Crying and the Polyvagal Theory: Release, Panic, and Rage

Crying and the Polyvagal Ladder. How does it fit into our autonomic Polyvagal states? You might be wondering. And in this episode, I am going to address that. I'm going to share with you a brief clip that comes from one of the meetups I hold within the private community, the Stucknaut Collective. And then on the other side of this brief clip, I'm going to, well, I'll meet you on the other side of it and share some more thoughts with you. Hi, I am Justin Sunseri.

I'm a coach and a therapist who wants to teach you how to live with more calm, confidence, and connection without psychobabble or woo woo. Welcome to Stuck Not Broken. I hope you enjoy the clip. This is obviously not therapy, nor should it replace therapy. And you're about to hear an AI voice. Where does crying fit on the Polyvagal ladder? Crying is an action, so it's not a state, so it wouldn't be on the ladder. So like where on the ladder would that come from? Is that what you mean?

Like what you're asking? Okay. I associate crying with release. It has to be a self regulatory process. We feel better after, you know, a good cry, I think it comes from freeze. Some level of frozen- it doesn't have to be a ton- but some level of frozen sympathetic activation that is being released through crying.

With deep deep deep freeze trauma and pains more like rage- the kind of freeze that explodes into rage or panic or overwhelm, shame- when we cry from that, I think it's an attempt to release the inner pains but a lot of times it just... we end up like destroying stuff or hurting somebody or ourselves. And so it just reinforces the pain. But I think that crying is an attempt to release and there's a way to like a healthy way to do that and to feel better afterwards.

It is something like we do tense up and then we release our, our breathing spontaneous- spontaneously shifts. So I do think there is, it is an impulse to self regulate or ideally I think that it is. And I think it's gotta be freeze because it's It's releasing something that was once withheld, you know? Rage is frozen fight activation. Like anger is just fight activation. I mean, basically. Anxiety would come from flight. Anger comes from fight, but that's just the basic state activation.

Remember sympathetic can have flight or fight flavors to it. Okay. But freeze is the combination of dorsal plus sympathetic. It's shut down plus flight fight. So when shut down immobilizes flight, that's panic. So it's anxiety. Immobilized anxiety. When shut down immobilizes fight, that's not just anger. That's, that'd be more like rage. It's immobilized anger. We'll call it that. So immobilized anger is just like, it's just spinning. So it's bigger, you know, it's not just anger.

And I tell somebody off and I feel better.

It's immobilized anger. So, rage would be frozen fight activation, panic would be frozen flight activation. So, when we attempt to release, if we're in a freeze, if we're in a fight flavor freeze, so freeze with more fight, when that attempts to release, it'll be rage, it'll be big, it'll be explosive, stuff's gonna get destroyed. Yeah, relationships are going to be destroyed. Um, black, blackout anger. People will call it like blackout anger. I don't remember what the heck happened.

I just, you know, I blacked out. That's what they say. That's not just anger. That's something else that to me, that's freeze. That's freeze, but flavored by fight.

Panic would be flight flavored freeze. A lot of my younger, the teenage clients, I would, you would talk and, and obviously, obviously they had to cry. And I would say, "It's okay to cry." And they say, " No, no, you don't understand. When I cry, I black out and I and stuff gets destroyed and I don't know what happened," you know, afterwards that's not just crying. It's not just releasing freeze for them. It's their panic or rage is is coming up and it's too much for them.

And they end up just, you know, going right back down into their freeze state. Yeah, it's not true release. Yeah. If you think about someone who has underlying bullying or, uh, abuse. They have this like chronic underlying, it's not just anger. It's not like they're just walking around irritable. It's like rage. It's just, it's just frozen into their system, you know, and they end up bullying or abusing. I think it's not just anger. There's something else going on.

It's this chronic, just underlying rage, which can explode at any moment. And not just angry, but like rage explosion. So if we're trying to cry from freeze could be really helpful. Ideally it is. And lots of safety anchoring and we actually release whatever's inside of us. But it could be that if we don't have safety active enough, that we're, our body's attempting to release frozen rage or frozen fight or flight, but we don't

have safety active, so it just explodes and comes right back in the system. It's like explosion and then implosion, like it's out and then right back in. I hope that little clip answered the question, how does crying connect to the Polyvagal ladder. It's not, I mean, just to sum it up, it's not a Polyvagal state. It's a behavior. It's a, it's a way of self regulating and climbing up the Polyvagal ladder. That's kind of how it works.

You might cry a lot, and maybe you cry so much that you think you'll never stop. That's kind of, it's okay. It's okay. It's not a bad thing. It's a pretty darn normal, I think, especially if you exist in a stuck freeze state. If you have the freeze that is, uh, more on the intense side where you have some frozen flight or fight, and it's more on that intense panic and rage side. It's not hopeless. Things can definitely get better.

It is not easy, but the first thing that you might do that might have the most benefit to you, I'll give you a couple different options here. Number one, I think is the most important and very foundational, is to practice feeling safe. And you could do that in just little moments. You don't need to do a 30 minute meditation. If you practice feeling safe in just little micro moments, that can go a long way.

Um, I've worked with clients that have really high intense anxiety or panic, really lots of fear. They get the most benefit it seems like, not from changing their thoughts, not from fighting their feelings, but accepting this is how it is currently and I need to feel safe. And so they find ways to feel safe. That could be something as small and as accessible as using your senses or whatever senses that you have access to and mindfully experiencing the the experience of safety.

So, smell taste touch look at or listen to something that helps you feel better than not. I don't mean go get high and escape your problems. That is not what I mean What I mean is I mean you can if you want it's up to you. But what I mean is what helps you feel actually calm? Not drug induced calm, but actually calm. What helps you to feel like you can breathe or smile? What helps you just slow down a little bit? So, if you have a smell that you can do, go, go do it.

Spend just a few seconds, just spend time doing that and notice how it feels inside. And I'm willing to bet that when you do that, you'll probably not have as much freeze active in that moment. Does it solve your problems? Heck no, it doesn't. No, it doesn't. This is a sustained practice. You have to build the strength of your safety state. I don't know any other way around it. So that, that is unbelievably important. Practice feeling safe. Build the strength of your safety state.

That's foundational. You got to do that. The other avenue, which It's more or less approachable, depending on who you are and how much of this stuff you do. Um, if you have a stronger safety state, you can handle mindfully releasing a little bit of your defensive activation at a time. In this pathway I'm talking about, the focus is not really on feeling calm and grounded. The focus is on being more active and using the frozen flight fight activation.

This only becomes really accessible if you have enough safety in your system to not feel immobile. I mean if you're in a immobilized panic attack, then this is not going to be super helpful for you, I don't think.

If you're in a blackout rage and not thinking whatsoever, this is not gonna be helpful for you. So this is an avenue that you would use when you have enough safety to have at least a little bit of mindfulness and a little bit of self compassion and interest in what you feel like inside. And then when you have a little bit of mild to maybe moderate defensive activation- so not a full on panic, but moderate level of anxiety to panic- when you have that, move. Get up and move.

Use the defensive activation that you have within. So not when you're rageful. No, not exactly. I mean, if you can, sure. But when you have irritability, when you have anger, uh, use it. What does your body want to do? Does it want to squeeze? Does it want to pull? Does it want to, um, not to other people or any living things, but does it want to use- does it want to push? Does it want to throw? Use your defensive activation, as long as it's not out of control.

And that requires you have some, enough, safety activation within you. How much that is for you, I can't tell you. You'll know, though, because you're actually at least a little bit curious. You won't be rejecting your feelings, at least not as much. Instead, you might have enough safety in you to say, " Okay, I'm noticing I feel some anger. Let me use this now before it grows and gets into a full on rage." Or, "I have enough safety within me to notice my anxiety is escalating.

Let me use this now and go out for a walk before this turns into a immobilized panic." So those are kind of two really kind of basic, but broad options. Focus on safety day in, day out. All of us should do that. It's never a process that really ends. I don't think. Practice feeling safe day in, day out and just little micro moments

until you can work your way up to something more, you know, like a deeper meditation on safety maybe but you might not be there That's okay. So practice the micro moments as much as you can day in day out. And the other option is when you notice some defensive activation use it. Ideally you listen to your body and do what it needs if it needs to pull then go ahead and pull if it needs to push like into your palms do it.

If you need to push against the wall, go ahead But that requires you have some level of being able to recognize what feels better than not in the moment. I'd recommend practicing these things way ahead of time. If you live in a free state, you probably chronically have a little bit, at least a little bit of panic or rage, which you might feel as anxiety or anger or irritability or nervousness or worrying. You might have like a chronic level of these things just in your system.

So when they're low level like that, and you can notice it. That's a really good time to practice what movement feels good, or lack of movement. Maybe you want to lay down on the floor. You could do that too. So, what feels best? Practice that way ahead of time, way before you actually need to use it.

And then as your defensive activation escalates into a stronger anxiety or a stronger even anger, that would be the time to to use what you know already works for you, but you got to practice it ahead of time and you also have to practice feeling safe ahead of time. As you do that, the level of the intensity and the frequency of those bigger rage, full or full on panics, those should soften or they can soften.

I can't guarantee for you obviously, but in client work, the people in my community, the feedback I get, it seems like, or it is, um, that as they do these things, they just, they soften. They get easier and easier and easier, and they don't have as much of a debilitating hold over you. That's kind of the foundational process. I think it's super important. Of course, things can get more specific, but that's, that's the broad brushes, uh, paint strokes, whatever you want to call it.

I hope this episode's been helpful for you, and at least starting to think differently about what crying means to you, what rage, or even panic, what they mean to you, where they come from. And I hope you have some ideas on how to handle it maybe differently as well.

And I would really encourage you, I do really encourage you, focus on those foundational pieces, the day in, day out habits like practicing safety in micro moments, practicing noticing defense in small, small doses when you can tolerate it. If you want to download my Polyvagal Ladder Sheet, I'll have it in the show description. I actually have a ton more resources that I've created for you and collected them all in the free Stucknaut Collective section.

It's got downloads and Learning Hub videos and podcasts and stuff. So all that stuff is collected for you in the free Stucknaut Collective members spaces. Plus there's actually a free course there as well- a three day Polyvagal State free course. Anyhow, so download the Polyvagal Ladder sheet for free in the description and, or, uh, join me in the Stucknaut Collective, uh, with some free resources and a free course through the link in the description as well. That's it. Bye.