The Art Of Going Slow: Titration & Pendulation

So welcome everyone,

And thank you,

Thank you for being here and listening.

So we live in a culture that worships speed,

Fast results,

Quick fixes,

Instant transformation,

Heal your trauma in one weekend,

Release your blocks in 60 minutes,

And transform your life in 30 days.

And I get it,

I really do.

When you're in pain,

You want it to stop.

When you've been carrying something for years,

For decades,

You want relief now.

Not in 6 months,

Not after years of therapy,

But right now.

And the urgency makes sense,

The desperation makes sense,

But here's what I've learnt,

Both as a facilitator and as someone who's done his own deep work,

The nervous system doesn't do fast,

It can't,

It's not designed to.

And when we try to force it,

When we try to process too much too quickly,

We don't heal,

We re-traumatise.

Now this is not great marketing,

I know,

Come to my practice,

Healing will take exactly as long as it takes,

Not exactly a catchy tagline,

But it's the truth,

And I'd rather say the truth than sell you a fantasy that leaves you feeling broken when the quick fix doesn't work.

So today I want to talk about something that's at the heart of all somatic work,

Two concepts that might sound technical,

But are actually profoundly simple and profoundly important.

Titration and pendulation,

Or to put it more simply,

It's just the art of going slow.

Now these concepts come from somatic experiencing,

Developed by Dr.

Peter Levine,

And he spent decades studying how animals in the wild process life-threatening experiences without developing PTSD,

And what that teaches us about human trauma.

And what he discovered changed everything we understand about healing.

And it starts with this understanding,

Why slow isn't just okay,

But it may actually be essential.

So let's start with titration.

The word comes from chemistry,

So in a lab,

Titration is the process of adding a chemical drop by drop,

Very slowly,

Very carefully,

To produce a controlled reaction.

And why drop by drop?

Because if you pour it all at once,

You get an explosion.

And in somatic work,

Titration means the same thing.

Approaching traumatic material in small,

Manageable doses,

Not diving into the deep end,

Not going in there all at once,

But just touching the edge first,

And then coming back,

A little at a time.

And this is why it matters.

Trauma isn't just a memory,

It's stuck energy,

It's an incomplete survival response that never got to finish.

Your body was ready to fight or flee and it couldn't,

And that energy got trapped.

And when we approach that stuck energy,

It activates.

The nervous system starts to mobilize all over again.

Heart rate increases,

Muscles tense,

Breath changes,

And there's a surge of emotions.

And if we stay with that activation too long,

If we dive too deep too fast,

The system gets overwent,

It floods.

And instead of releasing the trauma,

We reinforce it.

We teach the nervous system once again that this material is too much for you to handle.

This is why some approaches that encourage you to really go into the pain,

Scream it out,

Relive it fully,

Shake it out of you,

Can sometimes make things worse.

And I'm not saying these approaches are wrong.

For some people,

At some stages,

They are exactly right.

But for trauma that lives in the nervous system,

Especially developmental trauma,

Complex trauma,

Stuff that happens over time,

Flooding the system often re-traumatizes rather than heals.

Titration is different.

In titrated work,

We approach the activation gently.

We might touch into a sensation,

Memory,

An emotion,

Just enough to feel it starting to activate,

And then we resource.

We come back to safety,

And we let the nervous system settle.

Then we touch it again,

A little deeper this time,

And then we come back again.

And each time the nervous system learns something new.

I can feel this and survive.

I can touch this and come back,

And this material won't destroy me.

And that's not just healing.

That's building capacity.

That's expanding what the nervous system can hold.

Now,

In practice,

This might look like noticing a tightness in the chest when a memory surfaces,

Staying with it for just 30 seconds,

And then shifting your attention to the feet on the floor.

Feeling the beginning of tears,

Letting a few come,

And then looking at the chest.

Looking around the room and naming what you see.

Sensing the anger rising.

Acknowledging it.

Then taking a breath and feeling the support of the chair beneath you.

Touch and come back,

Touch and come back,

Drop by drop.

Now let's talk about pendulation.

If titration is about the dose,

How much we take in,

Pendulation is about the rhythm.

The natural oscillation between activation and settling.

Between contradiction and expansion.

Between distress and resource.

Think of a pendulum now.

It swings one way,

Then swings back,

One way,

Then back.

And that's the natural movement of a healthy nervous system.

We get activated,

Something stresses us,

Challenges us,

Threatens us,

And then we settle.

We return to the baseline.

Activation,

Then rest.

Sympathetic,

Then parasympathetic.

Contraction,

And then expansion.

And this is how we are designed to function.

But trauma disrupts this rhythm.

When the nervous system is overwhelmed,

It can get stuck.

Stuck in activation,

Chronic anxiety,

Hypervigilance,

Always on the edge,

Or stuck in shutdown.

Depression,

Numbness,

Collapse,

Or bouncing wildly between the two without ever finding the middle.

And the pendulum stops swinging naturally.

It's either frozen in place,

Or swinging so wildly that it can't find the center.

Pendulation in somatic therapy is the practice of consciously guiding this rhythm.

Moving between the difficult material and the resource.

Between activation and settling.

Between safety.

Between trauma and the present moment.

Back and forth like a pendulum.

And here is what's beautiful about this.

Every time we pendulate,

Every time we touch an activation and then successfully return to resource,

We are teaching the nervous system something vital.

We are teaching it that it can move,

That it's not stuck,

And that activation doesn't last forever.

There is a way back.

We are restoring the natural rhythm.

And then something else happens in pendulation.

The concept of discharge.

Just remember that stuck energy we talked about.

The survival response that never got completed.

Each time we pendulate,

A little bit of that energy releases.

Not all at once,

That would be overwhelming,

But drop by drop.

Wave by wave.

Now you might feel it as a tremor,

A shake,

A yawn,

A deep breath,

Tears,

Heat moving through the body.

And these are signs of discharge.

Signs that stuck energy is finally completing this journey.

Now Peter Levine loves to point out that animals do this naturally.

A gazelle that escapes a lion doesn't go back to grazing.

It shakes,

It trembles,

It lets the survival energy discharge through its body.

And then,

Only then,

Does it return to normal.

Now we humans,

In our infinite wisdom,

Have learned to suppress that shaking.

Pull yourself together.

Don't be dramatic,

You're fine now.

So the energy stays stuck.

Now pendulation creates conditions for that natural discharge to finally happen.

Not by forcing it.

Not by pushing through.

But by gently oscillating between activation and resource,

Until the body feels safe enough to let go.

Now,

Here's the paradox.

Going slow is actually the fastest way to heal.

And I know that sounds counterintuitive.

But hear me out.

When you try to go fast,

When you push through,

Dive deep,

Force the process,

What usually happens?

You get overwhelmed.

The nervous system floods.

You dissociate,

Shut down,

Or spin out.

And then you spend days or weeks recovering from the session that was supposed to heal you,

Two steps forward,

And then three steps back.

But when you go slow,

When you titrate,

When you pendulate,

When you respect the nervous system's place,

Something different happens.

Each small step actually sticks.

The nervous system integrates what it's processed.

You don't need weeks to recover because you didn't flood.

You're actually building capacity and not just stirring up material.

Slow but steady.

And it actually adds up.

Now,

I've seen clients who spent years in therapy that kept re-traumatizing them,

Including me at some point in my journey,

Diving deep,

Processing intensely,

And coming out completely shattered.

Make more progress in few months of slow,

Titrated somatic work than all those years combined.

Not because the other therapy was wrong.

But because their nervous system needed a different approach.

It needed slow.

And there's something else that happens when we go slow.

We build trust.

Trust with the body,

Trust with the nervous system,

And trust with the parts of us that have been protecting us all this time.

When we approach slowly and respectfully,

We are saying to those parts,

I'm not going to force you,

I'm not going to override you,

I'm going to go at your pace.

And those parts,

The ones holding trauma,

The ones you've been bracing for decades,

They start to relax.

They start to trust,

And they start to let go.

Not because we force them,

But because they finally feel safe enough.

Now,

I won't pretend this is easy to accept,

Especially when you're in pain,

Especially when you've been carrying something for so long,

And you just want it to be over.

The urgency is real,

I feel you,

But urgency and the nervous system don't really mix.

The more you push,

The more it braces.

The more you try to force healing,

The more the system protects.

It's like trying to open a fist by prying the fingers apart.

The harder you pull,

The tighter it grips.

But if you just hold the hand gently,

Wait,

And let it know that it's safe,

The fingers open on their own.

That's titration,

That's ventilation,

And in essence,

That's the art of going slow.

Now,

How do you practice this?

Not just in healing,

Not just in therapy,

But in your life,

In your own process,

In the moments between sessions.

Now first,

Learn your window of tolerance.

Start to notice the signs or the triggers that you're approaching your edge.

The racing heart,

The shallow breath,

The spinning thoughts,

The urge to run or fight or shut down.

These are signals from your nervous system.

It's saying,

You're getting close to too much.

You don't have to push past that edge.

You can notice it,

You can honor it,

And you can step back.

Now second,

You can build your resources.

And resources are anything that helps your nervous system settle.

Anything that brings you back to a sense of safety,

Connection,

Or presence.

And this might be as simple as feeling your feet on the ground,

Looking around the room and naming what you see,

Thinking of a person or place that feels safe,

Or touching something with a comforting texture,

Taking a slow breath.

Now these aren't distractions,

They are anchors,

They are what you pendulate back to when an activation arises.

Now third,

You practice the pause.

When you notice activation,

When emotion arises,

When a trigger hits,

When the body starts to brace,

Practice pausing before you react.

Not to suppress,

Not to push it down,

But just to slow down the process.

I notice my chest is tight.

I'm going to take one breath before I respond.

I feel tears coming.

I'm going to let myself feel this for a moment and then look around the room.

The pause is where pendulation happens naturally.

Now fourth,

Let small be enough.

A single tear can be complete processing,

A small tremor in the hands can be profound release,

And just one minute of feeling something in your body is enough.

Now we've all been trained to think that healing needs to be dramatic,

Big releases,

Hours of crying,

Epic breakthroughs,

Lightheadedness,

But real healing often happens in whispers,

Not shouts.

I'll say this again,

Real healing often happens in whispers and not shouts.

Let small be enough.

And now this is very hard for us achievers,

I know.

You want to be good at healing,

You want to get an A plus in trauma recovery,

Process efficiently,

But healing doesn't grade on a curve.

And your nervous system really doesn't care about your productivity metrics.

It just needs you to slow down.

Now I'd like to guide you through a simple experience of pendulation now.

And this isn't about processing anything big.

It's simply about practicing the rhythm.

Touching something,

And coming back.

Learning that you can.

So for this process,

Just find a comfortable position,

And let your body be supported.

Now let your eyes close if that feels okay.

Begin by establishing a resource.

Feel your feet on the floor,

Or your body against the chair.

Notice the points of contact,

The support that's holding you.

And now let your attention rest there.

In the feeling of being supported,

Grounded,

And here.

Now very gently,

Without forcing anything,

Allow your attention to notice what's present in the body right now.

Is there an area of your body that holds tension,

Discomfort,

Or activation?

Maybe the shoulders,

The chest,

The belly,

And the jaw.

Just notice.

Don't try to change it yet.

Just notice.

Now if you have found an area,

Let your attention touch it,

Gently.

Not diving in,

Just touching the edge.

What's there?

Tightness?

Heat?

Heaviness?

Maybe a feeling that you can't name.

Stay there just a moment longer,

Just touching.

And now gently come back to your resource.

Feel your feet.

Feel the support beneath you,

And let your attention rest there.

Feel your feet.

Feel the support beneath you.

Feel the support beneath you,

And let your attention rest there.

Now notice the difference.

You touched something,

And you came back.

The nervous system can do this.

Now if it feels okay,

Let's do it once more.

Gently let your attention return to that same area,

Or another area that's calling.

Touch it.

Just stay at the edge,

And don't go deeper than what feels manageable.

What's there?

Can you be with it just for this moment?

And come back now.

Feet on the floor,

Body supported,

And the room is around you.

Come back.

Feet on the floor,

Body supported,

And the room around you.

Now this is pendulation.

This is the rhythm.

Touch and return.

Activation and resource.

And every time you do this,

You're teaching your nervous system,

I can feel this and survive.

I can touch this and come back.

Let yourself rest here now in the resource in the settling.

Nothing more to do,

Nothing more to process.

Just rest.

And whenever you're ready now,

Take a slightly deeper breath,

And gently open your eyes,

If they were closed,

And welcome back.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for being willing to go slow in a world that tells you to rush.

I want to leave you with this.

Your healing will take as long as it takes,

And that's okay.

There's no deadline,

There's no grade,

There's no competition.

Your nervous system has its own time,

Timeline,

And your body has its own wisdom.

The art of going slow is not about giving up on healing,

It's about trusting the process deeply enough to let it unfold at its natural pace.

Drop by drop,

Wave by wave,

Touch and return.

And one more thing,

You've already been doing this,

Maybe without knowing it.

Every time you've stepped back from overwhelm,

Every time you've given yourself a break,

Every time when you've known enough was enough,

That's titration,

That's ventilation,

And that's your own wisdom.

Trust it.

So take care of yourself,

Go slow,

And until next time,

Namaste.