Why your light and your nervous system don't like each other
And what to do about it
I think it is the understatement of the year to say that your light, your gifts, and your nervous system do not (always) see eye to eye. Would you agree?
I often like to give the analogy of a house you have that has been operating at a standard electrical voltage of 120V. Shining your light is akin to running an electric current of 240V and sustaining it, in a wiring that was designed to support 120V.
That electrical surge may cause circuit breakers to shut down the flow of electricity.
I hope I am not losing you with this electrical language.
The point is, shining your light, expressing your gifts and expanding your mission, are designed to challenge the limits of your current wiring.
This is what you feel when you sit down to create the thing you’ve been wanting to put out there for years and something tightens. This is what you feel when you get ready to risk bringing it out to the world.
The circuit breakers I mentioned in the analogy above, they have a name. We call them usually fear, resistance, self sabotage, etc.
They are the ones that seemingly stop the flow of light.
They emerge when shining your light asks you to make peace with being seen in ways that are traditionally uncomfortable.
They emerge when shining your light demands that you face old frictions and emotional injuries, such as the fear of being humiliated, ridiculed, alienated etc.
Your light, for example, does not care about your addiction to being seen as nice. It wants you to be honest in the areas where you usually put on a mask.
Your light is an integrative force
What most people do not understand about their light is that it goes far beyond bringing your authenticity out there, or pursuing your purpose and mission. It goes way beyond putting your art out there or reclaiming visibility.
Your light is an instrument of integration. And as such, it will demand that you reconcile with the parts of you that you’ve been conditioned to disown.
Which means it will not let you pursue your purpose while disowning your anger. It will not let you reclaim your visibility while you’re still ashamed of what you truly want. It will not let you put your art into the world while you’re exiling the parts of you that the art is actually about… Which are usually the most vulnerable parts of ourselves.
It is designed to stretch your nervous system.
The analogy I like to give here is this:
Your light and your survival brain are often in a bad marriage, except a divorce is not possible. They need to reconcile.
This is certainly how it often feels to me and to many of the people that gravitate towards my work.
I like to think of myself as a couple’s therapist between your light, your nervous system and your shadow... Yes, it’s actually a threesome. Pun intended.
The question therefore is: what do you do about it?
Reconciling your light and your nervous system
I’ve said this phrase so many times that it’s become a mantra:
Before it illuminates the world, your light will illuminate you.
The resistance, the self sabotage, the inadequacies that are attached to shining your light, all these “circuit breakers”… they are exactly what needs to be met with love so that your nervous system can feel more anchored as you shine brighter.
Shining your light will not let you get away with not loving the parts of you that you were conditioned to see as inadequate.
I’ve seen it over and over.
Shining your light will not let you get away with not building the heart-centered warriorship needed to stay true to your unique path in a world that rewards conformity.
And when you embrace these initiations, you expand your nervous system’s capacity to handle more light. Not just through regulation, but through integration.
Your light cares less about you being regulated. It cares more about you being whole. And on the other side of you embracing the integrative journey, a different kind of regulation becomes available. One that is not dependent on you rejecting your light.
This is one of the main reasons I built the Embodied Light Project (ELP)
Why I built ELP
This work is not a weekend’s work. Your nervous system did not learn to dim you in a weekend. It is not going to learn to trust your light in one either.
ELP is the place that holds the integrative work that does not fit into a single intensive. Where your nervous system gets to be shown, again and again, that this fuller version of you is safe to inhabit.
It is also a fellowship. Because people walking this particular edge are often alone in it. The people around you may love you, but most of them are not in this conversation. They are still in relationship with the version of you that is being shed.
ELP is a circle of seekers and leaders who will not flinch when you turn your light up and who will reflect your brilliance back on the days you cannot see it.
The doors are open right now. They open just a few times a year. If this resonates, this is your invitation to join.
In gratitude and reverence,
- Xavier
