Step 3: The Missing Step Between Awareness and Nervous System Regulation
The three-step daily practice that most nervous system content skips + what actually makes the tools work
Before we dive in
This is Step 3 of my nervous system series - and the post I’ve been most excited to write.
The full state-specific toolkit is coming Wednesday - but I’d be doing you a disservice if I shared it without this first.
If you’ve ever tried a nervous system tool and felt like it didn’t work, this post is probably why. Most nervous system content goes straight to the tools - the breathwork, the somatic practices- without the foundational practice that allows those tools to actually land. Without this step, tools often feel forced, ineffective, or only work sometimes.
This framework is what’s missing from most nervous system training. It’s the bridge between awareness and regulation - blending bottom-up and top-down approaches in one simple sequence so your nervous system is actually ready to receive what comes next.
If you’ve ever had great insights in talk therapy but still felt stuck in your body - or felt temporary relief from somatic work but couldn’t seem to hold it - this is why. Insight without body-based regulation doesn’t complete the cycle. And body-based work without the cognitive piece can shift your state temporarily without changing the underlying patterns. You need both. And that’s exactly what this framework does.
Before you go any further, make sure you have the foundation in place. This post works best when it does.If you haven’t already, start here:
What Is Nervous System Dysregulation - and Why Is Everyone Talking About It? The psychoeducation piece. Understanding what’s actually happening in your body - and why dysregulation is a protective response, not a personal failure - is foundational to everything else.
Step 1: You Can’t Regulate What You Don’t Recognize A gentle guide to the nervous system states that might be running your life without you knowing it.
Step 2: Your Body Has Been Trying to Tell You Something Most people only notice their nervous system when it’s already too late. Step 2 teaches you how to start catching it earlier - before the flare, the spiral, the shutdown.
A quick reminder of the states
You know these from Step 1 - just a brief snapshot before we get into the framework. Full breakdown on nervous system states here.
Sympathetic: mobilized, activated, urgent, wired.
Dorsal vagal: heavy, foggy, shut down, collapsed.
Freeze: both at once - shut down on the surface, activated underneath.
Ventral vagal: present, grounded, connected. Where healing happens.
Why we use both bottom-up and top-down approaches
Before I get into what each approach actually is - a bit of context on why I built this framework the way I did.
I spent years working with practitioners who focused purely on somatic bottom-up work, and separately with therapists whose approach was almost entirely top-down brain retraining. Both helped. Neither felt complete on its own. It wasn’t until I started combining them - and later trained in approaches that do exactly that - that things really shifted. That’s what this framework is built on, and it’s what I use with my clients.
Most nervous system content focuses on one or the other. But in my experience it’s the combination of both that makes this work - and understanding why makes the tools land differently.
Top-down approaches work through the mind. Naming your state, redirecting your attention, using specific thought patterns to interrupt a stress response. They work well when you have some cognitive capacity available - when you’re not fully over your threshold.
Bottom-up approaches work through the body. Sensation, movement, breath, and physiology to shift state directly - bypassing the thinking brain entirely. This matters because when you’re dysregulated, your prefrontal cortex is partially offline. You can’t think your way out of a state your body drove you into. Bottom-up tools work even when your thinking brain isn’t available.
The most effective regulation combines both. A bottom-up tool shifts your physiology first, creating enough capacity for a top-down tool to then work. Together they create something neither can do alone.
This is also why repetition matters. The nervous system changes through high repetition over time - especially when tools are practiced in calm, neutral moments, not just crisis ones. The more you practice in everyday moments, the more automatically they become available when you actually need them. That is how new neural pathways form. That is what lasting regulation looks like.
Below the paywall is the framework I use personally and teach all of my clients - a simple three-step pattern interrupt you can use any time you feel something shifting in your system.
It’s not complicated. But practiced consistently, it’s one of the most powerful things you can do for your nervous system. It works because it combines both bottom-up and top-down approaches in one simple sequence - and it gets faster and more automatic the more you use it.
The full state-specific toolkit drops Wednesday. This framework is your foundation before that.