We don't do it alone
Updated: Sep 30
**Grainy long exposure photo of our group atop a sand dune in Morroco at night.
Sovereignty is not isolation. Why we find stability in the presence of others.
In our last blog I mentioned the phrase "nobody is coming to save you." This time I want to dive into the other layers, the more enriched and complete version of the journey. It's simple: you are the author of your own life. And you were never meant to do it alone. Both of these are true at once, two complete concepts becoming one. Forever intertwined.
Here is something your body already knows, even if you have never had the words to name it. We settle in the presence of another person who is settled. Sit beside someone who is calm and grounded and, without a word passing between you, something in your own system begins to shift out of high alert. Sit beside someone who is anxious and wound tight, and you feel yourself start to brace too. This is not a metaphor. It is how we are built. Our nervous systems are not sealed off from one another. They are constantly, quietly reading and answering each other underneath the spoken language and mental narration. There is a name for this. It is called co-regulation. And it might be one of the most underused tools we have. Like any tool, it still needs someone willing to pick it up and use it.
I felt it most powerfully the first time I sat in a room full of sound. I cried through the entire session. Part of what allowed me to let my guard down was the sound and the vibration moving through the room. The other part was even more simple, yet so powerful. I was in a room where the energy was held and supported. Someone was tending the space so that I did not have to. For the length of that session I was not the one keeping watch, and my body knew it, and it finally let go. You cannot always give that to yourself alone. Sometimes the thing that lets you drop your guard is the felt presence of someone who has your back and holds a space with confidence and authenticity. They know what they are doing and how to do it. And within that kind of energy you have room to shift, to feel safe, to feel held.
This is why the people you choose to let in close, when you are struggling, matter so much. Not because any of them can save you, they will not, we have addressed that. But it helps enormously when at least some of the people around you understand these states from the inside. A friend who has known their own dark stretch. A family member who does not flinch when things get hard. A mentor or a professional who has walked this road themselves. A person who has moved through difficult places can hold steady in a way that someone who has only read about them cannot. Their calm is real. It has been tested. When you are in the storm, you can feel the difference between someone performing steadiness and someone who has actually been where you are and come back. That second kind of presence gives your nervous system something true to borrow while yours is learning to steady itself again.
I want to be careful, because I am not describing dependence. Co-regulation is not someone else carrying you forever. It is more like learning to ride a bike with a hand steadying the seat. The hand is not doing the balancing for you. It is lending you enough security that your own body can find the balance it is fully capable of. Then, one day, the hand lifts, and you were already doing it. What I am really pointing to here is not any single person or any specific modality or treatment. It is the quiet importance of having a stable, supportive set of relationships around you. This includes family, friends and yes, sometimes people like us, who have been through it and made it our work and passion. Not one savior to rescue you, but a web of consistent support you can lean into while you do the work that is yours to do.
Given the nature of the symptoms I was experiencing, and the career I held in mental health, I struggled to reach out for help in time. I could see the traditional line of care that was offered in the community around me and I knew it was not enough and was not the right path for the complexity I was experiencing. However, I knew I needed support and didn't know who to reach out to. I eventually heard of a program that was innovative and new. Someone was coloring outside of the very black and white lines with this program and I said let's do it. Waiting so long and trying to sort things out on my own was incredibly difficult and scary. I encourage you not to wait until the sauce pot boils. It is much easier to turn down the heat while things are simmering than to clean up a huge mess afterwards.
Strength and bravery, it turns out, is not doing it alone. Strength is being sovereign enough to know your own mind and open enough to let another steady presence in while you do the work only you can do. It is giving yourself permission to be vulnerable in the presence of people you trust. To let all of yourself be seen and held, not only the composed and capable parts, but the nervous, emotional, dysregulated and frightened parts too. Those are the parts that most need company, and they are exactly the parts we work hardest to hide. The truth is, once we can integrate it all we feel more whole, grounded and connected.
Here is your small step for this week, and it is a brave one. Reach toward one steady presence. It does not have to be dramatic. It could be sitting with a calm friend without any agenda. It could be a walk with someone who does not need you to be okay. It could be finally answering the invitation you have been putting off, or reaching out to someone who has walked this road. You are not asking to be rescued. Remember, nobody is coming to do that, and you would not want them to. You are simply letting your nervous system borrow a little steadiness while it remembers its own. That is not weakness. It is how we are built.
We do the work ourselves. And we do not do it alone. Let both of these be true.
Big Love,
Thomasina
Thomasina's five-part personal series
4. We don't do it alone (you are here)
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