What’s Really Behind Behaviours: The Nervous System and the Unconscious Mind

Most of us don’t realise that beneath every reaction, emotion, and behaviour is a built-in system we all have called the nervous system. It’s the body’s communication and safety network, a web of signals running between the brain, spine, and body that controls things like breathing, heart rate, movement, sensation, and emotional intensity, often without us thinking about it at all.

Its main job isn’t logic or learning, but regulation, constantly reading what’s happening around us and inside us, and adjusting the body to cope. When it senses safety, it allows access to thinking, talking, learning, and connection. When it senses stress, pressure, or uncertainty, it automatically shifts the body into protection, limiting those abilities to conserve energy and keep us safe. This happens before choice or behaviour.

Once you understand this, it becomes clear that many struggles aren’t wilful or emotional problems they’re nervous system responses, especially in children with sensitive systems. And when you, as a parent, begin to focus less on correcting behaviour and more on creating the conditions where both your systems can relax and operate from, you both begin to benefit from that shared regulation.

Once you comprehend how powerful the nervous system is, the next realisation is that it isn’t working alone. It doesn’t make decisions in isolation; it takes its cues from deeper learning that’s already been stored over time. Every reaction you and your child has is influenced by experiences your bodies remember, even if neither of you can explain them or consciously recall them.

This is where another quiet system comes into play, shaping what the nervous system responds to and what makes certain moments feel bigger than they appear.

The unconscious mind and the nervous system are constantly working together, even though we rarely notice either of them. You can think of the unconscious mind as a library of past experiences, patterns, and meanings, and the nervous system as the delivery system that turns those meanings into physical responses in the body.

The unconscious stores what felt safe, overwhelming, embarrassing, or threatening in the past, and the nervous system uses that information to decide how the body should respond in the present. That’s the reason we can react strongly to situations that look small on the outside, the unconscious has learned something about them before, and the nervous system acts on that learning automatically.

Together, they run the background programs that shape emotion, confidence, behaviour, and attention long before conscious thought gets involved.

When we become consciously aware of this process, we can stop attempting to force calm or control behaviour and instead control our reaction to the moment, enough for the nervous system to settle. As this becomes our new way of operating, the unconscious becomes open to updating old patterns that no longer serve us.

This is where real change occurs not through effort or pressure, but through awareness, and connection, allowing both parent and child to respond differently, naturally, and with far less struggle.

How This Helps You Personally

1. It removes self-blame

When you understand that reactions start in the nervous system, not in willpower or character you stop interpreting overwhelm, frustration, or shutdown as personal failure. You realise your body is responding to perceived threat or pressure, not a lack of patience or strength.

That alone reduces shame, which is one of the biggest drivers of burnout.

2. It explains why “knowing better” doesn’t always mean “doing better”

You can intellectually understand what to do and still react in ways you don’t like. This framework explains why: once the nervous system shifts into protection, access to calm thinking narrows. You’re not ignoring your tools, you temporarily can’t reach them.

That understanding helps you meet yourself with compassion instead of criticism.

3. It gives you something you can influence

You can’t always control circumstances, behaviour, or outcomes. But you can influence tone, pace, breath, and expectations. Knowing how the nervous system works gives you leverage over the parts of the moment that actually matter, instead of fighting the ones you can’t win.

How This Helps Your Child on the Spectrum

4. It reframes behaviour without excusing or punishing it

This understanding doesn’t dismiss behaviour, it explains it. You begin to see eloping, shutdowns, meltdowns, or resistance as signs of overload rather than defiance. That shift changes how you respond, which in turn changes how safe your child feels.

5. It explains why pressure makes things worse

Children with sensitive nervous systems often lose access to language, cooperation, and flexibility under stress. When you understand this, you stop pushing in moments when their system physically can’t respond and allow them space instead.

6. It allows co-regulation to replace control

Your child borrows regulation from you. When you slow your body, soften your voice, and reduce urgency, their nervous system picks that up. This isn’t permissiveness, it’s how regulation is learned.

How This Helps Your Relationship With Your Child

7. It shifts the role from “manager” to “guide”

Instead of constantly managing behaviour, you begin guiding nervous systems, yours first, then theirs. This reduces power struggles and increases trust.

8. It builds safety without words

Children don’t need explanations when their nervous system is overwhelmed, they require signals of safety. Understanding this allows you to communicate calm through presence, not persuasion.

How This Creates Real Change Over Time

9. It opens the door to updating old patterns

When the nervous system settles, the unconscious becomes flexible. Old reactions that once made sense can be rewritten through repeated experiences of safety. This is how confidence grows, not through forcing bravery, but through successful regulation.

10. It makes the future feel possible again

When you understand that today’s behaviour is not a permanent identity or life sentence, fear loosens its grip. You stop seeing every moment as evidence of “how it will always be” and start seeing growth as a process that unfolds with the right conditions.

The Core Benefit (If You Take Nothing Else)

You stop fighting yourself and your child — and start working with how humans actually function.

That one shift saves energy, protects mental health, and creates space for progress.