Part Six –What If Capacity Was Something We Could Sustain?

Quote

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu

Reflection

As I have been exploring this whole idea of capacity, a question that emerges for me is: how do we sustain capacity in a high-demand world that is always asking for more, built on production and doing, rather than presence and being?

I don’t have a single answer to the question of how we sustain capacity over time, but I believe the question itself is important and really matters.

What do we need, as human beings, to build capacity that lasts?

I believe the answer to this is deeply personal; each individual we coach holds their own nervous system history, their own adaptive patterns, their own relationship to effort, ambition, recovery and rest. One of the core competencies in coaching is honouring each person’s resources and each of us having the capacity to access our own inner wisdom about what truly sustains us.

Instead of asking what a coaching session on sustainable capacity looks like, perhaps the more important question is this:

How do we notice when a client is actually asking how to sustain their own capacity, even if they are not using those words?

In my experience, Clients rarely say, “I need help sustaining my nervous system capacity.” (If only!)

Instead, we may hear:

“I’m exhausted, but I can’t slow down.”
“I hit my goals, but I feel depleted.”
“I keep pushing, and then I crash.”
“I don’t know why I can’t maintain momentum or motivation.”

These are often capacity conversations waiting to happen.

So how do we recognize them in the moment?

We can notice the patterns behind the goals.
We can listen for cycles and for when adaptive coping patterns resurface

And then, instead of pushing toward more action, we can support discovery.

🌟Why This Matters

Sustainable capacity is not a productivity strategy.

• It is biological.
• It is relational.
•  It is oriented in our value system
• We hold beliefs about it
• It is identity-based
• It is livable in our bodies and nervous-system-informed.

When we coach capacity, we are not helping clients “do more.”

We are helping them build the internal conditions that allow them to stay.

And staying regulated, aligned, and connected is what makes long-term growth possible.

So perhaps the better coaching question is:

 “How do we create the conditions for clients to discover what sustainability means for them?”

It might include inquiries about energy, rhythm, resonance and recovery, not just goals and outcomes. As coaches, our role is not to prescribe a formula for their resilience. Our role is to support clients in noticing their patterns, listening to their bodies, clarifying their values, and aligning their efforts. Coaching around sustainable capacity is not a prescription; it’s an appreciative inquiry that evokes the client’s own inner wisdom. It’s a coaching process aligned with the ICF Core Competency of “Evokes Awareness.”

What if sustaining capacity is a personal discovery process, and that discovery happens relationally, in our conversations?

In A Coaching Session

We might ask:

• What does sustainability mean to you?
• What happens in your body when you imagine maintaining this pace for a year?
• Where have you confused intensity with effectiveness?
• What signals tell you that you are approaching your own edge?
• What would progress look like if it were steady and doable?
• What would need to be true for this goal to feel sustainable?
• When have you experienced effort that felt energizing rather than depleting?
• What rhythms support you at your best?
• What are you afraid might happen if you slow down?
• What part of you believes you must push to succeed?

As Trauma-Informed Coaches, we do not define the client’s capacity or sustainability. We are curious about how they see their relationship to it.

Sustainable capacity is personal.

It is about how our clients align their pace, identity, nervous system regulation, and values so that growth becomes possible.

💬What If Questions

1. What is enough?
2. What if capacity is built through rhythm rather than pressure?
3. What if sustainability requires redefining success?
4. What if your nervous system sets the pace for your growth?
5. What if rest is not recovery from weakness, but preparation for strength?
6. What if ambition without regulation is simply stress in disguise?
7. What if burnout is feedback, not failure?
8. What if your body has been signalling your true capacity all along?
9. What if sustainable growth requires saying no more often?
10. What if consistency matters more than intensity?
11. What if resilience is built through micro-recovery rather than big breakthroughs?
12. What if your current pace is inherited, not chosen?
13. What if your definition of productivity is outdated?
14. What if stability is the foundation?
15. What if capacity increases when identity shifts?
16. What if you do not need to prove your strength through endurance?
17. What if sustainable leadership begins with self-regulation?
18. What if your goals need to match your season?
19. What if the question is not “Can I do this?” but “Can I sustain this?”

Closing Invitation

✨ This blog is an open invitation to join the Trauma-Informed Coaching conversation where compassion, neuroscience, and presence meet growth. I’d love to hear your reflections or experiences.

💬 Reply to this post or share your thoughts, as your story might be the reflection someone else needs this week.

Or email me directly at nikol@movingthehumanspirit.com.

🌻Research and Additional Reading

Further Reading & Research Behind Sustainable Capacity

For those who want to explore the science behind nervous system capacity, resilience, and sustainable growth, here are several foundational resources that inform this work:

1. Social Safety Theory (Slavich, 2023)
   Slavich, G. M. (2023). Social Safety Theory: A Biologically Based Evolutionary Perspective on Life Stress, Health, and Behaviour.

Social Safety Theory explains how the brain continuously scans for social threat or safety. When we perceive social disconnection or an evaluation threat, inflammatory and stress pathways are activated. Chronic activation reduces capacity over time. Sustainable capacity, from this lens, is deeply tied to perceived safety, belonging, and relational regulation.

2. Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges)
   Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory.

Polyvagal Theory helps us understand how autonomic states shape our ability to think clearly, connect, and perform. Regulation is not a mindset alone; it is a physiological state. Capacity expands in safety.

3. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey

Perry, B. D., and Winfrey, O. (2021). What Happened to You?

Perry’s work highlights how trauma reorganizes stress systems and how healing requires patterned, relational regulation, not just cognitive insight.

4. George Bonanno

Bonanno, G. A. (2004). Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience. American Psychologist.

Bonanno’s research reframes resilience as flexibility — the ability to adapt across contexts rather than emotional intensity or prolonged struggle.

5. Loehr and Schwartz

Loehr, J., and Schwartz, T. (2003). The Power of Full Engagement.

This work introduced the concept that managing energy, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, is essential for sustained performance over time.

✨ This blog is an open invitation to join the Trauma-Informed Coaching conversation — where compassion, neuroscience, and presence meet growth. I’d love to hear your reflections or experiences

💬 Reply to this post or share your thoughts — your story might be the reflection someone else needs this week.