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Hello, my friends, and welcome back to another episode of Authentically Connected with me, Dr.
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Rachel Faust.
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I am speaking to you from Cincinnati, Ohio, my home office, where I do fully virtual work all via telehealth, and I should remind you again before I jump in that what I share today is for informational purposes only and is not meant to replace direction or advice given by a doctor or your personal psychotherapist.
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With that being said, I am noticing some parts who wanna name what I've been experiencing lately.
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Or want me to name it.
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So I have been noticing a lot of excitement and a lot of energy in my system lately around podcasting, in part because people are starting to listen and give me feedback, which is wonderful.
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I also am noticing, an excitement in some of my parts around the opportunity to learn more, which they love to do anyway, but for a purpose, uh, learning so that I can share information here in a way that will be useful to others.
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And so they just love having a sense of, yeah, we get to learn for a reason.
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I'm also noticing parts who are really uncomfortable with this whole experience because I'm starting to get feedback that is constructive.
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Hey, have you thought about this? Or What about that? And my system in general takes that positively.
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But I do have some parts who are still working through perfectionism and just struggling with not being good at something yet, and they have been knocked off balance lately, so I've been doing more work with them around, you know, holding space for how hard it can be to be a new learner at something or a, oh, I just attended this awesome play therapy training over the weekend and I learned about the process of going from being unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent, which I am now very conscious of my incompetence in this area, but that's okay.
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No judgment.
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That's just what they call it to consciously competent when you know you're good at something and then finally to unconsciously competent when honestly you don't even have to think about it anymore.
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You just know how to do that thing now, and so.
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Right now I am consciously incompetent and that is uncomfortable and Okay.
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All at the same time, so, Hmm.
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Just wanted to name that.
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And now let's jump into polyvagal theory, which is the topic for today.
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Polyvagal Theory is the result of research done by Dr.
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Steven Porges.
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This research is incredible.
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It is also dense and a little hard to understand, like how to apply it to daily life.
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So thank goodness for people like Deb Dana.
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Deb Dana is a social worker and a therapist who has done an incredible job of distilling this down to a theory we can use in practice to understand the landscape of our nervous system and help us navigate through life with that awareness.
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Before I describe Polyvagal theory and explain why it's useful to understand it, let's talk about the vagus nerve.
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The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve.
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Vagus actually comes from the Latin word for wander.
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It starts at the base of the skull, wraps around to the front of the neck, and goes straight down the midline of the body all the way to the pelvic floor.
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It is a major component of the parasympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system.
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The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic branch and the parasympathetic branch.
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Sympathetic is like the gas pedal.
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Go do active.
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Parasympathetic is like the brakes.
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Let's calm down.
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Let's relax.
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Let's rest and digest.
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And because of the presence of the vagus nerve, many different organs and bodily experiences are tied together.
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To be clear, the vagus nerve is not just one nerve.
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It is actually a bundle of different nerves that work together to bring information from the brain down to the body and from the body and the sensory receptors up to the brain.
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And so the vagus nerve is constantly monitoring the situations that we are in what we are feeling, what we're seeing.
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The facial expression on a person we're interacting with or what we're hearing, like the tone of their voice.
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These are all bits of information that are being collected at all times to help us gauge our level of safety or the need for protection in our lives.
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And because the vagus nerve has this direct connection, it actually creates a connection between our brain and our heart.
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We have the ability to gauge under the level of our awareness information about what is going on and how we need to respond.
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And so as a result, we may see a facial expression or hear a tone of voice, and all of a sudden our heart rate speeds up.
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We may not be consciously aware of that, but our body is, our nervous system is, and so that information is being collected at all times and also being provided to other people who are doing the exact same thing.
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The vagus nerve is tied to so many processes that happen in our body, and many of them are automatic, but we can actually engage the vagus nerve consciously, purposely in a variety of different ways and shift how the vagus nerve helps us interact with the world around us.
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This is information that's useful to have in mind as we talk about polyvagal theory.
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Polyvagal Theory has three organizing principles.
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I'll name them and then I'll explain them.
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Autonomic hierarchy is the first, neuroception is the second, and the third is co-regulation.
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Starting with autonomic hierarchy.
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Picture a ladder.
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Okay.
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Top of the ladder, middle and bottom are the three sections.
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When we are at the top of the ladder, we are in what is called ventral vagal.
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That basically means that we feel safe, and because we feel safe, we are open to connection.
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We are open to experiences, so you can picture yourself at the top of a ladder where you can see for miles and you have a wonderful view and you're just open to whatever comes.
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That is probably a lot like what self-energy feels like at the top of the ladder, and then imagine that something happens, something that stresses you out, that makes it feel like things are not as safe as they were.
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So you move down to the middle of the ladder.
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That is when our sympathetic nervous system activates.
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The sympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system is like the gas pedal.
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It is the go, go, go.
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Do, do, do.
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Or the fight or flight space, because when we are not safe and we need to protect ourselves, we go into that mode where we get ready to fight.
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So our blood starts pumping away from our brain, away from our digestion into our extremities, our arms and legs.
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Our major muscle groups are ready to fight or run away in order to save ourselves.
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It's kind of like when a fish senses a predator coming and the fish starts darting this way, and that trying to avoid the predator, that's what it's like to be at the middle of the ladder.
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Some people hang out there most of the time.
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I have definitely been one of those people at times in my life.
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Finally, when we hang out in that space for long enough that our nervous system says, I need to put a stop to this.
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I need to protect you even more, or.
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We are so overwhelmed by whatever the stressor is, that actually we can't stay there any longer.
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We move to the bottom of the ladder.
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The bottom of the ladder is called dorsal vagal, or dorsal vagal collapse.
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When we're at the bottom of the ladder, think about yourself curled around the bottom, rungs of the ladder hanging on For a dear life, we are no longer able to access our higher level thinking.
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There is no openness to connection there.
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What there is is complete shutdown in order to survive.
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If you think about a wild animal being chased, you know, across the plains, and at a certain point they realize that the end is coming near, they're not gonna be able to escape.
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They play dead, right? Their nervous system shuts them down entirely because wild animals don't like to eat prey that is dead.
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And so they freeze, they collapse, and that's what our nervous system does too.
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It might look different for us though.
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Maybe we are having trouble getting outta bed feeling really depressed, or we keep dissociating, we keep disconnecting from our present life, from the things that we need to do in order to be a productive member of society, finding ourselves scrolling instead of responding to texts We don't have access to any of that when we're in shutdown mode.
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Unfortunately, when we're in that space, all we can do is survive.
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It can be so helpful to use imagery to identify what each stage is like, and also just to help us remember, so bottom of the ladder, dorsal vagal collapse, you can think about a turtle sticking its head back into its shell for protection, the middle of the ladder in sympathetic activation, as I said before, that's like a fish that's trying to get away from a predator darting this way and that, constantly in motion, active, seeking protection.
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At the top of the ladder in ventral vagal, you can picture two people talking to one another, making eye contact, smiling, and really connecting.
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That is what is possible when we are in that ventral state at the top of the ladder.
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It is the social engagement system that comes online because we feel safe enough in our system to be open to connection, and that connection is absolutely vital to our survival at every stage of our life.
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So this is the hierarchy, the ventral vagal system at the top.
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That is the most recent development in our brain and in our evolution.
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The sympathetic system has been here longer, but the dorsal vagal system that brings strategies of immobilization that started earliest and that comes from our ancestors who actually did have to survive in that way.
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I'll come back to some of this information, but that is autonomic hierarchy, one of the three organizing principles of polyvagal theory.
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The second principle is neuroception.
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What that means is detection without awareness, so working below the level of our awareness, the autonomic nervous system is always listening, always inside the body it's listening, outside in the environment, and in relationship between people.
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That neuroception is going on at all times.
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It is giving us information below the level of our awareness that basically says what is happening right now is safe and connection is okay or it's unsafe, and you need to get ready to protect yourself.
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Because this is going on at all times and sending information to us without our awareness.
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One of the really interesting things about Polyvagal theory is that it's about bringing perception to neuroception.
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The polyvagal theory is all about getting us more aware of where on that ladder we are at any given time, so that we can use that information to take care of ourselves, to reshape whatever is going on in the moment But first, we have to know where we are.
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So Neuroception helps us do that, and the more aware of it we are the better.
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The third organizing principle of polyvagal theory is co-regulation.
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We all have a biological imperative that requires that we be in relationship with other people.
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And the ability to self-regulate, which is what I'm teaching my kids about right now, and honestly, I'm still working on myself.
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The ability to self-regulate is built on ongoing experiences of co-regulation.
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And what that means is that through co-regulation, through the ability to be in connection to someone else and have them regulate or feel balanced, or feel like they can access self, get into that ventral vagal state and feel calm, because they have it, we can borrow some of it or they can share it with us.
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But if we are not able to co-regulate, to be in relationship with a trusted adult or a trusted other who feel safe to us, then our nervous system has a much harder time allowing us to get to the top of the ladder to get into that space where we feel calm, connected, and open to experiences.
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So with a reliable regulating other person, we can engage in what Deb Dana calls the rhythm of reciprocity and build experiences of safety and connection, and then we can start to retrain our nervous system.
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I will say that again.
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We can start to retrain our nervous system that was created when we were younger at a time in our lives when we had very little control over ourselves or the world around us, but.
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Just because we were shaped in a certain way when we were young does not mean we are stuck there.
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And in fact, as I'm going to go on to share with you, there's a lot that we can do once we bring perception to Neuroception and we start to notice and map out the landscape of what does it feel like for me when I'm in that ventral vagal top of the ladder state.
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What does it feel like for me when I drop down halfway down the ladder into that sympathetic state and go into that activated mode, and what does it feel like when I'm in shutdown mode, dorsal vagal at the bottom of the ladder, and how do I get out of there? That is the coolest thing about all of Polyvagal theory is that it gives us the ability to understand ourselves better.
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And then to know what to do with it, and then to figure out how to get in connection to ourselves.
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'cause ventral vagal isn't just about connecting with others, it's also about feeling connected to ourselves.
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And so the more we can understand this, it's like having the keys to the kingdom.
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That seems to be my favorite, one of my favorite phrases lately.
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But the more we understand and can identify, oh, oh, I know what that feeling means.
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And I know what to do about it.
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We can do what Deb Dana says and keep one foot in ventral as we live our lives so that we have the ability to not get stuck.
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And that is huge.
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I get stuck.
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You get stuck, I bet sometimes in those overactive states or in those shutdown disconnected states.
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And it's so valuable to understand what to do when we're in that space so that we don't feel stuck anymore.
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It has been said that trauma is what happens to a person when there is either too much, too soon, too much for too long, or not enough for too long.
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Those experiences actually shape our nervous system away from connection towards protection.
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We have these competing needs to survive and also to be social.
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Social helps us survive, but sometimes we're not in a space to open up to that, to accept that.
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And so in a state of protection, survival is the only thing that we can do.
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The stories we hold about trauma are connected with these autonomic pathways.
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So these pathways through our autonomic or automatic nervous system that are tuned to a low threshold, high intensity pattern of responding, meaning it doesn't take much.
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And then when we respond, we respond big.
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And as I'm saying this right now, I am thinking about what I was like as a kid.
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I had a low threshold, high intensity pattern of responding from a young age.
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And so when I now go into sympathetic activation, when I get to the middle of the ladder and my nervous system is working harder than it needs to, given the situation, I ask myself the question, does this autonomic shift feel familiar? And it most certainly does.
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I understand then in that moment what I'm experiencing and knowing that now allows me to recognize, okay, I am holding energy in my body that isn't serving me.
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What would I like to do with it? Because the autonomic nervous system learns from experience, ongoing experiences can reshape the system.
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The ability to return to regulation is the essence of resilience.
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We want to be able to get into a space where we can recognize where our nervous system is on the ladder at any given time, and then take action in order to move our way back up the ladder in a sustainable way.
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So when we are in dorsal vagal shutdown at the bottom of the ladder, when that part of our vagus system is active, and we are in this either or survival state, we can't see both/ and from that state it's either or either I survive or something else.
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The way we move out of that state is through mobilization.
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So when we're at the bottom of the ladder and we wanna mobilize, what we do next is going to depend on what we have mapped out for ourselves in advance, in terms of what are the options that I have to mobilize.
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Let's say you're in bed, you can't get out of bed.
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It's just been really hard lately to function.
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Mobilization may be as simple as looking out the window.
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Watching the wind in the trees, watching the cars drive by, watching the birds fly, watching mobilization happen outside of yourself, that's a place to start.
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Imagination is also a wonderful way to start mobilizing, imagining yourself getting up, getting moving, doing what you need to do to take care of yourself before actually taking a step in that direction.
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Mobilization could be sitting in a rocking chair or on a glider.
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Moving back and forth, back and forth, letting your body remember what it feels like to be in a rhythm or to be in motion before you know, maybe texting a friend or reaching out and having a phone call with a friend or meeting a friend for coffee.
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These are all actions that we can take to mobilize out of that shutdown space.
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That also can be useful if we are stuck scrolling, right? If maybe for us, every time we go into that dorsal vagal shutdown, it is uh there I am binge watching Netflix again, or just not responding to the text messages that are piling up because I'm too busy scrolling on this device that I could use to respond, but I am not in a space to do that.
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That is such valuable information.
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It is not something we need to judge or get down on ourselves for.
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In fact, it is Information that is key to understanding, oh, my nervous system feels like I need to just survive right now.
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I wonder what got me here.
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I wonder what I can do to get out of it.
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And it's probably better to focus on getting out of it rather than focusing from that space on what got me here.
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Because once we get back to the top of the ladder, then we can reflect back and understand, Hey, how did I get into that dorsal vagal shutdown to begin with and what helped me this time? So I can put that in my back pocket so I'll have it for next time.
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Or, you know what, I tried that and that was a no, that did nothing for me, or that seemed to make it worse.
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Okay, I'm gonna take that off the list for next time.
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It's all experimenting.
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Once we move up the ladder into sympathetic activation, from that space, we've got a lot of energy in our bodies that needs to be expelled in whatever way works for us.
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So.
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For example, I met someone today for coffee.
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It was a wonderful meeting, but right before I left to go meet them, I dropped my AirPods in the toilet.
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Yes, in the toilet.
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That was not a good thing.
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So after dealing with that, I drove in the rain.
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I went and met this lovely person who I thoroughly enjoyed talking to in a very busy coffee shop, and it was a great conversation, but I was pretty activated before the conversation happened, and then I was absorbing all that energy because I hadn't done any of the things that I'm trying to do more of to protect my energy and allow me to feel more balanced and grounded during that conversation.
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So by the time I was driving home, I was buzzing, like not from caffeine 'cause I'm trying to just do decaf 'cause I don't need any more buzz in my body like that.
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But I just had a lot of energy and it wasn't feeling good in my body.
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The conversation was great, but other than that I was overly activated.
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And I have learned in that space that the best thing to do is to turn off the radio or the podcast or whatever I'm listening to, put down whatever it is that I'm fidgeting with.
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'Cause that's usually what I find my body doing in those moments.
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And breathe.
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Coming back to my breath allows me to remember that I have a breath, allows me to remember that I have a body.
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And to hold space to open up space for whatever my parts are trying to tell me in that moment.
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And so I just let them do a brain dump.
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I spoke out loud in my car on the drive home and allowed my parts to feel heard, to, uh, express what they needed to express.
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And by the time I got home, I felt a lot better, but it wasn't quite enough.
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So I hugged my cat.
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The one who loves to cuddle.
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Her name is Rhythm and she is a little cuddle bug.
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And that felt better.
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But I still had this energy in my body that I really needed to let go of.
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So I have a recent purchase.
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A vibration board.
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So I stood on that and let it do the shaking for me.
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Vibration is a wonderful way to move energy out of our bodies.
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By the time I had stood on that for 10 minutes, I felt calm.
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I felt like I could catch my breath.
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I felt like that energy that I had been holding ever since the debacle with the AirPods had finally left my body.
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Then I could sit and process what had happened during the conversation, and I could move on to actually come and speak to you right now from a much calmer and more open place, because I was no longer in that sympathetic activation.
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So these are the kinds of things that we absorb in our daily life.
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And you know, this is just a small example.
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There's a lot more that goes on, I'm sure in a lot of your lives that sets you on edge.
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And a lot of, all of our lives that sets us on edge, we absorb this energy and we feel like we're just stuck with it.
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And we are not.
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We are more stuck though if we're not aware of it and we're not aware of what we can do about it.
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So once we have mobilized, and we're not in dorsal vagal shutdown anymore, but we're still not feeling open and connected, we're in that sympathetic space.
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We have to figure out how to take that energy and move it out of us.
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So, like I said, vibration and shaking can be helpful.
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Sometimes connection like I hugged my cat, that can be very helpful, but sometimes we're not ready for that when we're in that sympathetic activation.
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And what we actually need is a physical way to move energy, you know, punching a pillow, stomping on the floor, sometimes deep pressure putting our hands open at the top of our thighs and pushing in and down along our thighs.
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These are just examples of ways that we can actively move energy that is just rattling around in our bodies through and out of us.
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Once we get back into the ventral vagal state of connection, we know that because the world looks different from that place.
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I should say, when we're in a dorsal shutdown at the bottom of the ladder, the world's pretty negative.
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Uh, we don't see options.
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We don't see ways out.
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We just feel stuck.
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So remembering that there are ways to activate, 'cause you gotta go through the middle of the ladder to get back to the top right? So activating to sympathetic middle of the ladder allows us to make a, a slight shift in our mindset, in the way that we're receiving information and processing it.
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But truly it is being back at the top of the ladder or in IFS terms.
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It's really being in self energy, allowing all of our parts to make space so that we can feel more open, more balanced, more grounded, and see the world from that space.
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And that is the goal.
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In general polyvagal theory teaches us that once we can map out the landscape of each of those three areas of the ladder, understand how to move more fluidly among them.
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It gives us an opportunity to learn how to keep one foot in ventral at the top of the ladder on a regular basis so that we can stay connected and open while also dipping our toe into that sympathetic middle of the ladder to get some more energy to activate ourselves to accomplish what we need.
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And then when we've had enough of that, set that down and move back fully into ventral.
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That is what's called the vagal break, B-R-A-K-E.
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So this brake is basically what allows us to move through our lives in a flexible way so that we can activate when we need to.
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We can even shut down when it feels like that is needed, and then shift ourselves back into that open connected, co-regulating space.
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One of the really interesting things about Polyvagal theory to me is that it has helped us tune in to a conversation that is happening at all times between our brain and our heart.
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Heart rate variability is a measure that allows us to get a sense of how flexible our vagal brake is.
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Heart rate variability measures the time in between beats of the heart, and we want a high heart rate variability because what that means is that the heart rate is speeding up when it needs to.
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It's slowing down when it needs to.
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Our heartbeat is responsive to our lives, what's happening in our nervous system and the world around us.
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That is a good sign.
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High heart rate variability means we are flexible and we can roll with the punches and adjust based on whatever our life is requiring of us at the time.
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So this vagal brake allows us to start exercising that capacity more.
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So you can think about it like this.
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Imagine you're at the top of a hill on a bicycle and you've got a hand brake and you're riding down the hill.
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When you wanna speed up, you release the brake, right? That is like stepping out of ventral or at least one foot out of ventral at the top of the ladder into the sympathetic space at the middle of the ladder where we need more energy or we have more energy.
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And so when I need to go faster, I'm gonna release that brake and it's gonna let me borrow some of that energy from the sympathetic state.
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But when I'm ready to slow down, I'm gonna squeeze the brake, right? And by squeezing the brake, that means I'm shifting back up the ladder, back into a space of openness, of compassion, of love, of curiosity, right? All the things that we don't have access to when we are in that sympathetic or dorsal vagal activation or collapse, respectively.
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We can't do that from there because we're busy surviving.
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So when we can play with our vagal brake and actually learn, what does it feel like when I'm in ventral? What does it feel like when I'm in sympathetic and how can I play with this so I can flexibly get back and forth between them that is.
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Like, not where I am yet.
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That's higher level stuff that I think comes from mapping, learning, getting to know and tuning in: right now, where am I on my ladder? Is there anything I wanna do to shift back up my ladder? Or am I just actually feeling like right now I need to let myself scroll for a little while longer.
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Let myself, you know, rush around the house, trying to clean everything up before I have guests over or something, because that energy is okay with me in this moment, but don't wanna hang out there too long, right? Because if I hang out in my sympathetic state for too long, and I've done this many times, I will go into collapse without realizing it.
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Until it's been too long since I've texted back my friends or, you know, my kids are asking me to do things and I'm like, yeah, I'll get to it.
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Yeah, I'll get to it, but then it's hard for me to actually get to it.
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There's so much benefit from getting a sense of what does it feel like when I'm at the bottom of my ladder in dorsal vagal collapse? What does it feel like when I'm the middle of the ladder sympathetic darting this way and that.
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And how do I get back to that ventral state that allows me to navigate my life in a more flexible open way, but not stay there.
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And that is so key.
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It is not a goal to get to ventral vagal at the top of the ladder and stay there.
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Well, actually it can be your goal, but it's not a realistic one.
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And I'll tell you why.
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We need our survival responses.
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They are there for good reason, even though I hope that life isn't presenting you with a need to survive on any regular basis.
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Honestly, that's just what it feels like to be a human being in the world these days.
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There's so much negativity, there's so much pain and suffering, and one of the things that made me wanna talk about polyvagal theory today is that this gives me hope.
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I feel hopeful when I think about taking this automatic set of processes that are going on in my body all the time.
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Bringing more awareness to it and allowing me to feel like I know what to do to get back into a state of connection.
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Because connection is healing, connection is calming.
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Connection allows me to feel like there is hope and we all need more hope these days.
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So I wanted you to have access to this information so that maybe you could feel some hope too.
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And the potential to reshape your nervous system is there.
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It's there for all of us, but we have to start with awareness and practicing different strategies that allow us to navigate these different spaces within us.
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Some exercises that can help: start with befriending.
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Identifying landmark moments in each of these three states.
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So for you, what was a time when you know you were at the top of your ladder and everything felt possible, you were open, you felt connected.
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That landmark moment, bookmark that in your mind.
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What is a landmark moment for the sympathetic activation, fight or flight: bookmark that and what is a landmark moment for dorsal vagal collapse and bookmark that.
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And then identify anchors for ventral vagal meaning who, what, where, and when allow you to get into that ventral vagal state.
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For me, as you've probably already guessed, cuddling with my cat, the one who likes to cuddle very much ventral vagal.
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Certain people, when I'm with them, I just feel this energy flowing through my heart.
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That is ventral vagal for me.
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Being in my office, I have a lot of ventral vagal in here.
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The walls are covered with things that bring me joy, connection, so really understanding what environments allow you to get into that ventral vagal state is so valuable.
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All of the information that I'm sharing today comes from a book by Deb Dana that is called Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection.
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I highly recommend it.
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Listening to Deb Dana talk about it, she says that it was geared more towards clinicians, but what I love about it and I think is really accessible are all the different exercises that are included that give us the ability to get to know the landscape of our nervous system better, and also ways that we can learn to increase our vagal tone.
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If you're interested in learning more about Polyvagal theory, I highly recommend going to Deb Dana's website, which is rhythm of regulation.com.
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If you click on the polyvagal theory section and scroll down, you'll find all of this information that I've shared.
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It's a wonderful starting point.
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Thank you for taking the time to be with me today.
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Until next time, take care.
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Hello, my friends, and welcome back to another episode of Authentically Connected with me, Dr.
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Rachel Faust.
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I am speaking to you from Cincinnati, Ohio, my home office, where I do fully virtual work all via telehealth, and I should remind you again before I jump in that what I share today is for informational purposes only and is not meant to replace direction or advice given by a doctor or your personal psychotherapist.
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With that being said, I am noticing some parts who wanna name what I've been experiencing lately.
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Or want me to name it.
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So I have been noticing a lot of excitement and a lot of energy in my system lately around podcasting, in part because people are starting to listen and give me feedback, which is wonderful.
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I also am noticing, an excitement in some of my parts around the opportunity to learn more, which they love to do anyway, but for a purpose, uh, learning so that I can share information here in a way that will be useful to others.
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And so they just love having a sense of, yeah, we get to learn for a reason.
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I'm also noticing parts who are really uncomfortable with this whole experience because I'm starting to get feedback that is constructive.
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Hey, have you thought about this? Or What about that? And my system in general takes that positively.
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But I do have some parts who are still working through perfectionism and just struggling with not being good at something yet, and they have been knocked off balance lately, so I've been doing more work with them around, you know, holding space for how hard it can be to be a new learner at something or a, oh, I just attended this awesome play therapy training over the weekend and I learned about the process of going from being unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent, which I am now very conscious of my incompetence in this area, but that's okay.
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No judgment.
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That's just what they call it to consciously competent when you know you're good at something and then finally to unconsciously competent when honestly you don't even have to think about it anymore.
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You just know how to do that thing now, and so.
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Right now I am consciously incompetent and that is uncomfortable and Okay.
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All at the same time, so, Hmm.
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Just wanted to name that.
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And now let's jump into polyvagal theory, which is the topic for today.
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Polyvagal Theory is the result of research done by Dr.
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Steven Porges.
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This research is incredible.
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It is also dense and a little hard to understand, like how to apply it to daily life.
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So thank goodness for people like Deb Dana.
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Deb Dana is a social worker and a therapist who has done an incredible job of distilling this down to a theory we can use in practice to understand the landscape of our nervous system and help us navigate through life with that awareness.
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Before I describe Polyvagal theory and explain why it's useful to understand it, let's talk about the vagus nerve.
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The vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve.
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Vagus actually comes from the Latin word for wander.
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It starts at the base of the skull, wraps around to the front of the neck, and goes straight down the midline of the body all the way to the pelvic floor.
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It is a major component of the parasympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system.
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The autonomic nervous system is divided into the sympathetic branch and the parasympathetic branch.
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Sympathetic is like the gas pedal.
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Go do active.
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Parasympathetic is like the brakes.
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Let's calm down.
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Let's relax.
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Let's rest and digest.
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And because of the presence of the vagus nerve, many different organs and bodily experiences are tied together.
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To be clear, the vagus nerve is not just one nerve.
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It is actually a bundle of different nerves that work together to bring information from the brain down to the body and from the body and the sensory receptors up to the brain.
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And so the vagus nerve is constantly monitoring the situations that we are in what we are feeling, what we're seeing.
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The facial expression on a person we're interacting with or what we're hearing, like the tone of their voice.
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These are all bits of information that are being collected at all times to help us gauge our level of safety or the need for protection in our lives.
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And because the vagus nerve has this direct connection, it actually creates a connection between our brain and our heart.
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We have the ability to gauge under the level of our awareness information about what is going on and how we need to respond.
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And so as a result, we may see a facial expression or hear a tone of voice, and all of a sudden our heart rate speeds up.
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We may not be consciously aware of that, but our body is, our nervous system is, and so that information is being collected at all times and also being provided to other people who are doing the exact same thing.
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The vagus nerve is tied to so many processes that happen in our body, and many of them are automatic, but we can actually engage the vagus nerve consciously, purposely in a variety of different ways and shift how the vagus nerve helps us interact with the world around us.
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This is information that's useful to have in mind as we talk about polyvagal theory.
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Polyvagal Theory has three organizing principles.
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I'll name them and then I'll explain them.
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Autonomic hierarchy is the first, neuroception is the second, and the third is co-regulation.
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Starting with autonomic hierarchy.
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Picture a ladder.
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Okay.
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Top of the ladder, middle and bottom are the three sections.
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When we are at the top of the ladder, we are in what is called ventral vagal.
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That basically means that we feel safe, and because we feel safe, we are open to connection.
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We are open to experiences, so you can picture yourself at the top of a ladder where you can see for miles and you have a wonderful view and you're just open to whatever comes.
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That is probably a lot like what self-energy feels like at the top of the ladder, and then imagine that something happens, something that stresses you out, that makes it feel like things are not as safe as they were.
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So you move down to the middle of the ladder.
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That is when our sympathetic nervous system activates.
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The sympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system is like the gas pedal.
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It is the go, go, go.
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Do, do, do.
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Or the fight or flight space, because when we are not safe and we need to protect ourselves, we go into that mode where we get ready to fight.
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So our blood starts pumping away from our brain, away from our digestion into our extremities, our arms and legs.
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Our major muscle groups are ready to fight or run away in order to save ourselves.
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It's kind of like when a fish senses a predator coming and the fish starts darting this way, and that trying to avoid the predator, that's what it's like to be at the middle of the ladder.
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Some people hang out there most of the time.
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I have definitely been one of those people at times in my life.
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Finally, when we hang out in that space for long enough that our nervous system says, I need to put a stop to this.
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I need to protect you even more, or.
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We are so overwhelmed by whatever the stressor is, that actually we can't stay there any longer.
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We move to the bottom of the ladder.
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The bottom of the ladder is called dorsal vagal, or dorsal vagal collapse.
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When we're at the bottom of the ladder, think about yourself curled around the bottom, rungs of the ladder hanging on For a dear life, we are no longer able to access our higher level thinking.
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There is no openness to connection there.
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What there is is complete shutdown in order to survive.
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If you think about a wild animal being chased, you know, across the plains, and at a certain point they realize that the end is coming near, they're not gonna be able to escape.
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They play dead, right? Their nervous system shuts them down entirely because wild animals don't like to eat prey that is dead.
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And so they freeze, they collapse, and that's what our nervous system does too.
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It might look different for us though.
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Maybe we are having trouble getting outta bed feeling really depressed, or we keep dissociating, we keep disconnecting from our present life, from the things that we need to do in order to be a productive member of society, finding ourselves scrolling instead of responding to texts We don't have access to any of that when we're in shutdown mode.
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Unfortunately, when we're in that space, all we can do is survive.
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It can be so helpful to use imagery to identify what each stage is like, and also just to help us remember, so bottom of the ladder, dorsal vagal collapse, you can think about a turtle sticking its head back into its shell for protection, the middle of the ladder in sympathetic activation, as I said before, that's like a fish that's trying to get away from a predator darting this way and that, constantly in motion, active, seeking protection.
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At the top of the ladder in ventral vagal, you can picture two people talking to one another, making eye contact, smiling, and really connecting.
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That is what is possible when we are in that ventral state at the top of the ladder.
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It is the social engagement system that comes online because we feel safe enough in our system to be open to connection, and that connection is absolutely vital to our survival at every stage of our life.
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So this is the hierarchy, the ventral vagal system at the top.
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That is the most recent development in our brain and in our evolution.
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The sympathetic system has been here longer, but the dorsal vagal system that brings strategies of immobilization that started earliest and that comes from our ancestors who actually did have to survive in that way.
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I'll come back to some of this information, but that is autonomic hierarchy, one of the three organizing principles of polyvagal theory.
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The second principle is neuroception.
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What that means is detection without awareness, so working below the level of our awareness, the autonomic nervous system is always listening, always inside the body it's listening, outside in the environment, and in relationship between people.
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That neuroception is going on at all times.
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It is giving us information below the level of our awareness that basically says what is happening right now is safe and connection is okay or it's unsafe, and you need to get ready to protect yourself.
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Because this is going on at all times and sending information to us without our awareness.
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One of the really interesting things about Polyvagal theory is that it's about bringing perception to neuroception.
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The polyvagal theory is all about getting us more aware of where on that ladder we are at any given time, so that we can use that information to take care of ourselves, to reshape whatever is going on in the moment But first, we have to know where we are.
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So Neuroception helps us do that, and the more aware of it we are the better.
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The third organizing principle of polyvagal theory is co-regulation.
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We all have a biological imperative that requires that we be in relationship with other people.
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And the ability to self-regulate, which is what I'm teaching my kids about right now, and honestly, I'm still working on myself.
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The ability to self-regulate is built on ongoing experiences of co-regulation.
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And what that means is that through co-regulation, through the ability to be in connection to someone else and have them regulate or feel balanced, or feel like they can access self, get into that ventral vagal state and feel calm, because they have it, we can borrow some of it or they can share it with us.
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But if we are not able to co-regulate, to be in relationship with a trusted adult or a trusted other who feel safe to us, then our nervous system has a much harder time allowing us to get to the top of the ladder to get into that space where we feel calm, connected, and open to experiences.
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So with a reliable regulating other person, we can engage in what Deb Dana calls the rhythm of reciprocity and build experiences of safety and connection, and then we can start to retrain our nervous system.
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I will say that again.
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We can start to retrain our nervous system that was created when we were younger at a time in our lives when we had very little control over ourselves or the world around us, but.
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Just because we were shaped in a certain way when we were young does not mean we are stuck there.
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And in fact, as I'm going to go on to share with you, there's a lot that we can do once we bring perception to Neuroception and we start to notice and map out the landscape of what does it feel like for me when I'm in that ventral vagal top of the ladder state.
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What does it feel like for me when I drop down halfway down the ladder into that sympathetic state and go into that activated mode, and what does it feel like when I'm in shutdown mode, dorsal vagal at the bottom of the ladder, and how do I get out of there? That is the coolest thing about all of Polyvagal theory is that it gives us the ability to understand ourselves better.
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And then to know what to do with it, and then to figure out how to get in connection to ourselves.
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'cause ventral vagal isn't just about connecting with others, it's also about feeling connected to ourselves.
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And so the more we can understand this, it's like having the keys to the kingdom.
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That seems to be my favorite, one of my favorite phrases lately.
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But the more we understand and can identify, oh, oh, I know what that feeling means.
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And I know what to do about it.
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We can do what Deb Dana says and keep one foot in ventral as we live our lives so that we have the ability to not get stuck.
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And that is huge.
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I get stuck.
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You get stuck, I bet sometimes in those overactive states or in those shutdown disconnected states.
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And it's so valuable to understand what to do when we're in that space so that we don't feel stuck anymore.
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It has been said that trauma is what happens to a person when there is either too much, too soon, too much for too long, or not enough for too long.
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Those experiences actually shape our nervous system away from connection towards protection.
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We have these competing needs to survive and also to be social.
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Social helps us survive, but sometimes we're not in a space to open up to that, to accept that.
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And so in a state of protection, survival is the only thing that we can do.
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The stories we hold about trauma are connected with these autonomic pathways.
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So these pathways through our autonomic or automatic nervous system that are tuned to a low threshold, high intensity pattern of responding, meaning it doesn't take much.
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And then when we respond, we respond big.
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And as I'm saying this right now, I am thinking about what I was like as a kid.
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I had a low threshold, high intensity pattern of responding from a young age.
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And so when I now go into sympathetic activation, when I get to the middle of the ladder and my nervous system is working harder than it needs to, given the situation, I ask myself the question, does this autonomic shift feel familiar? And it most certainly does.
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I understand then in that moment what I'm experiencing and knowing that now allows me to recognize, okay, I am holding energy in my body that isn't serving me.
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What would I like to do with it? Because the autonomic nervous system learns from experience, ongoing experiences can reshape the system.
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The ability to return to regulation is the essence of resilience.
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We want to be able to get into a space where we can recognize where our nervous system is on the ladder at any given time, and then take action in order to move our way back up the ladder in a sustainable way.
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So when we are in dorsal vagal shutdown at the bottom of the ladder, when that part of our vagus system is active, and we are in this either or survival state, we can't see both/ and from that state it's either or either I survive or something else.
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The way we move out of that state is through mobilization.
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So when we're at the bottom of the ladder and we wanna mobilize, what we do next is going to depend on what we have mapped out for ourselves in advance, in terms of what are the options that I have to mobilize.
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Let's say you're in bed, you can't get out of bed.
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It's just been really hard lately to function.
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Mobilization may be as simple as looking out the window.
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Watching the wind in the trees, watching the cars drive by, watching the birds fly, watching mobilization happen outside of yourself, that's a place to start.
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Imagination is also a wonderful way to start mobilizing, imagining yourself getting up, getting moving, doing what you need to do to take care of yourself before actually taking a step in that direction.
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Mobilization could be sitting in a rocking chair or on a glider.
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Moving back and forth, back and forth, letting your body remember what it feels like to be in a rhythm or to be in motion before you know, maybe texting a friend or reaching out and having a phone call with a friend or meeting a friend for coffee.
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These are all actions that we can take to mobilize out of that shutdown space.
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That also can be useful if we are stuck scrolling, right? If maybe for us, every time we go into that dorsal vagal shutdown, it is uh there I am binge watching Netflix again, or just not responding to the text messages that are piling up because I'm too busy scrolling on this device that I could use to respond, but I am not in a space to do that.
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That is such valuable information.
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It is not something we need to judge or get down on ourselves for.
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In fact, it is Information that is key to understanding, oh, my nervous system feels like I need to just survive right now.
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I wonder what got me here.
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I wonder what I can do to get out of it.
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And it's probably better to focus on getting out of it rather than focusing from that space on what got me here.
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Because once we get back to the top of the ladder, then we can reflect back and understand, Hey, how did I get into that dorsal vagal shutdown to begin with and what helped me this time? So I can put that in my back pocket so I'll have it for next time.
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Or, you know what, I tried that and that was a no, that did nothing for me, or that seemed to make it worse.
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Okay, I'm gonna take that off the list for next time.
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It's all experimenting.
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Once we move up the ladder into sympathetic activation, from that space, we've got a lot of energy in our bodies that needs to be expelled in whatever way works for us.
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So.
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For example, I met someone today for coffee.
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It was a wonderful meeting, but right before I left to go meet them, I dropped my AirPods in the toilet.
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Yes, in the toilet.
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That was not a good thing.
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So after dealing with that, I drove in the rain.
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I went and met this lovely person who I thoroughly enjoyed talking to in a very busy coffee shop, and it was a great conversation, but I was pretty activated before the conversation happened, and then I was absorbing all that energy because I hadn't done any of the things that I'm trying to do more of to protect my energy and allow me to feel more balanced and grounded during that conversation.
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So by the time I was driving home, I was buzzing, like not from caffeine 'cause I'm trying to just do decaf 'cause I don't need any more buzz in my body like that.
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But I just had a lot of energy and it wasn't feeling good in my body.
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The conversation was great, but other than that I was overly activated.
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And I have learned in that space that the best thing to do is to turn off the radio or the podcast or whatever I'm listening to, put down whatever it is that I'm fidgeting with.
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'Cause that's usually what I find my body doing in those moments.
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And breathe.
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Coming back to my breath allows me to remember that I have a breath, allows me to remember that I have a body.
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And to hold space to open up space for whatever my parts are trying to tell me in that moment.
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And so I just let them do a brain dump.
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I spoke out loud in my car on the drive home and allowed my parts to feel heard, to, uh, express what they needed to express.
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And by the time I got home, I felt a lot better, but it wasn't quite enough.
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So I hugged my cat.
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The one who loves to cuddle.
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Her name is Rhythm and she is a little cuddle bug.
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And that felt better.
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But I still had this energy in my body that I really needed to let go of.
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So I have a recent purchase.
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A vibration board.
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So I stood on that and let it do the shaking for me.
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Vibration is a wonderful way to move energy out of our bodies.
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By the time I had stood on that for 10 minutes, I felt calm.
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I felt like I could catch my breath.
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I felt like that energy that I had been holding ever since the debacle with the AirPods had finally left my body.
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Then I could sit and process what had happened during the conversation, and I could move on to actually come and speak to you right now from a much calmer and more open place, because I was no longer in that sympathetic activation.
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So these are the kinds of things that we absorb in our daily life.
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And you know, this is just a small example.
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There's a lot more that goes on, I'm sure in a lot of your lives that sets you on edge.
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And a lot of, all of our lives that sets us on edge, we absorb this energy and we feel like we're just stuck with it.
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And we are not.
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We are more stuck though if we're not aware of it and we're not aware of what we can do about it.
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So once we have mobilized, and we're not in dorsal vagal shutdown anymore, but we're still not feeling open and connected, we're in that sympathetic space.
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We have to figure out how to take that energy and move it out of us.
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So, like I said, vibration and shaking can be helpful.
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Sometimes connection like I hugged my cat, that can be very helpful, but sometimes we're not ready for that when we're in that sympathetic activation.
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And what we actually need is a physical way to move energy, you know, punching a pillow, stomping on the floor, sometimes deep pressure putting our hands open at the top of our thighs and pushing in and down along our thighs.
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These are just examples of ways that we can actively move energy that is just rattling around in our bodies through and out of us.
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Once we get back into the ventral vagal state of connection, we know that because the world looks different from that place.
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I should say, when we're in a dorsal shutdown at the bottom of the ladder, the world's pretty negative.
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Uh, we don't see options.
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We don't see ways out.
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We just feel stuck.
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So remembering that there are ways to activate, 'cause you gotta go through the middle of the ladder to get back to the top right? So activating to sympathetic middle of the ladder allows us to make a, a slight shift in our mindset, in the way that we're receiving information and processing it.
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But truly it is being back at the top of the ladder or in IFS terms.
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It's really being in self energy, allowing all of our parts to make space so that we can feel more open, more balanced, more grounded, and see the world from that space.
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And that is the goal.
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In general polyvagal theory teaches us that once we can map out the landscape of each of those three areas of the ladder, understand how to move more fluidly among them.
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It gives us an opportunity to learn how to keep one foot in ventral at the top of the ladder on a regular basis so that we can stay connected and open while also dipping our toe into that sympathetic middle of the ladder to get some more energy to activate ourselves to accomplish what we need.
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And then when we've had enough of that, set that down and move back fully into ventral.
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That is what's called the vagal break, B-R-A-K-E.
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So this brake is basically what allows us to move through our lives in a flexible way so that we can activate when we need to.
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We can even shut down when it feels like that is needed, and then shift ourselves back into that open connected, co-regulating space.
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One of the really interesting things about Polyvagal theory to me is that it has helped us tune in to a conversation that is happening at all times between our brain and our heart.
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Heart rate variability is a measure that allows us to get a sense of how flexible our vagal brake is.
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Heart rate variability measures the time in between beats of the heart, and we want a high heart rate variability because what that means is that the heart rate is speeding up when it needs to.
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It's slowing down when it needs to.
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Our heartbeat is responsive to our lives, what's happening in our nervous system and the world around us.
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That is a good sign.
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High heart rate variability means we are flexible and we can roll with the punches and adjust based on whatever our life is requiring of us at the time.
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So this vagal brake allows us to start exercising that capacity more.
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So you can think about it like this.
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Imagine you're at the top of a hill on a bicycle and you've got a hand brake and you're riding down the hill.
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When you wanna speed up, you release the brake, right? That is like stepping out of ventral or at least one foot out of ventral at the top of the ladder into the sympathetic space at the middle of the ladder where we need more energy or we have more energy.
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And so when I need to go faster, I'm gonna release that brake and it's gonna let me borrow some of that energy from the sympathetic state.
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But when I'm ready to slow down, I'm gonna squeeze the brake, right? And by squeezing the brake, that means I'm shifting back up the ladder, back into a space of openness, of compassion, of love, of curiosity, right? All the things that we don't have access to when we are in that sympathetic or dorsal vagal activation or collapse, respectively.
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We can't do that from there because we're busy surviving.
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So when we can play with our vagal brake and actually learn, what does it feel like when I'm in ventral? What does it feel like when I'm in sympathetic and how can I play with this so I can flexibly get back and forth between them that is.
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Like, not where I am yet.
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That's higher level stuff that I think comes from mapping, learning, getting to know and tuning in: right now, where am I on my ladder? Is there anything I wanna do to shift back up my ladder? Or am I just actually feeling like right now I need to let myself scroll for a little while longer.
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Let myself, you know, rush around the house, trying to clean everything up before I have guests over or something, because that energy is okay with me in this moment, but don't wanna hang out there too long, right? Because if I hang out in my sympathetic state for too long, and I've done this many times, I will go into collapse without realizing it.
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Until it's been too long since I've texted back my friends or, you know, my kids are asking me to do things and I'm like, yeah, I'll get to it.
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Yeah, I'll get to it, but then it's hard for me to actually get to it.
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There's so much benefit from getting a sense of what does it feel like when I'm at the bottom of my ladder in dorsal vagal collapse? What does it feel like when I'm the middle of the ladder sympathetic darting this way and that.
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And how do I get back to that ventral state that allows me to navigate my life in a more flexible open way, but not stay there.
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And that is so key.
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It is not a goal to get to ventral vagal at the top of the ladder and stay there.
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Well, actually it can be your goal, but it's not a realistic one.
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And I'll tell you why.
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We need our survival responses.
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They are there for good reason, even though I hope that life isn't presenting you with a need to survive on any regular basis.
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Honestly, that's just what it feels like to be a human being in the world these days.
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There's so much negativity, there's so much pain and suffering, and one of the things that made me wanna talk about polyvagal theory today is that this gives me hope.
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I feel hopeful when I think about taking this automatic set of processes that are going on in my body all the time.
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Bringing more awareness to it and allowing me to feel like I know what to do to get back into a state of connection.
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Because connection is healing, connection is calming.
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Connection allows me to feel like there is hope and we all need more hope these days.
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So I wanted you to have access to this information so that maybe you could feel some hope too.
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And the potential to reshape your nervous system is there.
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It's there for all of us, but we have to start with awareness and practicing different strategies that allow us to navigate these different spaces within us.
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Some exercises that can help: start with befriending.
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Identifying landmark moments in each of these three states.
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So for you, what was a time when you know you were at the top of your ladder and everything felt possible, you were open, you felt connected.
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That landmark moment, bookmark that in your mind.
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What is a landmark moment for the sympathetic activation, fight or flight: bookmark that and what is a landmark moment for dorsal vagal collapse and bookmark that.
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And then identify anchors for ventral vagal meaning who, what, where, and when allow you to get into that ventral vagal state.
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For me, as you've probably already guessed, cuddling with my cat, the one who likes to cuddle very much ventral vagal.
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Certain people, when I'm with them, I just feel this energy flowing through my heart.
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That is ventral vagal for me.
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Being in my office, I have a lot of ventral vagal in here.
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The walls are covered with things that bring me joy, connection, so really understanding what environments allow you to get into that ventral vagal state is so valuable.
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All of the information that I'm sharing today comes from a book by Deb Dana that is called Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection.
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I highly recommend it.
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Listening to Deb Dana talk about it, she says that it was geared more towards clinicians, but what I love about it and I think is really accessible are all the different exercises that are included that give us the ability to get to know the landscape of our nervous system better, and also ways that we can learn to increase our vagal tone.
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If you're interested in learning more about Polyvagal theory, I highly recommend going to Deb Dana's website, which is rhythm of regulation.com.
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If you click on the polyvagal theory section and scroll down, you'll find all of this information that I've shared.
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It's a wonderful starting point.
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Thank you for taking the time to be with me today.
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Until next time, take care.
