250. Easily Increase Safety through Passive Cues: Polyvagal Theory for Everyday Life Tip 2

You've probably learned about the polyvagal theory, how your nervous system shifts between safety, flight, fight, and shutdown. And now you're asking yourself, okay, well now what? Last episode I gave you the first of five tips to identify your polyvagal state. In this episode, I help you take another step through tip number two, increasing passive cues, uh, through the environment, passive safety cues in particular.

By the end of this episode, you'll better understand safety cues in general and pass the safety cues in particular. You'll also have at least one very specific and very practical thing that you can do today to access your safety state a bit more than yesterday, and you'll be set up to do the same thing tomorrow. Hi, my name is Justin Sunseri. I'm a therapist and coach who helps you live with more calm, confidence and connection without psychobabble or woowoo.

Welcome to Stuck Not Broken, and Polyvagal Theory for Everyday Life tip number two. This podcast is not therapy, nor is it intended to replace therapy, of course. Safety and the brainstem. As mammals, and in the most basic sense, our autonomic nervous systems can exist in a state of safety and connection, uh, sympathetic flight fight, or collapsed shutdown. That's very, very basic polyvagal theory. Easy peasy. So obviously we want more safety activation, right? Yeah, of course.

Well, how do we do that? We need to cue safety. Our brain needs to realize that it's safe, not on a cognitive level. I'm talking on a much deeper, very organismic basic level. Like even though you may consciously know that you're safe, that doesn't mean that the rest of your body does. When you're anxious, I could ask you, Hey, are you literally safe? And you'd say something like, yeah, no poop, Justin. Why are you bothering me? And then of course my feelings would be hurt.

The point here is that your thinking conscious brain knows that it's safe in a very literal sense, but it's like the rest of your body doesn't believe it. So why is this? That's because the brainstem needs to receive safety cues. The brainstem is really the most important aspect of the Polyvagal theory, not the vagus nerve. The brainstem is where all of the state shifting takes place. Your body and the rest of your brain communicate with the brainstem. The brainstem is the middle point.

It receives signals from both the body and the brain, and then uses these signals to shift your state to whatever's necessary at that moment. The brainstem is also the thing that continually tells your autonomic nervous system that it's in danger, keeping you stuck in a defensive, uh, traumatized state.

So to optimally use the polyvagal theory knowledge is, is not to try stimulating your vagal nerve or gargling or humming or whatever hack you're trying. Instead, it's as simple as increasing the cues of safety that your brainstem is receiving. You give it more cues of safety and it will take care of the rest. It will shift your autonomic state towards safety and away from defense. Does this release your stuck trauma?

No, not by itself, but continually feeding your brainstem cues of safety will help increase its access to safety and give you the platform that you need to work on your trauma and relieve your stuck defensive state if that's your goal. The basic idea is that your brainstem needs to receive signals of safety. So how does it get those? It can receive these signals from a few sources. Uh, number one is the rest of the brain.

So thinking can influence your brainstem, like, uh, remembering safety or learning new judgment free information like the polyvagal theory.

Uh, we'll call this top down. The rest of the body is the second source. Everything that's happening below the brainstem, so we'll call this bottom up, singing and dancing, are really great examples of cueing safety in the body. The third source is the outside world. The things that are happening outside of your body. These can send signals of safety to, and this is what we're gonna focus on. For the rest of this episode.

We're gonna call this outside in and even more in particular, we will call these passive safety cues. These are things from the outside that you don't really have to do anything with. They just sort of cue safety in your system passively. Passive safety cues So the outside world can send your brainstem cues of safety or defense. We want to increase the cues of safety. The problem is that we don't have much control over the outside world, right?

Uh, we can't turn off the annoying music at the grocery store. We can't make people give us more space when we're in line and we can't stop the incessant loudspeaker that's announcing codes when we're there. We also can't control the weather, and we also probably don't live in a forest or near a picturesque beach that you can easily access by stepping outside of your back door. I know I don't if you do good for you, but we do have homes and we have complete control over the things in our homes.

Or if you're like renting a room, you have control over your room. You can control how loud things are and you can control the space or how quiet things are, excuse me. And you can control the space and the lighting too. Of course, there's some restrictions, but there's a lot of control we do have over the things in our home. So can you bring the beach in your home or can you bring the forest? No, not really, but.

You can turn the sound of waves on, or you can get a candle that smells like your favorite forest tree. So maybe you can't make the perfect home environment that's ready to be in a magazine. We don't need that, but you can adjust some things in your home to cue more safety today than yesterday.

I talk a lot about this in my second book, stuck Not Broken, book Two, building Safety, and also in the Building Safety Anchors Course in the Unstucking Academy, but I will cover three really easy things that you can do to increase safety from the outside in. In this episode. Before implementing these though, I want you to focus on one area of your home, not the entire home, not the entire room, maybe just a corner, just one area.

In the book, and in the course, I call this the Passive Safety Environment. Pick one area to increase passive safety cues, and then branch out from there as you're ready to. Scent in the Passive Safety Environment you can easily increase passive safety cues through the smells of your passive safety environment. This probably won't cost you a thing since I am willing to bet. You already have a candle or some form of aromatherapy, like one of those diffuser things.

Um, I just got this candle from Hawaii. We visited the north shore of Oahu last week. I picked this up because it has a coconut scent to it, and it is awesome. Is it worth 30 bucks? Not really, but I got it anyways. I, I love the scent and the taste of coconut. I also highly recommend opening windows for a bit and then letting your space air out. I find it really useful, kinda like a blank slate.

Plus if the weather's right and you can open things up, well now you have a soft breeze coming in and some sunlight providing even more layers of passive safety. So find a scent that speaks to your system currently. Uh, get it going, and that's about it. That scent will continually provide you with cues of safety passively. Once it's on, you don't really have to think about it anymore.

Lighting of your Passive Safety Environment This one might be a tad more challenging and and potentially cost something, and that's adjusting your lighting. But let's start as free as possible. You probably have curtains or some other window covering in your home. If you're in a dysregulated shutdown state it might feel good to have your curtains closed and block light from coming in, but. That's not necessarily safety cueing.

I know it kind of feels better, but that's not the same as safety cueing. But maybe your system is ready for a bit more light. So opening your curtains, a crack might be a good idea. As you get more safety in your system, opening them a bit more and more and more will be easier and easier. So if you need darkness at first, fine, but listen to your system. It might be ready for a little bit of light.

If you lean toward darker environments, you could also turn on, on like a, uh, a lamp in the room, especially like a smaller spot, you know, a little lamp, not the huge overhead lighting. And if your lamp is too bright, well, can you dim it or can you add a shade to it, or can you cover it with something that's heat and fire resistant? Please don't start any fires.

When cueing safety from lighting, natural lighting is typically better than artificial, um, for passive safety, but it's also free, which is good. As much as I love natural light, I also love my, uh, smart bulb artificial lighting. This might be a great idea if you have the money for it. I have these all around my house. Even on the outside deck, I can adjust the brightness to the, just the right amount. I could even adjust the color that they emit.

All the customizable options can even be further customized by the time of day that they come on. So as the sun sets here, bulbs come on all around the home to help me and my family feel super cozy. Not bright lighting, but just dim lighting all around the house. It's really nice. the Physical space of your Passive Safety Environment. The last passive safety environment tip I will give is physical space.

Physical space includes ensuring that you have enough room to sit or lay down or stand up or do yoga or or whatever else you want. There's no right amount of space. You'll need to listen to your body. I'm sure you know what too little space is like sitting next to strangers in a stadium. But for you, what's the right amount of space that helps you feel more comfortable, that helps you breathe easier? I'm a fairly tall drink of water at six feet and tend to bump into things far too often.

I need a lot of space. I do not do well in cramped environments, so when setting up my passive safety environment in my home office here and also in my therapy office, in my work office, I made sure to include enough space for what feels good for me. Physical space can also include the tidiness of your passive safety environment. So is your desk clear or do you have a bunch of cords and crumbs and a old cup of coffee that's laying around? Can you actually sit on your chair or your couch?

Or is your kids or your spouse's stuff there?

Or maybe it's your own stuff that you've thrown down after work, and I know you're gonna get to it, but it is there. Maybe it's time to get rid of stuff, to declutter, to tidy, or to clean up. Identify one step you can take today. So there's a few ideas on what you can do today to increase your passive safety cues. Again, this doesn't release your trauma. This doesn't solve all your mental health problems.

But what it does do is lay a nice, solid foundation, a place that you can go to, to breathe a bit easier, maybe even smile, a place to relax and calm down. And from that foundation you could even go further and start to feel other things you have inside of you, and that really is how you get unstuck. Okay, so now you know all about passive safety cues. You know about the brainstem instead of trying to hack your vagal nerve.

Now, hopefully you're ready to simplify and focus on one area of your home to start creating a passive safety environment. So let's start that process today. You don't need to create the perfect environment. You don't even need to get, uh, halfway there instead. Let's make one adjustment to your space. Pick one thing to change. I'll give you some easy options. Based on what we talked about today. Is there a candle or other smelly good source that you can put on?

Is there clutter that you can declutter? Is there a curtain to open? Are there cords that you can hide? Are there crumbs to vacuum up? Do you have a dusty lamp that's ready to give you some warm lighting again? Just pick one and make it happen. Today we want small, sustainable steps, not large overhauls, that's gonna overwhelm you. So I'm not asking you to paint your room. This, this passive safety environment room. I'm not asking you to move furniture around. Just one thing today.

Tomorrow, you can take it a step further if you like.

Thank you so much for joining me on Stuck Not Broken. If you're new to the Polyvagal theory and you like this type of information, I have a new subscription tier for you within the Unstucking Academy. It used to be called Stuck Not Collective. Now I'm calling it the Unstucking Academy. This new tier is like the foundations tier. You can get the Polyvagal 1 0 1 course and a course called Gently Feel your Polyvagal States in three days. You get those two courses plus a Q and a with me every month.

Uh, plus Daily Growth Hub challenges plus resources. So this is like the perfect place to go for 10 bucks a month. It's only 10 bucks a month. And you can meet with me one, not one-on-one, sorry. You can, you can meet with me in the q and a community. Whoever shows up will be there as well. But you can meet with me, with me there, ask questions, gain some clarity, and really make sure that your polyvagal theory knowledge is as clear as it can be. Like you really wanna hone that in.

And then you can take the next steps after that. That's it for this one. Uh, thanks so much for listening again. Bye.