Understanding Polyvagal Theory: Why Safety Comes Before Change with Expert Deb Dana | Ep. 31

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Hey, everyone, and welcome back to Time with Tim. I'm
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Maddy Carlson, joined by Tim Fletcher, and today we're sitting
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down with someone whose work has reshaped how so many
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of us understand trauma, healing, and what it means to
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feel safe in our own bodies. Deb Dana is a clinician, consultant, author,
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and one of the world's leading translators of poly bagel theory.
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Through her books and teachings, she's helped countless people understand
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that our biology, not our thinking, is what first shapes
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our feelings of safety, connection, protection, and overwhelm. Her gift
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is turning complex science into everyday language that feels accessible, embodied,
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and deeply compassionate. Deb, We're so grateful to have you
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here today.
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Oh, it's so nice to be with both of you.
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So, Deb, before we dive into the nervous system, we
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always like to give our guests a chance to help
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listeners feel who they are behind the work. And so,
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if you're comfortable, would you share just a little bit
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about the early experiences or influences that shaped your passion
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for understanding the nervous system?
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Yeah? Sure, And at this point in my life, I'm
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seventy two. When something happens when you reach that decade,
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I think you begin looking back a bit, and as
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I look back, I still can be really surprised at
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where I am right now. You look back and think, oh,
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that was the moment when my life changed, but in
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that moment, you don't know it.
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Right.
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So, I'd always been a neuroscience nerd and I'm a
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clinical social worker by training, and I always thought my
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clients should understand their brains, because the brain was what
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I thought we were working with. And then I read
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Steve Porgis's first book, and my whole world changed because
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it was like a missing piece of the puzzle just
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fell into place, and I thought, well, it's not really
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our brains, it's our body. It's our nervous system. That
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is really what we need to be working with because
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it's sending the information to the brain. Right, So I
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need to go before the brain to to the body.
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And that set me off on a path of discovery.
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I'm the kind of person who loves to read research,
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loves to read science, and then wants to say, Okay,
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how do I bring this to my clients?
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Right?
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So that was the next step, and back in those days.
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I'm trying to think it was probably twenty I don't know,
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twenty eleven, twenty twelves like that. And back in those days,
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you called people up on the phone, right, So I
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called Steve on the phone and introduced myself, and you know,
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we had had some people in common who had been
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to Maine. I live in Maine part time. Maine is
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my soul home. And I had a group practice and
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some of his colleagues had come to my group practice
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to present for us, and I said, would you like
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to come to Maine and do a workshop for my
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colleagues because we're all fascinated with what you're doing. And
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he said sure, right, said there it was so back
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in those days, you called somebody on the phone, you
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invite him, and they said yes, And that was it.
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And so that was the beginning of this very interesting
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journey that I've now been on. Because for those of
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you who don't know Steve or haven't seen him present,
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he's brilliant. He's a brilliant scientist and a humble human
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being and one of the kindest people I know. And
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he's sometimes his work is hard to understand because he's
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so technical, he's so scientific, that's his gift, and so
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it was fun for me because I was playing around
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with how do I bring this to my clients? And
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he was so encouraging from the very beginning. He said, Oh,
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that's kind of fun, let's try that. So yeah, if you,
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if you could have seen me in those those early
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days in a room over the garage in my house
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in Maine, playing with wooden ladders, right, because the ladder
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was what I ended up doing, so wooden ladders and
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little wooden mannequin that I was moving around on the
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ladders and it was like, oh, when I look back
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on it now, I think that was really fun. Right,
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So that's sort of where it all began. And here we.
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Are now fascinating. Can I just push you back a
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little bit farther? And you're thinking, so, were there any
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early childhood events that kind of shaped you and created
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this desire to get into neuroscience and therapy all of that.
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You know, it's interesting because my father was a very
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he loved learning, so I probably got a love from
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learning from him. I grew up in a house that
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was I think I think I would have described it
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as quiet before I understood the nervous system. I think now,
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I would describe it as shot down. It was. It
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was a house that that that was had a lot
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going on, but it was all buried, right, And so
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learning and excelling at learning was something that was an
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acceptable way to you know, use your energy, I suppose
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would be a way of thinking about it. And so
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I always loved, loved learning, loved doing that, and then
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you know, I set off on a on an interesting path.
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I was a young mom, so when I I, you know,
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was pregnant in high school and got married very young
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and started my own little world. And that's probably another
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place where I, you know, was sort of experimenting with
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how do I do this differently? I think most of
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us do that. How do we do it differently?
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Right?
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But how do how do I make a home that
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has energy in it that feels now I would say safe,
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Back then I'd probably say happy.
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Right.
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You know, it's interesting when you reframe everything now is
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safer unsafe?
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Right?
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You know, I can think of it that way. But
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trying to create a different world for myself, right, and
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I've always been pretty independent, I think as well, So
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you know, how do I create a world that works
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for myself and my child, and then you know, later
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on for my children. You know, I have three amazing
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kids and grandkids, and you know, it's been an interesting
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ride to be where I am where I am now.
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And I did. I got a bachelor's in social work
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way back when BSW was just the big thing that
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people could get, and then I did a lot of
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other things for the next twenty years while I was
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raising my kids. I worked in the schools, I worked
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for the athletic department. And when my last child went
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off to college and I was alone, I've been divorced
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for quite a while, and I saw I was alone,
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and I thought, what do I want to do? And
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I remember sitting with my therapist and thinking with her,
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I don't know what I want to do. You know,
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maybe I should foster some kids. Maybe I could. I
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just don't know what I want to do, but I
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need to do something I want to I want to
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serve in some way, right And she said, well, we'll
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think about it. And I came back the next week
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and I said, took care of it, solved that problem.
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I applied for the ms W program at at my university,
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and she kind of just looked at me. I said, no,
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it's going to be good. So you know how you
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just fall into things and you think this is it right?
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So and that's what led me then to hear and
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you know, I'm sure you've had the same, both of you.
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You run into people who are just they're put on
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your path because they're meant to be right. And she
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was a supervisor when I was doing my placement and
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in the States, when you graduate, you have to do
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two years of supervised practice to get your independent clinical license.
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And I had been working with her. We were doing
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sexual abuse treatment and she was just an amazing human
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and did things. She was a rule bender, which I love.
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I also love rule benders. Not a rule breaker, but
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a rule bender. And she just saw, you know, we'll
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do this. And she looked at me and she said,
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you will never survive in a typical agency. You just
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will not survive for two years. So I'm going to
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start an agency. And it was like she did. She
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started an agency, and then I could work for her
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for two years and get my clinical license and we
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went on to you know, have that agency going and
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doing things in a very different way, which was really
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what I so appreciated about her until she got sick
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and died. But she was the one who taught me
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that it's about connection, right, That the world tells you
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you need to do things in a certain way, right,
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and that there are a lot of ethical principles that
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we obviously follow, but there are others that that you know,
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the rules that are there not to help people connect,
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but to get in the way of healing. And I
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carry that with me, which again I think when we
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think about the nervous system in Steve's work, it's all
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about feeling safe, which is not a cognitive experience, right,
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It's an embodied one. So so yeah, I think I
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think now in my world, I look at everything through
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the lens of the nervous system, and what does my
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nervous system or your nervous system need to feel just
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a little bit safer in.
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The world, beautiful. I just want to explore something because
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your story ties in a little bit with my stories.
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So I'm sixty five and I spend a lot of
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time and reflective thinking about my upbringing because similar to you,
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I was in a very kind of British home that
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was very stayed and calm and quiet and polite and
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on the outside, it was a wonderful family. It was
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safe physically, it was safe emotionally in a lot of ways.
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But I get a lot of clients today who go,
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I had a wonderful childhood, how could I have complex trauma?
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And again, to me, they're looking at seeing trauma as
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basically big tea, something horrific, or you only get big
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T trauma if you use perception, the five senses. And
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what I began to realize is this was a my family.
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There was a lot of repression of emotions, of just
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being kind of vivacious yourself. You had to conform to
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certain kind of things, and so my neuroception was picking
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up that this isn't totally safe, and so I began
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to realize, Wow, I have this very subtle complex trauma
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that everybody looking from the outside go, how could you
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have trauma? You gotta you know, there's and I think
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I'm hearing that in you as well. And it's the
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beauty to me of looking back and seeing some of
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these subtleties. And it wasn't like I had a terrible childhood.
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I had many things, a wonderful childhood, but it's those
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subtle things and how it affected me, and like you,
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I it drove me to escape into my head and
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I loved learning, which became a great positive, but but
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it also was a way of avoiding emotions in my
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body and I've had to learn how to sort that out.
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So to me, like your story messures with mine in
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that very subtle form of complex trauma that we get.
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But it's also leading us into talking about polyvagel theory,
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which is really where we want to go with you.
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But if you could just comment on I think to
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me a starting point for many people and understanding the
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vagus nerve and polyvago theory is kind of that perception
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and teroception neuroception. Could you just kind of give a
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quick overview to help people understand what we're talking about.
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Sure, So, at its most simple way of understanding, polyvagel
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theory has three organizing principles neuroception, hierarchy, coregulation. So neuroception
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was the word that Steve created because there's not a
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word in the English language that sort of illustrates how
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the body listens right perceptions how the brain. But your
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nervous system is it is connected to your brain, but
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it's a subcortical embodied part of your biology, and so
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it listens differently. So neuroception uses three pathways, and those
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are the pathways you and I are reflecting on as
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we think back to our childhood. There's an inside pathway.
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It listens inside your body to take the temperature of
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does this feel okay or not right? It listens outside
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in the environment again what's happening out there and does
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it feel safe or unsafe? And then it listens in
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the between, which is the one I love. It listens
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from nervous system to nervous system, not brain to brain,
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but body to body, nervous system to nervous system. It
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gets a sense of does this person feel safe enough
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to connect with or not right? And those three pathways
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are always working in the background, right and when we
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don't realize that until we turn toward them and sort
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of bring them into our explicit awareness. But if you've
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ever had a like a gut feeling about something right
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your that's your neuroception at work, right, A gut feeling,
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oh don't go there, or oh you know, somebody, have
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a got feeling about a person. I think I'd like
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to get to know this person more that's your nervous
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systems neuroception at work. So I like to call it
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your autonomic intuition because that, I think really says what
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it is. So neuroception then moves you somewhere on the hierarchy,
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which is those three basic states that we've come come
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to know we have, safe, and connected. So when your
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neuroception is one of oh, this feels good, this feels okay,
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this feels safe, you move into the ventral vagual state,
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which is this beautiful part of your vagus nerve that
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helps you communicate and connect and be creative and curious
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and all these amazing things that we can be in
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the world when we feel safe and only when we
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feel safe. And again it's a biological safety, right, It's
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not a I can't think my way to that place
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I have. My nervous system has to help me come
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to that place. So that's the state we're looking for,
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is that state of ventral regulation and safety. But when
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the neuroceptions one of feeling unsafe, the nervous system has
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two choices, the first being fight and flight, which I
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think most of us recognize. You want you know what
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that feels like, right, It's either that that anger, that frustration,
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that rage, that fight, or it's that anxiety, right, that
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that panic, that that worry that get me out of
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your flight. Right. So that's one choice of the nervous system.
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The other choice is the collapse, shut down, disconnect, disappear right,
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And and that's the nervous system. That's the other part
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of the vegas. Right. We have the part of the
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vegas that helps us connect. We have the part of
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the vegas that helps us disappear right in service of
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our safety and survival.
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Right.
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And it's interesting to think about because now you have
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me reflecting on my childhood.
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Right.
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So now I'm looking back and I'm thinking, and I
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do know this because I talk about this a lot
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when I teach, But that disappeared, disconnect, become invisible was
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my nervous system's preferred survival state. It's what I call
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your home away from home, right, So what was yours?
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Mine was? It was partly that, but it grew into
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a fawning.
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And appeasement.
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Appeasement, yeah, but very much, let's be as invisible as possible,
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make no demands, suppress your needs, be compliant, and then
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everything will be good to me. We get a lot
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with people that come into our program would be they
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judge themselves harshly, that they went into fight, flight, freeze, fawn,
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that they tried to be invisible, that they people pleased,
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all of those different things, and it's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Your nervous system is built for safety and to help
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you survive. So don't beat up that child or that
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nervous system. And so I just kind of love that
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you're like taking the judgment.
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Yeah. I like to tell people that it's not a
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cognitive choice. It's not that you want to fight or
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flight or disappear. It's a biological choice. So it's not
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that you're unwilling, you're biologically unable. And I think that
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helps us begin to have a bit of you know,
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self Compassion's tough for me. Curiosity comes first, so you
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can have a bit of curiosity about this. Oh okay,
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that's interesting. So I didn't decide to be this way.
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My nervous system decided on my behalf, and now I
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could be curious about I wonder why, right, So curiosity
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and then then you can have some compassion. Somewhere down
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the road is self compassion. It's really hard to get
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to though, isn't it. Yeah, yeah, and again curiosity, compassion,
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and self compassion. Unless you have enough of that ventral
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you know, state active and alive in your system, you
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are unable to be curious, unable to be self compassionate
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or have compassion. Not that you don't want to. Your
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brain may so want you to do that, biologically cannot
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Your system has closed the door to those capacities because
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it simply wants to help you survive, and you didn't
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get to choose. I love it when people reflect on,
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you know, things happen and people reflect on, well, if
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that was me, I would have right, I think. You know, really,
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you don't have any idea what you would have done.
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Your brain wants you to think you would have done
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this thing, but your nervous system in the moment would
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make a choice for you. So yeah, yeah.
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And I always like to me it's you're designed to
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be in that ventral state safety and connection, and that's
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where you flourish. That's where you develop and learn and
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are curious, et cetera. And all those joy and all
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those good brain chemicals are happening. But for a child,
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that neuroception is picking up danger you can't be in
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that state, especially if you don't have a coregulator that's
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coming to help you. You feel very alone, and so
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your nervous system is going to go into one of
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those your dorsal vego. You're sympathetic, it just it has
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to survive. But the very thing you need to find
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life it can't get to. So you end up kind
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of having to be alive physically but not alive in
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your soul as a necessary survival and it's but then,
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to me, the sad thing is that complex trauma is
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it's ongoing. You have to be there all the time.
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So it becomes your default setting. It's now your autopilot
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that you're going to be in the two survival states
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of your nervous system and not in the central state.
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And to go back to that healthy state feels weird,
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It feels wrong, It creates anxiety, It creates all kinds
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of funny feelings inside of you. And so it's not
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just like you there's a magic switch you can flip
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and then all of a sudden you're there. So I
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want to switch to Andy because I think he's got
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a whole bunch of questions. He wants to systematically go
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at here. Okay, so I gotta let Eddie jump in here.
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I'm so excited for this, and I'm like, I'm lost
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just listening, not lost, but like lost in listening to
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the two of you talked right now. And so what
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I'd like to start off is just with something like
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personal I've been listening to your book Anchored while I
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drive the car, and and I find that it shifts
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me into ventral as I'm driving, Like I can feel
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that shift because I'm going from you know, the sympathetic alertness.
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Uh, you know it's icy roads here.
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Right now, worried about that, and then all of a sudden,
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like the pacing of your voice, the warmth, the way
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you explain the system like it's it's soothing, and I
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feel safer. And so I'm just really curious whether you
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intentionally narrate with the ventral quality or if that's just
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how you present yourself, how it flows.
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Out of you.
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And it's interesting. I'm going to I want to tell
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you a quick little anecdote about reading Anchored, because they
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said they wanted to turn it into an audiobook and
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they would send me samples of people reading it, and
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I emailed back, and I said, could I read it myself,
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which they don't really like people to do, And they
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told me that. The audio company said I had to
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send an audition tape, and I thought I did, but
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I thought, what am I going to do if they
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say no? That would be a horrible feeling, right, So anyway,
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but I think I've been told that my tone of voice,
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my prosody, is a queue of safety for many, many
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nervous systems. So it's just it is the way that
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I that I speak, that I read, I do. I
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am anchored in ventral, right, and so that is the
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tone of voice that you get. Their tone of voice
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is one of the ways the nervous system can send
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a queue of welcome, and it's a way that a
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nervous system listens to hear or does this person feel
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safe or not? And again it's all below the level
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of conscious awareness. So you might think, have you met
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somebody whose tone of voice just grates on you? Right,
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it's just the wrong pitch, the wrong frequency, it's too fast,
385
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it's too slow, something, right, And your nervous system picks
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that up, and you are going to make up a
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story about that person, because that's the brain's job is
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to take this neuroceptive information and make up a story.
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So you know, for you, the story your brain makes up.
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The feeling that your nervous system has when you're listening
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to me read Anchored is one of welcome. Right. That's
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probably not true for everybody, you know. We all have
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our own ways that we receive sound, and the nervous
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system responds very intensely to sound.
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I want to follow up on that, but I'm going
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to offer you a compliment complaint about Anchored. And the
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compliment complaint is that when I find a book that's
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that's so good, I love to offer it to clients
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because coming from the original author is will be better
400
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than coming from me, and then I can help them
401
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with it. And so usually I'm very clear on I
402
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want you to read this book, or I'm very clear
403
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on you need to listen to this book that will
404
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be beneficial. And so my my complaint is that yours
405
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is a book Anchored, I believe, is a book that's
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meant to be read. It's it's meant to be read
407
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in a physical form, and yet it's also so valuable
408
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in the audio form. Due to that the welcoming the
409
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safety that it helps to bring it in and so
410
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that's that's my that's my compliment.
411
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That compliment complaint. I've never heard that, So I like that.
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You know, it's interesting because with the nervous system, having
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choice is so important, right, and so it would be
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interesting with your clients to to, you know, give them
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a sample of the listen in a sample of the reading,
416
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and see where where their nervous system draws them, right,
417
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because some will be drawn in one way and some
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some and another. But again that that's that, you know,
419
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one of the principles of you know, working with a
420
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nervous system context, choice, and connection. So having some amount
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of choice is important. Having some context around what are
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we doing and why are we doing it is important,
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and I think sometimes we don't offer enough of that, right.
424
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And then connection, you know, which is that that beautiful
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sense of I'm not traveling alone in this experience, right,
426
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That's what the nervous system wants. It wants to know
427
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it's it's being accompanied and it feels safe in that
428
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in that accompaniment.
429
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Yeah, and I want to I want to go back
430
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to something that you said as you're talking about that,
431
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So you know you've you've met, and you've worked with
432
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so many people across the full spectrum of states, and
433
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so whether there's collapse, mobilization, shut down, playfulness, connection, and
434
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you talked about that ability to sense, you know that
435
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the grading of the voice or or something. Are you
436
00:26:07.519 --> 00:26:10.799
are you able to send someone's nervous system state like
437
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simply through their cues of voice, their facial expression and
438
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their words, like how does that? How does that look
439
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and feel like for you?
440
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I mean I get a lot of clues right when
441
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by being with and even you know, I will reassure
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people even you know this way, we get a lot
443
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of cues. Right So when we all moved to working online,
444
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everybody was terrified that we were going to lose all
445
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the humanness of it, and we didn't, right because we
446
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can feel that sense of connection or disconnect, you know,
447
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across the across the video screen. I think the thing
448
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that I've learned, and I learned this the hard way,
449
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as most of us do, is to never assume that
450
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I'm knowing what your nervous system is, is is doing
451
00:26:55.839 --> 00:26:58.880
or trying to tell me, and to simply ask say, oh,
452
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I'm minor system is feeling this, what's happening? For you, right,
453
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And so we always want to be curious, right, like
454
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like you know, tim s nodding his head. Head nods
455
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are a que safety. Right smiles or a que safety.
456
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The eyes queue safety, the way we the way we
457
00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:20.359
move a tilted head, these are all cues of safety.
458
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And so I can begin to feel my system begins
459
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to feel connected to both of you. And yet you know,
460
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if I'm if you're my clients and I'm working with you,
461
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I'm going to name here's what I'm noticing in my system.
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Where what is your system taking you? Because we never
463
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want to make that assumption. We just we want to
464
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two reasons we want we want we want to check
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out is what I'm feeling, you know, what you're sending.
466
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And also to help you connect inside your own system
467
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so that you spend a moment think youll let me think,
468
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let me see what's happening in there.
469
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I like that, And I think two actually have a
470
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side question. So like what you're describing here, when we
471
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think about just the boundaries and emotional boundaries, So when
472
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when somebody's feeling something, does that ever, well, I'll ask
473
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it as a personal does that ever take you into
474
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a place of disregulation based off of how somebody else
475
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is showing up.
476
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How do you come back from that?
477
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Yeah, it's interesting because in my professional work less so
478
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because I know my responsibility is to be anchored and
479
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ventral and to offer that ventral regulation to the people
480
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I'm working with, because often the experience they have when
481
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.160
they disregulate, as everybody around them disregulates as well. And
482
00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:47.279
so I want to offer a different experience to their
483
00:28:47.319 --> 00:28:51.799
nervous system, right, and then their nervous system begins to feel. Oh,
484
00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:55.759
not everybody behaves in this, not every time I get
485
00:28:56.079 --> 00:28:59.119
you know, a lot of us think we're too much,
486
00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:03.400
too feeling the next word, too needy, to too big,
487
00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:05.960
too loud to you know. And when you're met with
488
00:29:06.039 --> 00:29:08.200
a nervous system that just holds you in that and
489
00:29:08.240 --> 00:29:12.319
it's perfectly fine, you begin to think about yourself differently.
490
00:29:12.359 --> 00:29:16.640
So in my professional work, I'm pretty good at staying regulated.
491
00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:19.200
In my personal life, I can get messy with the
492
00:29:19.240 --> 00:29:25.200
best of them, right, because you're you're you're just showing
493
00:29:25.319 --> 00:29:28.680
up as a human, right, and you know, depending on
494
00:29:28.720 --> 00:29:31.599
who it is, of course, with my kids or my grandkids,
495
00:29:31.640 --> 00:29:33.880
I have a different, different role. But it's just with
496
00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:36.720
my friends or you know, it's like I can be
497
00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:40.039
as messy as anybody, and and I think that's true
498
00:29:40.039 --> 00:29:42.880
for all of us. I will also say, you know,
499
00:29:43.039 --> 00:29:46.480
in your role as a as a partner, or a parent,
500
00:29:47.759 --> 00:29:51.000
or a colleague or a friend, you know, when we
501
00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:55.720
have those messy moments, that's okay, it's normal, it's expected.
502
00:29:56.039 --> 00:29:59.000
Those little ruptures happen in relationships all the time, and
503
00:29:59.240 --> 00:30:02.839
they actually make a relationship stronger because we have a rupture,
504
00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:07.440
we notice it, we name it. Unlike the household that
505
00:30:07.480 --> 00:30:10.400
I grew up with where nothing was ever noticed and named. Right,
506
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:14.279
if we notice it and name it and come back
507
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:17.759
and offer or repair, the relationship gets stronger.
508
00:30:18.319 --> 00:30:23.960
Maybe four people who have never had that that household
509
00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:27.039
where they saw a rupture be repaired or they were
510
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:30.039
taught to be silenced in some way. How do you
511
00:30:30.119 --> 00:30:34.920
guide people to start to learn to repair after a rupture?
512
00:30:35.480 --> 00:30:39.559
Yeah, so, I mean the first step is to notice
513
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:44.319
that a rupture happened and name it for yourself, right,
514
00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:46.960
so that you can you can acknowledge either it either
515
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:49.480
someone had a rupture with me or I cause the rupture.
516
00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:53.160
Either way, right, just notice and name it, and then
517
00:30:53.440 --> 00:30:58.039
we can begin to say, so, what what's the next step? Right? What? What?
518
00:30:58.039 --> 00:31:02.240
What would my nervous system need to feel like I
519
00:31:02.279 --> 00:31:04.720
was coming back into connection, because the repair is about
520
00:31:04.759 --> 00:31:08.400
being able to come back into safe connection, right. And
521
00:31:08.519 --> 00:31:12.960
sometimes it's words, right saying I am so sorry? Can
522
00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.119
we try this again? Sometimes it's words. Sometimes some people
523
00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:19.559
have had a lot of words with no follow through
524
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:23.079
and so their nervous system just ignores words totally. It's
525
00:31:23.119 --> 00:31:27.240
not words, it's actions, right, And so again this is
526
00:31:27.240 --> 00:31:29.359
the this is what I love about the nervous system.
527
00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:31.839
You could be curious, right, So if you and I
528
00:31:31.920 --> 00:31:34.559
had a rupture, you know, we think, well, let's play
529
00:31:34.599 --> 00:31:37.599
around with what would it feel like to safely find
530
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:39.519
our way back into connection. I don't know what that
531
00:31:39.559 --> 00:31:44.359
would be, right, And you can't do that step until
532
00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:49.640
you've come back into enough regulation to have that ability
533
00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:52.640
to process in that way, because well, you know, we
534
00:31:52.680 --> 00:31:55.519
didn't say this before, but when you're disregulated, when you
535
00:31:55.640 --> 00:32:00.960
move into a survival strategy, you're pre until cortex. Your
536
00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:04.400
brain goes into hypoactive mode, so you no longer have
537
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:10.599
the rational problem solving planning capacity that you need. And
538
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:13.839
it's only when you come back to enough regulation, enough
539
00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:16.640
to be fully regulated, because we don't need that. We
540
00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:21.079
just need enough regulation to feel like, oh, I'm beginning
541
00:32:21.720 --> 00:32:25.200
to be able to see differently. Your brain is working
542
00:32:25.359 --> 00:32:29.000
with your nervous system, and then you can begin to explore,
543
00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:32.160
you know, what happened? What do we need to be
544
00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:34.000
able to find our way back into connection?
545
00:32:34.720 --> 00:32:34.920
Right?
546
00:32:35.480 --> 00:32:38.440
And I think the sad thing is for many of
547
00:32:38.519 --> 00:32:41.200
us and for many people when the person on the
548
00:32:41.279 --> 00:32:47.599
other end can't find their way back to enough regulation
549
00:32:47.799 --> 00:32:51.079
so that they're available to reconnect.
550
00:32:51.680 --> 00:32:51.880
Right.
551
00:32:51.960 --> 00:32:55.079
And in my work, and you know, in my personal experience,
552
00:32:55.119 --> 00:32:57.519
and probably you know your personal experience and your work
553
00:32:57.519 --> 00:33:01.519
as well, there are many times when relationships you know,
554
00:33:01.599 --> 00:33:07.000
are downsized because they can't become safe again, right. And
555
00:33:07.079 --> 00:33:10.519
it's not because the person doesn't want to or is unwilling,
556
00:33:11.079 --> 00:33:15.079
but that they're under so much threat their nervous system
557
00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:18.720
is not allowing them to come back to a place
558
00:33:18.759 --> 00:33:21.640
where they could find a way to reconnect. And I
559
00:33:21.680 --> 00:33:24.640
tell people all the time, and you know, maybe all
560
00:33:24.680 --> 00:33:27.039
of us have someone in our life that we have
561
00:33:27.200 --> 00:33:31.119
downsized the relationship with and have a wish that someday
562
00:33:31.160 --> 00:33:33.799
it would come back. So you can hold the wish,
563
00:33:33.839 --> 00:33:38.160
but you can't keep, you know, fighting that fight because
564
00:33:38.200 --> 00:33:41.000
you're fighting against a nervous system that just feels too
565
00:33:41.079 --> 00:33:44.119
under threat to be able to come back to connection. So,
566
00:33:44.720 --> 00:33:49.319
you know, repair is something I think we don't learn
567
00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:52.359
growing up. Most of us don't have it modeled, don't
568
00:33:52.400 --> 00:33:56.519
learn it, and it is an essential skill for human relationships.
569
00:33:56.880 --> 00:34:00.920
I first encountered you many years ago with the ladder
570
00:34:00.960 --> 00:34:05.359
that you designed, and it's just kind of ventral and
571
00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:07.640
then where do you go in the stress increases, and
572
00:34:07.680 --> 00:34:12.360
then you go up the ladder as danger increases. And
573
00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:15.840
so to me, what I enjoyed in your book Anchored
574
00:34:15.880 --> 00:34:20.719
and very Early is you said that at each rung
575
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:26.159
of the ladder, you're asking different questions about the world,
576
00:34:26.400 --> 00:34:29.719
about your that could you just expand on that, because
577
00:34:29.760 --> 00:34:33.840
I think to me, like we just talked about, you
578
00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:36.760
got rupture in a relationship and you go to a
579
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:39.960
different part of your brain which is basically guided by
580
00:34:39.960 --> 00:34:44.000
emotions what you're feeling, not by facts, and the other person,
581
00:34:44.039 --> 00:34:47.039
if they're in danger, they can't get to a regulated
582
00:34:47.079 --> 00:34:52.559
place because your whole perception of the world, your perception
583
00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:58.199
of yourself has switched somehow to actually it's kind of
584
00:34:58.440 --> 00:35:01.480
bunch of different lies that you picked up along the way,
585
00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:05.320
but it's but it feels very real, it feels very true.
586
00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:08.159
So would you mind just kind of walking us through that?
587
00:35:08.440 --> 00:35:11.440
Sure? Yeah, because each of our states that we talked
588
00:35:11.440 --> 00:35:15.639
about has a different set of stories, right, And so
589
00:35:16.199 --> 00:35:21.360
when I am in a in a let's go to
590
00:35:21.440 --> 00:35:25.199
a sympathetic fight and flight, I feel under threat, I
591
00:35:25.239 --> 00:35:29.880
feel in danger, right, I feel unsafe in some way
592
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:34.199
in the world, and my neuroception is one of danger,
593
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:39.480
and I go to fight and flight and then from
594
00:35:39.519 --> 00:35:43.159
that energy, my brain fills in the story. And I
595
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:45.840
like to think of we have, you know, three sentences
596
00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:48.599
we fill in in each in each state. I am
597
00:35:48.800 --> 00:35:52.079
so I am fill in that sentence when you feel
598
00:35:52.400 --> 00:35:57.880
that that rise of fight, that anger, that rage, or
599
00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:02.760
that rise of anxiety, anxiety, panic, flight, I am, And
600
00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:05.599
everybody who's listening can fill that in for themselves. I
601
00:36:05.639 --> 00:36:08.559
am what. How would you fill that into him?
602
00:36:08.599 --> 00:36:08.880
I am?
603
00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:08.960
What?
604
00:36:09.719 --> 00:36:13.320
Well, when I'm in the fight state, it's always I
605
00:36:13.360 --> 00:36:19.239
am right, I am wronged, I am entitled, I find
606
00:36:19.280 --> 00:36:23.519
somebody to blame, So it's very self righteous I am.
607
00:36:24.039 --> 00:36:28.519
When I'm in flight, it's I am not enough. I
608
00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:34.760
can't handle this. So it goes from this almost overcompensating
609
00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:40.880
I'm better than everybody to this inferior under estimation of myself.
610
00:36:41.679 --> 00:36:44.559
So that's very, very common for fight and flight. So
611
00:36:44.559 --> 00:36:46.360
that's the I am. And you can think when you
612
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:50.880
are in that belief system, your stories all flow from that.
613
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:55.679
And then the second sentences, people are right because the
614
00:36:55.800 --> 00:36:58.559
we do the same thing with people. People are dangerous
615
00:36:58.639 --> 00:37:01.079
or people are in my way. That's when I love
616
00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:04.639
people are in my way, right, or you know, people
617
00:37:04.760 --> 00:37:05.480
are are.
618
00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:10.119
Sense that if nobody cares about me, nobody understands me,
619
00:37:10.199 --> 00:37:11.159
nobody sees me.
620
00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:12.239
Yeah.
621
00:37:12.320 --> 00:37:16.880
Yeah, So again you're everything about your world is colored
622
00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:19.559
by those beliefs I am, people are. And the last
623
00:37:19.599 --> 00:37:22.559
one is the world is. The world is what when
624
00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:25.239
you're in that survival strategy, the world.
625
00:37:25.039 --> 00:37:31.199
Is unfair, unjust, evil, whatever. Yeah.
626
00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:34.920
Yeah, it's a scary place, right, The world's a scary place.
627
00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:40.400
So think if you are in this state, you can't
628
00:37:40.440 --> 00:37:45.840
be convinced of something else, right, you can. You cannot
629
00:37:45.880 --> 00:37:49.840
convince someone that they're okay and and they're perfectly safe.
630
00:37:49.880 --> 00:37:52.760
You can't talk to their brain because their nervous system
631
00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:57.000
is taken over and is bringing these stories alive. So
632
00:37:57.119 --> 00:38:02.920
that's the sympathetic story land, right. The Dorsal world is
633
00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:06.239
a very very different world. So if we think, for
634
00:38:06.239 --> 00:38:10.039
a menalysts dip into Dorsal, Dorsal's that place of you know,
635
00:38:10.079 --> 00:38:14.639
no energy, no interest, going through the motions, disappearing, fly
636
00:38:14.840 --> 00:38:18.679
under the radar, don't don't see me, don't be seen. Right,
637
00:38:19.039 --> 00:38:22.079
So in this place, what's your story about yourself? I
638
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:22.400
am what?
639
00:38:23.239 --> 00:38:27.519
Well? To me, it's I am a victim. That doesn't matter.
640
00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:30.920
That's basically a zero.
641
00:38:32.719 --> 00:38:36.440
My clients would tell me that they felt abandoned loss.
642
00:38:36.199 --> 00:38:39.639
Yes, exactly, Yeah, totally totally alone. Yep.
643
00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:42.360
Yeah, you can feel it as we talk about it.
644
00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:45.079
You can feel the energy just going away. And how
645
00:38:45.119 --> 00:38:47.880
about people are? People are what when you're here people are?
646
00:38:48.599 --> 00:38:54.440
To me, it's people are totally indifferent, don't care in
647
00:38:54.519 --> 00:38:57.960
their own worlds. You want to make everybody a narcissist
648
00:38:58.039 --> 00:38:58.880
at that moment.
649
00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:03.079
Yeah, and sometimes it's hard to even remember there are
650
00:39:03.119 --> 00:39:06.440
people in the world. Yeah, we're so you know, on
651
00:39:06.480 --> 00:39:09.000
our own loss. Yeah, and then the world is the
652
00:39:09.039 --> 00:39:10.639
world is what well?
653
00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:16.519
To me at that time, the world is it is
654
00:39:16.599 --> 00:39:19.519
so totally unsafe that I have to escape into an
655
00:39:19.519 --> 00:39:20.280
internal world.
656
00:39:20.480 --> 00:39:24.480
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like the world doesn't even exist.
657
00:39:24.719 --> 00:39:28.559
I forget anything out there. Yeah. And so feel the
658
00:39:28.599 --> 00:39:33.400
difference between the sympathetic story and the dorsal story, right,
659
00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:37.320
And again, these are very typical stories for sympathetic and
660
00:39:37.400 --> 00:39:40.840
dorsal because that's the energy that that's the protective space
661
00:39:40.880 --> 00:39:44.000
your system has taken you too. And if somebody is
662
00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:48.719
in that dorsal place of hopeless despair, give up, right,
663
00:39:48.760 --> 00:39:51.360
and you try to get them to, you know, see
664
00:39:51.400 --> 00:39:55.280
the bright side, right, count your blessings, see the bright side.
665
00:39:55.440 --> 00:39:59.480
It's impossible, not because they don't they want to feel
666
00:39:59.519 --> 00:40:04.440
this way, but biologically this is where they are, right. Yeah,
667
00:40:04.480 --> 00:40:07.440
So those are the survival stories. But let's let's go
668
00:40:07.519 --> 00:40:10.880
to ventral. Let's hear the story of safety and connection. Right,
669
00:40:11.360 --> 00:40:14.360
So if we can come to that place of feeling,
670
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:16.800
even if we just dip a toe in it, because
671
00:40:16.840 --> 00:40:20.440
for nowadays, the world is pretty crazy, right, it's a
672
00:40:20.519 --> 00:40:24.599
hard world to navigate at the moment. And so people
673
00:40:24.599 --> 00:40:26.320
will tell me I can't find ventral. I said, well,
674
00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:28.239
you don't have to. You don't have to, you know,
675
00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:31.239
swim in the ventral sea. But could you dip a
676
00:40:31.280 --> 00:40:33.880
toe in? That's all we need. So if we can
677
00:40:34.119 --> 00:40:37.079
find a little bit of that ventral regulating energy and
678
00:40:37.119 --> 00:40:38.920
the three of us here looking at each other, that
679
00:40:38.960 --> 00:40:42.880
helps me feel that sense of safety and connection. So
680
00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:44.360
from there I am.
681
00:40:44.400 --> 00:40:49.239
What sometimes helps me is I can visualize those times
682
00:40:49.280 --> 00:40:52.360
as a child when I felt very safe and loved
683
00:40:52.519 --> 00:40:54.000
and my needs were taken care of.
684
00:40:54.360 --> 00:40:54.559
Yeh.
685
00:40:55.119 --> 00:40:58.599
And in those moments I can quickly put into words
686
00:40:58.679 --> 00:41:04.000
imatter have value. Yes, I you know I'm worth standing
687
00:41:04.079 --> 00:41:09.519
up for, my needs are important, beautiful. So it's like
688
00:41:09.639 --> 00:41:13.559
it's just that total shift from a very negative focus
689
00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:17.920
of myself to a very balanced positive focus.
690
00:41:18.320 --> 00:41:23.480
It's interesting you said you remember moments. Right as you're remembering,
691
00:41:23.760 --> 00:41:27.800
your nervous system remembers those moments. Your nervous system wired
692
00:41:27.840 --> 00:41:30.239
them in. We think all the time about how our
693
00:41:30.239 --> 00:41:33.400
nervous system wires in the traumatic memory, the dramatic moments,
694
00:41:33.480 --> 00:41:37.679
but it also wires in those moments of okyeness. And
695
00:41:37.719 --> 00:41:39.840
so you brought one up, and do you can think, oh, yes,
696
00:41:39.960 --> 00:41:44.079
the story now, is I matter? Right? I'm worth you know,
697
00:41:44.840 --> 00:41:46.239
being here right?
698
00:41:46.719 --> 00:41:48.800
Yeah? And I think with it is I don't have
699
00:41:48.880 --> 00:41:51.880
to earn my value. I don't have to earn love.
700
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:55.960
I am lovable. I am valuable just inherently the way
701
00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:00.079
I am. And that takes this load of pressure of
702
00:42:00.119 --> 00:42:01.800
trying to prove yourself.
703
00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:06.679
Yeah you can feel the shift, Yeah, feel it. And
704
00:42:06.760 --> 00:42:08.800
people are what in this place. People are what.
705
00:42:09.639 --> 00:42:13.679
People are safe to connect to. And I want to
706
00:42:13.760 --> 00:42:20.039
connect because the people in my life are worth connecting to.
707
00:42:20.280 --> 00:42:24.519
I benefit from it. I need them in my life
708
00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:31.000
as role models, as meeting relational needs. So again, people
709
00:42:31.039 --> 00:42:33.039
now are safe and have value as well.
710
00:42:33.280 --> 00:42:36.360
Yeah, you begin to see them differently, yeah, yeah, And
711
00:42:36.400 --> 00:42:37.360
then the world is what.
712
00:42:39.320 --> 00:42:48.239
World's a place of opportunity, are, exploration, connection, All the
713
00:42:48.280 --> 00:42:52.239
things that I long for a need can now be found.
714
00:42:53.639 --> 00:42:56.559
So you know, there are three very different sets of
715
00:42:56.599 --> 00:43:00.199
stories right again that we don't get to choose, and
716
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:04.599
our nervous system takes us into a state and then
717
00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:08.119
takes us into the stories that live in that state
718
00:43:08.639 --> 00:43:11.679
for us. And it's very fascinating because you can look
719
00:43:11.719 --> 00:43:16.119
at a moment in time and this same moment and time,
720
00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:20.119
depending on what state you're in, has a very different
721
00:43:20.199 --> 00:43:23.440
story that goes along with it. So just I love
722
00:43:23.480 --> 00:43:26.960
this practice because it reminds us that our state creates
723
00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:30.760
the stories that we then enter into and believe to
724
00:43:30.840 --> 00:43:31.400
be true.
725
00:43:31.880 --> 00:43:34.599
And I think, to me, what's so important for the
726
00:43:34.599 --> 00:43:36.719
clients that we work with is is that you can
727
00:43:36.760 --> 00:43:41.639
be in your ventral state and in a wonderful intimate relationship,
728
00:43:41.639 --> 00:43:45.760
but then your partner does something that triggers an old wound,
729
00:43:46.559 --> 00:43:49.360
and all of a sudden you're in your sympathetic state
730
00:43:50.360 --> 00:43:53.679
and the stories in your head change automatically and you
731
00:43:53.719 --> 00:43:56.840
can't be reasoned with in that moment. You can't repair
732
00:43:56.920 --> 00:44:01.119
it that moment because you are in cape ball of
733
00:44:01.119 --> 00:44:04.679
seeing any other story. And I think that's what Andy
734
00:44:04.800 --> 00:44:07.239
was getting to is how do you get back to
735
00:44:07.320 --> 00:44:09.480
that regulated ventral state?
736
00:44:11.480 --> 00:44:14.480
I mean, and part it's so interesting because it's it's
737
00:44:14.559 --> 00:44:18.519
some familiar cue of danger from our past that that
738
00:44:18.599 --> 00:44:21.400
has come alive in the present moment and has taken
739
00:44:21.480 --> 00:44:24.119
us over right. And so one of the things that
740
00:44:24.119 --> 00:44:28.199
that we can work with is to recognize, wow, I'm
741
00:44:28.239 --> 00:44:31.920
feeling a lot of whatever with you know, anger, anxiety,
742
00:44:32.039 --> 00:44:35.480
or or you know, just just shut down happening when
743
00:44:35.519 --> 00:44:38.519
you when you can notice and name that. And in
744
00:44:38.639 --> 00:44:40.400
order to notice the name, you have to have a
745
00:44:40.400 --> 00:44:43.000
bit of your your brain on board, so you have
746
00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:46.119
a bit of ventral along for the ride with you.
747
00:44:46.559 --> 00:44:48.400
And as long as that is true, you can be
748
00:44:48.480 --> 00:44:51.719
again you can slow it down, right, And and that's
749
00:44:51.800 --> 00:44:52.960
really what we want to do to me, and just
750
00:44:52.960 --> 00:44:55.639
slow it down so that I can not automatically go
751
00:44:55.800 --> 00:44:59.559
into that old pattern that is there again in service
752
00:44:59.559 --> 00:45:01.880
of my say toance survival, but in this moment not
753
00:45:01.960 --> 00:45:04.639
serving me well, serve me well when it was needed
754
00:45:04.679 --> 00:45:07.760
in the past, maybe it isn't needed now. And so
755
00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:09.960
when we can slow it down for just a moment,
756
00:45:10.280 --> 00:45:13.239
we can ask that question. We can say, is this
757
00:45:13.360 --> 00:45:17.840
response is my intense response needed in this moment? Right?
758
00:45:18.400 --> 00:45:20.800
And to me, this is such an important piece. So
759
00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:26.000
when I first started teaching polyvago theory to people, what
760
00:45:26.079 --> 00:45:29.079
I saw happening was people kind of thought they would
761
00:45:29.159 --> 00:45:31.920
be one hundred percent into one state, or one hundred
762
00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:36.039
percent in another state, or one hundred percent endorsal shut
763
00:45:36.039 --> 00:45:39.159
down state. And it was like, no, you can still
764
00:45:39.280 --> 00:45:42.000
have a wee bit of ventral happening even though you're
765
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:44.960
experiencing other states. Can you just expand on that, because
766
00:45:44.960 --> 00:45:47.679
I think it's such an important piece for people to understand.
767
00:45:48.079 --> 00:45:52.320
Yeah, because those three states are always active and alive
768
00:45:52.400 --> 00:45:56.239
in our system. What where we go depends on which
769
00:45:56.320 --> 00:45:59.239
one has taken up the most space in our system.
770
00:45:59.480 --> 00:46:03.320
So when I'm anchored in ventral, it's Sympathetic and Dorsal
771
00:46:03.360 --> 00:46:05.960
are still there in the background, right, and I just
772
00:46:06.039 --> 00:46:08.639
need a critical mass of ventral in order to stay
773
00:46:08.679 --> 00:46:12.079
in this place of regulation. So we can think about
774
00:46:12.159 --> 00:46:14.280
we can think about the layers of states. It's one
775
00:46:14.320 --> 00:46:16.920
way to think about it. What layer is is in
776
00:46:16.960 --> 00:46:20.599
the foreground right now? Which layer is most present for you?
777
00:46:21.639 --> 00:46:24.480
And then you can look what one is next, look
778
00:46:24.559 --> 00:46:27.280
underneath that one, what one's next, and then what's the
779
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:30.760
third one? And those layers move like this all the time, right, Like,
780
00:46:30.800 --> 00:46:33.239
I'm very anchored in ventral right now, and I can
781
00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:36.280
feel a lot of sympathetic underneath, which is some you know,
782
00:46:36.320 --> 00:46:39.360
excited energy, and then Dorsal you know, way in the background,
783
00:46:39.639 --> 00:46:42.800
and you know, you might ask me a question two
784
00:46:42.840 --> 00:46:45.880
minutes from now that totally freaks out my nervous system,
785
00:46:45.960 --> 00:46:49.000
and Sympathetic might just jump right up to the foreground, right,
786
00:46:49.360 --> 00:46:53.719
and then Ventral might go back. But that's always those
787
00:46:53.800 --> 00:46:56.760
changes are always happening. And when you said, you know,
788
00:46:56.840 --> 00:46:59.320
people often you know would come and say, how do
789
00:46:59.400 --> 00:47:01.559
I get to vent I said, well, we can figure
790
00:47:01.599 --> 00:47:04.320
out the pathways that help you come back to ventral.
791
00:47:04.599 --> 00:47:06.920
But you've got to recognize nobody's there all the time.
792
00:47:07.679 --> 00:47:09.800
Nobody is there all the time, nor do we want
793
00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:14.079
to be right. The movement down and up through our
794
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:17.079
states is what brings you know, life and joy and
795
00:47:17.119 --> 00:47:21.719
flavors and necessary for us. So the fact that you disregulate,
796
00:47:22.159 --> 00:47:26.280
the fact that you go to a survival strategy is
797
00:47:26.320 --> 00:47:29.760
not a bad thing. And we don't actually suffer when
798
00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:32.639
that happens. We suffer if we get stuck in that
799
00:47:32.719 --> 00:47:33.840
survival strategy.
800
00:47:34.519 --> 00:47:34.719
Right.
801
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:37.519
So you know, think about your day so far today
802
00:47:37.559 --> 00:47:39.920
and you can think, oh, I've had moments of moving
803
00:47:40.239 --> 00:47:42.960
out of regulation. I've had moments of feeling some of
804
00:47:43.000 --> 00:47:46.000
that anxiety or the anger, or I've had moments when
805
00:47:46.039 --> 00:47:50.639
i thought, oh, I'm just not really here right. Those
806
00:47:50.639 --> 00:47:55.119
are all normal things that happen during the course of
807
00:47:55.159 --> 00:47:58.119
a day. So we want to help people understand that,
808
00:47:58.280 --> 00:48:01.119
you know, we want to feel the flavors of your states.
809
00:48:01.119 --> 00:48:03.079
I guess that's the other thing I like is flavors
810
00:48:03.400 --> 00:48:07.199
like Ventral I think has gotten a bad name recently
811
00:48:07.280 --> 00:48:10.679
because people say, if you come to Ventral you get calm. Well,
812
00:48:10.679 --> 00:48:13.679
it's one of the flavors, right, But you can also
813
00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:17.519
be excited or passionate, or or strong, or stand up
814
00:48:17.559 --> 00:48:21.840
for what you believe in, or playful or zen or relax.
815
00:48:21.880 --> 00:48:24.960
They're all of these flavors. The way you know you're
816
00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.519
in ventral is if your neuroception is one of safety.
817
00:48:30.119 --> 00:48:30.320
Right.
818
00:48:30.360 --> 00:48:32.840
So if you came to me and said, deb I've
819
00:48:32.880 --> 00:48:37.000
had a really I've had a sad week, right, Sad
820
00:48:37.039 --> 00:48:40.039
as a label you're putting on something, but I don't
821
00:48:40.119 --> 00:48:43.119
know what that is, And so I would say to you, Tim,
822
00:48:43.159 --> 00:48:47.440
tell me more about that. What state was that sadness
823
00:48:47.519 --> 00:48:50.639
coming from? Because it could have been ventral, could have
824
00:48:50.639 --> 00:48:53.599
been sympathetic, could have been dorsal. I don't know, right,
825
00:48:53.679 --> 00:48:57.079
So it's interesting to sort of think, oh, let's explore more.
826
00:48:58.079 --> 00:49:00.159
And I'm going to get back to you and have
827
00:49:00.280 --> 00:49:02.400
it at doing this on Andy. I give him the
828
00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:05.519
reins and then I take him back. But I just
829
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:09.679
love that you're nuancing all of this debt because I think,
830
00:49:09.719 --> 00:49:14.400
to me, what happens when Steve's brought this great theory
831
00:49:14.440 --> 00:49:17.480
polyvego theory. Then people tend to go black and white
832
00:49:17.480 --> 00:49:21.000
on it and oversimplify it, and then it ends up
833
00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:25.519
doing damage to people. And we have to keep having
834
00:49:25.599 --> 00:49:30.559
dialogues that nuance out and normalize that life isn't just
835
00:49:30.639 --> 00:49:35.760
this pure state over here or pure dorsal state. It's
836
00:49:35.920 --> 00:49:40.519
it's blending. It's constantly back and forth and nuanced. And
837
00:49:40.519 --> 00:49:43.400
I'm just I'm so grateful that you're able to do
838
00:49:43.440 --> 00:49:46.639
that for people. But anyways, Andy, back to you.
839
00:49:47.559 --> 00:49:51.519
Yeah, I think well, speaking about the nuance is great
840
00:49:51.559 --> 00:49:55.360
and depth just touched like you're mentioning flow. For the
841
00:49:55.480 --> 00:49:59.039
longest time, I had a very simplistic view and I
842
00:49:59.039 --> 00:50:00.960
think many people we'll do. And I'd love you to
843
00:50:00.960 --> 00:50:05.440
speak to this a little bit. Is sympathetic bad, parasympathetic good?
844
00:50:06.360 --> 00:50:10.920
And so the sympathetics fight flight, anxiety, hate that I
845
00:50:10.920 --> 00:50:14.480
don't want to be around that. Could you maybe talk
846
00:50:14.519 --> 00:50:19.840
a little bit about maybe what healthy sympathetic is?
847
00:50:20.360 --> 00:50:23.760
Yeah, sure, Yeah, it's interesting we try and figure out
848
00:50:24.000 --> 00:50:27.440
how to name what that is or regulated sympathetic. I
849
00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:29.880
don't know healthy whatever however we name it. But what
850
00:50:30.559 --> 00:50:34.440
we know is if your system is under the influence
851
00:50:34.480 --> 00:50:37.719
of ventral. So if ventral is taking up more space
852
00:50:37.760 --> 00:50:40.880
in my system so that it's running the show right,
853
00:50:41.159 --> 00:50:45.199
sympathetic is doing its everyday role in the background, which
854
00:50:45.239 --> 00:50:47.400
is to bring me the energy I need to move
855
00:50:47.440 --> 00:50:50.639
through my day. I have to have sympathetic energy or
856
00:50:50.639 --> 00:50:53.079
I wouldn't be able to do this right. And as
857
00:50:53.119 --> 00:50:55.440
we're talking, as I get more excited and my hands
858
00:50:55.519 --> 00:50:58.960
go and all this, that's more sympathetic energy coming under
859
00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:02.480
the influence of it's exactly but it's needed. It's helping
860
00:51:02.760 --> 00:51:05.480
with my breath rhythms, with my heart rhythms, with all
861
00:51:05.519 --> 00:51:09.079
of that. So it's a state that when it's partnered
862
00:51:09.159 --> 00:51:14.000
with ventral, helps us move and we need to move right.
863
00:51:14.119 --> 00:51:17.559
And dorsal the same thing's true with dorsal. If dorsal
864
00:51:17.719 --> 00:51:21.679
is under the influence of ventral, then dorsal is running
865
00:51:21.760 --> 00:51:24.760
your digestion in a healthy way. That's its job, that's
866
00:51:24.800 --> 00:51:27.239
its everyday role, is to make sure that you get
867
00:51:27.239 --> 00:51:30.360
the nutrients you need to nourish you right. And so
868
00:51:30.599 --> 00:51:32.880
if you think about have you had moments when you
869
00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:37.639
have digestive issues. Most of our clients and most people
870
00:51:37.639 --> 00:51:42.519
who are suffering with some sort of difficulty, you know,
871
00:51:42.960 --> 00:51:47.199
have just digestive issues. That's because their dorsal system is
872
00:51:47.239 --> 00:51:49.559
no longer under the influence of ventral and it's doing
873
00:51:49.559 --> 00:51:53.280
a survival response. And when it moves into a survival response,
874
00:51:53.519 --> 00:51:57.440
your digestion is out of order. That's the first thing
875
00:51:57.440 --> 00:52:00.039
that happens, and then all these other because again, and
876
00:52:00.159 --> 00:52:03.119
it's interesting that the nervous system runs both your physical
877
00:52:03.760 --> 00:52:07.679
being and your psychological being, so it does both. Right,
878
00:52:07.800 --> 00:52:13.599
So yeah, we need sympathetic and dorsal to be working
879
00:52:13.800 --> 00:52:21.039
with ventral in order to have a balanced, a thriving system. Right,
880
00:52:21.280 --> 00:52:26.840
we can survive without that, right because sympathetic and dorsal
881
00:52:27.199 --> 00:52:30.039
can help us survive. We can make it through the moment.
882
00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:34.000
And many many people in the world live in sympathetic
883
00:52:34.119 --> 00:52:38.800
or dorsal or some loop that you know takes them
884
00:52:38.840 --> 00:52:42.519
through both of these. But we can't thrive as humans.
885
00:52:42.559 --> 00:52:45.679
We can't connect with humans, create community, do all those
886
00:52:45.719 --> 00:52:48.519
beautiful things that we're trying to do unless we have
887
00:52:49.920 --> 00:52:52.480
unless we're able to find our way to ventral, not
888
00:52:52.599 --> 00:52:55.199
be there all the time, but know that that I
889
00:52:55.280 --> 00:52:57.840
have pathways that bring me back to Ventral and the
890
00:52:57.880 --> 00:53:00.159
thing that I love about the nervous system and about
891
00:53:00.519 --> 00:53:04.760
understanding the biology is that every human has those pathways
892
00:53:05.079 --> 00:53:09.320
because every single nervous system has a ventral state wired in.
893
00:53:10.079 --> 00:53:12.920
You don't have to go created anywhere, it's already inside.
894
00:53:12.920 --> 00:53:15.920
We just have to find the pathway that maybe you
895
00:53:15.960 --> 00:53:20.239
haven't walked that pathway very often, maybe you've had to
896
00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:23.639
be in survival, and we can find that pathway and
897
00:53:23.679 --> 00:53:26.280
begin to walk it in. The more you find your
898
00:53:26.280 --> 00:53:30.159
way back to ventral, the easier your nervous system finds
899
00:53:30.199 --> 00:53:32.920
to take you there and help you really be nourished
900
00:53:32.960 --> 00:53:33.639
in that place.
901
00:53:34.639 --> 00:53:37.719
So we have a lot of people who will come
902
00:53:37.760 --> 00:53:42.239
in where they've been in this chronically overwhelmed state, like
903
00:53:42.320 --> 00:53:45.599
in the sympathetic or the dorsal, and so.
904
00:53:46.239 --> 00:53:48.840
How do you begin them how do you.
905
00:53:48.760 --> 00:53:52.880
Begin to help them walk that pathway back to ventral.
906
00:53:54.199 --> 00:53:58.480
And that's probably why in the beginning long ago, when
907
00:53:58.519 --> 00:54:01.960
I was creating maps with clients that we did a
908
00:54:02.039 --> 00:54:05.199
Triggers and Glimmers map. That's where Glimmers came from, because
909
00:54:05.679 --> 00:54:09.000
you know, we we are it's easy for us to
910
00:54:09.079 --> 00:54:12.960
identify the things that dysregulate us right, and we feel
911
00:54:13.000 --> 00:54:15.280
them and we go into those places and we we
912
00:54:15.360 --> 00:54:17.599
think that's all there is in my life. And yeah,
913
00:54:17.880 --> 00:54:22.199
we also know that there are tiny moments of okayness
914
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:27.639
in every life, in every day, and we miss those moments, right.
915
00:54:27.719 --> 00:54:29.960
And so you know, we talked earlier about count your
916
00:54:29.960 --> 00:54:32.880
blessings or or always look on the bright side. That's
917
00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:34.599
not what this is, but I want to say that.
918
00:54:35.079 --> 00:54:39.199
But it's a recognition that your nervous system can find
919
00:54:39.280 --> 00:54:43.280
those tiny moments and can hold both that the trauma,
920
00:54:43.360 --> 00:54:46.880
the suffering and the okayness, right. And so that's where
921
00:54:46.920 --> 00:54:50.599
I start with people. I you know, teach them about glimmers,
922
00:54:50.639 --> 00:54:54.199
those tiny moments when the nervous system feels something a
923
00:54:54.239 --> 00:54:57.679
bit okay, right, And I used to call them moments
924
00:54:57.679 --> 00:55:00.480
of safety connection. I say, now that's that's that's too far,
925
00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:02.760
that's a bridge too far. I can't reach for that,
926
00:55:02.920 --> 00:55:06.199
but I can reach for a moment of okayness, right.
927
00:55:06.239 --> 00:55:08.840
And so we have those moments and we just look
928
00:55:08.920 --> 00:55:12.360
for them, right, And if I'm working with someone, I'll
929
00:55:12.400 --> 00:55:14.960
notice a moment say oh, that felt like a tiny
930
00:55:15.039 --> 00:55:18.239
moment of okayness, a moment of goodness. I just wanted
931
00:55:18.280 --> 00:55:20.519
to mention that. So I just want to mark the moment.
932
00:55:20.800 --> 00:55:23.079
Sometimes it's too much to do anything with it, because
933
00:55:23.119 --> 00:55:26.159
it's really scary to a nervous system to think I've
934
00:55:26.239 --> 00:55:28.960
let down my guard, right I can't. You know, I'm
935
00:55:28.960 --> 00:55:32.239
not protecting myself anymore. One of my early clients taught
936
00:55:32.280 --> 00:55:35.039
me that. She said, you know, I'm afraid that if
937
00:55:35.079 --> 00:55:38.559
I find my way to regulation, to okayness, which is
938
00:55:38.599 --> 00:55:41.119
what we called it, I won't be safe in the world.
939
00:55:41.440 --> 00:55:44.000
Made perfect sense, right, of course that makes sense to
940
00:55:44.039 --> 00:55:46.400
her nervous system, because why would she feel safe in
941
00:55:46.440 --> 00:55:48.719
the world when she's had to protect herself. And so
942
00:55:48.840 --> 00:55:51.519
what I tell people is, if you find the moments
943
00:55:51.559 --> 00:55:54.480
of okayness, so you find the glimmers, it doesn't mean
944
00:55:54.519 --> 00:55:59.159
your survival instincts, your survival strategies are going away. It
945
00:55:59.199 --> 00:56:01.639
does not mean that anyway, that your system is always
946
00:56:01.639 --> 00:56:04.000
there to keep you safe. And you can notice the
947
00:56:04.039 --> 00:56:07.519
moments when when maybe you didn't need it quite as much,
948
00:56:07.599 --> 00:56:09.679
or maybe maybe there was a moment you thought, oh,
949
00:56:09.679 --> 00:56:12.320
I could just enjoy, you know, I'm just feeling that
950
00:56:12.440 --> 00:56:15.159
the feeling of sun on my face, or the sound
951
00:56:15.239 --> 00:56:18.960
of a bird singing, or my cat who just climbed
952
00:56:19.000 --> 00:56:22.360
into my lap, some tiny thing that's an okay thing,
953
00:56:22.440 --> 00:56:26.719
and it's safe to feel those to notice those moments,
954
00:56:26.960 --> 00:56:30.239
And in fact, what it does is it helps your
955
00:56:30.280 --> 00:56:36.079
system have more capacity to then deal with the dysregulation,
956
00:56:36.199 --> 00:56:39.159
to deal with with the trauma, to to to work
957
00:56:39.360 --> 00:56:43.599
with what's what's the suffering that's that's happening in the world.
958
00:56:43.639 --> 00:56:46.800
And if we think for a moment about recovery, right,
959
00:56:47.440 --> 00:56:56.480
we can be clean and sober from sympathetic or dorsal, right,
960
00:56:56.559 --> 00:57:00.679
but you can't build a recovery lifestyle. You can't build
961
00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:03.880
a life of well being from sympathetic or dorsal. That
962
00:57:04.000 --> 00:57:06.599
has to happen from ventral. And so there are lots
963
00:57:06.599 --> 00:57:09.360
of reasons to find our way to ventral so that
964
00:57:09.400 --> 00:57:13.719
we can build a different way of navigating the world.
965
00:57:14.159 --> 00:57:14.320
Right.
966
00:57:14.400 --> 00:57:18.000
And then if we continue to think about recovery for
967
00:57:18.039 --> 00:57:23.599
a moment, relapse doesn't happen in ventral. Relapse happens in
968
00:57:23.679 --> 00:57:27.599
sympathetic or dorsal, because that's where all of my distress
969
00:57:27.719 --> 00:57:33.239
is held, right, And we know everybody's going to disregulate sometime,
970
00:57:34.039 --> 00:57:38.079
So we build in the capacity to notice when am
971
00:57:38.119 --> 00:57:41.559
I disregulating? And then what do I reach for?
972
00:57:42.280 --> 00:57:42.480
Right?
973
00:57:42.599 --> 00:57:45.360
Because my system is going to say, oh, here's what
974
00:57:45.360 --> 00:57:47.880
you reach for, because you've always reached for this, you know,
975
00:57:48.039 --> 00:57:51.599
your drug of choice, whatever that is. You know, whether
976
00:57:51.639 --> 00:57:54.639
it's you know, a substance or a behavior, doesn't matter.
977
00:57:54.960 --> 00:57:57.199
Your system says, we can count on this. So we
978
00:57:57.239 --> 00:57:59.719
want to build in what else can I reach for?
979
00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:00.639
Right?
980
00:58:00.679 --> 00:58:02.960
And one of the things that I love to help
981
00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:07.719
people be able to reach for is another human right.
982
00:58:07.840 --> 00:58:11.400
That's hard to do because people people are dangerous. Right,
983
00:58:11.440 --> 00:58:13.840
That's what our nervous system learned. People are dangerous. Why
984
00:58:13.880 --> 00:58:16.360
would I want to reach for a person? Right, I'm
985
00:58:16.400 --> 00:58:18.320
going to be let down, I'm going to be hurt. Whatever,
986
00:58:18.599 --> 00:58:21.280
And so we start other places. Can you reach for nature?
987
00:58:21.920 --> 00:58:25.159
Can you reach for spirit? Can you reach for you know,
988
00:58:25.239 --> 00:58:29.159
your your cat or your dog? Right, we begin to
989
00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:33.360
build this menu of things you can reach for, and
990
00:58:33.360 --> 00:58:37.920
then your system begins to learn there are other things. Right.
991
00:58:38.239 --> 00:58:43.960
Yeah, it's brilliant just how you articulated all that. I
992
00:58:44.119 --> 00:58:47.400
just it got my brain going in on a kind
993
00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:49.840
of a I don't know if it's a rabbit hole
994
00:58:50.039 --> 00:58:55.480
or not. But so we're coming in towards Christmas, and
995
00:58:55.519 --> 00:58:59.000
we're talking about a person that's in their ventral system
996
00:58:59.440 --> 00:59:01.760
and then can get triggered in all of a sudden
997
00:59:01.800 --> 00:59:06.079
and they're in their sympathetic or dorsal and so to me,
998
00:59:06.199 --> 00:59:11.639
there's two kind of hidden triggers for people. So coming
999
00:59:11.719 --> 00:59:15.039
into Christmas, you've got all of a sudden subconscious memories
1000
00:59:15.159 --> 00:59:18.239
at this time of year that you're not doing well
1001
00:59:18.280 --> 00:59:21.159
all of a sudden, and you don't know why. So
1002
00:59:21.199 --> 00:59:25.239
that's one piece. And secondly, we talk all the time
1003
00:59:25.280 --> 00:59:29.639
with polyvago stuff around danger, but what I think a
1004
00:59:29.639 --> 00:59:33.599
lot of people don't realize is growing stress in your
1005
00:59:33.639 --> 00:59:38.800
life feels dangerous to your nervous system. So stress needs
1006
00:59:38.840 --> 00:59:42.960
to be talked about it as well as a trigger.
1007
00:59:43.199 --> 00:59:45.840
So can you just kind of touch on those two?
1008
00:59:46.239 --> 00:59:48.440
Yeah, and it is. It is so much going on
1009
00:59:48.519 --> 00:59:52.199
at this time of year, right with with with families,
1010
00:59:52.400 --> 01:00:00.199
with with you know, expectations, and also for you know,
1011
01:00:00.199 --> 01:00:02.639
depending on what hemisphere you're living in, it's getting darker
1012
01:00:02.639 --> 01:00:06.039
and colder, right, So we have all sorts of things
1013
01:00:06.480 --> 01:00:09.719
going on, and you know, a couple things come to mind.
1014
01:00:09.800 --> 01:00:12.400
One when you were talking, one of the things that
1015
01:00:12.480 --> 01:00:14.800
I think is really helpful to do is to just
1016
01:00:14.920 --> 01:00:18.920
simply create two lists. One is what are the cues
1017
01:00:18.960 --> 01:00:22.440
of danger that I'm noticing? Right? We can take a
1018
01:00:22.840 --> 01:00:25.079
you know, I got to go do this thing, or
1019
01:00:25.400 --> 01:00:28.760
just you know, it's Wednesday and I'm not doing well? Right?
1020
01:00:28.880 --> 01:00:31.719
What are the cues of danger? Get very concrete about them.
1021
01:00:31.960 --> 01:00:34.559
Cues of danger? My to do list is too long.
1022
01:00:34.840 --> 01:00:39.239
I'm you know, in financial distress. You know, I can't
1023
01:00:39.480 --> 01:00:42.400
feed my family, and there's an expectation I whatever it is,
1024
01:00:42.480 --> 01:00:45.639
write them down because those we need to bring into
1025
01:00:45.800 --> 01:00:49.039
explicit awareness otherwise we can't work with them. Right. And
1026
01:00:49.079 --> 01:00:51.360
then the other side of your papers, what are the
1027
01:00:51.400 --> 01:00:54.920
cues of safety? What are the cues of connection that
1028
01:00:55.239 --> 01:00:59.480
I'm probably missing because I'm my system is so focused
1029
01:00:59.519 --> 01:01:02.039
on the danger, it's not letting me see the safety.
1030
01:01:02.079 --> 01:01:04.320
So what are the cues of safety that either are
1031
01:01:04.360 --> 01:01:08.000
there or I could invite in? Right? And once we
1032
01:01:08.440 --> 01:01:10.960
get them out here on paper rather than just hear,
1033
01:01:11.679 --> 01:01:14.880
you know, spinning around out here on paper, we can
1034
01:01:14.960 --> 01:01:18.159
begin to see them differently and do something. And the
1035
01:01:18.199 --> 01:01:20.280
cues of danger, you can say, does this take me
1036
01:01:20.320 --> 01:01:23.760
to sympathetic anxiety anchor? Or does this take me to
1037
01:01:24.119 --> 01:01:27.039
dorsal disconnect? And you can begin to get a sense
1038
01:01:27.199 --> 01:01:30.400
of where you're going and why. Again, that's the context
1039
01:01:30.400 --> 01:01:33.320
piece that's so so helpful, and the cues of safety.
1040
01:01:33.639 --> 01:01:35.320
Every one of those cues of safety is going to
1041
01:01:35.360 --> 01:01:39.159
bring you a little bit of ventral energy, active and alive.
1042
01:01:39.559 --> 01:01:42.719
So that's an easy not easy, but well it's not simple.
1043
01:01:42.719 --> 01:01:45.800
It's easy, not simple, but a way to begin to
1044
01:01:46.320 --> 01:01:49.079
put it out there and begin to see what is happening.
1045
01:01:49.079 --> 01:01:51.039
Because when it's just happening in here, I can feel
1046
01:01:51.039 --> 01:01:54.159
pretty crazy, right, I can feel like I have no
1047
01:01:54.280 --> 01:01:58.480
idea why I'm doing this or saying this or feeling
1048
01:01:58.519 --> 01:02:01.119
this because it's all just here. But if I put
1049
01:02:01.159 --> 01:02:03.559
it out here, I can begin to work with it.
1050
01:02:04.599 --> 01:02:06.760
I love it. One of the things I say to
1051
01:02:06.760 --> 01:02:11.639
clients is that when you switch to your sympathetic or dorsal,
1052
01:02:11.760 --> 01:02:15.360
it has a pull on you to certain actions because
1053
01:02:15.400 --> 01:02:18.960
it's going into survival and so often what it's pulling
1054
01:02:18.960 --> 01:02:21.960
you to do action wise is not going to help
1055
01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:24.159
you at all long term. It might make you feel
1056
01:02:24.159 --> 01:02:27.880
a little better in the moment, to get back to ventro,
1057
01:02:28.079 --> 01:02:30.159
to connect and all of that is probably the last
1058
01:02:30.199 --> 01:02:33.159
thing you feel like doing at that moment, and So
1059
01:02:33.239 --> 01:02:36.719
that's why I love that you got it on paper
1060
01:02:36.880 --> 01:02:39.360
where you can go, Okay, what do I need to
1061
01:02:39.440 --> 01:02:43.119
do to get back to safety and realize, Oh, I
1062
01:02:43.119 --> 01:02:46.440
don't even feel like going and phoning somebody or going
1063
01:02:46.440 --> 01:02:48.800
out for coffee, but that's what I need to do.
1064
01:02:48.920 --> 01:02:50.880
I don't feel like going for a walk, but I
1065
01:02:51.199 --> 01:02:54.119
need to is so important.
1066
01:02:53.800 --> 01:02:56.079
And you want to put you I like people to
1067
01:02:56.079 --> 01:03:00.400
make a menu of resources, right, make a big menu,
1068
01:03:00.559 --> 01:03:02.480
because you know, when you were saying I don't want
1069
01:03:02.480 --> 01:03:03.679
to go for a walk, I was thinking, nope, I
1070
01:03:03.719 --> 01:03:05.800
don't want to go for a walk. But sometimes I
1071
01:03:05.800 --> 01:03:09.400
can just turn on music right, which will take me
1072
01:03:09.639 --> 01:03:12.239
sort of begin to help me feel a little bit
1073
01:03:12.239 --> 01:03:14.440
more here in the world. So you want to create
1074
01:03:14.480 --> 01:03:18.199
a menu that has resources that have all different levels
1075
01:03:18.280 --> 01:03:22.000
of energy needed, right, like going for a walk when
1076
01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:24.599
I'm endorsal, going for a walk is you know, can't do.
1077
01:03:24.880 --> 01:03:26.480
But I can push the button and turn the music
1078
01:03:26.519 --> 01:03:30.119
on right when I'm in sympathetic getting outside and walking
1079
01:03:30.199 --> 01:03:32.199
is exactly what my system wants to do. It just
1080
01:03:32.239 --> 01:03:35.480
wants to move in some way, right, So it's perfect.
1081
01:03:35.559 --> 01:03:39.920
But yeah, so I like I like creating lots of choice.
1082
01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:43.679
Yeah, And I think how I explain it to clients is,
1083
01:03:44.559 --> 01:03:48.519
when you're in a certain state, certain you might no,
1084
01:03:48.679 --> 01:03:51.559
I should do this, but that's not an attainable steppe.
1085
01:03:51.920 --> 01:03:54.559
So you got to find an attainable step exactly. I
1086
01:03:54.559 --> 01:03:57.840
think that's going to move you towards the right end result,
1087
01:03:57.960 --> 01:04:02.000
but exactly to jump there and step is impossible, exactly.
1088
01:04:02.320 --> 01:04:04.920
And so that menu idea is again fantastic.
1089
01:04:05.519 --> 01:04:08.000
And whenever you say should, because we say should to
1090
01:04:08.079 --> 01:04:11.119
ourselves a lot, whenever we say should, we know we're
1091
01:04:11.119 --> 01:04:14.280
not in regulation. Should is not a ventral word. It's
1092
01:04:14.320 --> 01:04:18.639
a sympathetically driven word. You should or shouldn't. Right, No,
1093
01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:23.159
you know that's your survival state is pushing you for
1094
01:04:23.320 --> 01:04:25.039
good reason, but it's not going to help us get
1095
01:04:25.039 --> 01:04:25.840
where we need to go.
1096
01:04:26.440 --> 01:04:30.679
Yeah, So can you just speak to kind of stress's
1097
01:04:30.840 --> 01:04:35.960
role in all of this as far as subconsciously working.
1098
01:04:36.320 --> 01:04:39.760
Yeah, we're always working. I call it the stretch to
1099
01:04:39.840 --> 01:04:44.800
stress continuum. Right when we're stretching. Right, I'm moving through
1100
01:04:44.800 --> 01:04:47.960
my day and I'm working hard, and I'm stretching, and
1101
01:04:48.000 --> 01:04:51.960
I'm pushing myself to do things. I'm being productive, and
1102
01:04:52.039 --> 01:04:54.760
my nervous system is supporting me and doing that. But
1103
01:04:54.840 --> 01:04:57.639
when I move across the line to stress, when it
1104
01:04:57.679 --> 01:05:00.280
begins to feel too much, I'm not getting an where
1105
01:05:00.320 --> 01:05:03.960
my list isn't getting shorter, I can't do what I
1106
01:05:04.039 --> 01:05:07.639
need to do. That's stress, and the nervous system starts
1107
01:05:07.639 --> 01:05:12.000
to go into sympathetic survival and it will then either
1108
01:05:12.039 --> 01:05:14.280
stay there or take you to dorsal. Right, as soon
1109
01:05:14.320 --> 01:05:17.159
as we move to stress, which on a nervous system
1110
01:05:17.280 --> 01:05:21.079
level is simply meaning you've lost your anchor and ventral
1111
01:05:21.119 --> 01:05:24.559
and you're now in sympathetic and could be on your
1112
01:05:24.559 --> 01:05:30.559
way to dorsal, that is unhealthy. That's a dysregulation, right,
1113
01:05:30.599 --> 01:05:32.480
and we have to find a way. And if we
1114
01:05:32.480 --> 01:05:35.400
can notice that when it first starts happening, right when
1115
01:05:35.440 --> 01:05:38.519
you first start feeling, oh, I'm losing my grip here,
1116
01:05:39.079 --> 01:05:42.320
or wow, i was swimming now I'm treading water and
1117
01:05:42.320 --> 01:05:44.480
I'm going to think soon. If you do it, then
1118
01:05:44.920 --> 01:05:47.920
it's easier to come back and say let me just
1119
01:05:48.440 --> 01:05:50.199
let me just make a cup of tea, or let
1120
01:05:50.239 --> 01:05:52.880
me stop for five minutes, let me whatever my nervous
1121
01:05:52.880 --> 01:05:55.679
system needs in order to take a breath, and then
1122
01:05:55.719 --> 01:05:58.920
go back to it. Then it's good. But a lot
1123
01:05:58.920 --> 01:06:01.559
of times we override that and we just keep pushing.
1124
01:06:01.920 --> 01:06:05.360
Nervous system will not respond to It doesn't respond to no pain,
1125
01:06:05.480 --> 01:06:08.320
no gain. It says, if you just keep going, I
1126
01:06:08.360 --> 01:06:11.159
will take you to survival because that's what I can do.
1127
01:06:11.880 --> 01:06:16.800
Yeah, So Devil's advocate a little bit here. So let's
1128
01:06:17.679 --> 01:06:20.320
pick a client who grew up in a very chaotic
1129
01:06:21.000 --> 01:06:25.079
household where it was unpredictable. There is lots of anger,
1130
01:06:25.199 --> 01:06:29.679
lots of abuse type of stuff. So their stress system
1131
01:06:30.280 --> 01:06:33.960
was in the red constantly. So an eight, nine or
1132
01:06:34.039 --> 01:06:37.159
ten on a scale of ten was their normal. Yep.
1133
01:06:37.920 --> 01:06:40.519
So now when they're going through a day and their
1134
01:06:40.559 --> 01:06:44.320
stress systems at a four or five, they don't think
1135
01:06:44.360 --> 01:06:45.719
they're stressed.
1136
01:06:45.480 --> 01:06:49.360
Right, right, And you know, for their system that may
1137
01:06:49.400 --> 01:06:55.199
be okay, right, because you know every system, and I
1138
01:06:55.239 --> 01:06:58.559
will say, this is a sign of resilience, right, You
1139
01:06:58.679 --> 01:07:01.000
just regulate and come back to regulating and come back.
1140
01:07:01.480 --> 01:07:05.360
And your resilience level is not a static level. It
1141
01:07:05.480 --> 01:07:09.360
rises and falls. There are some days when I have
1142
01:07:09.480 --> 01:07:13.159
a high level of resilience and I could be at
1143
01:07:13.159 --> 01:07:15.760
a you know what you might describe as an eight
1144
01:07:16.119 --> 01:07:19.199
stress and be doing perfectly fine. My ventral is still
1145
01:07:19.239 --> 01:07:21.519
there running the show. And there are other days when
1146
01:07:21.559 --> 01:07:24.880
I could be at A three and I could disregulate
1147
01:07:25.159 --> 01:07:27.719
and go to head to dorsal. So again it's that
1148
01:07:28.079 --> 01:07:31.400
it's that practice of knowing where am I, what's my
1149
01:07:31.519 --> 01:07:34.679
nervous system doing in this moment, because on a on
1150
01:07:34.719 --> 01:07:37.239
a one to ten scale, your four and my four
1151
01:07:37.519 --> 01:07:40.320
might be very different in this moment and very different tomorrow.
1152
01:07:40.760 --> 01:07:43.519
So again, what I love about this way of working
1153
01:07:43.639 --> 01:07:47.639
is it's not it's not a it's not a standardized protocol.
1154
01:07:48.239 --> 01:07:51.199
Well, my question then for a client would be, and
1155
01:07:51.440 --> 01:07:54.960
this is what you're getting at, is what are the
1156
01:07:55.119 --> 01:07:59.320
early warning signs that the stress is starting to cause
1157
01:07:59.360 --> 01:08:03.639
me to swich? So for myself, when I begin to
1158
01:08:03.920 --> 01:08:06.880
realize that I have more trouble being present to my
1159
01:08:06.960 --> 01:08:10.960
wife or my kids, something's going on in the background
1160
01:08:11.079 --> 01:08:14.079
that is causing me to go to survival mode. When
1161
01:08:14.119 --> 01:08:18.159
I get a little bit more impatient with people, a
1162
01:08:18.199 --> 01:08:22.039
little less tolerant, a little more antsy, I just can't
1163
01:08:22.079 --> 01:08:27.279
sit still. So what other would be warning signs that
1164
01:08:27.680 --> 01:08:30.720
something is building that I might not even be aware of.
1165
01:08:31.319 --> 01:08:34.359
So when we map this, we look at how does
1166
01:08:34.359 --> 01:08:37.960
your body show you you're beginning to move into a
1167
01:08:38.000 --> 01:08:42.079
survival What are some of the behaviors that happen, what
1168
01:08:42.119 --> 01:08:44.479
are some of the emotional feelings, and what are some
1169
01:08:44.560 --> 01:08:47.640
of your thoughts? And so we map those four categories
1170
01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:50.399
and then you begin to see, oh, this is what
1171
01:08:50.560 --> 01:08:53.840
begins to take me into sympathetic fight fight, and then
1172
01:08:53.960 --> 01:08:57.800
this is what takes me into dorsal collapse shutdown, right,
1173
01:08:57.880 --> 01:09:01.479
I know, and I know because my children have told
1174
01:09:01.479 --> 01:09:06.439
me that I begin to move into that sympathetic anger
1175
01:09:06.479 --> 01:09:10.680
anxiety place. They call me cranky right when I begin
1176
01:09:10.720 --> 01:09:12.600
to get cranky, and I know what that feels like
1177
01:09:12.720 --> 01:09:14.840
to me, and I know what it sounds like. So
1178
01:09:14.960 --> 01:09:17.520
that for me, that is a sure sign that will
1179
01:09:17.560 --> 01:09:20.159
wait a minute something you know, don't keep going down
1180
01:09:20.199 --> 01:09:22.960
that road because you'll go from cranky to all those
1181
01:09:23.000 --> 01:09:25.119
other things and you don't want to go there, right.
1182
01:09:25.439 --> 01:09:28.439
And for me, the dorsal sign, you know, I think
1183
01:09:28.439 --> 01:09:31.439
if we find one sign that really is a clue
1184
01:09:31.439 --> 01:09:34.680
for us. My dorsal sign is that sense of going
1185
01:09:34.720 --> 01:09:38.359
through the motions but not really here doing it right.
1186
01:09:38.479 --> 01:09:40.920
So for me, when I noticed those are two things
1187
01:09:40.960 --> 01:09:43.319
I can notice, and when I notice that, I can
1188
01:09:43.359 --> 01:09:45.600
stop and go, wait a minute, I need to I
1189
01:09:45.640 --> 01:09:48.239
need to do some further assessment here and figure out
1190
01:09:48.439 --> 01:09:51.279
what's going on. And I think it's really helpful for
1191
01:09:51.359 --> 01:09:54.119
people to say these are a couple of clear signs
1192
01:09:54.119 --> 01:09:54.399
for me.
1193
01:09:54.520 --> 01:09:57.520
I would say, like, how I would describe for myself
1194
01:09:57.520 --> 01:10:01.840
that dorsal sign is I start to be robotic. I'm
1195
01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:05.680
going through the motions, but there's no emotion attached to it,
1196
01:10:05.840 --> 01:10:09.920
and I'm basically everything else is shut down, but going
1197
01:10:09.960 --> 01:10:13.840
through the motions is happening. Okay, Andy, my apologies back
1198
01:10:13.840 --> 01:10:14.159
to you.
1199
01:10:16.159 --> 01:10:18.479
I see how this goes. I'm getting the I'm getting
1200
01:10:18.520 --> 01:10:19.119
the rhythm here.
1201
01:10:21.640 --> 01:10:25.760
I like some of the specificity that we're going into here.
1202
01:10:25.800 --> 01:10:29.600
And I was wondering, like, so something that's come up
1203
01:10:29.640 --> 01:10:33.560
a lot recently and facilitating as clients where we have
1204
01:10:33.600 --> 01:10:38.920
that that freeze response in conflict, And I was wondering
1205
01:10:38.960 --> 01:10:44.319
if you could explain what's happening in that moment, and
1206
01:10:44.600 --> 01:10:46.239
like what are some of the things that you'd invite
1207
01:10:46.279 --> 01:10:50.399
them to do in the moments afterwards, and maybe.
1208
01:10:50.119 --> 01:10:51.600
What does long term healing.
1209
01:10:52.119 --> 01:10:57.800
Yeah, it's interesting because freeze. When when people talk about freeze,
1210
01:10:57.800 --> 01:11:00.359
my next question is, you know, let let's let's get
1211
01:11:00.359 --> 01:11:04.560
to know the freeze response you're talking about. Because in
1212
01:11:04.920 --> 01:11:07.760
the good old days, when we talked about fight flight freeze,
1213
01:11:08.159 --> 01:11:13.239
freeze was a total dorsal collapse where I'm frozen because
1214
01:11:13.279 --> 01:11:15.439
I have no energy in my system. I can't move
1215
01:11:16.279 --> 01:11:19.239
right that, there are no thoughts, there, there's no energy,
1216
01:11:19.279 --> 01:11:21.960
there's no nothing, right. And so that's a that's a
1217
01:11:22.079 --> 01:11:27.760
full dorsal freeze, right, which which looks like a full collapse. Right.
1218
01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:33.039
The other freeze that that many people experience is this
1219
01:11:33.239 --> 01:11:36.439
blend of sympathetic and dorsal because I can feel that
1220
01:11:36.520 --> 01:11:39.920
I'm flooded with energy, right and my and my my
1221
01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:43.359
my muscles are rigid. I have that rigidity, and my
1222
01:11:43.439 --> 01:11:46.199
eyes may be open a bit, and I can't think,
1223
01:11:46.279 --> 01:11:49.399
not because I have no thoughts, but I either too
1224
01:11:49.479 --> 01:11:52.760
many thoughts or jumbled thoughts or can't can't figure it out.
1225
01:11:53.119 --> 01:11:56.399
So there's all of this energy, but I'm I'm I'm
1226
01:11:56.560 --> 01:12:01.680
immobile because dorsal has immobilized me. So that's a blended,
1227
01:12:02.880 --> 01:12:07.520
blended state. So and this blended state, when you unfreeze
1228
01:12:07.600 --> 01:12:12.159
from that, you usually will go to full anger, anxiety,
1229
01:12:12.199 --> 01:12:16.159
full sympathetic, or full dorsal collapse. So I think of
1230
01:12:16.199 --> 01:12:19.680
it as a stepping stone. You've left ventral, you aren't
1231
01:12:19.760 --> 01:12:22.800
in sympathetic yet, you're in this blend and you're either
1232
01:12:22.840 --> 01:12:26.439
going to go full sympathetic or full dorsal afterwards. And
1233
01:12:26.479 --> 01:12:29.760
I think for people who feel the freeze, whichever freeze
1234
01:12:29.840 --> 01:12:33.640
they feel, when they get in a conflict with someone
1235
01:12:34.640 --> 01:12:39.920
and they can no longer function for whatever you know,
1236
01:12:40.359 --> 01:12:44.439
freeze is happening, I think noticing it and naming it
1237
01:12:43.760 --> 01:12:46.880
is the first thing. And normalized and we talked it.
1238
01:12:47.520 --> 01:12:50.199
I love putting things together, So we notice, name, normalize, right,
1239
01:12:50.800 --> 01:12:54.119
and say your nervous system is simply trying to protect you,
1240
01:12:54.159 --> 01:12:56.720
and this is how it's learned to do it right.
1241
01:12:56.800 --> 01:12:59.399
So once we come out of that, we can then
1242
01:12:59.479 --> 01:13:03.199
reflect back on it and we can begin to identify
1243
01:13:03.279 --> 01:13:07.760
what was the nervous system neurocepting that it took you
1244
01:13:07.880 --> 01:13:10.720
to this place, because we want to We saw the
1245
01:13:10.840 --> 01:13:13.359
point in time, and we want to see is there
1246
01:13:13.399 --> 01:13:16.479
a pattern here? Is there a familiar cue? Is there
1247
01:13:16.520 --> 01:13:19.319
a pattern of cues that takes you to that place?
1248
01:13:19.640 --> 01:13:22.039
So if I can understand it for myself and you
1249
01:13:22.079 --> 01:13:25.880
can help me understand it, then I can share that
1250
01:13:26.079 --> 01:13:31.039
with the person I've had a conflict with because their
1251
01:13:31.079 --> 01:13:34.239
brain is making up a story, right, because they just
1252
01:13:34.319 --> 01:13:37.640
had this interaction with me where I froze in whatever way,
1253
01:13:38.119 --> 01:13:40.840
and and that's very unsatisfying for their nervous system. Got
1254
01:13:40.920 --> 01:13:44.920
to say, So they need something, and so I can say,
1255
01:13:45.239 --> 01:13:48.239
here's what I figured out just happened. And when I
1256
01:13:48.279 --> 01:13:50.960
can share that, then we can begin to have a
1257
01:13:51.000 --> 01:13:54.880
different story emerge. So that's often what I do. It's
1258
01:13:54.920 --> 01:13:59.279
about the understanding, and I usually need somebody to help
1259
01:13:59.319 --> 01:14:03.159
me reflect and understand, right, So I need somebody else's
1260
01:14:03.359 --> 01:14:06.760
regulated system to join me to help me feel some
1261
01:14:06.880 --> 01:14:09.279
of that, and then when I can begin to understand it,
1262
01:14:09.319 --> 01:14:11.199
then I can share it with the people around me
1263
01:14:11.239 --> 01:14:13.640
and say here's what happened. Right.
1264
01:14:14.800 --> 01:14:18.960
I like the distinction, but also that normal notice name
1265
01:14:19.000 --> 01:14:22.359
and normalize so many people. What I find is there's
1266
01:14:22.359 --> 01:14:25.319
a lot of shame afterwards, Like that's sympathetic.
1267
01:14:25.479 --> 01:14:27.279
Is you know why didn't I do something?
1268
01:14:28.199 --> 01:14:30.199
Why didn't I respond I should have done this?
1269
01:14:30.720 --> 01:14:31.079
Yeah?
1270
01:14:31.439 --> 01:14:33.399
And so I want to ask you, like, is there
1271
01:14:33.439 --> 01:14:37.920
something I think the notice name and normalize really moved there,
1272
01:14:37.960 --> 01:14:40.800
But is there something specific that you would say to
1273
01:14:40.840 --> 01:14:44.720
somebody who's experiencing the shame afterwards, you know.
1274
01:14:44.680 --> 01:14:50.119
I often find myself saying to people, of course that's
1275
01:14:50.159 --> 01:14:53.680
the response. It makes perfect sense that that's the response
1276
01:14:53.760 --> 01:14:56.880
because and then you look at it through the nervous system, right,
1277
01:14:56.880 --> 01:14:59.079
because through the eyes of the nervous system, it makes
1278
01:14:59.079 --> 01:15:02.840
perfect sense that that's how you responded, right, And that's
1279
01:15:02.880 --> 01:15:05.640
the only response we have in the moment. We don't
1280
01:15:05.680 --> 01:15:11.000
have a cognitive capacity to respond. We have an embodied
1281
01:15:11.039 --> 01:15:16.399
nervous system survival response. So, you know, I think understanding
1282
01:15:16.479 --> 01:15:21.800
the the of course, you know, and that everybody's nervous
1283
01:15:21.800 --> 01:15:23.640
system does the same things.
1284
01:15:23.880 --> 01:15:24.039
You know.
1285
01:15:24.239 --> 01:15:27.039
I like to tell people it's the common denominator in
1286
01:15:27.079 --> 01:15:31.039
our human experience. Every nervous system has these same responses
1287
01:15:31.079 --> 01:15:31.520
built in.
1288
01:15:32.039 --> 01:15:32.199
Right.
1289
01:15:32.439 --> 01:15:35.920
You didn't choose it, it's built in and it's protecting you.
1290
01:15:35.920 --> 01:15:36.119
You know.
1291
01:15:36.199 --> 01:15:38.720
That's its goal is to make sure you live to
1292
01:15:38.800 --> 01:15:41.720
the next moment so that you can, you know, be
1293
01:15:41.840 --> 01:15:44.560
in the world. Still. The other thing, I think, when
1294
01:15:44.560 --> 01:15:47.720
I understand that, that's helpful, But I think I need
1295
01:15:47.760 --> 01:15:51.239
to create a community of people. I need to create
1296
01:15:51.279 --> 01:15:54.600
a system of people who all speak the same language.
1297
01:15:55.199 --> 01:15:58.720
That's really I think the beautiful part of this is
1298
01:15:58.760 --> 01:16:04.000
that you know, I speak this language. My children and
1299
01:16:04.119 --> 01:16:07.039
grandchildren would probably tell you they are forced to speak
1300
01:16:07.079 --> 01:16:09.319
this language. But you know, we all sort of we
1301
01:16:09.359 --> 01:16:13.319
can talk about, oh, that was a dysregulated moment, right,
1302
01:16:13.399 --> 01:16:16.640
because it's a it's a different experience, right, you know,
1303
01:16:17.119 --> 01:16:20.560
I just noticed that that I'm feeling really dorsal today.
1304
01:16:20.560 --> 01:16:22.760
I don't kind of want to do anything, right, which
1305
01:16:22.800 --> 01:16:27.560
is a different experience than you know, the cognitive experience
1306
01:16:27.600 --> 01:16:30.680
of well, Gramma just doesn't want to be around me today, right.
1307
01:16:31.039 --> 01:16:34.680
So when you create a micro community of people who
1308
01:16:34.760 --> 01:16:41.479
are sharing a nervous system lends to life. I think
1309
01:16:41.479 --> 01:16:44.039
it gets so much easier like that.
1310
01:16:44.039 --> 01:16:47.039
The contrast you know so much with when it comes
1311
01:16:47.039 --> 01:16:51.479
to shame, Shame leads to silence. To create this language
1312
01:16:51.479 --> 01:16:55.239
in a community where you have that connection, yeah, and
1313
01:16:55.319 --> 01:16:55.560
then to.
1314
01:16:55.680 --> 01:16:59.600
Create enough knowing about each other's nervous systems so that
1315
01:17:00.039 --> 01:17:01.640
you know, I have certain people in my life who
1316
01:17:01.680 --> 01:17:05.239
when I when I go silent, they'll reach out and say,
1317
01:17:05.279 --> 01:17:08.159
you know, just checking to see are you really busy
1318
01:17:08.279 --> 01:17:11.800
or have you gone into your dorsal dwelling? Right, because
1319
01:17:11.800 --> 01:17:14.399
they know me right, and and I love that.
1320
01:17:14.760 --> 01:17:14.920
Right.
1321
01:17:14.960 --> 01:17:18.479
So if we have people who know our nervous system patterns,
1322
01:17:18.560 --> 01:17:21.600
then they'll check in with us, you know, not with
1323
01:17:21.680 --> 01:17:24.359
a demand that anything happened, but just it's nice to
1324
01:17:24.439 --> 01:17:27.199
know that, you know, people are are.
1325
01:17:27.880 --> 01:17:34.039
There, right, And I love the dorsal dorsal dwelling. And
1326
01:17:34.079 --> 01:17:37.000
then earlier the one that I really connected with is
1327
01:17:37.039 --> 01:17:44.039
the sympathetic sympathetic storyland, which is such a great way
1328
01:17:44.159 --> 01:17:47.199
to to just explain like how we you know, we
1329
01:17:47.239 --> 01:17:49.439
start to look for the things in our world that
1330
01:17:49.520 --> 01:17:51.000
our body is feeling.
1331
01:17:51.520 --> 01:17:53.479
Which is your home away from home? And are you
1332
01:17:53.600 --> 01:17:55.119
more sympathetic or dorsal?
1333
01:17:56.079 --> 01:18:01.920
You know, I have been stuck in the chronic hypervigilance
1334
01:18:02.479 --> 01:18:07.800
as well as a dorsal shut down. But then there's
1335
01:18:07.840 --> 01:18:11.319
a lot of the fond the police appease in there
1336
01:18:11.800 --> 01:18:12.279
as well.
1337
01:18:12.760 --> 01:18:17.119
Yeah, well I'm gonna I'm gonna hope you find lots
1338
01:18:17.119 --> 01:18:19.079
of glimmers off and on here too.
1339
01:18:19.640 --> 01:18:20.000
Yeah.
1340
01:18:20.079 --> 01:18:22.720
It's interesting to see our patterns though, and then begin
1341
01:18:22.840 --> 01:18:25.479
to be curious about, you know, when did they come
1342
01:18:25.520 --> 01:18:28.960
into being and the fact that they're they're still serving us.
1343
01:18:29.119 --> 01:18:31.039
I mean, I have been a dorsal dweller for my
1344
01:18:31.479 --> 01:18:34.680
survival pattern for as long as I can remember, and
1345
01:18:34.800 --> 01:18:36.920
I think I I think I always will be. It
1346
01:18:36.960 --> 01:18:38.880
can change. I've had people say I used to be
1347
01:18:38.920 --> 01:18:41.000
this and now I'm this, So I love that, but
1348
01:18:41.560 --> 01:18:44.199
I think I'm always It's just it's where my system
1349
01:18:44.279 --> 01:18:47.039
knows to go. So yeah, yeah.
1350
01:18:47.079 --> 01:18:49.359
One of the questions we get asked most frequently is
1351
01:18:49.399 --> 01:18:53.479
where do you find safe people? And so I want
1352
01:18:53.479 --> 01:18:55.520
to connect. I hear what you're saying, I love it,
1353
01:18:55.760 --> 01:19:00.319
but how do I create safety for myself? And and
1354
01:19:00.359 --> 01:19:03.760
so then I've had to kind of nuance that because
1355
01:19:03.800 --> 01:19:06.880
what I've found for a lot of people is they
1356
01:19:06.960 --> 01:19:09.760
want to somehow jump to connecting with other people, but
1357
01:19:09.760 --> 01:19:14.760
they've never connected with themselves because their neuroception is picking
1358
01:19:14.880 --> 01:19:17.960
up that they're not a safe person and they've abandoned themselves.
1359
01:19:18.800 --> 01:19:22.560
So there's two elements there. It's learning to connect with
1360
01:19:22.640 --> 01:19:25.800
myself as part of this process of finding safety and
1361
01:19:25.880 --> 01:19:33.159
creating a safe place with myself, and then finding safe people.
1362
01:19:33.680 --> 01:19:35.159
Can you speak to those two?
1363
01:19:35.279 --> 01:19:39.880
Yeah? And I think in the world of helping professionals,
1364
01:19:40.840 --> 01:19:45.159
we take on the responsibility to be the safe, regulated
1365
01:19:45.239 --> 01:19:49.680
other for the people we're working with and I. In
1366
01:19:49.720 --> 01:19:54.920
my work teaching, I often tell people you may be
1367
01:19:54.960 --> 01:20:00.199
the first regulated human this person has ever had the
1368
01:20:00.319 --> 01:20:04.079
chance to be with. It's a huge responsibility that we
1369
01:20:04.159 --> 01:20:06.720
take on. But I do think that's where it can begin,
1370
01:20:06.880 --> 01:20:14.000
with our being regulated and welcoming in a nervous system way.
1371
01:20:14.319 --> 01:20:17.399
I often get people who say, my client says I'm
1372
01:20:17.439 --> 01:20:20.119
the only one they can talk to, or this is
1373
01:20:20.159 --> 01:20:23.439
the only place, and I say, so meet them there
1374
01:20:23.479 --> 01:20:25.760
and say, I am so glad that you feel safe
1375
01:20:26.000 --> 01:20:31.119
and connected here. Let's identify what are the cues that
1376
01:20:31.239 --> 01:20:34.479
bring that alive for you. Because when we can identify those,
1377
01:20:34.520 --> 01:20:36.680
we can begin to look for them other places. But
1378
01:20:36.800 --> 01:20:39.880
until we can identify what that nervous system needs to
1379
01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:43.600
feel safe and connected, we have no idea because again,
1380
01:20:44.039 --> 01:20:46.560
what works for you may not work for me, right
1381
01:20:46.600 --> 01:20:48.760
and so again we want to get very clear about
1382
01:20:48.760 --> 01:20:51.560
what is it that your nervous system is longing for
1383
01:20:51.680 --> 01:20:56.680
and feels would be you know, welcoming of connection. So
1384
01:20:56.800 --> 01:20:59.000
and I do think we have to start somewhere with
1385
01:20:59.199 --> 01:21:02.039
my clients sides me. You know, most of my clients
1386
01:21:02.039 --> 01:21:04.680
had a pet, and pets are a wonderful way to
1387
01:21:05.199 --> 01:21:08.119
you know, a mammalian pet, not your pet iguana or
1388
01:21:08.159 --> 01:21:11.159
your pet snake. But you know your your cat, your dog,
1389
01:21:11.239 --> 01:21:14.199
your horse, your your cow or whatever. But you know
1390
01:21:14.359 --> 01:21:17.039
pets are good. And then you know, some people have
1391
01:21:18.319 --> 01:21:23.239
will follow people, you know, we'll watch, watch them, listen, whatever,
1392
01:21:23.520 --> 01:21:26.840
and can feel that connection even though they haven't actually
1393
01:21:27.199 --> 01:21:30.000
been in connection. So we begin to get creative about
1394
01:21:30.000 --> 01:21:32.800
how do you begin to feel you know, you can
1395
01:21:33.079 --> 01:21:36.800
connect with another human and dip a toe in it,
1396
01:21:37.159 --> 01:21:40.319
try it on for size, see what happens. Because for
1397
01:21:40.439 --> 01:21:44.119
many people in the world, there aren't safe people around them, right,
1398
01:21:44.199 --> 01:21:46.279
and so you know, we have to make sure that
1399
01:21:46.359 --> 01:21:50.680
we find, you know, some safety somewhere. That's why sometimes
1400
01:21:50.680 --> 01:21:54.840
groups are lovely, right if we can find a group
1401
01:21:55.159 --> 01:21:59.640
where we really do feel welcomed and safe. But again
1402
01:21:59.720 --> 01:22:03.920
it's it's I think we build from one one person, right,
1403
01:22:04.279 --> 01:22:08.439
and then we go from there. Sometimes people have ancestors
1404
01:22:08.439 --> 01:22:13.159
that they feel connected with. There's a sense of ancestral
1405
01:22:13.199 --> 01:22:16.600
safety and connection. That's okay. Some people have, you know,
1406
01:22:16.640 --> 01:22:20.520
their practices include spirit guides or spirit animals, which can
1407
01:22:20.560 --> 01:22:22.640
bring a flavor of that. But I really do think,
1408
01:22:22.720 --> 01:22:25.000
and I maybe may be hard to say this, but
1409
01:22:25.079 --> 01:22:27.439
I really do think you need a living, breathing, nervous
1410
01:22:27.479 --> 01:22:31.800
system to come into connection with and feel that that
1411
01:22:31.960 --> 01:22:34.640
sense of safety in that that way of being.
1412
01:22:35.520 --> 01:22:39.000
You know, as you're speaking about connection, I want to
1413
01:22:39.399 --> 01:22:42.600
kind of jump across to the other, to the other
1414
01:22:42.640 --> 01:22:45.560
side of something that helps to create connection safe. But
1415
01:22:45.920 --> 01:22:50.720
setting boundaries and so you know, how do you hold
1416
01:22:50.840 --> 01:22:56.600
boundaries without collapsing escalating? What does a boundary look like
1417
01:22:56.760 --> 01:22:58.840
coming from from ventral?
1418
01:22:59.159 --> 01:23:02.520
So, yeah, boundary is such a different boundary, isn't it.
1419
01:23:02.560 --> 01:23:06.680
Then that sympathetic boundary is I've just gotten really angry
1420
01:23:06.720 --> 01:23:10.359
and everybody else's run away. That's how I set my boundary.
1421
01:23:10.359 --> 01:23:13.720
I just they all go right. Or the dorsal boundary
1422
01:23:13.880 --> 01:23:18.239
is you know, I've disappeared and you don't know it, right,
1423
01:23:18.279 --> 01:23:20.199
So I've set a boundary because I'm no longer here
1424
01:23:20.479 --> 01:23:25.800
doesn't matter, right, But a ventral boundary is a way
1425
01:23:25.840 --> 01:23:29.880
that I can say, here is what I need from
1426
01:23:29.920 --> 01:23:34.239
a place of regulation. I sometimes say I think you
1427
01:23:34.319 --> 01:23:38.199
can say most anything if you're in ventral, right, and
1428
01:23:38.239 --> 01:23:41.800
it's probably about true. You can. You can you can
1429
01:23:41.840 --> 01:23:46.359
tell someone something if it comes from your ventral regulated place,
1430
01:23:46.640 --> 01:23:49.159
even the difficult things, and we can't have the difficult
1431
01:23:49.239 --> 01:23:53.520
conversations if we're just regulated. So you know, setting a
1432
01:23:53.560 --> 01:23:58.279
boundary from ventral means talking about me, right, you know,
1433
01:23:58.359 --> 01:24:00.960
and we've been doing this forever therapy world, don't talk
1434
01:24:00.960 --> 01:24:03.399
about you, talk about me. But in a nervous system way,
1435
01:24:03.399 --> 01:24:07.600
it's absolutely true. Here's what my nervous system needs. I
1436
01:24:07.600 --> 01:24:09.760
don't even say here's what I need. I always talk
1437
01:24:09.800 --> 01:24:12.600
nervous system. Here's what my nervous system needs in order
1438
01:24:12.680 --> 01:24:16.880
to do whatever it is right. It needs space, it
1439
01:24:16.920 --> 01:24:20.960
needs time alone, it needs you to it needs to
1440
01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:26.920
not have your sympathetic energy dysregulating. We can talk about
1441
01:24:26.960 --> 01:24:29.119
it in these ways, and then we can have the
1442
01:24:29.159 --> 01:24:32.239
conversation right because if I say, here's what my nervous
1443
01:24:32.239 --> 01:24:37.079
system needs, right, what does your nervous system need? And
1444
01:24:37.159 --> 01:24:39.960
sometimes it's so far apart it's like, wow, I'm not
1445
01:24:40.000 --> 01:24:42.319
sure how we're going to ever find common ground here.
1446
01:24:42.319 --> 01:24:44.880
But sometimes we can say, oh, well I could do this,
1447
01:24:45.199 --> 01:24:48.279
you could do this right, and we can find our way.
1448
01:24:48.880 --> 01:24:52.439
We have to be willing to say our nervous systems
1449
01:24:52.439 --> 01:24:57.560
are too far apart right now to make this work right.
1450
01:24:57.640 --> 01:24:59.520
I know somewhere in some book I wrote, yet it's
1451
01:24:59.520 --> 01:25:01.319
my favorite. We're just put yet on the end of
1452
01:25:01.319 --> 01:25:06.159
a sentence, so our nervous systems can't come into connection yet. Right,
1453
01:25:06.479 --> 01:25:10.720
Sometimes we need to recognize that that there's too many
1454
01:25:10.800 --> 01:25:13.520
barriers in the way for each nervous system being able
1455
01:25:13.520 --> 01:25:17.560
to feel regulated enough to do this thing. And that's okay. Again,
1456
01:25:17.600 --> 01:25:21.199
it's not about wanting or not wanting. It's about nervous
1457
01:25:21.199 --> 01:25:23.159
system and I think that helps.
1458
01:25:25.399 --> 01:25:30.119
I love that you're talking about setting boundaries from different
1459
01:25:30.760 --> 01:25:34.600
states because I think for most people growing up within
1460
01:25:34.720 --> 01:25:39.760
complex trauma world is they've set either in the sympathetic
1461
01:25:39.800 --> 01:25:45.520
state aggressive or isolate the dorsal state. I'm just going
1462
01:25:45.560 --> 01:25:47.680
to pull away from everybody. That's how I set a boundary.
1463
01:25:48.359 --> 01:25:51.640
What I want clients to realize is in both states.
1464
01:25:51.760 --> 01:25:54.800
If you set boundaries in those two states, you always
1465
01:25:54.800 --> 01:25:58.399
feel guilty afterwards. Yeah, and then you cave on it,
1466
01:25:58.479 --> 01:26:01.800
and then you don't enforce and you go back on it.
1467
01:26:01.840 --> 01:26:04.800
So you train the other person that your boundaries don't matter.
1468
01:26:05.800 --> 01:26:08.039
And so it's only when you're in your ventral state
1469
01:26:08.359 --> 01:26:10.760
and you give a reason, this is what I need,
1470
01:26:10.880 --> 01:26:13.119
and then you can stick to it. Then you can
1471
01:26:13.239 --> 01:26:17.319
enforce it, and so just for you to explain it
1472
01:26:17.319 --> 01:26:19.039
that way was great.
1473
01:26:19.119 --> 01:26:21.720
And you can recognize it's not that I don't want
1474
01:26:22.439 --> 01:26:26.079
to do this thing or whatever it is I'm being asked,
1475
01:26:26.079 --> 01:26:29.399
except my nervous system says I can't. It's saying, no,
1476
01:26:30.039 --> 01:26:34.960
this something's out of balance here. Too many cues of danger. Really,
1477
01:26:35.039 --> 01:26:36.920
when it comes down to it, the simplest way to
1478
01:26:36.960 --> 01:26:39.640
think about it is the cues of danger are outweighing
1479
01:26:39.640 --> 01:26:43.520
the cues of safety. That's all it is. So you know,
1480
01:26:43.600 --> 01:26:45.840
I'm going to respect that. I'm going to honor the
1481
01:26:45.880 --> 01:26:48.199
wisdom of my nervous system. I think if we can
1482
01:26:48.520 --> 01:26:51.439
can do that right rather than override it. But I'm
1483
01:26:51.520 --> 01:26:54.159
just honored my nervous system is saying I can't do
1484
01:26:54.239 --> 01:26:54.920
this right now.
1485
01:26:55.159 --> 01:27:01.199
There's a lot here about a budding developing self awareness,
1486
01:27:02.079 --> 01:27:04.199
and some of the questions, some of the things that
1487
01:27:04.199 --> 01:27:06.199
you've said, some of the questions that you led him
1488
01:27:06.239 --> 01:27:10.279
through earlier, I can see those as being extremely valuable
1489
01:27:10.399 --> 01:27:15.960
for beginning that awareness. Is there anything else that you
1490
01:27:16.039 --> 01:27:19.640
feel would be valuable for somebody to know if they're
1491
01:27:19.680 --> 01:27:23.039
just coming into this for the first time, to begin
1492
01:27:23.199 --> 01:27:27.159
to build that self awareness to have that awareness of
1493
01:27:27.199 --> 01:27:31.159
their own nervous system, their awareness of connecting with others.
1494
01:27:32.359 --> 01:27:33.800
I mean, it's got to start here. It has to
1495
01:27:33.800 --> 01:27:36.319
start with us befriending our own nervous system. First. I
1496
01:27:36.399 --> 01:27:40.199
can't I can't do anything with you and yours until
1497
01:27:40.239 --> 01:27:45.039
I understand my guiding questions. You know, where am I?
1498
01:27:45.079 --> 01:27:48.319
What state am I in right now? And that's always
1499
01:27:48.319 --> 01:27:50.760
where I have to start. You know, I do I
1500
01:27:50.800 --> 01:27:53.319
have enough ventral and I anchored a ventral? Have I
1501
01:27:53.439 --> 01:27:55.479
gone fully to just regulation? Where am I?
1502
01:27:55.640 --> 01:27:55.880
Right?
1503
01:27:56.479 --> 01:27:58.680
And then you know, the second question is what does
1504
01:27:58.720 --> 01:28:01.399
my nervous system need in this moment to feel a
1505
01:28:01.399 --> 01:28:04.760
little more welcome, a little safer, a little you know,
1506
01:28:04.880 --> 01:28:08.680
whatever the qualifier you want to put in, because it's
1507
01:28:08.680 --> 01:28:12.039
not always safe that that is a word that works.
1508
01:28:12.239 --> 01:28:14.079
It is what the nervous system is looking for. But
1509
01:28:14.119 --> 01:28:16.560
it might just be what does my nervous system need
1510
01:28:16.600 --> 01:28:20.399
to feel a little less distressed in this moment? Right?
1511
01:28:20.439 --> 01:28:23.920
So there's and again I'm always asking about nervous systems.
1512
01:28:23.960 --> 01:28:27.560
So I think when we begin to understand what our
1513
01:28:27.600 --> 01:28:31.159
three states look like, feel like, sound like, then we
1514
01:28:31.239 --> 01:28:34.000
can answer that question where am I? So it's sort
1515
01:28:34.039 --> 01:28:36.800
of taking that step back to saying, you know, I
1516
01:28:36.840 --> 01:28:39.239
have a I have a map. It's called the personal
1517
01:28:39.319 --> 01:28:45.199
profile map. Do you do you give resources to your
1518
01:28:45.359 --> 01:28:47.760
to your listeners? Do you have a way of putting
1519
01:28:47.800 --> 01:28:48.680
resources out there?
1520
01:28:49.039 --> 01:28:51.000
We could add something in the show.
1521
01:28:50.800 --> 01:28:53.159
Notes for sure, because I can give I can send
1522
01:28:53.159 --> 01:28:56.640
you the PDF of that map. It's a with the directions,
1523
01:28:56.680 --> 01:28:58.840
because that's really where you need to start. You need
1524
01:28:58.880 --> 01:29:01.399
to know how to of these three states come come
1525
01:29:01.439 --> 01:29:03.640
alive for me, because if I don't know where I am,
1526
01:29:03.960 --> 01:29:06.560
I don't know what to do. So that's where I
1527
01:29:06.600 --> 01:29:09.279
would start. I'll send you that because you know, my
1528
01:29:09.359 --> 01:29:14.760
hope is everybody you know begins to understand where they
1529
01:29:14.800 --> 01:29:17.880
are in their nervous system, like where am I? And
1530
01:29:17.960 --> 01:29:20.920
if I'm in ventral, can I just can I celebrate
1531
01:29:20.960 --> 01:29:24.199
that for a moment? This is great? Can I Can
1532
01:29:24.239 --> 01:29:26.119
I hold onto it for or deepen it for just
1533
01:29:26.159 --> 01:29:30.359
a moment? And if I'm in a dysregulated, sympathetic or dorsal,
1534
01:29:30.880 --> 01:29:33.239
then at least I know where I am and I
1535
01:29:33.279 --> 01:29:37.760
can begin to look for what might help you know.
1536
01:29:38.119 --> 01:29:40.560
Since I in the past, I've been kind of dense
1537
01:29:40.600 --> 01:29:43.479
in my own healing and So what I'm going to
1538
01:29:43.560 --> 01:29:46.960
ask is you've given some examples of queues of safety
1539
01:29:47.560 --> 01:29:51.159
and some examples of glimmers, And I was wondering, you know,
1540
01:29:51.319 --> 01:29:54.680
so sometimes it's like one thing resonates but something else,
1541
01:29:54.720 --> 01:29:58.199
maybe just it glances off the side, And so could
1542
01:29:58.279 --> 01:30:01.600
you give some more example of what people have found,
1543
01:30:01.640 --> 01:30:05.399
even some that may be surprising for both cues of
1544
01:30:05.439 --> 01:30:06.800
safety glimmers.
1545
01:30:06.960 --> 01:30:10.680
Yeah, yeah, so you know we do. Cues of safety
1546
01:30:10.680 --> 01:30:13.960
are interesting because in the moment, a Q of safety
1547
01:30:14.039 --> 01:30:18.359
can be something you've never thought of before, right, Like,
1548
01:30:18.880 --> 01:30:22.319
it's interesting that the as I'm looking at the two
1549
01:30:22.359 --> 01:30:24.720
of you, I get the typical cues of safety, you know,
1550
01:30:24.720 --> 01:30:26.079
the way you look, the way you smile, the way
1551
01:30:26.079 --> 01:30:28.159
you move, all all of those things. But but I
1552
01:30:28.199 --> 01:30:32.479
get a Q of safety your your plaid shirt andy
1553
01:30:32.520 --> 01:30:34.600
for some reason. And I could take a moment and
1554
01:30:34.640 --> 01:30:37.159
I could think about but without even having to think
1555
01:30:37.159 --> 01:30:40.199
about it's just this resonance my nervous system is is
1556
01:30:40.439 --> 01:30:42.720
oh safe. I don't know why. I don't need to
1557
01:30:42.720 --> 01:30:46.239
know why, but it's it's resonating, right you You and
1558
01:30:46.279 --> 01:30:48.800
when you stop to notice them, you think, oh, they're
1559
01:30:48.840 --> 01:30:51.840
more cues than I thought. Queue of danger. I will say,
1560
01:30:52.640 --> 01:30:55.800
in your background, Andy is that there's nothing there. And
1561
01:30:55.880 --> 01:30:58.520
so for my nervous system, it's like, oh there's a
1562
01:30:58.640 --> 01:31:01.039
it's a you know, I mean, who would think about
1563
01:31:01.039 --> 01:31:03.319
these things? But when you stop and think about them,
1564
01:31:03.359 --> 01:31:07.520
you begin to recognize for yourself, Oh they're they're they're
1565
01:31:07.520 --> 01:31:12.760
these you know, typical cues of safety and danger for me. Glimmers.
1566
01:31:12.880 --> 01:31:15.159
You know, you got to you got to figure out
1567
01:31:16.039 --> 01:31:18.840
how do you notice a glimmer? Right, that's where we start.
1568
01:31:18.880 --> 01:31:21.479
How how does your nervous system send you a message
1569
01:31:21.520 --> 01:31:26.800
that something just appeared that was was you know, drawing
1570
01:31:26.840 --> 01:31:30.119
you towards a sense of connection or safety or okayness
1571
01:31:30.199 --> 01:31:33.000
or joy or magic or whatever it is. Right, So
1572
01:31:33.359 --> 01:31:37.119
you begin reflect on your day and think, was there
1573
01:31:37.159 --> 01:31:39.359
a moment that when I look back on it now,
1574
01:31:39.600 --> 01:31:41.920
oh maybe that was a glimmer. You begin to get
1575
01:31:41.920 --> 01:31:46.079
to know how your glimmers come to life. I do
1576
01:31:46.199 --> 01:31:49.039
this other thing called anchors, and I think anchors are
1577
01:31:49.479 --> 01:31:54.319
you know, easy to do there They're the category of who, what, where?
1578
01:31:54.840 --> 01:31:57.239
And then we have touchstones, so you can begin to
1579
01:31:57.279 --> 01:31:59.479
think about who are the people in your life who
1580
01:32:00.039 --> 01:32:03.439
you know when you're around them? You feel okay, right,
1581
01:32:03.600 --> 01:32:06.479
and you know, maybe you don't have those people, but
1582
01:32:06.520 --> 01:32:07.720
we begin to look for them.
1583
01:32:08.000 --> 01:32:08.199
Right.
1584
01:32:09.840 --> 01:32:13.319
What are some of the small things you do that
1585
01:32:13.439 --> 01:32:18.880
remind you that, you know, ventrals around, that that energy
1586
01:32:18.920 --> 01:32:22.359
of connection is around, right, And they're just simple things,
1587
01:32:22.640 --> 01:32:26.439
not practices, not big practices, but simple things like you know,
1588
01:32:26.479 --> 01:32:29.399
looking out the window and looking out in nature, or
1589
01:32:29.439 --> 01:32:33.319
patting your dog, you know, or the simple things you do.
1590
01:32:33.680 --> 01:32:36.079
And the where where are the places in your world
1591
01:32:36.159 --> 01:32:38.720
where you feel you know, safe and okay, where you
1592
01:32:38.720 --> 01:32:39.359
feel welcome?
1593
01:32:40.079 --> 01:32:40.239
Right?
1594
01:32:40.319 --> 01:32:43.560
Often nature brings that to us. Sometimes it's a place
1595
01:32:43.600 --> 01:32:46.520
of worship, it's a place in your house. Right. So
1596
01:32:46.560 --> 01:32:50.159
those are the anchors, and then touchstones are what are
1597
01:32:50.199 --> 01:32:52.560
the things that we you know, the sense that we
1598
01:32:52.640 --> 01:32:56.279
bring in the things we wear, you know, the the
1599
01:32:56.680 --> 01:33:00.560
lucky socks that have some you know, flavor for us
1600
01:33:00.600 --> 01:33:04.439
that we just feel good. Right, Like when when you
1601
01:33:04.520 --> 01:33:07.560
were getting dressed today to do this podcast, your nervous
1602
01:33:07.560 --> 01:33:11.159
system helped you do that. Right when I was getting dressed,
1603
01:33:11.159 --> 01:33:13.079
I was thinking, what what do I want to wear
1604
01:33:13.119 --> 01:33:16.439
that makes me just feel you know, like I'm like
1605
01:33:16.479 --> 01:33:20.039
I'm good to go, right, And this happens without our
1606
01:33:20.079 --> 01:33:22.439
thinking about it. But if you think about it, you'll
1607
01:33:22.439 --> 01:33:25.880
think about you've got a favorite sweater or a favorite shirt,
1608
01:33:26.000 --> 01:33:28.319
or you know, a favorite something that when you put
1609
01:33:28.319 --> 01:33:31.439
it on, you think, now I'm okay. Right, So these
1610
01:33:31.439 --> 01:33:33.680
are some of the ways that we can work with
1611
01:33:33.760 --> 01:33:38.520
our nervous system to begin to find those small moments.
1612
01:33:38.560 --> 01:33:40.279
And that's where we want to start. We just want
1613
01:33:40.279 --> 01:33:43.680
to start with small moments, right, something that's within reach.
1614
01:33:44.319 --> 01:33:46.760
You know, a tiny moment that I can recognize and
1615
01:33:46.840 --> 01:33:50.159
I can I can name it, I can market right.
1616
01:33:50.479 --> 01:33:52.640
And then you know the other thing that we do
1617
01:33:52.880 --> 01:33:56.399
with our glimmers or anchors or whatever is if we
1618
01:33:56.439 --> 01:34:01.079
share it with somebody else, we get that sense of connection. Right.
1619
01:34:01.199 --> 01:34:05.600
So you know when I was telling you that your
1620
01:34:05.920 --> 01:34:09.399
you know, plaid shirt brought me something, that sharing in
1621
01:34:09.439 --> 01:34:11.600
it brought it alive for me again, and then I
1622
01:34:11.640 --> 01:34:14.119
could feel the sense of it was okay to say that,
1623
01:34:14.239 --> 01:34:19.239
and so we had that moment that deepens that experience,
1624
01:34:19.760 --> 01:34:23.119
so that we want to find little ways to begin
1625
01:34:23.159 --> 01:34:27.479
to reach for more moments of ventral because the beautiful
1626
01:34:27.479 --> 01:34:32.439
thing about the nervous system is that the small moments accumulate, right,
1627
01:34:32.479 --> 01:34:37.439
So we don't need this great, big, awe inspiring day
1628
01:34:38.119 --> 01:34:41.000
to change our nervous system. It could change the nervous
1629
01:34:41.000 --> 01:34:43.680
system when we do have those moments that happened, But
1630
01:34:43.720 --> 01:34:47.840
the nervous system changes. It's reshaped by small things happening
1631
01:34:47.840 --> 01:34:50.439
over and over and over. And for me, that's really
1632
01:34:50.439 --> 01:34:53.720
reassuring because in the life I'm living right now, the
1633
01:34:53.800 --> 01:34:57.399
small moments are within reach. You know, one great, big
1634
01:34:57.479 --> 01:34:59.880
day or six hours of I don't think I can do,
1635
01:35:00.600 --> 01:35:03.279
but I can have the small moments. And for my clients,
1636
01:35:03.279 --> 01:35:06.600
and especially my clients who were you know, really suffering
1637
01:35:06.680 --> 01:35:11.039
with you know, unresolved trauma, knowing that they didn't need
1638
01:35:12.000 --> 01:35:15.640
long moments of regulation to reshape their system, they just
1639
01:35:15.680 --> 01:35:19.199
need tiny moments was so reassuring and brings the hope.
1640
01:35:19.479 --> 01:35:23.119
I mean, that's the hope that comes from the nervous system.
1641
01:35:23.439 --> 01:35:28.560
This to me is such practical teaching for people that
1642
01:35:29.359 --> 01:35:33.600
is everyday stuff. So I picture myself just let's say
1643
01:35:33.600 --> 01:35:36.720
I have a hard day where there's kind of one
1644
01:35:36.760 --> 01:35:40.520
frustration after another that is powered up and get I
1645
01:35:40.520 --> 01:35:44.560
get home and I go, okay, I'm still my ventral
1646
01:35:44.560 --> 01:35:47.279
but everything else is really close to wanting to take
1647
01:35:47.319 --> 01:35:50.560
over what do I need to do to really get
1648
01:35:50.600 --> 01:35:54.279
anchored well in the ventral. And so if my wife
1649
01:35:54.319 --> 01:35:56.239
comes up and it's not just how is your day,
1650
01:35:56.279 --> 01:36:00.239
but oh, you had a rough day, a huge Or
1651
01:36:01.119 --> 01:36:05.039
I sit down and put on some music, or I crochet.
1652
01:36:05.079 --> 01:36:08.359
I love to crochet. That gets my hands going in
1653
01:36:08.439 --> 01:36:14.560
a rhythm. That's very therapeutic. I do something with the dogs,
1654
01:36:14.640 --> 01:36:17.079
or a grand kid comes up for a big hug,
1655
01:36:17.119 --> 01:36:24.000
And it's all of those little somatic experiences that just
1656
01:36:24.199 --> 01:36:29.239
help the nervous system inch its way to a better state.
1657
01:36:29.680 --> 01:36:33.600
Can you like there's so much now about kind of
1658
01:36:33.640 --> 01:36:38.239
somatic Therapyes, from dance to art to pets to and
1659
01:36:38.279 --> 01:36:43.960
you've mentioned so many of them. Other very just practical
1660
01:36:44.239 --> 01:36:49.359
little steps that help the nervous system that people can take.
1661
01:36:50.159 --> 01:36:52.760
Yeah, And I think it's I think it's really individual.
1662
01:36:53.159 --> 01:36:56.439
And I like to tell people. You know, you will
1663
01:36:56.479 --> 01:37:00.720
get people telling you to do these five things and
1664
01:37:01.279 --> 01:37:03.520
check with your nervous system, because your nervous system is
1665
01:37:03.520 --> 01:37:05.920
going to say yes no, or maybe if it says no,
1666
01:37:06.119 --> 01:37:08.279
just throw it out and try something else. You do
1667
01:37:08.359 --> 01:37:11.279
not need to do that thing, right. If it says yes,
1668
01:37:11.359 --> 01:37:12.920
go for it. If it says maybe maybe you want
1669
01:37:12.920 --> 01:37:15.720
to play with it, right, But the categories, like, you know,
1670
01:37:15.880 --> 01:37:18.359
some kind of breathing. A lot of people use breathing.
1671
01:37:18.920 --> 01:37:22.920
I don't. I sigh a lot because sighing is there's
1672
01:37:23.039 --> 01:37:25.880
science around sighing. So sighing works for me. Some kind
1673
01:37:25.880 --> 01:37:31.760
of movement, right, whether it's just a simple whatever kind
1674
01:37:31.800 --> 01:37:36.039
of movement doesn't whatever works for you, right, some kind
1675
01:37:36.039 --> 01:37:40.439
of connection right with an animal, with nature. We have
1676
01:37:40.479 --> 01:37:43.359
four pathways of connection to self, to others, to the world,
1677
01:37:43.359 --> 01:37:46.640
and spirit. Right, So some you know, something in one
1678
01:37:46.680 --> 01:37:50.319
of those categories you talked about, crocheting, you know, which
1679
01:37:50.359 --> 01:37:52.960
is the movement, plus arts, some kind of some kind
1680
01:37:52.960 --> 01:37:56.159
of art, some kind of music. We begin to look
1681
01:37:56.199 --> 01:37:59.600
for categories and think if I filled something in these
1682
01:37:59.640 --> 01:38:02.000
category worries, you know, for me and maybe for you
1683
01:38:02.119 --> 01:38:08.199
to reading, right, you know, getting diving into something that
1684
01:38:08.279 --> 01:38:12.720
catches my interest is a way for me. So you know,
1685
01:38:12.760 --> 01:38:15.720
we think of what are what are the ways that
1686
01:38:15.760 --> 01:38:18.640
you are drawn to, and then we can resource those
1687
01:38:18.640 --> 01:38:20.920
and what are the ways that don't work for you?
1688
01:38:20.960 --> 01:38:22.760
And maybe you want to play around with it, or
1689
01:38:22.760 --> 01:38:26.079
maybe you just think just not for me, right, Yeah,
1690
01:38:26.119 --> 01:38:30.359
But it's it's really in being curious and creating your
1691
01:38:30.439 --> 01:38:35.479
own list of things. And then it is fun to
1692
01:38:35.520 --> 01:38:38.800
compare lists with other people because I have friends. I
1693
01:38:39.840 --> 01:38:45.239
am not a mover per se. I love like organized things,
1694
01:38:45.279 --> 01:38:49.039
but if it's like spontaneous, totally freaks my nervous system out.
1695
01:38:49.039 --> 01:38:52.720
I will disappear immediately. And I have friends who are
1696
01:38:52.760 --> 01:38:56.039
you know, they love improv and dance and all this stuff.
1697
01:38:56.039 --> 01:38:57.840
And I look at me and go, I love that
1698
01:38:57.880 --> 01:39:01.199
you love that. Do not ever ask me to come
1699
01:39:01.239 --> 01:39:04.680
near That terrifies me. So it's fun to think of
1700
01:39:04.760 --> 01:39:07.119
things that are on your list and would so not
1701
01:39:07.199 --> 01:39:08.000
be on my list.
1702
01:39:08.119 --> 01:39:11.680
Right, I agree with all of that, and then compare
1703
01:39:11.720 --> 01:39:14.840
my list with my wife's list, and it's night and
1704
01:39:14.920 --> 01:39:17.840
day in some areas, and it's and we just both
1705
01:39:17.880 --> 01:39:20.159
had to learn what works for me doesn't work for you,
1706
01:39:20.239 --> 01:39:23.119
and that's fine. It's different, nervous, and.
1707
01:39:23.119 --> 01:39:25.720
It's nice to know your lists because then when you
1708
01:39:25.760 --> 01:39:29.239
come home and sit down to crochet, your wife knows, oh,
1709
01:39:29.279 --> 01:39:31.840
he's just taken a little time to you know, find
1710
01:39:31.880 --> 01:39:34.319
his way back exactly exactly.
1711
01:39:34.399 --> 01:39:39.800
Yeah, it's beautiful, well dub for people who want to
1712
01:39:39.840 --> 01:39:43.079
explore more of your work and continue learning with you.
1713
01:39:44.000 --> 01:39:47.159
Where would you like them to go to find you?
1714
01:39:48.000 --> 01:39:51.920
Come to the website rhythmoregulation dot com. We're always trying
1715
01:39:51.960 --> 01:39:57.279
to put new things up and have free resources, and
1716
01:39:57.319 --> 01:39:59.520
you can sign up for the newsletter, which I will
1717
01:39:59.560 --> 01:40:04.520
say comes out randomly, so it's not good for nervous
1718
01:40:04.520 --> 01:40:07.840
sysm that needs predictability, but my nervous system just can't
1719
01:40:07.840 --> 01:40:12.600
do it more than randomly. So but we do love
1720
01:40:12.680 --> 01:40:17.560
to we love We're trying to create a community right
1721
01:40:17.600 --> 01:40:22.880
where where the glimmers are something that we're really working
1722
01:40:23.159 --> 01:40:25.399
working with, and so we're trying to create a global
1723
01:40:25.800 --> 01:40:29.680
glimmer community, a global glimmer collage. We invite people to
1724
01:40:29.720 --> 01:40:33.039
send in their their glommers and we begin to pull
1725
01:40:33.079 --> 01:40:37.520
them together because again, you know, it's it's a hard
1726
01:40:37.520 --> 01:40:40.600
world we're living in right now. And I will say
1727
01:40:40.680 --> 01:40:44.720
that that I can get overwhelmed very easily and very
1728
01:40:44.800 --> 01:40:49.640
quickly by the the what I think needs to be changed,
1729
01:40:49.640 --> 01:40:52.079
and I have no idea how to change it. And
1730
01:40:52.159 --> 01:40:56.199
so for me coming back here to my nervous system
1731
01:40:56.840 --> 01:40:59.760
is helpful because this system I know. I can work
1732
01:40:59.800 --> 01:41:03.760
with all those systems totally I don't know, but this
1733
01:41:03.840 --> 01:41:07.479
system I can work with, and there is immense power
1734
01:41:08.680 --> 01:41:12.520
in moving through the world from a regulated place, I
1735
01:41:12.560 --> 01:41:17.399
can impact so many nervous systems just by being regulated,
1736
01:41:17.439 --> 01:41:20.560
and so I take that on as a as a goal,
1737
01:41:20.640 --> 01:41:24.560
as a as a responsibility to be responsible for what's
1738
01:41:24.560 --> 01:41:28.039
the autonomic information I'm putting out into the world, knowing
1739
01:41:28.079 --> 01:41:30.720
that we can change the world this way.
1740
01:41:31.439 --> 01:41:32.439
That was really beautiful.
1741
01:41:33.279 --> 01:41:39.039
I want to thank you for your depth, clarity, the steadiness,
1742
01:41:39.119 --> 01:41:43.159
the safety that you brought into this conversation. Your work
1743
01:41:43.439 --> 01:41:47.439
really gives so many people an accessible way to connect
1744
01:41:47.520 --> 01:41:50.840
with and welcome learn how to welcome their own nervous
1745
01:41:50.880 --> 01:41:54.479
system and so we're grateful for the tenderness and the
1746
01:41:54.520 --> 01:41:57.159
precision that you bring, for how you help people feel
1747
01:41:57.199 --> 01:42:00.680
less alone in their inside their own bodies. Thank you,
1748
01:42:01.159 --> 01:42:05.359
Thank you to everyone listening. We hope that today helped
1749
01:42:05.359 --> 01:42:08.239
you feel just a little more curious, a little more
1750
01:42:08.279 --> 01:42:12.239
compassionate towards the patterns that your body's carried. And I
1751
01:42:12.279 --> 01:42:15.960
think that some of what we discovered today is that healing.
1752
01:42:17.119 --> 01:42:20.319
It helps to be noticing what's happening, honoring the wisdom
1753
01:42:20.399 --> 01:42:23.880
in it, and just gently supporting the natural pathways back
1754
01:42:23.920 --> 01:42:27.920
to connection and so thank you everyone for being with us.
1755
01:42:28.079 --> 01:42:31.079
Take good care of yourselves, take good care of each other,
1756
01:42:31.680 --> 01:42:36.800
and we'll see you next time on Time with Tim.
1757
01:42:36.920 --> 01:42:39.760
Thank you for joining us on the Time with Tim podcast.
1758
01:42:40.319 --> 01:42:41.920
If you'd like to share your own.
1759
01:42:41.760 --> 01:42:45.680
Experiences or have questions, feel free to email us at
1760
01:42:45.720 --> 01:42:50.439
podcasts at Tim Fletcher dot caa want to learn more
1761
01:42:50.439 --> 01:42:55.000
about complex trauma, subscribe to Tim Fletcher's YouTube channel for
1762
01:42:55.079 --> 01:42:57.119
past lectures and is Friday.
1763
01:42:56.840 --> 01:42:57.720
Night Tim Talks.
1764
01:42:58.479 --> 01:43:01.880
You can also connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn,
1765
01:43:02.039 --> 01:43:06.840
and TikTok. Looking for more support, we offer programs and
1766
01:43:06.880 --> 01:43:10.920
courses to help with healing complex trauma and recovering from addictions.
1767
01:43:11.520 --> 01:43:14.319
Visit Tim Fletcher dot ca to learn more or send
1768
01:43:14.399 --> 01:43:18.359
us an inquiry. We're here to support you until we
1769
01:43:18.439 --> 01:43:21.600
meet again. Take care and thank you for letting us
1770
01:43:21.640 --> 01:43:23.319
be a part of your healing journey.