Regulate Yourself

your body is feeling. To put it very I don't know, stupidly, I guess you know, non scientifically, but our nervous systems connect with other people's nervous systems. You can you can tell this by the way you feel with working with others, living with others, in any kind of relationship with another person, our nervous systems are always doing a subconscious sniffing out. And when we become conscious of what's going on, we might say things like that person annoyed me, or they

have a good vibe, or they're not validating me. I feel unsafe, you know, or I must run. This really feels dangerous. Even when we're talking about attachment styles in love All of this comes back to our nervous systems are always kind of sussing out the situation, and there are times when we may not be regulated. So what dev and I talked about is an example of a therapist.

So if you're in therapy for whatever reason and your therapist comes running in, Oh my god, traffic was bad, and you know she's spilling coffee, and she sits down

that her nervous system in that moment's unregulated. She can get it regulated in a few minutes, but you're being met with an unregulated energy, which is really not what you're paying for, right, So how many times a day are we just letting it fly unregulated around others without realizing it affects them and now they have to regulate.

And now if you're in relation, they may need to coregulate, which is to kind of help you on a subconscious level chill the funk out as they maintain their boundary and they're regulating. Now, I'm probably not saying any of this correctly, So that's why we're just gonna take it

to deb Dana. But again, if you do not have anxiety, this episode will fascinate you because it's all about how the human brain works and how our nervous system informs our brain about what we think about certain situations, and a lot of times our brain might get it wrong. And so what we have to do in those situations is say, I know I'm not in any real danger. Why am I so triggered or annoyed about this? And even if you never figure it out, there's a way

to begin to regulate your nervous system. And it starts with curiosity, and Deb takes me through something that I think will be a really good example for you of a situation I found myself in recently. How it makes me feel. Deb explains what's going on in my nervous system that I wasn't aware of, and then she shows me how to regulate. Again. I find this all very fascinating. We only scratch the surface, but let's just get there.

Let's just get to my interview with Deb Dana. Deb Dana l c SW as a clinician and consultant specializing in working with complex trump. She is one of the founders of the poly Vagel Institute dot Org. Deb developed the Rhythm of Regulation clinical training series and lectures internationally on ways that polyvagel theory informs work with trauma survivors, and we do talk a little bit about trauma survivors as well towards the end of the episode. Deb is

the author of tons of books. A lot of them are for clinicians therapists, but her newest book is really for the everyday person and it teaches you everything that we're going to talk about in this episode and more about how to anchor your nervous system. Again, you don't have to have anxiety for this to be a thing. Her new book is called Anchored, How to be Friend your Nervous System using poly vengel Theory. It came out in so I talked to the by the way beautifully

regulated Deb Dana. She's regulated. I'm coming and regulated. She's got good vibes. This is a super fun chill I think, very calming conversation. So please enjoy my chat with the very regulated Deb Dana. When I'm looking at the book Anchored, it seems different than some of your other work and that it's real, really geared towards the lay person. And I'd love to know your thoughts and why it is so important that everybody, not just smarty pants people who

study this we're living. Why everybody needs to understand our nervous systems, and as you say, how to befriend your nervous system using polyvagal theory wise is important. Yeah, it's it's it's a lovely place to begin. And I loved it when you said, you know, nervous systems connected globally, because I do think this is such a fascinating time

to be thinking about about that. So I just wanted to stop there for a minute and take that in that you know, we're connected nervous system to nervous system around the world. This is a fascinating thing to to to think about and one of the reasons why I think every human should understand how this part of our biology works. Right, the nervous system is the common denominator and our human experience, we all have one. It works along these three basic organizing principles that Steve Forre just

developed in polyvagal theory. And you know, I you know, I'm a I'm a clinician, and so I've written a lot for other clinicians, and then you know, really want to write for what I call curious human beings, right, the general audience, because in my work as a therapist, I really believe that part of my job is to help my clients understand what's happening so that they can manage the the everyday experiences and the ordinary ones and even some of the more extraordinary ones without depending on

me as a therapist. They understand how their nervous system works so that they could begin to work with it, because that's what we do. We have to understand how something works so that we can begin to then shape it in in the way we want. So that's really my reason for writing Anchored and for for moving out into a more general audience, because you know where this sort of is the the car we're driving through life, right,

and we should understand how it works. And you know, I think I think that's part of our our our human responsibility is to understand why am I behaving this way, responding this way, thinking this way? How am I in this story? Because if I understand how I got here, then I can understand how to move out of here and find another more regulated place. So that's I think the call to action is to understand and to be responsible for our nervous systems as we move through the world.

I'm always trying to appeal to the listener that doesn't have anxiety but likes to check in with this show because people can learn so much about their brains, their emotions, their bodies by the people that I interview. And so to the person without anxiety, who might think, well, you know, that's great nervous system, that's for the nervous people. How does the nervous system come into in everyday life for everybody,

not even those of us with anxiety? And sometimes I think it's a these days, a name that can make people turn a deaf ear they hear nervous system. I think they think it's for nervous people. As you said, we all have one. And so how give me an everyday example. I don't know a family mom, dad, kids, mom mom kids whatever, or a couple living together, or people at work, how does knowing about your nervous system help the every day that has really nothing to do

with like they have anxiety and that kind of thing. So, you know what, we think it's our brains that are are running the show, But in fact what happens is the nervous system, through the pathways that travel to the brain, send information about what's happening in your body to your brain, and then it's the brain's job to make up a story that makes some kind of sense about what's happening

in the body. Doesn't matter if it's anxiety, if it's overwhelmed, if it's depression, or if it's regulation and safety and calm and happiness. The brain then makes up a story, right, So, so I think it's important for us to understand where the stories come from the state your The state of your nervous system creates the story. It's the platform for the story. So you know, our nervous systems, yours and mine, met about ten minutes ago, and our nervous systems are

getting to know each other. We're getting to know each other through our conversation. But our nervous systems are having an experience as well, and that happens moment to moment as we move through life on a level below the brain. Nervous system to nervous system, we are making a decision is it safe to connect or not? And that has nothing to do with anxiety or depression, you know, anger or fear doesn't matter, right, It is all about what are the cues that are of the systems are sending

to each other. They're communicating, and that's called neuroception in the world of of the nervous system, and neuroception is this way the nervous system listens, and it listens inside our bodies. So it's early morning here, it's my nervous systems listening to you know, how am I digesting what I've had so far? What's my heart rate, what's my breath like? Right, what's happening in my viscera? And out of that information, it's making a judgment is this a

safe time or an unsafe time? And then it listens in the environment. Right. So we just I just had a ding from my message because I hadn't turned on do not disturb, right, So the environmental cue was one of danger, Oh my gosh, you know we're doing this podcast in my thing. Just think that was like, right, And then you said, oh, don't worry, we can edit that out. And immediately in this space between the two of us, I felt a welcome and a and a

sense of safety. Right. So it has nothing to do with whether I have anxiety or I'm an anxious person. It simply is this flow that we are always in um in that inside outside and between neuroceptive experience. This is great. So and and you know, to everyone listening, we're not in studio together, right, We're over a zoom type situation. So I'm assuming, I mean, I know the answers, I read your book, but I'm assuming the nervous system

can communicate even across zoom. And can you tell us how that would be happening without I know, as you said, my words, we're very comforting because I'm a great person. But how are our nervous systems communicating wordlessly without even being in the same room, right, right? And so you're saying I'm a great person, you're talking to my brain.

But your your tone of voice, the look on your face, the smile, that the engagement with your eyes, the way you lean forward to connect, that's communicated by nervous system, right, And that's that's the experience. So through our eyes, through our our prosody, our tone of voice, through our our head movements, through our ears, how we take in information. These are wired in to our biology. Right. So it's not the words you're saying, it's the way you're saying them.

And we know that we've heard that all along. But now we have the science underneath it to say yes, it's your your intonation, it's your prosody, and if that feels welcoming to my nervous system, then I'm going to tune into the information and the words. But if it doesn't, if if for some reason, your tone of voice or the look on your face, you know, or the way you move is feels unsafe to my nervous system, I'm not going to listen to you. I'm not going to be able to. Not that I don't want to, but

my biology is going to say no, not safe. And that happens all the time when we're connecting with people, right we don't do you get sometimes like a gut feeling about somebody. I don't know why, but I don't really want to hang around with this person. Or I don't know why, but I really want to spend more time with this person. Yeah, and you know it's there's

an article, very unscientific article. Um what it's saying can be scientifically proven that the article is a little more you know, just fun that I read a few weeks ago about why some people just rub us the wrong way and someone else, you know, might say that, oh my god, that's the greatest guy ever. And I had this experience recently. Um, I don't want to say in listening, but I'll just say. It's a work situation where someone at my job and they actually don't work in our company.

They work outside of our company, but they have to come in once a day to do something COVID related. Oh, I'm just exposing it. And this person annoys me. And it is the words they say. Sometimes they don't say offensive words, but they just they just have kind of an awkward, joking around style that I find aggressive. And everyone else loves this person, and I at I'm not

joking when I say it. I get physical anxiety, not overwhelming like I need to, you know, lay down, but I do get a tense My shoulders go up thinking about I've got to see name redacted this morning and in a minute, and I actually feel physically nervous. Now, I don't think that's because I have anxiety and I've

had a history panic disorder. I think I would be that way even if I were an anxiety free person, right right, because their their cues of warning that his nervous system sends to your nervous system and our nervous systems are shaped by our lived experience. Right, So there's something in that person's way of being that is a familiar cue of danger to your nervous system and it

enacts this heightened activated response. Right. I had the same um experience with a colleague who my brain knew he was a very skilled clinician and that he was good at what he did, but when we were in team meetings, I just wanted to argue with him all the time. And I could not figure out what that was, right until I was able to take a step back and really sit with my nervous system and see what's happening.

And there was a way he moved and in a posture and in a look to his presence that reminded me of someone from my past. So it had nothing to do with him at all, but but my nervous system just felt the familiar cues, and then here I was fighting with him all time. Right. And once I, once I could get that that awareness, then I could change. My nervous system still had that response, but I could then my brain could say, oh, not fill in the blank,

and then I could relax. Okay, So that's an interesting point. So even you figure out why you have this urge to argue with someone that you know is skilled. Once you figure that out, you still might have that physical nervous system reaction even if you're not like feeling it so strongly. But you can now make a decision as someone with a brain right to not argue. Right, the brain can get the information might still be the same a less intense body response, but the brain can make

up a different story. So for you, the question would be, as you think back in your history, what are the familiar cues that this person gives off? And then to kind of explore, Okay, what is it? Right? Yeah, and I think with this person, I don't for right now, I cannot think of someone specific in my life, but it reminds me of just a pattern of a type of person that when they're anxious or nervous, they make jokes, they may have some boundary problems, and those people make

me just feel icky. But now my brain just has to make a choice too. I don't know whatever it's going to do, send love and compassion or just say, Jen, you know you don't have to physically get anxious this this person's no threat and you knew this, but just saying it to myself, maybe trying to make it more fun.

You know, maybe I come in with a different attitude and I say something to you know, I don't let him start the conversation I come in because it's literally a I'm not joking when I say a two minute interaction every morning. It's it's just taking a COVID test. But but how how hard for your biology to have that two minute experience every day? And so we want

to not have to do that. So as you you know, you can pre plan because you can think about oh okay, and you can feel that move into activation, which is sympathetic nervous system that fight and flight a little lengths a dy angers is in sympathetic right. You can feel that activating, and you can turn towards it. This is the befriending piece. You can turn towards that experience with a bit of curiosity and say, oh, I hear that, you know, um, and I wonder what else we could

do this morning. You know, there's a discernment question that I use, UM, which I think is really helpful because we all have these experiences that make no sense. There's an overreaction or an underreaction. So the discernment question, is in this moment, in this place with this person, is this level of response or this response needed, And so you just ask yourself that question. That's inviting your brain to partner with your nervous system to be curious about that.

And sometimes the answer is yeah, I do think it's needed. But most of the time, for for many of us, it's no, probably that that intensity response does not needed. Okay, And then I can partner with my nervousness and say thank you for minding me about this pattern that I find. Um, what word would you say? That I find difficult or just annoying annoying around you? Yeah? Right, thank you for

reminding me about this pattern that I find annoying. And I'm going to anchor in that place of regulation, which is ventral in this place of regulations, so that I can meet this moment without having to disrupt the flow of my day. And and I don't mean to you harp on this situation too much, but it's it's bringing up for me all of the ways that our nervous systems are interconnected. So in my past, before I've done a lot of work on myself, I was a little

more of a reactionary person. To put it mildly, so

say gen one point. Oh may have not reacted to him in front of him, but I would have gone two, I mean zero to a million with a story in my head after my interaction with him, which would have gone something like, my life is hard enough and I have to do this first thing in the morning instead of blah and being mingming ming ming, and it somehow would have gone into how my life sucks and I'm not getting what I want in life, in relationships and work. I mean, it would have just gone out of control.

And then I bring that energy to my coworkers. And that is what I mean by I heard you say that our nervous systems are all interconnected. So now my coworkers have to have a nervous system to brain response about I'm coming in hot, you know, after this thing that really could have dissipated by now. And so I think that's is that like a responsibility in a way that we all have. They always say, you know, if

everyone meditated, the world will be a better police. It's sort of like if everyone could self regulate and just or not take get that way, self regulate or coregulate you could still come in hot as you call it.

You could come in and that sympathetically mobilized chaotic energy which their nervous systems are they're going to feel through neuroception, but they could understand, oh, I know this is a tough thing for Jen every morning, and they could meet you with regulation and then you would coregulate back to regulation. So it's not simply self regulation. Coregulation is so important, right, that's the third organizing principle. We have neuroception we talked about.

We have hierarchy that we touched on briefly. It gets that regulated ventral, it's the sympathetic anxiety anger, and it's the dorsal which I don't know if you go there that that collapse disconnect, right, and too that's a hierarchy. And then we have coregulation. We humans need to have other humans to coregulate with. And so that morning, you know, test is not a coregulating moment for you. Where is a coregulating moment that you can have either before or

after it. That's really what we're looking for. And this brings up so many things about relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, whatever, where if you are with good people that you can trust, right, they will co regulate with you. So it's absolutely true, I hope in a non dumping things on them way. I have tried to make it funny and told my work friends, I don't want this guy annoys me and

it's it's sort of a funny joke. They tease me about it and it's fun, but they do know that it actually does touch off something where uh, for me, it's just about like I'll give you so that people don't think I'm completely out of my mind and this is completely out of nowhere. But in my other life, I'm a stand up comedian and this person found out so for me, a lot of times when men find out I'm a comedian, they whatever they do, it makes them want to be funny, and that's fine. I don't

need that. I'm not really interested in people being funny around me. And it is a thing where I can get very angry at men because I think it's a gendered thing. I think sometimes they try to be funnier than the woman to prove themselves, and I think some most people have a tendency to go mean with their humor. So he might make fun of what I'm wearing. It's that kind of thing where it's like, oh, he's representing

this cultural force that I'm very exhausted by. And so my friends at work understand there's actually something kind of deeper underneath this. But you know, they're also not going to coddle me because I need to handle my ship.

So so it's this wonderful coregulation that I get from them where they're like, I'm sorry, but then we laugh about it, right, And it is fascinating what you just you know, talked about because your nervous system um is responding to this other nervous system and then from that state of um sympathetic, a bit of it felt like a bit of anger along with the anxiety. So that's simple because sympathetic survival has those twin pathways of anger

and anxiety both our survival responses. And when we enter into a sympathetic state of anger anxiety a survival state, we enter into a certain survival story and we began to hear the survival story that comes along with that state.

For you about about larger than this person, right, right, Yeah, And so you know, one of the things that's interesting to do is if you can get to a place where you're feeling regulated and anchored, in ventral in that place of curiosity, right to to turn toward the morning experience from that anchor, from curiosity, from um, you know, where they're different stories can emerge and what's the story

that you hear? Then? Right, because it's a very different story and and you know, as it just comes to mind what the story could be, it's nothing to do with me. I'm not in that story. My curiosity goes, well, maybe he's just you know, excited to be here, and you know, it's just trying to he he doesn't know me, so he's just going to make an assumption like, well, she probably likes funny people. So I'm just gonna try to make her COVID test a fun experience because I'm

a nice person. So look at that. I mean, what a different story it is, right, So, and and that's what we do. The experience does not change, right, You still going to get the code test. Yeah, but depending on what nervous system state you're in, the story is very different. And so could I then start to change my nervous system and that if I come in with that story that I got to by looking at it

in a curious way. Could that actually change? I know you say it may not change, like we may still come in and have that nervous system response, but could that change with my brain doing a different story. So so we do it the other way. So what I want you to do before you go in for the COVID test is find a way to anchor in ventral, find your way to regulation, because then organically your feelings,

your behaviors, your stories come along with it. And that's why I want to get into what we're saying when you say ventral, endorsal and all that, which is you know, funny where I meant to start. But sometimes interviews I just they go their own way. And what I loved about this, and I'm sorry to the listener if you think I was trying to have my own personal therapy

session with deb. I like to give these real life examples to show what could seem like the most meaningless, little moment, not that it's such a big deal, but it just illustrates how many times a day we have that with other people. And the coregulation is so important because we need to um. I want to ask you more about that later if we get to it in terms of like when people meet romantically for the first time, and how the nervous system can be a little wonky there.

But so let's get into like what the poly Vagel theory is. So you're saying, our nervous system has three parts to it, and and can you tell us those three parts? So we have these three states, we have ventral, sympathetic endorsal, and that's called the autonomic hierarchy for listeners

who want that term. That the brilliant thing about the hierarchy again that Steve um Poor just when he developed poly Vagel theory helped us understand, is that we move through these states in a particular way, right, it's not random, right, and our our our biology are nervous system really longs to be in a state of regulation, safety and connection. That sort of the energy is is flowing. That's called

ventral ventral ventral um. And in ventral we have access to everything from zen like calm to passion, play, alert, excited um. And that the thing that helps us understand ventral is again we go back to neuroception. The neuro sption is one of feeling safe enough, right, So it's a it's a neuro sption of I'm okay. And when neuro sption is in this bringing us cues of welcome

or safety. Our state is one of ventral and from ventral um we can connect, communicate, we can see possibilities, we can solve problems, we can move through the world um in a way that that feels organized, that we have purpose, we have passion, all of these wonderful things. Right, nervous system longs to be there, I think inherently knows

how to bring us to that place. What happens for many of us is that traumatic experiences or ongoing UM danger in the world covers up those pathways, so they're harder to find and they're harder to travel. Those pathways, but they exist inside all of us. And so when my work as a therapist, I'm not creating something new with my clients, were uncovering what's already there, you know. So for everybody in the world, your pathway home to

ventral exists inside your biology. And I think that's a really reassuring thing to understand, right right, It's not like, you know, if you were born with early challenged trauma, or you experienced trauma as a young kid, it's not like, um, you were born without a kidney. It's not a thing you don't have, right, It's just a thing you don't have access to, or you don't feel like you have

access to. It's less easy to access, probably because the other thing I do want to say is that in the course of every day, we have these micro moments of ventral, micro moments of of okayness, right, which I call blimbers, and we want to be looking for of those glimmers. And even in the most trauma saturated life or the most dangerous world, there is a micro moment, there is a glimmer that will appear. And I think that's really lovely for people to be on the lookout for.

And it's reminder that this amazing thing that is our nervous system can hold all of the trauma and all of those experiences and see a see a glimmer. Right, it's a both end, it's a it's a really helpful thing to remember that that, yes, this is a really hard day for me, and and and I am overwhelmed and oh a bird just I just heard a bird sing, right, And I could take that in So that that's important because our two survival states, which are the other two

parts of the hierarchy. Sympathetic and dorsal sympathetic we've talked about. You know, for people with anxiety, sympathetic is probably very familiar. It's a place of fight and flight, of of you know, anxiety to panic attack, you know, this whole continuum and anger from you know, frustration to rage. Right, it's a survival response, and we want to remember that when it

first activated for us, it was very adaptive. It may not be so adaptive now in the moment, which is why we want to begin to shape it in another way. But we call it an adaptive survival response, and that's sympathetic, and we all go there in some form or flavor most every day. Right, there's a moment of oh, I am so done with this energy, right, you know. And then dorsal is the third state that we have access to, another survival state, and that takes us to the opposite

of sympathetic. Sympathetic mobilizes us with disorganized, chaotic energy. Dorsal immobilizes us. It drains all the energy from us. Is that different um than parasympathetic nervous response, So parasympathetic is both ventral and dorsal it's the parasympathetic nervous system. It's both the calm connect safe and the disconnect collapse disappear, and so parasympathetic which has those two branches, and sympathetic, which is fight flight. When you put them together, that

gives you the automotive nervous system. Anxiety bites will be right back after a quick little message from one of our sponsors. I think often on this show because people I think that I talked to aren't is studied in Polly veagele A is you and so we always talk about when you're having a panic, you want to go

from the sympathetic nervousism to the parasmithetic nervous system. But now you're telling us there's this other way to look at it, which is sounds even more fun going into dorsal right, which sounds is It's interesting because sympathetic is if if we put this on a hierarchy, at the top is ventral, in the middle of sympathetic at the bottom iss dorsal right. So sympathetic is the only place you have two choices, right your nervous system, your brain

is really not helping you. Here is your nervous system. Right, Your nervous system can either bring you back to ventral, where you come back into regulation and connection, or it's going to be you're going to get pulled down to dorsal, which is where you disappear, dissociate. Um, just going through the motions. But I'm not really here. So it's not a it's not an adaptive behavior. It's it's like shutting down. It's it's not it's not like sleep. I mean, well,

I mean it can be. I mean people can enter dorsal and just sleep and disappear in that way. But but it's and so it's an adaptive survival response, but it doesn't bring it doesn't nourish your nervous system and bring you back back into connection. Correct. Okay, so I was wrong that it's even more relaxing than paras of aathetic It's like, no, that's a you know, disordered way, right, right. So, so those are the three states, and we moved through them down and up all the time, in small ways

and then sometimes in big ways. Right like this morning it's it's it's nine where I am in the morning, and already, as I reflect on my day, I had a beautiful ventral experience. I went for a walk in the nature preserve. It was beautiful. And then I came home and I was met with an email that totally frustrated me. So that was a bit of sympathetic. And then I had a connection with one of my trainers and it was like, I am so overwhelmed by all this.

I could feel the flavor of just give it up, right, you know, And so all of that is normal. So I want people to understand that this movement into sympathetic endorsal is normal, is expected. It brings us some of the richness of life. It's when we get pulled out of regulation into a survival state. So when you get stuck in anxiety, then we suffer. But if you have an anxious moment and you return recover to regulation, that's

normal and it's and it's okay for your body. In other words, it's when people here, oh, we go through these three things all day. You know a lot of people who want to heal their anxiety or they're into self help. You know, there is just such a lack of I don't know how to put it. But if you're on Instagram and you're following these you know, wellness things. There's such a lack of helping people to understand that you you're not bad, You're not doing it wrong, there's

no perfect. So the goal isn't I'm going to live in ventral only and I'm never going to get into symbathetic or dorsal. It's like, as long as you can dip in and dip out, you are actually living your best life exactly the exactly yes. And and for you know trauma survivor clients, um, it's when they get pulled out and get stuck. Because when we enter sympathetic endorsal, as we've been talking about already, you can see the stories that activate, we get stuck in that story and

we can't find our way out. And so the work to to be a you know, a healthy human is to find pathways to come back to ventral and to to be able to to know I just get pulled into survival story and I can find my way back right and with practice it gets easier. And I want to you before we get into I want to ask you some things about how people can heal from trauma.

But I want to throw in just a few of my comments that I like, what you said about someone who has had a traumatic life, who's working through things, they might have glimmers of hope or of something that brings them contentment. And what I love about that. And you said it with the word curious too. So there's two C words and there's two G words. Okay, so we've got glimmers versus gratitude. So somebody who's having a

very hard time might not be there yet. And I always say gratitude doesn't have to mean you feel it or you love something, but you know, maybe just think about something. But the better way to put it as glimmer. You know, you don't have to force someone to get into this gratitude state before they're ready, but they can glimmer. Oh you know what, my favorite book, my favorite author, they just released a book today. It's just a glimmer of something that brings you joy, connects you to you,

has nothing to do with your trauma story. Great. And then when I was talking to you about my little friend there at the COVID test, I jumped to, well, maybe I should have compassion for him, and what you said was curiosity. So those those two C words again, jumping to I need to have compassion is again like putting this pressure on myself to be this amazing person, and curiosity got me there anyway without me having to say in a judgmental way towards myself, why don't you

have compassion? And So I love these words curiosity and glimmers. I think everyone out there should replace compassion and gratitude with these words when they need to. It's interesting because you know, curiosity is um a quality of of ventral, of that state of regulation, safety and connection. So when I can feel up just a drop of curiosity when something catches my intention, I go, huh right, then I know, oh my ventral is just you know, come to life

a bit um. Compassion and self compassion are need far more ventral energy to to access and that's fascinating. So which is technically scientifically harder? M it's not just emotionally or mentally, no, it's it's harder to get to compassion, self compassion, cury pocity is is always where I want to start. And you know, with my with my clients, it was like, you know, can we can we be compassionate? Why would I want to be compassionate about you know,

this person that that has hurt me, right, I agree you. No, we're not going there now. We may never get there, and that's okay. This is about you anchoring and regulations so that you can feel some well being, physical and psychological well being, and then curiosity just organically emerges. You organically felt curious because you came to some central regulation.

It just happens. This is so great and this, you know, it just reminds me of so many people that long ago, before there was the science we have now that we're saying things like this. One of my favorite people is Dr Edmund Jacobson. In my early anxiety recovery, one of the first things I did because my anxiety was showing up is this phobia flying. I took a Fear of Flying course and we were introduced to progressive muscle relaxation and a psychiatrist taught the course, and he said, we

have to start here with our bodies. Then it will give us the you know, probably all this was poly bagel theory. It will be able to um get the mind ready to intellectually think about what we're gonna do about our fears of flying. But Edmund Jacobson. Dr Edmund

Jacobson came up with progressive muscle relaxation. In the thirties, he wrote a book called You Must Relax, and back then a lot of people were going out drinking after work to relax, and he kept telling people your mind will follow if you actually relax the muscles in your body, and people just did not listen because that doesn't sound as fun as going up for a drink, and and uh, you know it. To me, it's the most important thing.

And everyone in these days talks about meditation, which is great, but it almost seems like if you don't meditate, you're gonna die. You know, you're going to um your life. You're not gonna be able to extend. Your life is long, and you're not gonna be able to change your neural pathways if you don't meditate. And I always see the people who asked me just start with progressive muslin relaxation. Listen to a guided thing, stiff and relax your muscles.

It has been the most profound thing and simple thing of my life. And I didn't realize then that it was all to do with everything that you're talking about now. And I love what you're saying because it's it's simple and yet profound, and that's what we're looking for. Because you know, for for me, even I'll use myself as an example. If I need to meditate a half hour to day, or even meditate ten minutes a day to become healthy, I can't do it. You know, it's too

great a challenge for my nervous system. My nervous system can't stay in that state. I get, I get anxious, and then I disconnect. I just go to go to I'm not really here, and the meditation can happen, but I'm not here doing it, right, that's my pattern. Right. But if I know that doing small things over and over reshapes my nervous system, I'm good. Right, Like, if I can find three glimmers a day, then I'm going to start looking for more and it begins to accumulate.

It's not simply this micro moment. It's a micro moment that finds a way in and then there's another and another, And it's helpful for people to understand that. Yes, for some people, meditation is wonderful, breath practices are wonderful. If that is not for you, that's okay. Your nervous system will help you find the thing that is right for you. Right, progressive muscle relaxation might be the thing that's right for you. Right looking out at nature might be the thing. They're

all sorts of things. So whenever anybody says, you know, I used to get things at the beginning of the pandemic, we got things in our mailboxes. Five things to do to whatever right, ten things that will keep you. And I started thinking, Wow, none of those work for me. What's wrong with me? Because that's where we go. And then I came to oh, my nervous system says no, thank you. Let's find something that does work for me. And there are plenty of things that work for me.

But I'm not going to tell you that there are the five things you need to do right right. I'm gonna invite you to explore and find what are the five things you want to do. We'll continue the interview on the flip side of a quick message from our sponsors. We'll getting into the trauma connection. You know, at the beginning of the interview, I made this note because you were talking about how the nervous system is in our body and it signals to the brain what we're going

to make of this sensation, And I know. I talked to you, um Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett, who's a neuroscientist, and she explained the process of you know, like let's say, um, beginning to have a panic attack on an airplane, that your brain is just trying to predict what's happeneding based on your body's cues. And if your body is just freaking out for no reason, your brain is going to take a minute. And it's in that moment that we can either latch onto the weird things our brain is

telling us or we can know better. But that takes practice. And so I'm thinking about again another buzzword. We hear the mind body connection, and I feel again that culture makes us think that the mind body connection means it starts in our mind and we can control our bodies and blah blah blah. And it's really body to brain connection right again, It starts with regulating the body, then it can move up to the brain. Is there am I saying that? Right? Yeah? It's interesting. Is in therapy

we talked about bottom up and top down. I've never heard that, yeah, And so what we really want is we want bottom up to meet talk down because really we are an integrated system. Right, what we we are not a brain and a body. We are one system and the communication pathways go with both directions. Right. The

body to brain pathway is powerful. And so when my heart starts beating faster, when my breath changes, and that gets sent up to my brain, and my brain is used to anxiety or panic, it's going to go there, right because it knows that's the pathway. It's traveled so often. Right, And some of the work with trauma survivors is to notice when your heart rates needs up and your breath changes.

You know, can we consider excitement right instead of anxiety because it's the same body experience, but the brain makes up a different story. So we want to encourage the brain to to look at you know, what are all the options for stories? Right? So you know it oftentimes we think if we say something different, we'll have a different experience. That that's the top down, totally talk down. Like just changing the belief when we're working against the

body is a no win situation. Right. If your brain and your body are in a disagreement and and your body feels very strongly about it is going to win that argument all the time. Okay, So so trying to change your thoughts while your body is not, it's not going to work. It's like throwing I don't know, I don't know what. It's like tape that's not stick anymore.

It's not going to stick, right, It's it's when it's when we first feel the change beginning to happen, before we've gone fully into the survival response, that we can, you know, recruit our brain to help us, because the brain is still working prefrontal cortex is still there working online with us. So when I first begin to feel my heart beginning to beat faster, I can be curious because I haven't left that regulated state and gone to survival.

But if I now in sympathetic anxiety survival, my brain is is no longer. It doesn't come along for the ride, so to speak, so it's not there to help me. So this is my silly analogy. I live in New York, so I'm running for the subway. The doors are open, that's my window right to get in there and tell my brain a different story. And if I don't make it,

the doors shut, train is off, it is gone. And so I guess that's why this stuff takes practice, right, Because you have to keep experiencing your body about to go into full survival mode in that little window. If you can do that mind work right there, um great, and then keep practicing that. But you might miss the window sometimes, which is obviously fine. Yes, we we all missed them indow sometimes I'm now going to have that image in my in my head of the doors are closing,

right and do I make it or not? Right? And and yeah, the thing that we want to do in our work, with our own experience when something is happening is to slow it down. Right. As we slow it down, we bring because all of these experiences are what we call implicit experiences, right, all of this body stuff, all of the nervous system stuff is happening below the level of our conscious awareness. We have to bring it into

conscious awareness. And when we do that, and like we did the turn toward and look at it, we can slow it down so the door won't close quite so quickly. That's really what we're we're trying to do, right, Give us more time. And when you're working with trauma survivors, doesn't matter what the trauma is. I mean, if they um, you know, had sexual abuse, if they had mental abuse or even if they were a baby that I mean,

I've heard this too. This is always very hard for me to comprehend, but I'm sure you can explain it. I'm always like, what, how is a baby that you know, I don't know, was sick when they were born and they were maybe an incubators and they didn't have a lot of that human touch. I mean, I get it, but I don't how does someone so young who's not even experience seeing something quote emotional yet and then ends up having very loving parents, Like, how does that traumas

day in the body? So we come into the world expecting we have a biological expectation that we will be met by another person who has a regulated nervous system because coregulation. We don't survive without that coregulation, right, And and actually that need for coregulation lasts until the day we die. But as we come into the world, it is truly a life or death situation. So for the little ones who end up premature and in an incubator, you know, not connected to their caregiver, that is a

biological affront to their system, right. They need that connection, and so instead of mother holding they're they're in a incubator with tubes and wires and noises and all of this stuff assaulting their system, and so that gets it's a you know, their neural seption is one of danger, right, So when neuro seption begins to create those pathways those patterns then and that's one of the reasons why skin to skin contact kangaroo care has become so popular even

you know, so as soon as a tiny premius is able to be outside the incubator skin to skin contact because they're trying to create that that sense of safety and coregulation, and then that does that stay in their body until there older Well, it's a neural pathway that gets created. Right, the nervous system is missing what it needs and so it has to compensate in some other way. So we build pathways of connection and pathways of protection.

And so if we grew up in a in a home where the world was was dangerous, it doesn't really matter in what way it was dangerous. So what we say in this kind and the work is it doesn't matter so much what happened to you. It matters how your nervous system responded to what happened to you. So for some people growing up in a dangerous home, they

become very sympathetically charged. They might get very big and acting out, or they might have that huge anxiety where they need to manage everything to make sure it stays okay, so that's sympathetic. Or they might go to the dorsal place where they try to become invisible, fly into the radar, not be seen, not be heard. Those are the creative

ways the nervous system is helping them survive. And we carry those patterns into our adulthood even after we are no longer in those experiences, right, And that's why we need to then go back and look at those in in rewire and re story, because otherwise we're simply acting out of those familiar cues that our nervous system took in and learned how to respond to creatively to keep

us alive. So let's say you grew up in a traumatic hosthold of I don't know, there's whatever it was, instability in any form from the littlest thing all the way up to alcoholic parent. There's violence. So that person who's carrying that in their nervous system and they've developed all these neuropathways of protection, how might that come up, like obviously if they're met with the same thing that could come up, But could it be even a little thing like a friend says something that they take the

wrong way. I mean, is that where it comes out exactly that That's where you know, NEU reception feels a familiar flavor of a queue of danger, and all of a sudden we're having this this response. Right, it's like, oh, I don't want to be friends with that person anymore, or or you know, I don't want to do this job, or it becomes something big, and it starts from a familiar queue of danger, right. And the cues are again the embodied cues, the environment mental cues, and the relational cue.

So those are the three pathways. So even the environment, you know, my my my work environment might have a familiar queue of danger from my past and I end up leaving that job, and I am going my brain's gonna give me a story about why I left. It's not going to be oh, that the environment had that queue of danger, right, And when the environment has the queue of danger, you're not saying necessarily that the environment

is dangerous and they should have left. It was a So going back to me, my COVID test person, It's it's really an overreaction to something that reminds you like the danger could just be like whatever it is you you think your boss doesn't appreciate your workers something right, And it can be something as simple as as you know, I can't work in an office with no windows, got it? And other people feel very comfortable in an office with no windows. It either feels it can feel cozy, or

it can feel trapped. And you know, if I don't, if I simply just keep leaving jobs but don't understand why, I'm following what my nervous system is is telling me to do, but I don't understand it. And that's why I think when we understand we can work with right. I'm probably never gonna want to work in a in an office with no windows still, but if I understand it, then I at least know what it is I can

ask for or I'm looking for. That's so great. And so to anyone out there who suffered any kind of trauma and they're looking for a therapist, it really sounds like they need to find someone that understands this work. Because if we just keep approaching it from because I've seen this in life. I've seen therapists try to jump to let's create different neural pathways with thoughts, and the body is never addressed. Um, it's making sense now that

that just doesn't work. What should people look for in a therapist if they want to work through some trauma? And I think there are lots of therapies that you know are going to bring the body in to the process. And so you know, I probably for for me when people ask me, I say, why don't you, um ask the therapist? I think we should all shock for therapists, I think, you know, we should do a meet and greet. And for me, it's like, does your nervous system feel

as though this might be a fit? Right? So when you talk to somebody, do you get the sense that, oh, you know, I'd like to talk to this person again, or or no? And if it's if your nervous system says no, move on, right, because you will find somebody who feels like a fit. If this feels like a fit, then you could talk to them and say, so do you how do you work with the body, How do you think about the nervous system, how do you think

about healing? Trauma. Do you, you know, work from the brain down or do you focus more on the body or do you do both? And you know, sort of ask those questions to interview. You want to interview with therapists and find out, you know, what does this feel like? Right? How does my nervous system, my nervous system say yes, no? Or maybe? If your nervous system says yes, keep talking. If it says no, say thank you very much. As it says maybe, I'd keep talking and see, you know,

explore right, and can we trust that? You know, if someone hasn't done this kind of work and you know they're they're maybe still in that mode where they just keep avoiding things that can you trust your quote got in that moment um, your nervous system won't betray you in that way? Um, I guess. In other words, it might, it might betray you. Wanna on a note, I don't know, is there what's it? It's interesting because there can be

a mismatch happening within the person's nervous system. When I meet a client for the first time, I know that it's my job to be regulated and to offer that autonomic regulation of safety and and a welcome through through my nervous system to that person and see what happens. Right, and it's and it can be challenging. And yet the power, I guess I'd like to say this as well, the

power of ventral is pretty astounding. Right as I am regulated and in connecting with a client for the first time, their nervous system is getting a different experience off of an experience of someone who is safe and regulated and predictable. And no matter what they say, I just say, I stay regulated and curious. Right. And then if you're a nervous system, if you and I are having this conversation and your nervous system feels, oh, I can't do this.

What it's telling you is it doesn't feel safe enough yet to dive into this, And that I think is is wisdom, right, And then you know, we have to make it safe enough. That's really smart because I'm thinking about anyone going in there be for any reason. If your therapist comes in, they're late, they've got a coffee.

Now I come so sorry traffic that is, they cannot do that, right, Like they've got to fix that and come in regulated and and not and and that is it may seem so like oh, it's fine, I get it. You know, it's crazy city out there, but they really like, no, you're not getting your needs met on this biological level and you cannot accept that, right. Is that like a deal breaker? Well, you know it's interesting because for me

that's a deal breaker. Right. And and in the therapist I trained, I would hope they would never come in that way. But if they do, you know, and I've had many messy mornings, right, and they're probably been mornings when I have entered a session not fully regulated. I name that with my clients, say, oh, you know, this was one of those messy mornings. I'm going to take a moment. Let's just arrive together and and find our

way to regulation. Right, Because if I try to fake it till I make it, the through neuroception, the other person's nervous system gets it. And for many trauma survivors, their experience has been that that they've been told what they feel isn't true, or what they're seeing isn't happening. And so to be able to say, yep, a little bit is regulated. Give me a moment so we can anchor here together and arrive. Then the nervous the client's nervous system says, Oh, I was right on a first meeting.

It's probably not a good sign. We'll be right back. Hey, Hey, it's me again. I hope that you had a great and relaxing time listening to my interview with dab Dana. Let's go over some of the takeaways that we got from talking with Deb now. These takeaways are always available on my website, Jen Kirkman dot com Anxiety Bites. You can find the link to my website in the show notes. You can find a link to deb Dana's work and

her book as well in the show notes. And once again, um if you want to tweet at me, it's at Jen Kirkman and at Instagram at Instagram at Jen Kirkman on Instagram, and you can let me know how much you love the episode. I love to hear feedback. You may feel like, oh she knows, I don't. I love to hear it. So thank you, and you can always send an email to Anxiety Bites Weekly at gmail dot com. We are coming to the last episodes of the series and so get your emails in soon. Okay, So let's

talk about the takeaways from this episode. The nervous system is the common denominator in the human experience. The ventral vagel state is the rest and digest state. It's our state of safety and homeostasis. The dorsal vagel state is one of shutdown, when we are pulled away from connection and into a state of self protection. Part of our human responsibility is to understand why am I behaving this way, responding this way, thinking this way. The brain isn't running

the show of our human experience. What happens in the nervous system is and then that information travels through pathways to the brain, and from there the brain tries to make a story of what's happening in the body. Neuroception is the process of how our nervous system listens inside of our body. People's nervous systems determine if another person is safe by noticing the tone of their voice through their eyes, their head movements through their ears. In other words,

how we take in information. It's not the words someone says, but how they're saying them. The cues that are nervous system sends us about. Another person's nervous system is shaped by our lived experience. If your sympathetic nervous system is in activation. You can turn to it with curiosity. It's

a discernment question about the level of response needed. We can partner with our nervous system when it's putting us in high alert by being aware that it's alerting us to a pattern and deciding how we want to respond to help us anchor into ventral regulation. People with a chaotic energy need not only to self regulate, but it helps if the people in their life can co regulate with them, which brings the nervous system back to a

ventral state. The three states of polyvagal theory are ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal. It is normal to move throughout these states many times a day. The goal isn't just to stay in ventral. That's not realistic. The goal is to be able to regulate. Trauma survivors often need to just have a glimmer during the day. Did they hear a song they love, see a son set, anything that gives a

few moments of joy. Curiosity is a much more realistic state to expect yourself to move into than compassion, and no one should pressure themselves to feel compassion when they're recovering from trauma. When we are born, we have a biological expectation that we will be met by another person who has a regulated nervous system that we can co regulate with, and that need lasts until the day we die.

If a newborn doesn't receive that, a neuropathway is created because the nervous system is missing what it needs and it has to compensate in some other way. People who grew up in a chaotic home may become very sympathetically charged as they're kind of default state and act out often. It doesn't always matter what exact trauma happened to you, but how your nervous system responded to what happened to you.

The job of a therapist is to create an environment that is safe to corregulate in, and they should make sure that they are properly regulated before an appointment. If not, this can and maybe should be a deal breaker for clients. That is all for this episode. Please keep listening. We've got a few episodes left, a lot of great stuff

coming up. Next week. I am talking to former politician and former soldier Jason Candor about his new book and his experience getting help for his PTSD eleven years after he first developed it and what his journey was like and why he wants to help other people start getting the help they need a lot faster than he did. So thanks again for listening to anxiety Bites and yes,

anxiety bites, but you're in control. Mmmm. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.