Get your nervous system more regulated.

Sep 25

3 min read

Get your nervous system more regulated.

Just Notice.

Book a Session

Sometimes emotional and nervous system regulation begins with something simple.

You've heard me talk about it:

The 1-2-3 Method: Beginning. Middle. End.

The 1-2-3 Method: Beginning. Middle. End.

What if one of the simplest ways to calm your nervous system was to practice finishing things?

I call it the 1-2-3 Method:

1. Begin. 2. Stay with the middle. 3. Complete.

It sounds almost ridiculously simple. But notice how often we don’t do this.

We start making coffee, see a text, answer it, remember an email, open our laptop, notice the laundry, and twenty minutes later we are standing in another room wondering what happened to the coffee.

Our attention has been pulled through five beginnings, several middles, and very few endings.

For a nervous system that has experienced trauma or chronic stress, that can be especially exhausting.

Why completion matters.

Our brains are constantly trying to organize experience into patterns.

Something starts. Something happens. Something ends.

There is a rhythm to it.

A conversation begins and ends. A meal begins and ends. A task begins and ends. An emotion rises, moves through us, and changes. Even our breathing has an inhale, a transition, and an exhale.

Somatic therapies also pay attention to completion.

In Somatic Experiencing, for example, there is often an emphasis on noticing activation, allowing the nervous system to move through manageable pieces of an experience, and recognizing when something shifts, settles, or feels complete.

Trauma can interrupt that sense of sequence. The nervous system may remain oriented toward what comes next?! Rather than registering that this is finished now.

That is where the 1-2-3 Method becomes a surprisingly powerful practice.

Train your brain with ordinary things.

You don't have to begin with your biggest emotional problem.

Start ridiculously small.

1 — Beginning: "I'm making coffee and drinking out of this coffee cup."

2 — Middle: Wash the cup. Stay with the cup.

3 — End: Put it away.

Notice: Task Done.

Then move to the next thing.

Try it with making the bed, answering one email, putting groceries away, taking a shower, paying one bill, or having a difficult conversation.

The important part is actually noticing the ending.

Take one second and register:

I finished that.

That tiny moment teaches your brain something important: experiences can have boundaries. Endings can feel positive. You get things done. You like coming home to somewhere clean and peaceful, not full of Shoulds. (I should have made my bed, folded the laundry, etc.)

This is also why I love monotasking.

Multitasking sounds productive.

Most of the time, we're actually task-switching.

For an already vigilant or easily overwhelmed nervous system, constantly shifting attention can create even more stimulation: another unfinished thought, another open loop, another thing the brain has to track.

Monotasking is different.

One thing. One sequence. One completion.

You give your brain fewer things to monitor while letting your nervous system experience predictability.

Try saying:

"For the next ten minutes, there is only this."

Not forever.

Just this. Completed.

Finish the email before checking the text. Finish putting away the groceries before opening the mail. Finish the conversation before mentally writing tomorrow's to-do list.

And when your attention wanders—which it will—simply come back to 2: the middle.

Practice 1-2-3 this week.

Pick three ordinary activities each day and consciously identify:

1. I'm beginning. 2. I'm doing it. 3. It's complete.

Then pause for a moment at the end. Bask in the moment like a dog rolling in the grass. Feels soooooooo good.

Notice your shoulders. Notice your breath. Notice whether anything in your body changes when there is truly nothing else you need to do with that particular task.

This isn't about becoming rigid, hyper-efficient, or turning your life into a productivity contest.

It's about giving your brain and nervous system repeated experiences of:

I can begin something. I can stay with myself while I'm in it. And I can arrive at the other side.

Beginning. Middle. End.

1-2-3.

Sometimes regulation begins with something that simple.