Setting Rates Through the Nervous System
- rachel stokes
- Nov 30, 2025
- 4 min read
The True Cost of Emotional Labor
For sensitive practitioners, your rate is one of the primary forms of resource, keeping your nervous system regulated, grounded, and generous.
The Sit That Taught Me Something
It’s 12:01pm, and I’m sitting three dogs in Los Angeles. I’ve sat for these folks before — enjoying the space, but feeling incredibly taxed. This time was different — my nervous system had been taxed beyond its limits for the last time.
I get up to use the bathroom and immediately have two dogs at my heels. They pace, scavenge, search for where to pee, or settle — I’ve seen this hundreds of times. Moments later, I grab water — same thing.
My shoulders tighten, my chest constricts, my breath hits. My nervous system is at capacity, and it’s only midday.
“What is wrong with me? Why am I so sensitive? Why are these dogs so relentless?” I wonder. I finally realize: they don’t know how to self-regulate, so they’re using me as their regulator.
“This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“I’m at my edge.”
“I’m done undercharging.”
This became one of the most emotionally taxing sits after years of practice — not because of the dogs, but because my nervous system had had enough. Enough of undercharging. Enough of absorbing emotional labor without compensation. Enough of regulating animals who couldn’t self-soothe.
My rates shouldn’t just reflect what I do. They must reflect the sensitivity and needs of my nervous system.
Sensitivity As Labor and Skill
For years, I thought my sensitivity was a burden — and when you’re under-resourced, it is.
One dog that day was new to the pack: different house, different rhythms. She peed inside despite being potty trained, followed me everywhere, and constantly sought food. Her system needed to land somewhere — on me.
Without trying, my nervous system scanned for her needs. I noticed her pacing, sensed her inability to rest, caught the micro-shifts before she even squatted. I simply knew what she needed. This is sensitivity in action: attuning, regulating, and stabilizing. It’s a gift, and it’s real emotional labor.
But it’s exhausting when attending exceeds resources. I’ve spoken in depth about resourcing the nervous system in a previous blog post. Essentially, attending = energy, vigilance, emotional awareness. Resourced = rest, support, compensation, stability.
When they don’t match:
Tracking too much: constant attunement + vigilance + no off switch.
Regulating their bodies: when she can’t settle, my system does it.
Never “off”: even sitting, my nervous system tracks, anticipates, orients.
Low resources: low pay, fragmented sleep, no quiet time = burnout.
Overdrawn system: like spending more energy than your bank balance.
This is emotional labor — skilled, invisible work happening every second in pet care, especially for sensitive practitioners or anxious animals.
Why Emotional Labor Demands Support
Attunement draws from your body — your rest, spaciousness, and capacity. Sensitive bodies feel the cost faster and more intensely. Without proper resourcing, sensitivity becomes depletion, resentment, and anger.
Your body needs support — not just breaks or sleep, but actual compensation. For sensitive practitioners, your rate is one of the primary forms of resource, keeping your nervous system regulated, grounded, and generous.
My rate isn’t arbitrary. It matches my nervous system’s output. Sensitivity is part of my business model. Mind. Blown.
Restructuring My Rates Moving Forward
What I realized: my rate isn’t just a number — it’s a nervous system boundary. Ignoring it meant asking my system to carry more than it could.
What I’m shifting: aligning rates with the energetic, emotional, and physiological cost of the work. Raising my base rate and maintaining consistency across clients ensures sustainable labor. My nervous system physically lets me know if I'm undercharging myself. When I feel anger, resentment, and depletion, I know a boundary is being overlooked and I'm under resourced.
Why consistency matters: inconsistent pricing destabilizes sensitive systems. A steady rate allows my nervous system to relax, anticipate, and prepare, ensuring sustainability over time.
Honoring my skill set: my work is not just practical support — it’s deep regulation, intuitive care, emotional attunement, physiological labor. I treat these abilities as real skills, not freebies.
What feels good: I’m choosing myself and building a structure that supports the version of me who works from fullness, not depletion.
At the end of my sit in Los Angeles, I wrote a grounded and direct text to the family informing them of my updated rate moving forward. It felt like I was dying. This whole sit felt so physiologically intense. Yet, I can't un-know what I learned about how I operate, and for that I am so grateful.
Closing: Listening to My Nervous System Changes Everything
This new way of structuring rates — of knowing myself in general — is very new to me, yet leaves me lighter, clearer, and more grounded. My anger served its purpose — highlighting my boundaries, which I (painstakingly) honor.
For the first time, I have an embodied understanding that my sensitivity isn't a burden. When well resourced, it's a guide, a superpower, and the lens through which I measure the true cost of my labor. By letting my nervous system inform my rates, I create a sustainable practice: showing up fully, regulating fully, giving generously without losing myself.
This isn’t just about money. It’s about respecting my body, capacity, and gifts. It’s about letting the work flow from fullness instead of depletion. And it feels damn good.
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