Being 'calm' was never the goal.
No amount of deep breathing can erase the reality of systems that weren’t built for us to thrive
In recent years, nervous system regulation has become a kind of holy grail in wellness and coaching spaces. It’s everywhere: in yoga classes, on social media, in trauma-informed workshops, and on the lips of anyone trying to offer something more embodied than just mindset work.
The message is consistent and seductive: if we can just learn to breathe deeper, ground harder, and practice presence more consistently, then we can stay calm in the face of anything.
The idea is that regulation will allow us to become unshakeable. That it’s a kind of ultimate self-mastery that can buffer us from the overwhelm of living in a messy, unjust world. But the truth is, this framing strips nervous system work of its political, emotional, and relational depth.
It turns somatics into a performance of inner peace, rather than a path back to ourselves.
Somatic psychology, at its core, was never about getting better at tolerating pain. It was never about creating people who can meet oppression, cruelty, or harm with a neutral face and a smooth breath. Its aim was much more radical: to help people feel themselves so clearly that they could know when something is wrong, and act accordingly.
When we talk about regulation within The Mentor Training, it’s in service to something far bigger than stillness. We teach it not so you can become better at enduring, but so you can reclaim your capacity to discern, to protect, to interrupt what harms, and to advocate for what matters.
A regulated nervous system is not one that never feels anger, or fear, or grief. It is one that can stay present enough to metabolise those states, rather than freeze or collapse in their presence. It is a nervous system that supports resistance, not passivity. That fuels action, not avoidance. It’s not there to make you nicer, or quieter, or more palatable. It’s there to help you stay with yourself, with others, with the truth even when it’s hard.
The wellness world has watered this work down into bite-sized tips and hacks: take a deep breath, do your vagus nerve stim, get back to baseline. But baseline for many people has never been safety. And no amount of deep breathing can erase the reality of systems that weren’t built for us to thrive. To tell someone that regulation is the answer to their pain, without acknowledging the source of that pain, is another form of violence, a subtle one, but a violence nonetheless.
What we actually need — in leadership, in mentorship, in relationship — are people who can feel their own limits and honour them. People who know that calm is not always the wisest response. People who are willing to let their bodies be moved by injustice and not override the signals that say: this is not okay.
This is what we’re building toward at The Mentor Training. A community of mentors and leaders who are awake to the world and their place within it. Who understand that nervous system work is not about detachment, but about deeper relationship with self, with others, with the systems we move through.
Our next cohort opens for enrolment in a few months. We’ll be announcing some powerful changes soon: a more accessible path into the foundational work, a more rigorous and expanded professional track, and new formats to support deeper integration and application. But beneath all of those changes, the heart of the work stays the same.
We’re here to help you come home to your body, not so you can endure more quietly, but so you can live more fully. So you can trust what you feel, know what you stand for, and have the tools to support others in doing the same.