Paralysis to Power: Nervous System Regulation for Resistance

We name the paralysis many feel in the face of systemic harm and show how shutdown is a nervous system response, not a personal flaw. We share simple practices to move from freeze to small, collective actions that matter over time.

• dorsal vagal freeze explained and normalized
• how systems profit from burnout and paralysis
• why regulation enables collective action
• four-step shift: name, move, connect, act
• examples of small, coordinated actions
• rest and creativity as strategy for resilience
• community support through The Uprising

If you appreciate this content, would like to support my work, consider joining my community, The Uprising. To learn more about this and other services, visit my website, crystalmacleancreative.com

Right now, membership to The Uprising is pay what you can. If you can't afford it, just message me and I'll get you access for free.

Go directly to Patreon

Transcript

Content Warning And Why It Matters

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Hey, thanks for tuning in. Before we get in to today's post, I just want to give you a content warning. This episode is going to discuss some oppression and harm. So if you need to pause or come back or even just skip this post, that's totally fine. Please do. It's important that you take care of yourself first. All right. So I need to talk about something that's been coming up a lot lately. This feeling of what's the point? I've had conversations with clients and friends and folks on social media, all expressing a grand sense of hopelessness. This feeling of being small and insignificant compared to the fascist oligarch control that we're not just seeing here in the States, but all over the world. With the recent drop of the Epstein files, we've got confirmation of what a lot of us have already known. Powerful men have been protected while committing atrocities against women and girls for decades. And the collective response has been a shrug. Some outrage, yes, absolutely. But mostly it's just been fucking business as usual. And that's not settling well with me. What's also not settling well is that a lot of folks are saying this is too much, they're too big, they're too rich, too powerful. What could we ever do? I get it. I feel it too. The scale of the corruption, the abuse, the systems designed to protect predators while silencing survivors, it's fucking overwhelming. But today I want to talk about what's actually happening in our bodies when we say this is too much, and why that response, as valid as it is, is exactly what these systems rely on to keep running and to keep control. You're listening to Creative Self-Care. I'm your host, Crystal McLean, and together we're exploring ways to effectively and sustainably manage stress and build resilience. If you appreciate this content, would like to support my work, consider joining my community, The Uprising. To learn more about this and other services, visit my website, crystalmaincreative.com. All right, so let's talk about what's really going on when you feel paralyzed by the enormity of what we're facing. That feeling of what's the point? It's all too big. Nothing we do matters. That is you speaking from a dorsal vagal nervous system response. Your nervous system has assessed the threat as too large to fight and too large to run from. So it's doing the only thing left, collapsing into immobilization. This is what's known as the freeze response. This is the same response that happens when animals play dead to survive a predator. And it's a survival mechanism. And in the moment of an acute threat, it can save your life. It's why we don't see a lot of victims of abuse and brutality fight back, because being attacked can make your nervous system go offline because it's too much to bear and to be fully present in. But here's the problem. We're not facing an acute threat. We're facing chronic systemic oppression and shutdown. While it might protect us from feeling the full weight of the horrors we're witnessing through our screens, it's also stripping us of our capacity to respond. And of course, yes, there are far too many of us who are experiencing the horrors firsthand. And I don't want to discredit that or pretend that's not happening. But for the majority of us, what we're doing is we're witnessing, we're bearing witness to what's happening to others. Anyway, so when you're in shutdown, everything feels futile. Small actions feel pointless. Showing up feels impossible. Connection feels too hard. You go numb. So you scroll. You dissociate. You tell yourself there's nothing you can do anyway. So why bother? And that is exactly what this racist, misogynistic system needs from us. The system doesn't need your compliance. It doesn't need you to actively support it. It just needs you paralyzed. It needs you too overwhelmed to organize, too numb to care, too exhausted to fight, too isolated to build solidarity and community with others. When we're stuck in a mindset of this is too much, it's going to keep us immobilized while the machine keeps running. And here's the really insidious part. The same systems that create the conditions for abuse, patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism are also the systems that keep us too dysregulated to effectively resist them. They profit from your burnout. They rely on our shutdown. They need us to believe that the problem is too big and we are too small. But the truth? The truth is that collective action built by people doing small things together is exactly how these corrupt systems fall. But you can't be a part of collective action when you're in a state of shutdown. So let me be very clear. When you feel like this is too much, what can I even do? That's not truth talking. That's trauma talking. That's your nervous system trying to protect you from pain it doesn't think you can handle. And I'm not saying the pain isn't real. I'm not saying the problem isn't massive because it is. I am saying your capacity to respond is not determined by the size of the threat. It's determined by the state of your nervous system in this moment. So the question isn't what can we even do about something this big? The question is, can I get regulated enough to do the next right thing in front of me? Because here's what resistance actually looks like. It's not one person solving everything, it's thousands of people showing up for their small piece while others show up for theirs. It's the person who reports abuse even when they're scared. It's the journalist who keeps investigating even when powerful people try to silence them. It's the survivor who tells their story. It's the community member who believes them. It's the organizer who plans the protest. It's the person who shows up to the protest. It's the lawyer who takes the case. It's the friend who offers child care so someone else can go to the meeting. None of those actions alone change the system, but together, together, they create the conditions for change. And every single one of those actions requires a nervous system that's regulated enough to move from this is too much into here's what I can do right now. It doesn't mean you're not scared. It doesn't mean you're not tired. It means you're able to care for yourself in ways that allow you to rise despite fear and fatigue. And rising doesn't mean you abandon your need for things like rest and leisure and joyful creative hobbies. In fact, you need those things in order to truly build resilience. And we'll talk about that another time. But for now, let's talk about what you can actually do when you're feeling paralyzed by the enormity of what we're facing. First, just name the physical or emotional or mental state that you're in. Just notice where you're at. I'm in shutdown right now. I'm in a freeze response. I'm afraid. Just name it. You're not broken, you're not weak, you're having a physiological response to overwhelming information. Naming it is going to give you a little bit of space between the feeling and the truth. The second thing you want to do is to do something physical that shifts your state. Shutdown happens when your nervous system has decided that fight and flight won't work. So we need to give your body evidence that movement is still possible. This can be really simple. Just stand up and shake out your hands. Do a couple of jumping jacks. Put on a song and dance badly in your kitchen. Go outside and feel your feet on the ground. Splash cold water on your face. Pop in a really strong breath mint. You're not trying to fix anything. You're trying to shift out of immobilization and back into your body and a state where action feels possible, even if it's a small action. The third thing, which is not optional, is to connect with at least one other person. Shutting down is isolating and it makes you feel like you're all alone. So it's really important that you reach out. Text a friend, call someone who gets it, join a community of people who are also trying to stay awake and engaged instead of just going numb. Again, this is not optional. We cannot sustain resistance alone. We literally need each other. And not just for strategy, but for nervous system regulation. And the fourth thing that will help you really to feel like you're being an active participant in the movement is to do one small thing. Not the thing that solves everything, just one small action in the right direction. It could be signing a petition or donating a couple of dollars to an organization that's doing the work. It could be having a hard conversation with someone in your life. Maybe it's showing up to a local meeting. It could be sharing a survivor story or just saying it out loud. This is not okay, and I'm not going to pretend like it is. You can share on social media other people's stories. You can copy and paste an email to your representatives. One small action that aligns with the movement is going to tell your brain that you're doing something, that you're part of the solution because you are. And I want to remind you that the goal is not to save the world today. The goal is to practice moving from shutdown into action, to give your nervous system real, concrete evidence that you are not, in fact, helpless because you're not. We're not. So I know what you're doing may not feel like it's enough. I often have that feeling myself. Sometimes I feel like teaching people about the nervous system and how to regulate it when we're staring down real systemic abuse and corruption, it feels small, right? It can feel really small and insignificant. But what I want you to understand is that helping people to stay regulated enough to stay fighting instead of burning out or shutting down, that's resistance. And whether you're learning how to do that yourself or you're sharing what you've learned, working towards supporting your nervous system, that's fucking resistance. That is beautiful. That is powerful. And that's how we're going to sustain this together. The systems need our exhaustion. They need our paralysis. They need us too numb to care and too overwhelmed to act. But your nervous system regulation, our collective regulated nervous systems is how we refuse that. Because as cliche as it fucking sounds, this fight is not a sprint. It's a marathon. And we need people who can stay in it for the long haul. Awake, engaged, connected, and resilient. And this is how I'm contributing to this time in history. I'm teaching nervous system literacy, stress management, and resilience building. And that's why I have the uprising. So if you are tired of feeling paralyzed and hopeless, and if you want tools to stay in the fight without burning out, even though, let's be honest, you will burn out along the way. But if you want tools to pull yourself out of burnout, and if you want a community of people who refuse to go numb, who refuse to quit the fight, and who are dedicated to staying self-regulated, I'd love to invite you to join us in the uprising. The uprising is what I call my community over at Patreon. Step by step, I teach nervous system literacy and I do my best to share practices and safe space for rage and rest and to reclaim your power alongside people who get it. And right now, membership to the uprising is pay what you can. And if you can't afford it, just message me and I'll get you access for free because this work needs to be accessible. If you want to learn more, you can check out my website, crystalmacleancreative.com. All right, my friend. But we do have a choice. We can let the weight crush us into shutdown, or we can learn how to carry it together. I'm choosing the latter, and I hope you'll join me. Take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I hope to see you next time.