The Art of Staying: Series Introduction

Coming Home to Safety: Why Alcohol and Other “Opening” Mechanisms Feel Helpful When the Nervous System Isn’t Ready to Stay

This is not a post about quitting anything.

It’s a post about why your body learned to leave.

Long before we called them habits, coping mechanisms, or bypasses, these strategies were simply ways to survive.

A drink to take the edge off.

Staying busy so you didn’t have to feel the ache.

Fantasy. Intensity. Overthinking. Spiritual “openness”. Avoidance. Scrolling. Performance.

Not because you were weak — but because being fully present in your body did not feel safe.

For many of us, that lesson was learned early. Nervous systems shaped in environments that were unpredictable, emotionally lacking, overwhelming, or quietly demanding learn one thing very well: don’t stay here too long. So they find exits. Some subtle. Some socially acceptable. Some even praised.

And they work — until they don’t.

Healing doesn’t begin by ripping those exits away.

That only teaches the body it’s about to be trapped again - which is exactly what it learned to avoid.

The work begins when we stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?”

and start asking, “What did my body need when it first learned this?”

Nervous system healing isn’t self-policing. It’s re-parenting.

It’s learning how to stay present without bracing.

How to feel without flooding.

How to be present — without abandoning yourself.

What follows isn’t about moralizing alcohol, distraction, or dissociation.

It’s about understanding why they made sense — and what becomes possible when safety is no longer borrowed.

The Lure

For a long time, I believed something that’s rarely questioned, or discussed (beyond the risks), in spiritual spaces:

That alcohol makes you more open.

More intuitive.

More relaxed.

More available to subtle perception.

Not in excess. Not destructively.

Just enough to take the edge off.

A glass of wine that softens the body, quiets the mind, and seems to make practices like scrying or divination come more easily.

And to be clear—something does happen.

But, what I’ve come to understand is this:

What’s happening isn’t spiritual opening.

It’s nervous system disinhibition.

And that distinction matters.

Especially for those of us who are intuitive, sensitive, or perceptive by nature.

Especially if you have a history of trauma, unpredictability, emotional neglect, or chronic stress.

What Alcohol Actually Changes

Alcohol doesn’t enhance or create intuition.

It doesn’t grant a deeper access to truth or your innate gifts.

It doesn’t open spiritual channels that weren’t already there.

What it does is lower the nervous system’s protective threshold.

It softens vigilance.

Quietly dampens internal brakes.

Temporarily quiets the part of the system responsible for pacing, containment, and discernment.

For a nervous system that’s usually alert—especially one wired for perception—that can feel like ease.

Like relief.

Like openness.

But what’s being lowered isn’t resistance to truth.

It’s resistance to overwhelm.

And that difference matters.

Why This Is Especially Confusing for Intuitive People

If you’re naturally intuitive, perceptive, or energetically sensitive, your nervous system carries a lot.

Subtle information.

Emotional nuance.

Pattern recognition.

Energetic input.

A vigilant nervous system doesn’t block intuition—it manages it.

So when something temporarily lowers that management system, perception can feel smoother. Faster. Less effortful.

Divination may appear to “open” more readily.

And the nervous system quietly learns the pattern: this feels easier.

But what’s actually happening is that the nervous system has stepped back from its post—not because it’s truly safer, but because its guard has been chemically softened.

That’s not embodiment.

That’s access without containment— and the nervous system knows the difference.

Access without containment is never the same as safety.

The Nervous System Is Not the Problem

This is where many spiritual narratives quietly go wrong.

We’re taught—often subtly—to override the nervous system in the name of openness or transcendence.

Vigilance is framed as resistance.

Slowing down is framed as blockage.

But the nervous system isn’t blocking truth.

It’s protecting capacity.

Its job is not to keep us closed.

Its job is to ensure that whatever opens can actually be stayed with.

At a very basic level, it’s always asking:

    •    Can I stay present with this level of sensation or information?

    •    Can I remain oriented without dissociating?

    •    Can what’s coming through be integrated safely and coherently?

When the answer isn’t yet yes, the system stays alert.

That isn’t pathology.

It’s intelligence.

And when we chemically quiet that intelligence, we don’t build safety— we bypass it.

That’s why it can feel easier.

Smoother.

More fluid.

But nothing new has been built.

We haven’t taught the body how to stay.

We’ve simply bypassed the part of us that was pacing and integrating the experience.

This is the difference between access and embodiment.

Between disinhibition and safety.

Between opening and integration.

Integration is what allows insight to become lived, not just experienced.

True nervous system healing doesn’t remove the guard.

It teaches the system that the guard is no longer needed.

What Changed for Me

What’s shifted for me isn’t abstinence or moral clarity—it’s understanding.

I’ve noticed that when I scry or connect without alcohol now, what’s required is different:

    •    more grounding

    •    more pacing

    •    more presence

    •    more trust in my body’s timing

The intuition doesn’t disappear.

The insight doesn’t vanish.

What disappears is the shortcut.

And in its place is something slower, steadier, more deeply connected, and far more embodied.

A Note

When bypass strategies loosen their grip, it can feel like something is dying.

And in a way, it is.

Not pleasure.

Not depth.

What’s ending is the job those strategies were forced to do.

They no longer have to dull the edges, rush the moment, or pull you out of your body so you can survive it.

What replaces them isn’t restraint.

What replaces them is capacity.

The capacity to stay with sensation without panic.

To experience pleasure without needing intensity to access it.

To sit inside quiet without collapsing.

To trust your intuition without dissociating from your body to hear it.

This is the part no one tells you: regulation doesn’t take anything away.

It’s what makes intensity survivable — and pleasure sustainable.

And the younger parts of you — the ones who learned to leave — don’t need to be corrected or managed.

They need to be met, consistently, by an adult nervous system that says:

I’m here now.

I won’t abandon you to get through this.

You don’t have to disappear for me anymore.

This isn’t about giving something up.

It’s about coming home — slowly, honestly, and without bypass — to a body that no longer needs escape to feel safe.

This Is the Work of Staying

This is the introductory heart of The Art of Staying. A new series piece that I am going to share on Nervous System Healing, Connection, & Spiritual Growth.

Not forcing openness.

Not numbing vigilance.

Not mistaking disinhibition for embodiment.

But instead, learning how to build the internal safety framework that allows intuition, perception, and presence to arise without leaving the body behind.

Alcohol is just one of many examples of how we’ve learned to soften the nervous system from the outside instead of teaching it safety from within.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be exploring other common “opening” mechanisms—especially the ones that are more socially accepted, spiritually praised, more subtle or rarely questioned.

Not to demonize them.

Not to remove them prematurely.

But instead, to invite a more honest question:

What would it look like to stay—without needing the edge taken off first?

A Gentle Reflection

I invite you to sit with this reflection, without forcing an answer:

Where in your life do you reach for something to soften, speed up, avoid, or take the edge off before staying fully present?

This could be with:

• a person

• a practice

• a habit

• a moment of discomfort

• or even yourself

You don’t need a full explanation.

There is no “right” response.

Just information and reflection.

Sometimes the most honest response is simply noticing where your nervous system asks for relief.

Awareness is how safety begins.

With Much Love Along Your Journey, Always -

xoxo

Seraph

Coming Next:

The Art of Staying – Coming Home to Safety: Why Intensity Feels Like Connection When the Nervous System Doesn’t Yet Trust Calm