Nervous System Regulation and the Spiritual Path: What ‘Raising Vibration’ Really Means

There’s a lot of talk in spiritual and wellness spaces about “raising your vibration.”

Often, it’s said with good intention—meant to inspire us to shift out of emotional states that feel heavy, chaotic, or low. But when we zoom in on how that language gets used, especially in New Age and online spaces, we see something deeper happening: an unconscious rejection of density. Of darkness. Of the parts of us that grieve, rage, numb out, collapse.

But here’s the thing…
The goal isn’t to rise above those parts.
The invitation is to meet those parts and return to wholeness.
To re-cohere with the fullness of who we are.

The Part is on the Spiral. The Self is the Spiral.

When I think of healing, emotions, parts, or feeling states, I picture a spiral not a ladder.

I’m speaking of pattern, of movement, of relationship.

We are not climbing a ladder of better and worse, higher and lower.

We are complex beings—layered, fractal, multivalent. We are the spiral itself.

And yet, within us, we carry parts.

Parts that are collapsed in shame.

Parts that are spinning in urgency.

Parts that ache, fight, dissociate, numb.

Parts that learned, long ago, that the only way to survive was to protect, perform, or disappear.

When one of those parts takes over, we don’t just feel a certain way, we become that way.

We’re no longer in coherence with our whole self; we’re flooded, fragmented, or blended with a single aspect of our being.

In neuroscience, this is a change in state—an altered chemical cocktail floods the body, shaping our reality on all dimensions or levels of our being in that moment.

In IFS, this is called blending—when Self-energy gets crowded out by a part’s intensity.

In spiritual or mythic language, this is called possession—when one archetype or energy overtakes the whole system.

And here’s where regulation enters, not as a spiritual bypass, but as a sacred tool of remembering.

Regulation Is Not Bypassing—It’s Bridging

Let’s make this clear:

Regulation is not about rejecting a part or forcing it to change.

It’s not about “feeling better” or “getting over it.”

It’s not about climbing some ladder toward a purer frequency.

It’s about building a bridge.

A bridge from the part… back to the Self.

A bridge from fragmentation… back to coherence.

When we’re flooded by a part, whether frozen in dorsal vagal collapse, hijacked by sympathetic panic, or deep in dissociative fog, regulation tools can help us come back into enough space that Self can re-emerge.

We don’t need to fix the part.

We just need to make enough room to be with it.

To hold it in the presence of Self—our inherent, unfragmented wholeness.

Self Isn’t a Vibration We Climb To. It’s the Ground We Come Home To.

We might say that regulation helps us “raise our vibration,”

but not in the pop-spirituality sense of bypass or hierarchy.

It helps us return to resonance with the deeper Self—

the part of us that is not overwhelmed, not fragmented, not fused.

The Self that is spacious, curious, compassionate, connected.

The Self that can sit with the shame without being devoured by it.

The Self that can witness the panic without losing center.

The Self that can hold the grief without becoming the grief.

And in doing so, we shift frequency. Not because we forced it.

But because we returned to coherence.

What Does Regulation Actually Look Like?

Regulation isn’t a technique—it’s a tuning.

It could be as simple as:

Placing your hand on your heart and exhaling with sound. Rocking gently until the body remembers safety. Letting out a low hum to ground the vagus nerve. Speaking aloud: “There’s a part of me that’s overwhelmed. And I’m here with it.”

These aren’t spiritual “tricks.”

They’re somatic doorways.

They say to the body: You are not alone inside this.

They whisper: You are more than this momentary state.

They open the possibility that Self is still here, still steady, still holding.

We Are the Spiral—And Every Part Belongs

Ultimately, regulation is about relationship.

It’s how we sit in the spiral with our parts, not above them.

It’s how we attune to the part’s pain without letting it define our truth.

It’s how we reweave coherence in a body that’s forgotten its song.

We don’t do this by escaping discomfort.

We do this by rooting deeper into the truth of our being.

And that, to me, is the only vibration that matters.

Not high. Not low.

But whole.

Closing Invitation:

Next time you feel a part begin to flood your system—pause.

Breathe. Touch in. Ask yourself:

“What part of me is on the spiral right now?

And how can I return to the one who can be with it?”

Let regulation be a remembering.

Let vibration be resonance with truth.

Let healing be not escape, but embodiment.

You are not just the one who suffers.

You are the one who can sit beside the suffering and sing it home.

Inner Alchemy Alcove