Since starting my limbic healing journey, more than four years ago, I have heard a lot about training zones. I feel that this is such an important topic, on multiple levels. To be completely honest, I may not be the best person to speak on this topic, because I think my view on it is a bit different than most, but I’m going to speak on it regardless, and invite you to take what resonates, and leave the rest.
The idea of training zone can be a bit nebulous, because, like so much in the DNRS (Dynamic Neural Retraining System) realm, it is completely individual, and it changes from day to day depending on our capacity. This is where, in my opinion, the latent perfectionism that is so prevalent in folks on this healing journey, can rear its ugly head. We can run in circles, trying to figure out whether or not something is in our ‘training zone’, and through this process, we can end up forgoing things and choosing not to live our lives, out of fear that we might knock ourselves out of our healing progress. But not one bit of any of the five pillars that we practice, to move ourselves into a new way of being, can be lost. The pathways that we have been creating don’t simply cease to exist, because we chose to do something (maybe a bit outside of our perceived ‘zone’), that created new limbic upheaval, that we now get to work through. In fact, doing new things, kicking up new dust, can be just what we need to lay down stronger roots into our new pathways. We might be creating golden opportunity days of ourselves, because the more triggered we are into the old pathways, the greater the impact each round will have.
When DNRS was first created, there actually wasn’t any talk of ‘training zone’. This was a concept that was added later, and while it’s always a good idea to check in with our higher selves, to make sure we’re not doing something that might be detrimental (eg: Skydiving with a severe fear of heights, a few days into beginning our brain retraining practice), it’s also a way that our limbic system can keep us from the growth that is possible, outside of our perceived comfort zone.
While I did use incremental training with some things (especially chemicals), most of what I used as training fodder was incidental training, which is what I called the act of living my life, and doing the things I wanted to do, and then using my tools to work with the repercussions of my decisions. When I first started brain retraining, I did a round before and after going into any store to grocery shop. I was always (every time!) triggered into needing a calming round by the time I would leave the store. When I think about this now, it blows my mind, because I have zero limbic response to going anywhere! I also started working again, in the restaurant industry, within four months of beginning DNRS. The first three months of working, I was completely outside of my training zone, every day at work. I would do mini rounds in my head, all night long, and do back-to-back full rounds, as soon as I got home. But I think that just doing things I wanted to, regardless of whether it was triggering or not, was such a big part of why I healed. When I wanted to go to a concert, early on in my recovery journey, which was COMPLETELY outside of my ‘training zone’, I did, because I was excited to do so. In the following days, I was a lot more limbic. I even had panic ITs a couple of times, for the first time in a while. But rather than allow myself to fall into the fear that I may have somehow knocked myself out of my recovery process, I gave myself a high five because I’d given myself the opportunity to dig deeper grooves, through golden opportunity days/moments.
My dad (I moved back in with my parents for the first while of my retraining, which was an interesting experience, at the age of 33) is a medical doctor, as is my brother, brother-in-law, and many other relatives (cousins, uncles, etc.), and so, though I did fill out the letter in the DNRS workbook, asking that people not discuss medical issues/symptoms around me, for the sake of my health, many people in my family couldn’t help themselves, and I was surrounded by a lot of medical talk throughout my DNRS journey, especially initially. Technically, this was outside of my ‘training zone’. But I’d use these opportunities to go do a round, or if I couldn’t leave, to soothe my limbic system by reassuring myself that all of these patients and people that my family spoke about could also heal themselves using DNRS, if they gave themselves a chance, and that brain retraining is the future of medicine for all ‘chronic illnesses’. I feel that being around this from early on was actually a gift, because people (at work, at school, at yoga, at the grocery store) love to talk about their medical issues, and a lot of people in active re-wiring have a fear of talking to other people because this happens so frequently in conversation. Learning to set boundaries with my family, and also to remain in the energy of healing, no matter what others chose to talk about, actually set me up for much less fear, later, once I’d re-entered the land of people outside of brain retraining circles. All this to say, while it’s important not to jump into things completely outside of the realm of what we can do safely, so much of what I’d call ‘outside of my training zone’ was actually exactly what I needed to be doing. It was the things that I was excited about (even if I was also afraid).
I essentially lived my life as though I didn’t have a ‘training zone’, and then viewed the things that arose as a result as gifts for rewiring, rather than backsliding. Without choosing to do things outside of my training zone, I wouldn’t have become a yoga teacher while still early in rewiring, I wouldn’t have moved into my first house, I wouldn’t have flown overseas on multiple occasions, and I certainly wouldn’t have figured out how to post this blog (technology is still a HUGE area of limbic activation for me, and thus one of my best ways to continue to find golden rewiring opportunities). The whole point of rewiring is to get back to living our lives, so I cannot recommend using our lives as part of our rewiring training enough. Incidental training was the majority of my training, and my life is even fuller than it was before my perfect storm, as a result. So, get out there, and do the things!