The Three Keys to Somatic Regulation
The founder of Somatic Experiencing Peter Levine often speaks of three core concepts when it comes to somatic regulation: resourcing, pendulation, and titration. In this piece I want to briefly introduce and summarize those and then in a subsequent piece I’ll apply those three principles to the process of spiritual practice—thereby allowing us to develop somatically-regulated spiritual processes.
Principle #1 Resourcing
Another word that I often substitute for resourcing is wholeness. Resourcing is about building up enough internal resources to be able to face into and eventually work through difficult memory, sensation, and emotion. I’ve written previously about the three stages of transformation: opening, creativity, and mastery. Resourcing connects well with the first phrase and really helps emphasize the way in which one can open to transformation.
Transformational work is very distinct from “band-aid” solutions which seek to minimize symptoms. A transformational approach is one that seeks to change the underlying cause and conditions.
For example, a person might be avoiding their grief. Maybe the’ve just gone through a rough breakup with a lover. There’s grief there because the relationship has died. Grief comes to us when something or someone has died. Grief is the medicine in these situations but grief can be tender, visceral even.
If they don’t deal with the grief, the suppressed grief will show up in all sorts of strange ways in their life (“symptoms”). They might become really obsessed and over-focused on cleanliness or alternatively lose motivation to stay on track of daily chores as the dirty dishes and laundry pile up. Or they become distracted by excessive binge-watching tv shows or lost in gaming worlds. If all someone focused on was the symptomatic layer they might think the problem is they’re watching too much TV. So they try to cut that out, only to have the suppressed grief pop up somewhere else like a game of whack-a-mole: e.g. becoming stingy and/or too loose with their money.
Transformational change, in this case, would be about facing the grief. The three practices of resourcing, pendulation, and titration offer a wise vision of how precisely to go about that change. The three phases of transformation are the roadmap of the major landscapes of the journey. The three somatic practices are about how to navigate that journey intelligently. The three phase are more the what and where of the process while the practices are the how.
Resourcing is about building up enough internal peace, safety, and ease to be able to start eventually to turn towards and befriend the grief. One has to feel “bigger than” the feeling in order to be able to face it. Otherwise a really charged emotion could swallow someone up. There are two major errors when it comes to this kind of work: 1) bypassing 2) collapsing. The first is seeking to suppress, avoid, or distract from an uncomfortable sensation and emotion. The second is turning towards such a feeling or sensation but not having the proper resources to be able to do so in a safe way which can lead to a state of emotional overwhelm and flooding, culminating in collapse. A swing of the pendulum back towards avoidance typically follows a period of collapse.
Working with charged emotions is something like a drawdown on a checking account. For every occasion that we practice working with a charged emotion or sensation we need some energy that will be put to work. Energy in physics is simply the ability to do work. There needs to be an input greater than the intensity of the feeling. The further practices of pendulation and titration lay out a little more nuance about how to do that exactly—more on those to come. But for now it’s enough to say that there has to be “sufficient funds in the account” to make the withdraw, as it were. Getting into a sensation or emotion without proper resourcing is like writing a check that bounces—there’s not the energy necessary to do the job. Such “over drafting” leads to emotional overwhelm and collapse.
Principle #2: Pendulation
The second principle and practice of titration comes into play here. To pendulate is to oscillate or swing back and forth between two positions: like the pendulum on a grandfather clock. The two positions in this case being the resourced area of one’s being and the under-resourced area of one’s being. In our example of the person grieving the under-resourced or pain area is where the grief lies within them (often rooted in the lungs).
To pendulate is to go back and forth between those two positions. First the person starts by building up their resource internally. They may connect to trees or the sky or a sense of peace and calm in the environment. They might connect to places within their own being that feel more at ease, strong, or warm. They build up such positive sentiment in their own being first (resourcing). Then they gently move towards the area that is hurting (pendulate). In the case of the grieving individual, their tears around the loss of their relationship. Then they stay with the difficult emotion for a short bit (titration) and then “swing back” to the feeling of resource (pendulate).
Then they need to build back up their “emotional bank account” in order to eventually have another short go at the grief. The rhythm of always staring with resourcing, moving to under-resourced, and then moving back to resourcing is the core of pendulation.
Principle #3: Titration
The third practice of titration is to only do micro-doses of working with really charged emotion, sensation, and memory (especially traumatic ones). Another word for titration is digestion.
As the saying goes:
How does the snake eat the elephant?
One bite at a time.
When dealing with “elephantine” emotions, memories, and sensations we too, like the snake, need to digest them one bite a time. An eight-course meal is eaten over hours not within twenty minutes or it will lead to a major tummy ache. The tummy ache in this example is yet again emotional flooding and overwhelm, most likely leading to a problematic pendulation back to the negative pole of bypassing, avoidance, and suppression.
The process is learning to be with and stay present and sensitive to otherwise challenging emotions and sensations. To do so we need to build up our capacity (resourcing). A person learning to lift weights doesn’t start with the heaviest ones. They start small and build incrementally and methodically from there until they become stronger. Learning to notice where their current edge is and then just slightly—in a titrated manner—stretching themselves a bit by adding just a few pounds more to their lift. Otherwise adding too much weight can lead to injury.
Same logic applies here. Start small and build capacity. Add a bit of extra weight each time but don’t over do and back it down if you need to.
One of the most important aspects of titration is not just learning about how to do small amounts in one go (though that’s key) but also to be able to “right-size” the very topic one might be focused on.
Let’s go back to the person suffering heartbreak. At first it appears to be a straightforward case of grief—which is certainly a core part of the story. But as they turn towards the grief there’s a mix of emotions. Maybe there’s a lot of unexpressed resentment built up over the course of the relationship. Perhaps the ex has started a new relationship and so there’s a strong flavor of jealousy present. Also, perhaps this person made some mistakes that contributed to the breakup and so they feel regret and remorse (shame).
Trying to feel all of those intense interrelated but distinct emotions at once will be overwhelming. All of those are valid but each needs to be dealt with one at a time. That’s titration. Differentiating out say the resentment around the breakup and focusing on it as one piece of the pie, so to speak. Learning to digest that particular slice of the overall experience. Then later potentially working with the jealousy or remorse. Each of those can then be further broken down in sub-pieces so they can be titrated as well. In this way, workable amounts of emotion are being processed at one time.
The snake eating the elephant one bite at a time again.
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To review: start by building up a sense of wholeness, strength, and resiliency (“resourcing”). Then learn to turn towards (“pendulate”) a difficult sensation or emotion but only do a bite-sized chunk of it at any one time (“titration”). After a brief experience with a difficult sensation or emotion move back (“pendulate”) to the state of strength and re-source yourself to build back up sufficient strength. When ready, move back towards the difficult experience (“pendulate”) and again don’t bite off more than you can chew (“titration”). Digest a few bites of the difficult experience and then move back (“pendulate”) to the area of strength, rest, recover, and build back up (“resource”). Lather, rinse, and repeat. Take breaks. Build in recovery time and have off-days just like a weightlifter. Keep working at the experience, slowly, safely, methodically in this precise rhythm and manner until eventually the experience is neutralized and transformed.