Your Nervous System Has a Set Point for Love (& Here’s How to Reset It)

Why is it on one hand you can want love and connection, and on the other hand you can find that your nervous system simply isn't used to love and connection? At times it can feel like your nervous system is literally blocking love and connection from coming into your life, even though you can energetically desire it and want it. In this video, I'm going to show you how your nervous system has a love set point. And I'm going to show you how your nervous system is either tuned to love and connection, or it might be tuned to pushing away love. And I'm going to show you step by step how to actually re-pattern your nervous system to be able to receive love. Now, to understand this, and I think this will completely shift the way that you look at yourself and how you relate to other people, Understand this analogy of a set point when it comes to a thermostat. When you think of a thermostat and it being set to, let's say, 67 degrees, which is where I like my thermostat to be, 67 degrees. If you turn it up a little bit or you have the temperature in the house goes to 70 or 75, the air conditioning kicks on to bring it back to 67. Now, in the same way, if it's cold outside, It'll go down, but then it's set to that set point. Now what happens is if our nervous system set point as a kid was the way in which we connected to people as a kid was we felt we had to overgive, we felt that we had to prove, we felt like love wasn't consistent, and we started to be a certain way to receive love, What is happening is in a way, subconsciously, we are in a way only attracting energy that is reflective of the belief that we don't believe we are actually worthy of love. Now think about this for a minute. If there is love and connection and we could receive love and connection, but our nervous system is putting out the energy of chasing and overgiving, or people pleasing or overthinking, we are literally putting out patterns that block our ability to receive love. Because remember, the set point of 67 degrees might be the set point of trying to prove yourself. It might be the set point of emotional unavailability because as a kid, that's what connection was. So in an interesting way, to be in a loving connection type relationship may literally feel unsafe, which is a crazy thing to think of. But understanding this really helps you shift the way in which you understand love and how you are showing up. And this is really the key to completely transforming your life on the inside out. It's understanding that what you think of as safe is connected to familiar. So what is familiar? Now let's look at this a step further. And I think this is a very interesting thing to think about and that it can completely shift the way you view yourself and how you relate to others and recognizing that you may not actually be being the real you when you're around people. Which means how can people actually choose you and love you if you're not being the real you? Now, this is the idea, okay? I was really thinking about this the other day because I ran a live event recently, and at this live event, people kept saying something similar. They kept saying, I abandoned myself. I find myself abandoning myself. And I really thought about this idea. I thought, what does it mean to abandon yourself? And I thought about this and the way in which I describe it, I wanna describe it very simple. And it's gonna sound kind of dumb, but here it is. You think about it like caveman. I am caveman. Okay? Now think about it like I abandoned myself. Now what this means is when you are being the real you, I think I am be myself, I be myself. But then the when we abandon ourself, is when we decide I must please people, I must overgive, I must— I am overthinking, I'm trying to control, etc. It's when we go into a survival pattern where we stop being ourselves and we start being not-self. I must be not-self to receive love. Over here, I am me. Over here, I am not me. I am being someone else. I am trying to get safety. I am pleasing. And what happens is we stop being authentic and congruent to who we are. And by not being congruent to who we are, we are setting ourselves up to attract people that reflect back that pattern. So for example, if you— it's either you are being you or you are being not you. And the real you in certain moments might be expressive of certain things in your life. Like when I went through this transformation a few years ago in a big way, I realized that I was pleasing and agreeable when it wasn't always authentic. What I had to be honest with myself with was that I was not being the real me and I would say things or be a certain way to get approval and validation or whatever. Because that's who I believed I had to be. But I wasn't showing up for me. I was abandoning myself. And really what that abandonment of self was is it was a protective mechanism where I was avoiding the tension of people either liking me or not liking me. It was something I felt I had to control. Now this is when we go a step deeper in understanding that we have protective mechanisms that are keeping us from actually receiving love, and those protection mechanisms are mainly subconscious many times. This is why it might be hard to receive love because deep down the answer to this, or the thing that will really shift your life more than anything else, is when you give yourself permission to be the real you, the congruent you, that then you are not attached to whether people like you or not or whether people accept you or not. And when you are in that energy, you are magnetic and attractive when you are being congruent to what you're really saying and feeling. Now, when you are either being you or I am being not me, like the caveman, it's who you believe you need to be to receive love, approval, validation, et cetera. That's when it's a lack of congruence. That's when you will tolerate people that don't resonate with the energy that is actually love and connection. You might actually even call that boring. So this is, for me, I had to at a certain moment become aware of when I was losing myself and going into a protective pattern to avoid other people feeling tension about me. But what I eventually realized was that my relationship with tension was the thing that was blocking me from actually receiving love. This meant actually expressing how I felt when things came up. This meant not trying to please people. Not taking that burden on. This meant letting people be disappointed or letting people see me as the bad guy who was no longer fixing them. And what ended up happening is that meant even expressing myself when there was some form of thing that came up or even desire. There was a while where I would feel a certain way and maybe not always express it. Because as a kid, it wasn't familiar to express how I felt or thinking that my feelings mattered. So on the other side of that, I'd find myself blocking love and connection because I wasn't embodying that love and connection to myself because I wasn't giving myself permission to be the real me. Do you see the difference here? Like your nervous system how you are showing up. When you begin to recognize that there are these patterns that might be protective mechanisms that are trying to control whether people like you or not, you can then see that your nervous system is literally wired up because you're literally in survival. You're in a protective mechanism. And when you're overgiving or you're pleasing, you are attracting people who overtake or are hard to please, and you believe it's your job. So your love set point might be not even a love set point. It's more of a validation set point. It's more of a familiar idea of what connection was as a kid set point. But you see, that's what's getting in the way of authenticity and you being congruent to you. And this is the thing that I see so often shift for people. It's when they embrace the thing they're avoiding and they give themselves permission to not need to control love. You see it often, so often happen when people actually let go of wanting to attract love, let go of a timeline, let go of caring what someone else thinks. You then feel free to be the real you. And that's when people can actually connect to you. You know, it's interesting. I can think of a few times in my past where when I first got on YouTube, I remember going to meet someone that was a big YouTuber, and this was someone that I went and I did like a, a little thing with, like a collaboration with. And I remember the first time I met this person, I kind of had a vision and I was just getting on YouTube and there was this like idea of this person kind of on a pedestal. And I remember going to meet them and I was excited, but also there was this energy where I wasn't completely being the real me. It's kind of catering. And what I eventually did is I went and saw this person for a second time. And when I went to the second time, there was such a difference in my energy where I actually showed up just being the real me. I wasn't, I actually had completely let go of connecting 'cause there was a certain thing that happened where it changed my perspective of the situation, kind of took it off a pedestal. And then all of a sudden I'm like, I don't care whether this person really resonates with me or not. And when I wasn't attached, all of a sudden this person completely responded differently to me because I was actually being the real me and I wasn't connected to what they thought about me. Which is interesting because often in relational dynamics, when you are giving yourself permission to be the real you, knowing that your sense of self-worth is not tied to what they think about you, And also because you like you, you then aren't in a protective mechanism that's either overgiving, overextending, overexplaining, et cetera. And because you're not in that protective mechanism, you can actually allow in love. Now let's talk about the other side of the coin though. The other side of the coin. So you can think of it like a set point. You have got high, and low. High would be like anxious, obsessed thinking. This is where you could say, ooh, there's chemistry, there's a spark. Normally people with this anxious, obsessed energy where they're leaning in for love may attract people that are more avoidant, maybe more numb, shut down, or afraid of that love because that love may mean enmeshment. It may mean losing the sense of self. Which is interesting because on one hand, it's like there's still, if you think of abandoning the self, on either ends of this spectrum of blocking love because it's not in the core, it's not in the, like, the ability to receive calm, regulated nervous system love, these are both survival strategies, anxious and avoidant. Avoidant is afraid of losing their sense of self, so they push away love. It doesn't feel safe. So it feels more safe to be alone. On the other hand of this, you get anxious, which is leaning in for love. Now overgivers tend to attract overtakers. Not that all avoidant attachment styles are takers, but think about it. The patterns you are embodying, you are attracting people that fit into that patterning, that fit into the other side of that. So if you want to have a love set point where you receive love in a deep way, the key is becoming back to your center of you instead of overgiving, people pleasing, and overthinking, et cetera. Now, the question you wanna ask yourself is what are you avoiding in these energies, in these behaviors, in these patterns? For me, I recognized that I was overgiving because I was avoiding tension. I was overexplaining because I was avoiding being misunderstood. I was pleasing because I didn't want people to feel tension. And what I realized is I was avoiding tension and really deep down, I was afraid of abandonment. So what I had to realize is that I was abandoning myself to even be in that situation. And I had to recommit to being authentic, knowing if somebody else doesn't resonate or somebody else isn't happy, it's not my job to manage it. So I would question when these thoughts would come up, when these emotions would come up, when the nervous system would get activated, I would observe it. I would see that it's there, but I would recognize I don't have to control this. That's when then I could feel more inside of my own body. I could feel more present. I could allow myself to, instead of feeling the energy and thinking I need to go into a protective pattern, I would feel the energy and allow it to be there. And then I would ask myself, what am I really afraid of? Am I afraid of being seen as bad? Am I afraid of the tension of what they feel? Do I believe it's my job? And I would start to lean into that. Now, what this means is that for to regulate your nervous system to receive love, there's a leaning into uncomfortable emotion. There's a leaning into uncomfortable, unfamiliar territory. Now for the avoidant, that might mean leaning into opening your heart, leaning into connection, and to recognizing that even though that engulfment energy might be there, reminding yourself that you can sit with that energy and open up. And on the other hand of this, and the anxious, the other side of that, that might mean when you feel activated or you feel the anxiety or you feel like you're trying to control, leaning into your sense of inside of your body, leaning into your sense of feeling regulated inside of yourself, which means putting the awareness inside of your body, actually feeling the separation between you and them, breathing in and allowing yourself to become aware that you've lost you. So really you're coming back to you, the real you, and opening up to relational connection. Now, understand that when you start regulating your nervous system and you get out of these survival patterns, you start regulating your nervous system, when you feel calm, that will be connected. Your ability to attract love is directly connected to your ability to be and accept yourself. It is also connected to your ability to open up your heart around other people. And what happens is as you do this, as you move into this energy of opening, that's when your life will really begin to shift in a powerful way. Now, there are certain things in dynamics that you will see as either red flags or red roses. And part of the key of this process of understanding your left set point is Where have you been attracted to red roses not knowing they're red flags? Now, the red flags might be that you try to fix people. It might be that someone that's hot and cold, that might seem like a red rose, or someone that needs to be fixed, that might seem like a red rose. When really, when you recognize it's not your job to fix them, there's a big freedom there. When you realize it, because there may also be a story belief there, like who did you have to be growing up to be loved? Who did you have to be? Maybe you felt you had to be perfect. You had to be the pleaser, the over-giver, good, the good boy, the good girl. Whatever you felt like you had to be might be the pattern that's literally blocking love. And part of the key to this is recognizing that you don't have to play that anymore, that protective pattern. You can let yourself feel whatever emotion is under that. And even if that's the abandonment, right? We would be afraid of being abandoned. You are actually free when you can be okay either way, whether someone chooses you or not, because ultimately you choose you. And when you choose you, you're not tied to whether they choose you or not nearly as much. And remember, people are treating you the way that you treat you. So if you abandon yourself to be in one of these patterns, you will attract people that are on the other side of that inauthentic pattern in a way. And what happens is that actually blocks love and connection because this pattern is survival. So the key to regulating your nervous system for love is to begin the process of looking at your relationship with you and making the choice to open your heart and to open up to energy that priorly may have been uncomfortable. And what happens is as you begin to bring that energy into your body, as you begin to focus more on calm, regulating your own body around being, if you can be calm, whether someone likes you or not, that will be a very powerful place to be. And part of this might be when you go on a date, instead of asking yourself the question, do they like me, you start asking yourself, do they share similar values to me? What are your values? How can I show up more for me? How can I, yes, be curious? You also wanna be curious, be curious about their energy, be curious about whether you have things in common, be curious as to if there is energy there that is resonant? You see, these are different questions you begin to ask the more you come back to your own awareness of what your love set point has been. And if you've been attracting or not feeling safe around certain people, well, guess what? If you don't feel safe and you go into this protective mechanism, you will attract people that you feel like you're on eggshells around, and then you won't feel safe. So part of being in a calm, regulated nervous system is your ability to feel the emotion underneath the surface here. And that might be abandonment, enmeshment on the other side of that, and letting yourself open up to feeling these emotions and energies inside of your nervous system. And as you do that, you will allow the energy to move. You will allow yourself to develop this relationship with yourself. And you will find that as you do, your nervous system literally begins to rewire itself for love, because remember, your ability to attract love is your ability to love and accept yourself and to be open to relational connection. Sometimes you could say, "Okay, I'm gonna love myself, love myself, love myself," which you also might feel guilty before because as a kid that may have felt selfish. But at the same time, you might do that as a protective mechanism because relational trauma feels unsafe because you're giving up something to be in relation to someone else where something bad could happen. But here's the thing, in relational dynamics, there is always gonna be some form of risk that things don't work out. There's always gonna be some form of it. It's the one thing we can't control is, one thing that we for sure can't control is relationships and whether people accept us or not or how we relate to people. And how they relate with us. So a very important part of this process is recognizing that our job is to open, be open, open our hearts and understand that as we show up for us, we're showing up for us 'cause this is who we choose to be, not because of what it's gonna get us. That's still the control survival mechanism is after you hear this. If you hear this and you're like, Aaron, okay, how do I open up so I can attract love? It's like, how can you open Period. How can you be the love in which you're seeking? Not as a mechanism to get, but because this is how you choose to be. Now, of course, as a response, as a reflection, that can change where you actually attract a loving relationship. But the key to this is looking at your relationship to you, making the choice to open. And as you start opening your heart, that's where everything really begins to change. So some of the defaults that you can begin to bring into your life that you can kind of use as like a barometer in a way. It's first off, don't prove yourself. Focus on being and accepting you. Focus on, instead of trying to control what people think about you, focus on showing up authentically, expressing yourself vulnerably when things come up, knowing it's not your job to get them on board or to fix their perception of you. Vulnerability is a way of opening. It's a way of opening up your heart. And if other people can't meet you there, can you accept that they can't meet you there? And that's okay. This is a huge epiphany at a recent live event that I did where someone is realizing they had a lot of emotion that would come up at times and then their partner couldn't hold it and would actually not be attracted to them if it did. And the biggest insight was actually towards the end of this interaction where I was like, what if this person not accepting you and your emotion was also a reflection of you not accepting them for not being able to accept you. So they're in a way in a lock around, you're not accepting me. And then that person also felt not accepted by them because they demanded that they are able to hold their emotion. So in an interesting way, can you not have the expectation that people need to choose you? Let them choose you or not. You don't need to prove yourself to anybody. Become aware of that. If there's anxiety there, that anxiety might be you used to interpret it as intuition or excitement. Maybe instead you can recognize that if anxiety's coming up, it's coming up inside of your body. What is it showing you? Is it showing you that there's unprocessed energy there? Can you allow yourself to feel it? Don't chase, come back to yourself. Trying to chase and prove creates the protection mechanism protection mechanism which attracts that kind of energy. You come back to your sense of self, come back to you, come back to your body, and then choose values over validation. When I began to choose my values of love and connection and vulnerability and authenticity over validation approval, that's when my life really began to shift. That's when love was something that came to me in a very powerful way. To realize this happens as you go through this process with yourself. And the reset for yourself is for you to begin bringing that energy inside of your body, for you to begin learning that this is really a process of you opening and letting yourself feel what comes up. Now, something that I'm in the process of creating that's not ready yet is I'm actually creating that of a specific process for letting go and a specific process for moving from what is called contraction into opening. It's a simple process that you can use to open up your heart, to get out of these protective patterns, and to understand that as you feel and accept this energy inside of yourself, so much of your life can begin to shift. So if you're excited about that, by the way, go and comment below and let me know. It's not ready yet, but I'm curious as to if that's something you'd be into. And then also, if you want to learn the frame technique, it's one of the most powerful meditation processes I have that can help you to regulate your nervous system and feel safe inside of your body, go ahead and do the frame technique for 21 days. Watch it right here and watch what happens.