10d • Hypnotherapy
When the Nervous System Finally Feels Safe
Why Emotional Regulation Comes Before Pain Relief, Change, or “Fixing” Anything
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realise this:
Most people don’t need fixing.They need safety.
For years, I did what many well-intentioned practitioners do. I learned more techniques. I refined my language. I tried to get better at making change happen.
And yet, the biggest shifts I ever witnessed didn’t come from doing more.
They came from stopping.
Stopping the rush.Stopping the correcting.Stopping the subtle pressure to “get better.”
That’s when I began to see what was really going on underneath anxiety, emotional overwhelm, and chronic pain.
What If Nothing Is Wrong?
Somewhere along the line, we absorbed the idea that if we’re struggling, something must be wrong with us.
If you feel anxious, you need to control it.If you’re in pain, you need to eliminate it.If you’re emotional, you need to manage yourself better.
But what if those experiences aren’t problems at all?
What if they’re signals from a nervous system that has been on duty for far too long?
When I started explaining this to clients, gently, without jargon, something softened almost immediately.
Not the symptoms at first.The shame.
That quiet internal voice saying, “Why am I like this?” began to ease.
And when shame reduces, the body listens.
The Body Doesn’t Heal in an Emergency
One metaphor keeps coming back in my work.
There’s a difference between an emergency room and a healing room.
In an emergency room, the body is alert, tense, scanning for danger.In a healing room, it can finally exhale.
Most people living with anxiety, stress, or persistent pain are stuck in emergency mode, not because they’re weak, but because their system learned it had to stay there.
You don’t heal by yelling at yourself to calm down.You heal when your nervous system no longer believes it has to brace.
This is why regulation comes before insight.Before hypnosis.Before pain relief.Before emotional release.
Without safety, nothing sticks.
The Power of Being Believed
One of the most radical things you can do with another human being is believe them.
Believe their experience.Believe their pain.Believe that their response makes sense.
I no longer rush to reframe. I don’t contradict someone’s emotional reality. I don’t tell them they “shouldn’t” feel a certain way.
I start here instead:
Of course your system learned this.Of course it’s trying to protect you.Of course this has been exhausting.
Something incredible happens when people feel validated at the level of their nervous system.
They stop fighting themselves.
From “This Is Who I Am” to “This Is Something I’m Experiencing”
Language matters more than we realise.
“I have anxiety.”“I’m broken.”“My body is against me.”
These phrases quietly turn experiences into identities.
A small shift changes everything:
“I do anxiety.”“My system is running a stress response.”“My body learned this for a reason.”
Suddenly, there’s space.
If it’s a process, it can change.If it’s a pattern, it can soften.If it’s learned, it can be relearned.
Agency returns, not through force, but through understanding.
Pain, Emotion, and the Same Old Story
Working with pain taught me something that emotional work alone never quite brought into focus.
Pain has a way of stripping things down to their essentials. It doesn’t care how insightful you are, or how much you understand your patterns. It doesn’t soften because you’ve found the “right mindset.” It speaks in the language of the body, and the body is honest. Sometimes brutally so.
And what I began to notice, again and again, is that pain and emotion obey the same laws.
They don’t behave like moral failures. They don’t respond well to pressure, shaming, or being argued with. They are not impressed by willpower.
They amplify under threat.They soften under safety.They persist when they are ignored.And they begin to change when they are listened to.
That last part matters, because most people who live with persistent pain aren’t asking for miracles. They aren’t always chasing a dramatic before-and-after moment. Often, what they want is simpler and more human than that.
They want their body to stop shouting.
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being in a constant relationship with something that demands attention. Pain can dominate the inner landscape. It can become the main character in every decision: what you do, what you avoid, how you sleep, how you sit, how you move, how you imagine your future. It isn’t just a sensation, it’s a whole atmosphere.
So we slow down.
Not because we’re giving up.Because speed rarely creates safety.
We get curious, not in a clinical way, but in the way you might approach a frightened child or an overwhelmed animal. Softly. Patiently. Without demanding change.
Where is it?What does it feel like, exactly?Is it sharp, heavy, tight, burning?Does it have an edge or a centre?Is it trying to prevent something?
And as those questions land, something often shifts, even before we “do” anything.
Fear eases.Guarding reduces.Breathing changes.
Sometimes pain shifts in that moment. Sometimes it doesn’t — not yet. But something else changes first: the relationship.
Instead of war, there’s contact.Instead of resistance, there’s communication.Instead of “my body is against me,” there’s the beginning of “my body is trying.”
And that is where everything begins.
Why I Use Hypnosis Differently Now
I still use hypnosis, but I no longer use it like a performance, and I never use it like something I’m doing to someone.
I use it the way you might use dim lighting in a room that’s been too bright for too long.
To reduce noise.
Because so much suffering isn’t only in the sensation itself, it’s in the story wrapped around it. The inner narrator that keeps replaying the same lines: This will never change. What if it gets worse? I can’t cope like this. My life is smaller now.
Hypnosis, for me, is often less about dramatic trance states and more about helping the system find a quieter channel. A place where attention can settle without effort. A place where safety is not just discussed, but experienced.
When someone imagines releasing what they’ve been carrying, or adjusting an internal dial from “maximum alert” to “just enough,” their body responds, because imagination is not pretend to the nervous system. It’s one of the brain’s native languages. The body listens to images. It listens to metaphor. It listens to suggestion when the system is calm enough to receive it.
And importantly: nothing is forced.Nothing is overridden.
The system decides what it’s ready for.
The Relief No One Talks About
The most common response I hear isn’t, “My pain is gone,” or “My anxiety disappeared.”
It’s quieter than that. Almost surprised.
“Oh… I’m not broken.”“My body was actually trying to help.”“I don’t have to fight myself anymore.”
That relief, the end of the internal battle, is often the real turning point.
Because when the nervous system stops bracing, change doesn’t have to be chased. It doesn’t have to be wrestled into existence. It becomes something the body can allow.
It happens in the small ways first: a softer breath, a looser jaw, a moment of steadiness, a little more space around the sensation. The beginning of trust.
And trust is not a sentimental thing in this work. It’s practical. It’s neurological. Trust is the condition under which the system stops protecting so aggressively.
If You Take One Thing From This
Whether you’re a practitioner, a client, or just a human trying to get through the day, I hope this lands:
You don’t heal by fixing yourself.You heal by making yourself safe.
Everything else follows.
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When the Nervous System Finally Feels Safe
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