Adapting to toxicity, returning to nature
Nature sometimes teaches us to adapt, and other times teaches us what is not worth adapting to
So I got back from a couple of days in the forest, and notice my nervous system is struggling to adapt to the sounds of the city again -- like almost melt-down level.
I've been working pretty nonstop the last few weeks, and most of my work is on the computer, so I was hoping a couple of days out would help me press the reset button and come back strong.
But instead, it feels like my nervous system jumped at the chance to adapt to the rhythms of nature and is now throwing an absolute tantrum at the thought of having to adapt back again.
There's a voice in my head telling me that this isn't very resilient and I'm just spoiled by the privilege of hanging out with trees all day.
But I don't think this is right...
When we're going through an internal change (healing, re-evaluation, realization, learning to regulate) our capacity to deal with external stressors can dramatically decrease -- this represents a shift in our system's priorities, not a decrease in overall adaptive capacity.
I often monitor my adaptive capacity in terms of my ability to adjust to my environment -- which is a fine metric, but I need to take into account how much adjustment is happening in my internal environment simultaneously.
Too often, we make massive trade-offs to adjust to our external environment by shifting all of our focus away from the internal -- think of the stereotype of the strong, silent type who keeps a stiff upper lip through all kinds of hardship, but has no reflection on their internal experience.
This often happens when you grow up in a toxic or traumatic environment -- very often, children learn to adapt amazingly well to traumatic circumstances, only to discover much later in life that their internal environment is stuck.
So yeah, I'm learning to navigate my internal environment again, and it turns out that makes me 100% completely intolerant to leaf blowers (God, why) and traffic. And I think I'm okay with that trade-off for right now.