by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
You’ve Probably Tasted Relaxation but What About Regulation?
As a trained yoga teacher, I often guide my coaching clients through the occasional yin yoga session so they can become comfortable with stillness and whatever it brings up for them.
This is really important when it comes to tapping into realness because so many people fear stillness and what it might reveal to them – this is because when all the familiar activity and noise in our lives comes to a stop, then old emotions start to surface:
Old tension, buried shame, the things we’ve been avoiding – all of this ‘stuff’ begins to move and try to bring itself to our conscious attention. This is why most people spend their lives constantly running away from themselves through distractions, busyness, and endless stimulation.
In one recent session, a client lay in savasana – corpse pose – for ten minutes at the end.
Afterwards they told me with a warm smile:
“I’ve never been this relaxed in my life.”
I smiled and replied:
“You weren’t just relaxed – you just experienced nervous system regulation for the first time in your adult life.”
That moment made me reflect on something crucial which is what the rest of this article is about:
The difference between relaxation and regulation and how the ability to tell them apart can change the entire direction of your personal growth journey.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Relaxation vs. Regulation: What We Cover in This Article
- You’ve Probably Tasted Relaxation but What About Regulation?
- Relaxation: Nice but Limited
- The Meditation Teacher Who Missed the Point
- Regulation: The Deeper Work
- From Ego to Reality
- The Cost of Staying in the Sympathetic Personality (Sympathetic Dominance)
- Practical Ways to Cultivate Regulation
- Relaxation vs. Regulation: Bringing It All Together
Relaxation: Nice but Limited
Let’s start by saying that relaxation is ‘good’. Really good and we all need it.
What most of us don’t realise, though, is that there’s a hidden trap here:
Relaxation is often used as a tranquiliser – a temporary state of numbed comfort that soothes symptoms of stress without resolving the cause.
When people ‘relax’ what it usually means is that they turn down the noise of their stress while leaving its source untouched.
This means that the deeper issues in their lives that really need to be worked on if they want to minimise stress and friction in their lives as a whole is rarely done.
This makes sense in some ways because the main problem that causes unnecessary stress in our lives is almost always the same:
The ego’s constant effort to control, to appear a certain way, or to suppress unwanted feelings in order for people to uphold a familiar identity for themselves and keep the shadow self at bay.
This is difficult to deal with in the short-term even though it’s always absolutely worth it in the long-term but – because it’s difficult – most people choose to tranquilise it instead of facing it (which is a shame because what you resist persists).
This leads to most people choosing ‘relaxation’ as it serves as a kind of distraction that helps them to unwind around the problem instead of through it.
Common ‘tranquilisers’ that serve this function include:
- Doom-scrolling through social media to zone out.
- Meditating purely to “feel good” rather than to see what’s true.
- Binge-watching Netflix or gaming to escape.
- Etc. Etc. Etc.
There’s nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with any of these things, of course – the issue is that when they become our main form of rest they just keep us ‘stuck’ where we don’t want to be.
This is because what we’re really doing is giving ourselves a break from all that familiar activity – but not from habitual avoidance.
The Meditation Teacher Who Missed the Point
I once attended a meditation class in a mental health centre where the instructor had clearly read a mountain of books but hadn’t integrated the teachings into her own nervous system:
During the class, a man shared that meditation had made him sad because it brought up feelings about his young daughter who had died.
The teacher’s reply was unforgettable and has haunted me ever since:
“You’re doing it wrong, then.”
Her response revealed something huge about how many people treat inner work – as a way to avoid feeling and ‘spiritual bypassing’:
She was implying that meditation should be about relaxation and pleasure, and a kind of ‘tranquiliser’ against reality.
In truth, though, meditation done ‘right’ is the very opposite:
It invites whatever arises to be seen, felt, and integrated.
A more real response to that man would have been:
Create safety within yourself, breathe, and allow those feelings about your daughter to move through you.
This would have been the beginning of regulation, not avoidance, because regulation isn’t about feeling ‘good’ all the time but about feeling safe enough to feel everything that needs feeling.
Regulation: The Deeper Work
True regulation requires courage because it means facing what’s inside rather than covering it up.
When we regulate, we aren’t tranquilising; we’re processing and we’re trusting and allowing the mind-body system to complete what’s been unfinished.
From a physiological standpoint, the difference is simple but profound:
It all ‘works’ because the autonomic nervous system – which is the ‘part’ of your nervous system that works autonomously and without conscious intervention – has two main branches:
- The sympathetic branch, which mobilises us into fight or flight (or freeze).
- The parasympathetic branch, which restores balance, digestion, rest, and healing.
Relaxation techniques aim to activate the parasympathetic system but – in contrast – regulation is about training the entire system to move smoothly and automatically between activation and rest. It’s about restoring flexibility to the system so it can respond appropriately, rather than getting ‘stuck’ in being overly-activated (Sympathetic Dominance where the fight-flight-freeze system is activating too much).
This kind of flexibility is how it’s supposed to be but it’s what prolonged shame, guilt, and/or trauma (a.k.a. the Unholy Trinity) takes from us:
When we experience pain that we couldn’t process at the time, the nervous system gets ‘locked’ into protective modes and so we start to live in a kind of permanent survival mode.
Over time, we start to think that this is just who we ‘are’ and so we start to identify and live as our Sympathetic Personality – the version of us that’s permanently on guard, managing, planning, anticipating, and reacting because of perceived ‘threats’ all over the place (internally and externally).
We think this Sympathetic Personality is who we are – but it’s not: it’s just a mask we start to wear in order to survive.
Regulation is so powerful because it brings us home to something deeper:
To our natural rhythm, where we can feel emotions as energy in motion (e-motion) rather than as threats.
It’s a nervous-system experience of truth and this is where the physiological meets the philosophical because to regulate is to be real with what’s here, in the body, and in the moment.
From Ego to Reality
This is where it becomes existential because if we only ever ‘relax’ then we stay stuck within the parameters of the ego’s dream.
This is because the ego can happily exist ‘relaxing’ in a scented bubble bath, and zoning out with its favourite playlist, but what it can’t handle is sitting still long enough to feel what’s under the surface.
Relaxation can coexist with illusion but regulation requires truth.
In regulation, the breath deepens on its own and the body starts to soften and release tension because it’s safe, not because it’s sedated.
In regulation, the mind quietens because it no longer needs to defend and there’s no forcing or control freakery – just a return to reality.
That’s the essence of REALNESS:
Being with what’s true without needing to distort it.
When my client lay in savasana and said, “I’ve never been this relaxed”, what they really meant was, “I’ve finally stopped fighting myself“.
Their system had, perhaps for the first time, experienced a moment where stillness didn’t equal threat.
That’s the doorway back to real life and flow.
The Cost of Staying in the Sympathetic Personality (Sympathetic Dominance)
Living as the “Sympathetic Personality” has become pretty normal in our world as we all try to survive it:
We’re caffeinated, overstimulated, constantly scanning for danger in emails, messages, and social feeds but we don’t call it anxiety; we call it ambition. We don’t call it avoidance; we call it productivity.
The cost of all this is disconnection – from our breath, from our bodies, from others, and from reality itself.
When we live in this disconnected way, we have to compensate and so we chase pleasure, attempt to control outcomes, and overthink, overdo, and over-explain.
The irony is that all of this striving for safety actually keeps us from it because safety isn’t something you achieve; it’s something you allow – and you can only allow it when you stop running.
That’s why regulation is so transformative:
It’s not passive – it’s the active process of trusting the body to lead you back to truth.
Check out Trust: A Manual in Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace if you want to go deeper into realness and nervous system regulation.
Practical Ways to Cultivate Regulation
Here’s how to begin integrating regulation into your daily life so that you can live from a foundation of real presence and flow instead of distortion and force:
- Set the right intention.
Before meditation, yoga, or tapping into a general sense stillness, remind yourself:
“My aim is not just relaxation but regulation”.
This small mental shift opens the door to awareness rather than avoidance and it reminds your system that whatever comes up is safe to be seen. - Create safety in the body.
Regulation begins with safety.
Feel your feet, your body, your breath and take five slow, diaphragmatic breaths – in through the nose, out through the mouth.
This activates the vagus nerve and signals to the body that it’s safe to soften. - Allow and stay present with sensations.
When emotions or discomfort arise, resist the urge to label or ‘fix’ them and instead, say silently:
“It’s safe to feel this”.
This builds capacity for real presence.
Remember: regulation isn’t the absence of emotion – it’s the ability to feel emotion without losing yourself in it. - Extend your window of tolerance.
Stay a little longer in stillness every time you return to it (within limits, of course).
One more minute in savasana, one more breath before you move.
Each time you do, you’re teaching your system that stillness is safe and that it’s not a threat. - Bring regulation into daily life.
Regulation off the (yoga) mat is what matters most.
Use ordinary moments – for example, waiting for the kettle to boil or walking down the street – as opportunities for check-ins:
“Where’s my breath? Am I in my body? Can I soften here?” - Check in nightly.
Ask yourself before bed:
“When today was I in sympathetic dominance? When did I feel regulated?”
This reflection helps you see patterns and integrate awareness into action. - Use tranquilising habits consciously.
Netflix, social media, gaming are all fine when used consciously – just notice your motive:
“Am I using this to connect, or to disconnect?”
If it’s the latter, pause and do a small regulation exercise first.
Make your breaks real, not numbed out escapes.
Relaxation vs. Regulation: Bringing It All Together
Relaxation is part of healing but it’s not the whole picture – it gives us hints of peace but not the depth of peace that comes from regulation.
Regulation is the bridge between the body and the truth; it’s what allows us to live in reality rather than escaping it.
When you learn to regulate, you stop needing to escape and stillness becomes your home as your breath becomes your ally and your body becomes your anchor into presence.
You’ll stop identifying with your Sympathetic Personality and start living from your regulated self – the version of you that acts from truth instead of tension.
And, really, that’s the essence of REALNESS: living from flow instead of force.
So the next time you think, “I just need to relax”, ask yourself:
“Do I want to numb or do I want to come home?“
Stay real out there,
P.S. If you’re ready to build a foundation of regulation in your life and to start building in alignment with your realness then book a free coaching call with me and I’ll help you get moving.
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