**The Habits That Heal C-PSTD: Why Self-Care Matters Most When You Feel Unworthy Of It — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/habits-heal-cptsd-self-care-matters-unworthy/

Heidi Priebe explains how to heal C-PTSD by building habits that regulate the nervous system, treating yourself as a secure caregiver would, regardless of whether you feel deserving.

## Key Takeaways

- Healing from C-PTSD means giving yourself non-negotiable regulation whether or not you feel you deserve it.
- Prioritize Type 1 regulation: habits that feel intrinsically good and regulating in the moment.
- Keep habits inexpensive in money and energy so they are sustainable long term.
- Increase self-regulation during stressful periods instead of dropping it.
- Letting go of the fantasy of perfection is essential to building nervous system wealth.

## What the video covers

- This is the final video in a series on nervous system regulation, focused on living with a chronically dysregulated system typical of complex PTSD and disorganized attachment.
- Securely raised people receive frequent 'deposits' of support and care into their nervous system bank account; those without this build 'nervous system debt'.
- Many people with C-PTSD believe they must earn care, support, rest, or joy by first achieving something impressive or fixing every problem in their lives.
- Healing requires reversing this order: giving yourself regulation now, not after perfection, since life is never fully fixed at once.
- Priebe distinguishes Type 2 regulation (done for future gain, like exercising to lose weight) from Type 1 regulation (done because it feels good in the moment, like walking or reading).
- Type 1 regulation builds lasting nervous system reserves that help when life gets hard, similar to how secure people function.
- Habits should be inexpensive, both financially and in terms of nervous system cost, so they can be sustained daily.
- Introducing enjoyable habits may initially feel threatening to the system, which feels it should be solving problems instead.
- Rules for these habits include no judgment about what counts, and not stopping them once started, even when you feel you don't need them.
- When struggling most, one should increase self-regulation time rather than cutting it, as this is when reserves are most needed.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction to Nervous System Regulation Series
2. 01:22 Nervous System Debt vs. Wealth and Secure Upbringing
3. 02:49 Earning Support: The C-PTSD Belief Pattern
4. 04:49 Changing the Order: Regulation Before Perfection
5. 06:13 Type 1 vs. Type 2 Regulation Explained
6. 07:57 Choosing Habits and Overcoming Resistance
7. 10:00 Examples of Personal Regulating Habits
8. 13:37 Rules for Sustaining Regulation and Closing Thoughts

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 regulation according to Heidi Priebe?

Type 2 regulation is done for future gain, such as exercising to lose weight later. Type 1 regulation is done because it feels good while you're doing it, such as walking outdoors and enjoying the experience. Priebe recommends prioritizing Type 1 habits for consistent nervous system benefit.

Why do people with C-PTSD struggle to give themselves self-care?

Priebe explains that many people with C-PTSD believe they must earn support, kindness, or rest by first achieving goals or being perfect. Since life is never fully fixed, they keep postponing self-care and remain stuck in a cycle of self-criticism.

What should I do during periods of high stress according to this video?

Priebe suggests increasing self-regulation rather than cutting it back during stressful times, since those are when emotional reserves are most needed. She gives an example of doubling morning reading time when she has the most to do.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

Hey guys, I'm Heidi Prib. Welcome back to my channel or welcome if you're new here. For the past little while on this channel, we've been doing a minieries on nervous system regulation and in particular what it looks like to live

00:13

Speaker A

with a chronically disregulated system which is the case for those of us who have things like complex PTSD or disorganized attachment systems and how we can get better at managing that frequent dysregulation.

00:27

Speaker A

So today we are doing the last video of the series. And what we're going to be talking about in this video is looking at the habits we can form that actually help us start to heal and to gain some

00:39

Speaker A

of that nervous system wealth that would have been available to us had we grown up in a more secure environment. And the way we do this is we learn to start treating ourselves and our own nervous systems the way we would have been

00:53

Speaker A

treated growing up if we had had that early secure environment. So early on in this series in the very first video that I will link in the description of this one if you don't know what I'm talking about where we

01:06

Speaker A

went over the difference between nervous system debt versus nervous system wealth. One of the main things we covered was the fact that if you're growing up in a secure environment where you have a lot of healthy co-regulation available to you, it's kind of like

01:22

Speaker A

you're getting frequent deposits put into your nervous system bank account. So, you're getting things like support from the people around you, care and concern when you're struggling encouragement as you're working towards things, help in understanding yourself when you're struggling. Secure kids get

01:40

Speaker A

these things from their environments both when they're doing well, but also when they're not doing well and when they're really struggling in some aspect of their lives. And this is the biggest difference that I see between those who

01:54

Speaker A

are raised more secure and those who are raised with more avoidant or disorganized or complex PTSD type patterning. The latter group tends to have this inherent belief online that I am only allowed to have care or support.

02:10

Speaker A

Whether that means asking for it or giving it to myself when I am doing well. When I am struggling or when I am not hitting my goals or when I am not doing what I believe is expected of me

02:22

Speaker A

I'm going to kick myself off my own team and stop treating myself with any sort of kindness or respect. So there's this kind of deep down feeling like I have to earn my right to even exist and to be

02:35

Speaker A

present with the circumstances of my life. So I will take support only if I feel like there's some concrete reason why I can't just get this stuff done on my own. Or I will speak to myself kindly only if I have first done something

02:49

Speaker A

really impressive. or I will allow myself to have joy or rest or whatever it is that my nervous system needs only if I feel like I have done something concrete to earn my right to those things. And what we want to do if we

03:03

Speaker A

want to start actually healing from CPTTSD is changing the order that those things happen in. Because the problem that a lot of us struggle to really make conscious for ourselves is that our lives are never all fixed and going well

03:17

Speaker A

at once. There is usually some parts of our lives that are going well and some parts where we're really struggling. And if we are waiting to get to a certain point where everything in our lives is good enough to allow ourselves to be

03:31

Speaker A

supported, to speak kindly to ourselves to enjoy our lives, we are never going to get there. Or we are going to get there for like a one-day period at a time. And then the rest of our lives we

03:42

Speaker A

are going to spend berating ourselves and struggling towards this kind of ever moving goalpost of perfection. So if we want to actually start healing from toxic shame or CPTTSD, we have to start doing for ourselves what the secure

03:57

Speaker A

child's family did for them as they were growing up, which is make frequent non-negotiable deposits into our nervous system bank account, whether we feel like we deserve it or not. So when I say deposits, what I mean is we have to look

04:13

Speaker A

at what actually nourishes us on a nervous system level. So not what goals do we want to pursue, not what things do we think would make other people respect us, simply what actually makes us feel energized and replenished. And we have

04:28

Speaker A

to set up systems in our lives that frequently do that for us, whether we feel like we deserve them or not. This is about implementing habits into our life that regulate us, not habits that are for some secondary gain, okay? And

04:45

Speaker A

then being strict with ourselves about keeping those habits online even when we feel like we don't deserve regulation.

04:53

Speaker A

So, for the purpose of this video, let's call it type one and type two regulation. Type two regulation is stuff that we do for future gain. So, I want to start a running routine because I really want to lose 15 pounds and I

05:07

Speaker A

think that I'll feel really good in my body once I get there. That's an example of type two regulation. We're doing something for our future benefit. But type one regulation is I am doing something because it intrinsically feels

05:20

Speaker A

good to do it. So if I'm forcing myself to do a type of exercise that I don't enjoy the process of doing because I want something in the future, I am not intrinsically enjoying that thing. I am intrinsically enjoying that thing if I

05:34

Speaker A

like it while I am doing it. And if I'm getting some sort of benefit inside of my nervous system while it is happening for me, I authentically love going on walks. When I'm walking, my thoughts are clearer. I enjoy myself. I like being

05:49

Speaker A

outside and hearing the sounds of people walking by or of nature. And so walking is intrinsically fulfilling for me. It is type one regulation in that it feels good while I'm doing it. And it has a positive impact on my system overall.

06:04

Speaker A

And these are the types of habits we want to start looking for and implementing as much as we can into our day-to-day life because these are the things that keep us regulated consistently.

06:17

Speaker A

And the more consistently we're able to stay regulated, the more we're going to start building up that nervous system wealth, we're going to start having additional reserves of regulation available to us when life gets hard which it inevitably always does, which

06:34

Speaker A

is much like how the secure person functions. But in order to do this, we have to get rid of that belief that we don't deserve to do anything that feels good until we have solved every problem of our lives and become perfect.

06:47

Speaker A

It requires letting go of that fantasy of perfection, which I made a video about that I will link in the description of this one. And instead getting attuned to what feels good to us on a day-to-day basis. So, doing habits

07:00

Speaker A

for no other reason than they feel good at the time might actually feel really threatening to your system at first because it might be going, "Wait, wait wait. I need to get out of whatever problem I'm in right now, and I need to

07:12

Speaker A

devote all of my resources to that immediately. I do not have time to enjoy myself or to do something that's going to keep me feeling grounded. But if we can temporarily override that and allow ourselves a little bit of time every day

07:28

Speaker A

to do something that helps bolster our sense of self-esteem as well as our enjoyment of being alive. This compounds massively in the long term and ends up making us much more equipped to handle all of the areas of our lives, including

07:46

Speaker A

I would even say especially the ones that feel like emergencies. So, what we want to start looking at is which things we can put into our lives that don't cost a lot. And I mean that both literally and nervous system wise.

08:02

Speaker A

So, if you have something you love doing, but it's super expensive, if you try to do that every day, eventually that's going to pummele you into a stress response because you're going to be watching your bank account drain

08:12

Speaker A

right? So, we want to find the right intersection of things that cost us very little to do, whether that's a literal cost or a cost on our time and energy but that give us back quite a bit. So

08:24

Speaker A

I'll throw out some examples of things that have helped me in my own life. And you can feel free to steal any of these that work for you, or just use them to kind of jog your mind around what might

08:33

Speaker A

help you get into a better relationship with your nervous system on a daily basis. So, some type one regulation strategies I've found, one is, I already mentioned this, going for walks or doing hiking or weight training are also forms

08:47

Speaker A

of exercise that I just authentically like how they feel in my body, either while I am doing them or immediately afterwards, like within the same day.

08:56

Speaker A

Even if I'm not trying to do anything particular with my fitness goals, these things just simply give me a better experience of being inside of my body.

09:06

Speaker A

And so I know if I'm having a tough day and I make time to do one of those things, it's probably going to give me a better experience of the day than if I don't do them, even if they're not part

09:16

Speaker A

of any greater goals that I have for my health or fitness. Another one is reading. I find that when I start my day reading for even 10 or 15 minutes, it helps the rest of my day unfold at a

09:29

Speaker A

more relaxed pace. And I've even found that during the periods where I'm particularly stressed, where I have the most to do, what I do is I double my reading time in the morning rather than cutting it out because I'm giving myself

09:43

Speaker A

twice the regulation and twice the focus. If I start my day doing an activity that feels very calming to me.

09:51

Speaker A

Truly, if I'm going through an uber stressful period, I will read for 45 minutes every morning. We need more regulation strategies. the more stressed we are. If we are kicking self-regulation down the road until a magical time where we have nothing in

10:07

Speaker A

our lives to attend to, we will never get to it and we will burn out very quickly.

10:14

Speaker A

Another thing I find that gives me a really quick boost if I'm feeling disregulated is simply tending to my appearance with some dignity. So, when I was growing up, a big part of my own toxic shame was feeling like I didn't

10:27

Speaker A

really pay much attention to how I was presenting myself. And this does not mean going all out with hair and makeup every single day. But I do find that if I'm feeling kind of down, if I take an

10:38

Speaker A

hour and maybe take a shower, put on an outfit that I like, or head over to the closest thrift shop and just see what I can find that I enjoy, this often gives me a sense of dignity. I'm treating my

10:50

Speaker A

body with respect and I'm giving myself permission to take some joy in how I'm presenting myself. It costs very little but it gives myself a very particular message, which is even when you're struggling, you deserve to take care of

11:04

Speaker A

yourself and feel good inside of your own skin. Seeing friends and doing free activities with friends is another one that when I am stressed out is the quickest for my mind to try to throw out, but that really leads to

11:19

Speaker A

compounding debt if I end up neglecting it for too long. Making time at least once a week to spend with loved ones goes a really, really long way in nervous system regulation overall. And the same might go for any hobby or any

11:35

Speaker A

activity that you do for the pure love of it. So for example, when I was in a really depressed period, one time I bought a keyboard and every day I started my day by just kind of playing around on the keyboard for a couple of

11:48

Speaker A

hours at a time. And when I was growing up, I had taken piano lessons, but I got really frustrated with kind of learning the scales and feeling like I don't enjoy this and I'm not getting to play the music that I actually want to play.

12:00

Speaker A

And so as an adult, I went and bought a keyboard and was like, I am only going to play the music that I actually like.

12:07

Speaker A

So I'm going to pick whatever is my favorite song right now and I'm going to teach myself, however imperfectly, to play some version of that song simply because it gives me joy to do that. And still, if I'm having a really stressed

12:20

Speaker A

out period, I find that doing things like playing the keyboard for even 15 minutes during my day or cooking myself a meal that I really enjoy is going to give me a lot more presence and energy and groundedness

12:36

Speaker A

than cutting any of those things out is likely to give me. Now, how often we spend doing each of these things is going to be completely dependent upon how you want to organize your lifestyle.

12:47

Speaker A

But the point is that we have to start seeing regulating activities as a necessity not as a luxury. This is how secure people function. They take their own feelings and their need to stay regulated and feeling good as a

13:06

Speaker A

necessary part of their life. This doesn't mean that they never go through periods where they're a bit stressed out and where they're not doing as much self-care as usual. But a secure person neglecting self-care is probably still doing a lot more self-care than a person

13:22

Speaker A

with complex PTSD who tends to have that belief online that I do not deserve to feel good. I have to earn that right.

13:31

Speaker A

This order needs to get reversed. So there are three quick rules for this. The first is be realistic. So, if you are trying to implement new habits into your life, don't pick things that you can only do if you spend like 20 hours a

13:46

Speaker A

week on them. Pick things that actually are going to fit into your day-to-day schedule, including on the days when you're stressed out. I have a friend who wanted to start meditating, but she had no time. So, she said, "I'm just going

13:57

Speaker A

to meditate for 1 minute a day." And she did that for a year, and she said it had a huge positive impact. So things that feel almost microscopically small but that we know we're going to be able to

14:09

Speaker A

stick to are things that we want to start looking for here because again these are things that in so far as they're authentically serving us we're going to want to keep in our lives long term. And by the way part of being

14:20

Speaker A

realistic means being realistic with yourself about what things you do find regulating. So if you're someone who wants to like meditation but does not that is not type one regulation. that is maybe type two regulation but it's not

14:34

Speaker A

type one and here we are talking about type one regulation things that feel intrinsically regulating to us. There's no judgments around this. They can be as ridiculous as we want them to be. Rule two, do not stop these habits once you

14:49

Speaker A

feel better. So if you implement this stuff because you're going through a rough patch and they start working and you start feeling like you don't need them anymore, this is like antibiotics.

14:59

Speaker A

You cannot stop until the course has completed itself. And the course of caring about yourself has not completed itself until you are dead. Okay? Nervous system regulation is not a luxury item.

15:13

Speaker A

It is a necessity. And if you still have a pulse, you are still on the hook for making this a priority for yourself. If you're really lonely and then you start hanging out with a new group of people

15:24

Speaker A

do not stop hanging out with those people once you no longer feel lonely. Maybe you're going to reduce the amount of time that you spend socializing, but do not stop it altogether. If you start meditating during a really stressful

15:36

Speaker A

period and you authentically like meditating, do not stop when your stress decreases. Use it to keep making those deposits into your own nervous system bank account. On the months when you really need an extra dose of regulation you want to give it to yourself. And on

15:52

Speaker A

the months where you don't really feel like you need it, you want to also give it to yourself. Because the months when you feel like you don't really need it are once again the months when you're building up those emotional reserves and

16:04

Speaker A

actually starting to develop that resilience inside of your system. You're resourcing yourself beyond what you concretely need to be resourced for.

16:13

Speaker A

That is in large part what it means to be securely attached. And so this is all leading to rule number three. Invest the most when you feel like you deserve it the least. Okay? It's like the stock market. You want to buy when the stocks

16:29

Speaker A

are down. You want to invest in yourself the most, when you feel like you deserve it the least, when you are struggling when you are failing, when you are not hitting your targets. This is the process of you rewiring your brain to

16:45

Speaker A

realize that those are the points where you need the most of your own support and attention and care. Because this is how it worked for secure children. When they were struggling, they were not abandoned or criticized by their

17:01

Speaker A

caregivers. They were supported in those struggles. They were seen in those struggles. Those were the times when the people who loved them showed up for them the hardest and worked with them to figure out why it was that they were

17:16

Speaker A

struggling so hard and maybe what things needed to be taken off of their plate so that they could feel like themselves again and get their energy back and start rising to the occasions of their lives again. And this is the way that we

17:30

Speaker A

need to learn to treat ourselves when we are struggling too. To support ourselves with that same type of support and care and concern when we're struggling to meet the demands of our lives that we would have had we grown up in a more

17:45

Speaker A

secure environment. To stop seeing the things that we're struggling to get done as failures or reasons why we don't deserve any support. and to start caring about the fact that we are struggling so much in the pursuit of those things. And

17:59

Speaker A

that probably means that we need to start supporting ourselves better and adding more of those regulating tools or habits into our life rather than taking them away from ourselves as a form of punishment. This is how we start

18:15

Speaker A

actually healing from things like toxic shame and CPTTSD. We reverse that rule in our head that goes in order to feel good about yourself and to be present in your life you have to earn it. And we instead

18:30

Speaker A

start telling ourselves things like feeling good in my body, feeling regulated and okay is my first concern.

18:40

Speaker A

And if I'm struggling in my life, I probably need to double the amount of time that I am spending on self-regulation, not do away with it.

18:50

Speaker A

Because at the end of the day, all that really matters in life is how we are experiencing it. And if we are resourcing ourselves with the care and the understanding and the support that we need to actually feel present inside

19:05

Speaker A

of even the biggest challenges of our lives, we're also going to be a lot more effective at rising to those challenges.

19:13

Speaker A

And so care and selflove, even if you have a really complicated relationship to that term, I know I did for most of my life, are not things that we get to have once we have achieved things. They are preerequisites for being able to do

19:27

Speaker A

almost anything that matters with our lives. And finding the secure parent inside of ourselves means finding the part of ourselves that knows that we need these things the most when we feel like we deserve them the least.

19:43

Speaker A

All right,, I'm, going, to, leave, this, video at that for today. But what I would love, love, love to see beneath this video is any habits or routines or hobbies or other forms of type 1 regulation that you guys are

19:57

Speaker A

implementing in your own lives and that you can share with each other. And quite frankly, I would just love to look through that and see if there's anything that I want to adopt for myself because I am always looking for new things to

20:09

Speaker A

add to my own repertoire. And of course as always, I love you guys. I hope you're taking care of yourselves and each other and I will see you back here again really soon.

20:20

Speaker A

[Music]

Topics: C-PTSD nervous system regulation self-care nervous system wealth attachment self-compassion healing co-regulation toxic shame emotional regulation

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