When Everything Goes Wrong, Can You Stay Steady?

What a late-night disaster taught me about nervous system regulation, meditation, and the pause between reacting and responding.

We had a bit of a disaster the other night. I was exhausted and somehow fell asleep reading my book (Theo of Golden, highly recommend), and the next thing I hear is screaming at the top of someone’s lungs. My son yells “there’s water flowing everywhere!” Sure enough, the bathtub was overflowing. He stopped it immediately, but next thing you know it’s draining down the ceiling into the living room below. Omg. Not what you want to wake up to.

My one son was Mr. Fix-It, only 9 years old, and right away he was bringing in towels, grabbing bowls from the cabinet, putting them under the leaks. My other son was crying hysterically, yelling “we’re going to die, we’re going to die!” My eldest was really quiet, kind of in shock, didn’t do much at all, just stood there.

It got me thinking about nervous system regulation and how we all react when things go wrong. I admittedly can do all three of what my boys did. I can panic and scream. I can clam up and freeze. And I’ve also been clear-headed in certain situations, able to stay present and just start doing what’s needed in the moment. I’ve taken numerous CPR trainings over the years because I have to for my fitness certifications, but I’ve never actually been in a situation where I’ve had to use my life-saving skills. Would I be calm if I did?

This is where my meditation practice has been so key. Not just for not completely losing my cool at 11pm while water is damaging my home in front of my eyes, but for being able to take a deep breath and pause before I respond or react. The worst feeling is reacting in a way you regret later. I really try not to yell at my boys, and I’m at the place where I don’t ever want to, or need to, honestly. Have I yelled at them in the past? Absolutely. Am I proud of it? Not at all. It doesn’t get anyone anywhere. And name-calling is especially a huge no-no in our home, I find it to be one of the most shameful things.

The leak in the tub, the water getting too full, it was an accident, and everyone makes mistakes. I truly believe the discomfort of feeling bad about a mistake is punishment enough in itself. Then we talk about it later and work on avoiding it in the future. That’s really all we can do, but we only learn through mistakes too. As a mom of three boys, you just hope the mistakes aren’t the kind that hurt anyone. You can fix a house. You can’t fix a body, or feelings, as easily.

So I’ve been talking to my boys about how to regulate their nervous systems, and ways to help. I’ve shown them meditation, breath work and mudras that can support that, as adults, we need them too. I’ve shared before about my 2x-a-day meditation practice. It’s like brushing my teeth, I’d feel it if I missed it. It’s slowly helping me become more and more me every day, more and more peaceful. Happiness comes and goes, but peace can be our steady state.

Houses can flood, things can break, tragic things can happen in our lives, and that’s not to say we can’t feel them, get sad, frustrated, whatever. But we can also come back to our steady base and not let it drag us down. If it’s the same thing happening over and over, maybe something needs to change. If it’s just one thing after another, well, that’s life, isn’t it? We’ll always have this or that to deal with, but we can come back to a regulated place. That’s truly the gift of a mindfulness practice.

I’m leading a live meditation on IG this Thursday (Tomorrow!) at 12pm EST/11am CDT and would love to see you there if you’re free. Check my instagram to join tomorrow!

I would also like to start adding guided meditations here as well for paid members, if that's something people would be interested in, leave a comment below.