I used to be so intentional about my mornings. I’d protect my energy, make the commute count, and walk into the office genuinely feeling good.

And then I’d hear her office door.

Not see her. Not speak to her. Just the sound of her door opening and closing down the hall. And something in my body would shift — immediately, involuntarily, before a single word had been exchanged. Shoulders up. Jaw tight. That good morning energy, gone.

I spent a long time thinking that was a mindset problem. What I didn’t know then is that it had nothing to do with my mindset. It was biology. And once I understood that, everything changed about how I understood my relationships, my energy, and my capacity.

The Three Mechanisms

Mirror Neurons

Your brain contains a class of neurons that fire both when you perform an action and when you observe someone else performing it. They’re also active when you observe someone’s emotional state — your brain runs a simulation of that state in your own body.

This is why you wince when you watch someone get hurt. Why you feel anxious in a room full of anxious people. Why you tear up at a wedding even when you barely know the couple.

You are wired, at a neurological level, to sync with the nervous system states of the people around you. This is not a sensitivity issue. This is not you being too much. This is your brain doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Polyvagal Co-Regulation

Neuroscientist Stephen Porges — the researcher behind polyvagal theory — showed us that we literally regulate each other’s nervous systems. Not metaphorically. Biologically. Through proximity, through voice tone, through facial expression, through eye contact.

A calm, warm, regulated nervous system in the room creates the biological conditions for other nervous systems to feel safe and downregulate. A dysregulated, activated, or shutdown nervous system does the opposite.

We are not self-contained units humming along independently. We are always in nervous system relationship with the people around us — whether we choose to be or not.

Neuroception

Also from Porges — neuroception is your nervous system’s ability to scan for safety or threat below conscious awareness. Before your thinking brain has processed what’s happening, your body has already made a threat assessment and started responding.

That office door wasn’t a trigger I consciously chose to react to. My neuroception had already categorized that person as a threat — based on months of experience with her — and the sound of that door was enough of a cue to fire the response. My body knew before my brain caught up.

This is why you can walk into a room and just feel something is off. Why a certain person’s name appearing on your phone creates an immediate physical response. Your nervous system is reading the environment and the people in it constantly, automatically, and faster than thought.

And Then There’s Donna

Donna lives in Michigan. I’m in Texas. We travel to see each other a couple of times a year and talk on the phone — and I always say she is peace to me.

The moment her call connects — her voice, her laugh, her prayers, the way she asks about my girls — something in me just settles. There is no performance with Donna. No managing how I’m coming across. No low-grade vigilance about what she might think. I can just be me. Fully. And I get off those calls feeling more myself than before.

That’s co-regulation working in your favor. Donna’s nervous system is so regulated — so genuinely safe and warm and present — that being in her space, even just her voice through a phone, creates the biological conditions for my own system to soften. That’s not a coincidence. That’s physics.

Most of us have a Donna if we think about it. And most of us also have at least one version of my former coworker. The question is what you do with that information.

The Real Goal (It’s Not What Most People Tell You)

Most advice in this space stops here: identify the energy vampires, set limits, limit contact, protect your energy. And look — being intentional about who gets your time and attention matters. It genuinely does.

But here’s the fuller truth: you cannot remove all dysregulated nervous systems from your life. You have kids who melt down. A partner who comes home stressed and brings it through the door. A coworker who thrives on drama. A family member who has been pushing your buttons since 1987 and shows no signs of stopping.

The goal isn’t a frictionless relational life with only regulated, peaceful people in it.

The real goal is expanding your relational capacity — building a nervous system that can stay regulated when the people around you aren’t. So that your kids’ meltdown doesn’t become your meltdown. So that your partner’s bad day doesn’t hijack your evening. So that the difficult coworker is an inconvenience rather than a derailment.

That is the flex. And that is the work.

Two Things to Start Right Now

Be Intentional About Who You Process Hard Things With

When you need to work through something difficult — a hard decision, a conflict, a moment where you’re feeling destabilized — be deliberate about whose nervous system you’re bringing into that conversation. A dysregulated person processing your problem alongside you isn’t support. It’s co-dysregulation. You’ll both spiral faster.

Find your Donna for those moments. The person whose regulation you can borrow. The one you leave feeling clearer, not more activated.

Use Regulated People as a Resource Before Hard Situations

Before a difficult conversation, a high-stakes meeting, a hard interaction you’re already dreading — spend a few intentional minutes with someone who regulates you. A phone call, a voice note, even just sitting with a memory of a conversation that left you feeling good. You are literally priming your nervous system with safety before you walk into something hard.

This is not soft advice. This is strategy.

What’s Coming

This Friday I’m giving you one specific tool for the flip side: what to do when you have to be around a difficult person and you can’t opt out. Because the goal isn’t avoidance. The goal is capacity.

And mark June 3rd on your calendar — I’m hosting a free live workshop called The Capacity Audit, designed to show you exactly where your nervous system is the upstream variable in your capacity, including in your relationships. Registration link in the show notes the moment it’s live.

The founding cohort of The Capacity Method also launches in June. Waitlist: {INSERT WAITLIST LINK}

Key Takeaways

This is not a mindset problem or a sensitivity issue. It’s your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do.

Mirror neurons, polyvagal co-regulation, and neuroception are the three biological mechanisms behind why certain people drain your capacity and others restore it.

Take the Capacity Pattern Quiz Here!

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