Matt Tolstoy

Regulation’s purpose is to support exploration of our experience so we can be more present with what’s happening, not to manage it away.

Safety in the name of engagement, not safety for safety’s sake.

So nervous system regulation is not synonymous with reducing difficult emotional experience.

When working with people, I often encourage deeper contact with emotional experience in order to increase its intensity.

That’s also regulation.

Too much activation and it’s overwhelming, and we run the risk of reinforcing our problematic ways of coping.

Too little and the experience isn’t meaningful or alive enough to change us.

Nervous system regulation in therapy is not the same thing as learning to calm down.

It’s about finding a working distance from emotional activation.