will help you with this: The Hamster Wheel Thought Log
5. Create a Vision
Having a vision gives your nervous system a direction to move toward. It creates a sense of purpose and activates healthy levels of sympathetic energy. It also stops you focusing on the PAST (where many (mis)perceived threats come from).
Ask yourself: What kind of life do I want to create? What values do I want to embody? Write down your vision and take small, consistent steps toward it every day.
I have a free 7-Day course that can help with this: The 7-Day Personality Transplant.
Avoiding the Trap of the Void
When your nervous system is dysregulated, you risk falling into what can only be described as the Void. This is the state of living disconnected from your real self, where you:
- Distract yourself with short-term dopamine hits (sugar, social media, endless entertainment).
- Avoid reality by numbing out or overthinking.
- Feel stuck in patterns that don’t serve you but feel too overwhelming to change.
The Void is seductive because it offers temporary relief from discomfort. But it comes at a cost: You lose touch with your natural rhythm and create a fragmented inner relationship where the real you becomes a ‘threat.’ This stress then projects outward, distorting your perceptions of the world and others.
The only way to escape the Void is to face reality as it is. This means regulating your nervous system, letting go of illusions, and choosing realness over avoidance – moment by moment.
The “Unforced Rhythms of Grace”
Finding your natural rhythm isn’t about forcing yourself to be calm or productive. It’s about aligning with the unforced rhythms of grace—the balance between effort and ease, action and rest, doing and being.
When you operate from this rhythm, you:
- Take inspired action without burning out.
- Rest deeply without guilt or avoidance.
- Move through life with a sense of flow and trust.
This is the state where you’re fully present and engaged with reality, no longer at the mercy of distorted perceptions or survival responses. It’s where you find your real life.
Closing Thoughts
Your nervous system is the foundation of how you experience the yourself, the world, and reality itself. When you regulate it, you reconnect with your natural rhythm and see reality for what it truly is – you stop chasing illusions and start creating a life that aligns with your realness.
So, ask yourself: Are you living in the real rhythms of grace, or are you stuck in the Void?
Every choice you make – to exercise, breathe, feel, think, or act – either moves you closer to your real self or further away. Choose wisely, and trust the process.
Stay real out there,
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.
Join the 7-Day Bare Ass Minimum (BAM) Challenge and start to implement foundational health habits and a powerful life vision only a week from now.
