The answer to both of these questions has to do with our capacity (which simply means our ability to stay present with what is happening), and discovering how much capacity we actually have is often a learning process in and of itself. Often we may think we have capacity for something when we are actually unconsciously employing some kind of coping mechanism in order to manage the experience. So that’s the first step — learning to discern what our capacity actually is, a process that this program will help you with.

Once we can start to get a feel for our capacity, then we can start to figure out the answers to these questions above. As a general rule of thumb, we want to simply be with whatever experience is happening and learn how to allow it to express through the body up until the point that we start to become overwhelmed — which means we are going past our capacity. At this point we want to go to our healthy resources, or familiar coping mechanisms if we haven’t yet developed healthy resources, so that we can come down.

This is a process that takes time to learn and even longer to master. Ideally, we want to gently push ourselves just to the edge of our capacity and then use a healthy internal or external resource to settle the system. By doing this, we increase our capacity until eventually we can simply stay present with our activation until it reaches its natural ‘set point’ and then deactivates naturally without us having to do anything at all, like a thermostat that clicks off once the room reaches the right temperature. Again, this takes time and practice and the right tools – which you will get in this program.

So yes, we can over use our resources, even healthy resources, if it means we are keeping ourselves from exploring those uncomfortable or unknown edges. When we do that, when we over-resource, those resources can turn into coping mechanisms. We also don’t want to push ourselves to the point of overwhelm. So, learning when to resource and when not to is a bit of a dance, and a big learning process in and of itself, and takes time to master.