Mutual Aid + Nervous Center Regulation
“Kindness can activate the ventral vagal nerve...[showing] that we value each other and promote feelings of safety and connection.”
On my way to donate blood last week, I found myself talking out loud to whatever lies behind the universe. Call it what you will—prayer, god, energy, or even just external processing—but I was having a moment.
Ignited by a seemingly unrelated but abrupt threat to my financial security, this occasion was prime territory to freak out, quickly dispel any unknowns, and slide back into a state I know well:
Control and safety.
(I know how to make money, even if it kills me.)
Instead of doubling down on how I typically get my needs met, though—largely, I'd say, by doing everything on my own—I experienced a point of clarity that tied trusting the universe to my physical health.
It's this growing sense I have that trusting community and nature to meet my needs will, in equal measure, heal my body.
It seems completely counterintuitive, right?
When we're ostensibly in control, able to pay for everything we need and buy what we want, when we want it—providing for ourselves without having to rely on others—you'd think we'd feel at ease. You'd think we'd be able to relax into a state of calm, knowing we were in the driver's seat for all that might come our way.
And I'm not talking about having money vs. not having money. Or even having a silly conversation about whether money is good or bad.
I'm talking about how we engage with money and other resources.
See, what I'm beginning to grasp, and even experience at a somatic level, is that rugged individualism dis-regulates my nervous system.
When I am constantly concerned with meeting my own needs, I am also constantly concerned with anything that might threaten how I control those needs being met. It keeps me in anxiety and sees anything and anyone with "mess" (read: everyone) as a potential risk to my resources.
Instead, when I give things away, when I operate in service to others, and when I have to trust that resources will show up when and how they are most needed, my body experiences a lived state of trust.
Trust that I will be provided for. Trust that, when I give, I build a connection that engenders a sense of community. Trust that, when I need that community, they will also be compelled to give to me.
This is why mutual aid—not charity, but a true understanding that our needs are met by each other and that everyone plays a necessary part in the whole, putting us all on equal footing—is actually a system for nervous center regulation.
Because giving inspires trust. And trust allows my nervous center to fucking relax.
So, while in my car, on the way to literally give away my own blood, I found myself telling the universe (hello, the universe is me), "It's time to put your money where your mouth is."
As in—
If my body and all of its attendant issues—mostly autoimmune-related, WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED—need to continue to heal...
and if letting go, stopping all the over-planning, and continuing to give of my time, energy, resources, and skills instead of running in justifiable fear to the next hit of perceived security...
is what will heal me...
Then I need to keep disconnecting from that addictive pattern. I need to trust myself and all I've been learning. I need to trust that the natural state of the universe is abundance. And I need to trust that the universe will make good on that claim.
In my recent experience, that has been acting like I have all of the time in the world. And all of the resources I need in the world. And all of the financial support and community connection I need to survive.
Even if it feels like acting at first.
Remember a while back, when I wrote about joy practice? This is really the same thing. Practicing what it means to live in a state of mutual care by giving of the excess you have, even when you don't feel like you have it. Practicing abundance of time and community by not over-scheduling yourself, even when you feel absolutely strapped. Practicing wealth by letting go of more of your money as though you're rich...
All visible evidence to the contrary.
And then seeing what it does for your nervous system.
Because you know what? It turns out that even giving away your own blood makes you live longer.
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