Okay, you have a general understanding of the Polyvagal Theory and all of the primary and mixed states. But, there's a lot of information out there and a lot of the Polyvagal Theory influencers are people who speak about mental health and trauma recovery. They mix up terminology or they don't seem to match from person to person and so it's left you kind of confused. And it'd be nice to have a better understanding of how these autonomic states present in the real world.
So, in this episode, I'm going to do a quick Breakdown of all of the official polyvagal theory, autonomic states with the correct terminology. And then I'm going to share the story of Courtney and we will apply what we learned as far as the states go. We're going to apply them to the story of Courtney. In this episode, you're going to get a clear understanding of the states. And you'll better be able to spot them in the story, but also for yourself as well. My name is Justin Sonseri.
I am a therapist, a coach, and the creator of the Polyvagal Trauma Relief System. I'm also on the Polyvagal Institute's editorial board. This stuff is kind of my life, the polyvagal theory. I love it. You could say I'm obsessed with it. I spend pretty much zero time taking in other sources of political theory information. I just look at the primary source, uh, which is Dr. Porges and his primary writings and then Deb Dana as well.
Those are my two primary places to go, but mostly Dr. Porges, his books and the papers he writes. Welcome to Stuck Not Broken where I teach you how to live with more calm confidence and connection without psychobabble. or woo woo. This podcast is of course not therapy, nor is it intended to be a replacement for therapy. All right. Intro is done. Let's first briefly, ever so briefly, go over the polyvagal theory states, the states of the autonomic nervous system.
The basic idea here is that the body can be prepared for more safety or more defense. Just to put it super simply, the body can have different state states in preparation for various levels of connection or responding to danger or even responding to life threat. So we have three. Primary, uh, states, those three primary states are Safety, Flight Fight, and Shutdown. Safety is a state where your body is prepared to connect. To connect with the self, with the environments, or with somebody else.
That's the basic idea. The Flight Fight state is the, uh, second one. It's the sympathetic state. And in that state, your body is prepared to run away or fight, basically. But it's, uh, also we can just call it the mobilization state. Because you're not always running away or fighting when you're in the state. But basically it's for mobilization. And the third primary state is the shutdown state, and this is for immobilization.
In danger, though, it's for immobilizing when there's like a life threat, when the body needs to collapse and, uh, death vein. So those are the three primary states. So think of this like primary colors. You have red, yellow, and blue. Primary colors exist on their own. You can't mix anything to get them. They just, those are the primary colors. But you can mix primary colors to get Secondary colors or mixed colors or, uh, in polyvagal theory, sometimes they're called hybrid states.
I always call them mixed states. Okay. So that's the idea. When you combine the primary colors, just like when you mix paints, you get mixed colors in the polyvagal theory, mixed primary states, and you get mixed states, there are three original. Mixed states, that's what I call them, or the way I think about them at least. These are the three that were, that were first, and there's three more that came after that.
The original three mixed states, as I refer to them, are freeze, play, and stillness. Freeze is Immobilization, just like Shutdown, but it's a different flavor. Freeze is immobilization with tenseness, the muscles are tense, the heartbeat is, is high. Freeze is like paralysis. It's a combination of Shutdown and Flight Fight. So the body is mobilized, but also immobile at the same time. Play is the next mixed state, and play is a combination of the safe social state.
Plus, flight fight, so safe and connected, but also mobile. And the third mixed state is stillness. Stillness is where you're immobile, but safe. So, immobile, but okay with it. Stillness would be like, uh, laying down to go to sleep, uh, meditating, even using the restroom. All these require That you're immobile, but you're okay with it. Probably right now you have some level of stillness in your system.
And there's three more mixed states which were added on, or at least officially, officially added on later. Uh, I think they all were added on actually in 2023. So that's appease, fawn, and intimacy. These are things that have been, or appease and fawn I think have been discussed, but they were officially recognized in our polyvagal world. Appease also came out in a paper. Discussing appeasement and or in comparison to Stockholm syndrome.
So appease is the activation of all of the polyvagal states. Safety plus flight fight plus shutdown. So there's like an element of each one in appeasement. Appeasement, if I were to put it super simply, is the ability to use social cues. to lessen the threat during a life threatening ongoing scenario. That's my best understanding of it. So this would be like a hostage situation. Pretty much if you think of Stockholm Syndrome, think of appeasement. So appease is different than fawn.
Fawn is said to be a combination of flight fight with shutdown. I personally find this lacking. This came out in the book. There's no real deep paper written on this. It just is very briefly mentioned in the most recent book, Our Polyvagal World, and I find this to be kind of lacking in the way that it's described. I, I conceptualize fawn as mostly a dissociative shutdown state.
So the primary state is shutdown, plus I suppose flight fight, but the behaviors of Fon, the complete surrendering of the self, the sacrificing of one's values, appearing as a non threat to like a captor or an abuser. That's different than trying to connect with them like with appeasement. Fon is saying I'm, I'm Going to anticipate your needs, and I am not a threat, but I think that requires a huge shutdown, uh, dissociation.
And I, I would actually argue that appease does as well, but none of these, both of those aren't really discussed in that way in the polyvagal theory literature as far as I've seen. But I don't know how someone does the behaviors of appeasement and fawn without very significant amount of shut, uh, dissociative shutdown. And the last mixed state is intimacy. Intimacy is said to be shutdown plus safety, but we already know Shutdown plus safety equals stillness.
So the difference here is that intimacy involves another variable, which is someone else is present. A safe other is present. So basically intimacy is stillness plus a safe other. I created a couple podcast episodes about the newer mixed states where I really kind of, you know, shared my questions and concerns about the validity of them and the necessity of them. And I'll put some links in the description for you if you're interested in those.
Okay. Very brief rundown of the political, uh, theory. Primary states and mixed states. Now, let's get to the story of Courtney. What I want you to do is, as you listen, see if you can identify when these states are active within Courtney, or even the other characters in the story. And, uh, when they change. When, when Courtney goes from one state to another. Primarily, you're going to be looking for the primary states. So, safe social.
Flight fight shut down and then also I would say play and freeze are probably present Maybe a little bit of stillness the other mixed states the new ones I did not explicitly attempt to put in here, but you might find the flavor of them in here as well So I'm gonna read this story. This actually is coming out of a new book that I'm writing about the polyvagal theory It's called trauma. Actually, it's not a new book.
It's a rewrite of a current ebook that I have out It's called trauma and the polyvagal paradigm So I'm including this story of Courtney in there and it pops up a couple times in the book to, to illustrate or show what states are active as I'm talking about them in the book. So I'm going to read the story as I currently have it written in my draft of the book right now. Before I get into the story real quick, there shouldn't be anything that's super triggering.
There's no like details of anything that I don't think is traumatic, but there is kind of some flavoring of things that might be reminiscent of trauma. So I don't know what is triggering for you or not, but this is kind of like your content warning or your trigger warning if you want to call it that. It's just a heads up before you continue. Let me introduce you to Courtney. She's a fictionalized representation of an actual therapy client.
This story is going to illustrate a sequence of going from the safe and social state down the polyvagal ladder. We'll catch up with her after each state section to unfold her story. Courtney is a really sweet, kind hearted, soft spoken, 16 year old girl. It begins at her aunt's house, which she pronounces as unt or unty. The house, but I say aunt. The house acts as a gathering place for lots of family, friends, and neighbors. There is a front house and a smaller back house.
Her uncle lives in the back house, where he needs constant tending to, as he's unable to walk on his own. Or do basic self care. People come and go from the back house to check on and tend to the uncle. Courtney and her friends like to hang out in the back house and watch TV or mess around on their phones. On this day in particular, that's what they're doing. They're smiling and they're laughing. They make eye contacts and they play fight with each other.
She checks on her uncle and makes sure that he's tended to. She's compassionate, looks her uncle in the eyes gently, and smiles at him with eye crinkles. We'll stop here and I'm going to ask you a question. Uh, what state, so far, does it sound like Courtney has access to, and how can you tell? So if you guessed her safety state, yeah, I would agree. She's very well anchored in her safety state. She's able to check on her uncle. She's connected with her friends.
She also has access to a mixed state, which is play. Her and her friends were able to play fight. So she has plenty of safe and social activity within her, but also has some mobility, so it's play. Alright, let's get back to Courtney. So she's at her aunt's house in the back house, tending to her uncle and hanging out with her friends. Um, all of them are well anchored in their safety state as of right now. So Courtney's aunt's house is a gathering place for many people.
Most of them, Courtney knows. But, on this day in particular, a strange man comes to the back house, where she and her friends are. Courtney and her friends see him come in through the front door. He makes eye contact with them, but his eyes are kind of wide and he just sort of stares. He doesn't say anything and he doesn't give them a smile, or do anything really to indicate that he's friendly. The man walks to the back of the house to check on the uncle.
Courtney feels a bit of hesitance and discomfort. She goes back to watching TV with her friends, and they don't think about or talk about him. But, then the man comes back out after a few minutes. He stands in the room with the TV where they are, and asks them how old they are. They feel uncomfortable, but they say their ages. 16, 17, and 17. One of the girls tells him she has a boyfriend. The other one tells him they're too young for him and he doesn't need to worry about it.
The man looks at Courtney and asks if she has a boyfriend. She says no with an uncomfortable laugh. He asks if she wants to go to the back room with him to check on her uncle and she says no. Her friends chime in and tell him to leave them alone. They're too young for him and he's acting weird. Courtney feels an impulse to leave but also feels stuck in her spot, terrified of this strange man that is far bigger than her. He approaches the three girls and his tone gets more firm.
Little girls shouldn't be talking to no man like that, he said. The two friends scoff and ignore him. Courtney stays still, ready to run, but scared into immobilization. The man storms off down the hallway and out of sight. Courtney thinks she should leave the situation, tells her friends, and they agree. Before they leave, um, she says she has some stuff in the back room that she needs to collect.
Courtney sticks her head around the wall and peers down the hallway, feeling anxious and breathing shallow. The strange man is in the bathroom at the end of the hallway. So she quietly crosses the hall into the room with her stuff. She closes the door behind her and starts getting her stuff together. Then she hears his voice outside the room. Hey, you in there? Let me come in. Courtney laughs nervously. Yeah, I'm in here. I'll be out soon, she says.
The man starts to open the door and Courtney grabs it and pulls it shut. I said let me in there with you, he says. The two of them are pulling on the door handles. She keeps laughing trying to play it off as a joke. Her friends get involved and get him to back off. They say again he's being weird and start yelling at him to leave her alone. The man stops with a huff. He yells into the air about little girls respecting grown men.
Courtney emerges from the room with her stuff and heads straight to the front door with her friends. Her friends keep yelling as they get to the front door. The man follows, yelling at them not to leave. He grabs Courtney by the arm, pulling her close to him. Her friends are yelling at him, commanding him to stop, but he's ignoring them completely and 100 percent focused on Courtney. Courtney has stopped trying to laugh things off at this point. She's become louder, yelling at him to let go.
She's using one arm to pull his hand off of her other arm. She and her friends begin to hit him as they yell directly at him, commanding him to stop. But he's big. Very big. And very dominant. Courtney and her friends were able to make so much noise that the people from the front house respond and make their way to the back house. One of Courtney's uncles intervenes and the strange man backs off. We'll pause here before going to the next piece of the story.
And the question I have for you here is, what state do you recognize or do you see that Courtney's in or her friends as well? And when did you notice those shifts happening in the story? So once the man entered the back house, they probably experienced some sort of flight activation. It seemed like Courtney felt that, but they didn't act on it. He left the situation, and they kind of left it at that.
So they didn't act on their flight activation, but Pretty quickly, they shifted down to fight activation, especially once Courtney was, or at least the friends did, once Courtney was in the room and they were pulling on the door from both sides of it. Her friends definitely acted on their fight activation, took Courtney longer, but she did eventually start using her fight activation and directly yelling and commanding Um, enough to get the attention of the other people on the property.
You could also argue there is some freeze activation here. Courtney feels tense and kind of laughs it off, but that, that activation without acting on it. So she's like, the flight fight's activated, but she's not. Acting on it. She's just kind of frozen or immobile in place. There might be a little freeze activation in there in this story.
Even initially, even though there wasn't any direct confrontation happening, when she felt that flight activation, but also felt like immobilized in place, that could be a little, uh, freeze. Okay, so let's get back to the story. Um, she's in the back house, Courtney is, with her friends at her aunt's home. The man came back there. He tried to get in the room with Courtney alone, uh, she and her friends got him to back off, uh, but he again tried to stop her at the front door.
They made enough noise to where people at the front house came to the back house. One of the uncles intervenes and the strange man basically leaves. So we'll pick it up from there. The strange man laughs it off and marches to the front house, finally leaving the girls alone. Courtney and her friends explained what happened to the aunt and the others that gathered around. They explain how he was acting weird, how he tried to be alone with Courtney, and how he grabbed at her.
They tell him everything, using their voices loudly and forcefully. They demand action be taken that the uncles, quote unquote, beat his ass. Her aunt says, We heard you yelling, then we checked the security cameras and saw everything before coming down here. The aunt looks Courtney up and down and says, He wouldn't act that way if you didn't lead him on. Courtney is stunned. Her eyes go wide and she stands still. Lead him on, she checks herself. I'm wearing a t shirt, auntie.
We were just watching TV. I've seen you and your friends back here before. I've seen you talking to the men and tying up your shirts and showing your skin. Courtney feels the energy leave her body. She goes numb and her shoulders slump down into feet. The aunt continues. Don't be coming around here no more. You and your little friends can go somewhere else. Courtney hangs her head and walks slowly off.
Her friends put their arm around her, yelling back at the ants about what really happened and how wrong this is, how they don't deserve this. Okay, so what did you notice in this piece? And particularly focusing on the difference between freeze and shutdown. Did you see something different here? Courtney, she just kind of like lost, the energy just gets drained from, it leaves her body. She slumps down, her head's down, and she walks off. She seems very defeated.
This is, uh, what I would say is shutdown. This is shutdown in a real life scenario. She didn't flat out immobilize and like collapse and faint. That would be the extreme version of shutdown and maybe a real life threatening scenario, but in this scenario, she is not safe. She can't run away from it. Um, kinda could fight against it, but still isn't safe. The man, there's no repercussion, there's no justice here, right? There, he's still there and he's still very much a threat.
And the people in her life who are supposed to care about her the most and protect her, uh, they're not. So, yeah, she kinda goes into a shutdown and just the energy leaves her body. So that's the story of Courtney. I know, super depressing, kind of leaving you on a low note here, I guess.
But, when this person, and of course this is super anonymized, but, uh, when this person came to me in therapy, we were able to process this, and she was able to climb out of her polyvagal ladder, talking about the situation, coming out of shutdown. Because it definitely lingered in her system for quite a while. Uh, but she came out of shutdown, was able to feel empowerment and actually talk to the ants about it and put in a really, really healthy boundary. Basically, she was just.
done going there and she carried that momentum and started really advocating for herself and using her Fight energy with her safety state So using her power to put in and enforce healthy boundaries with a number of people in her life She kind of kicks butt so it ends up. Okay, I suppose I'm sad She had to go through this but she definitely grew from it and was able to process it and empower herself. I hope that benefited you.
I hope you can clearly see some of the polyvagal states in action, how they could realistically look day to day. If you're in my community this whole week, we're spending each day. We're dissecting the story and talking about these states and also how to recognize them within yourself. If you're interested in joining me in my private community or making progress on your trauma recovery journey, I have something called the Stuck Not Broken Total Access Membership.
It gives you access to, total access to, a private community, which is small and cozy. It's not thousands of people like you'd find on a free Facebook community. It's a small, cozy community of people who are Not sharing trauma narratives, they are providing ideas, support, a little advice here and there, asking questions as they come up, sharing ahas as they come up. It's an awesome little community. I'm super proud of everybody in there.
But on top of the community, there's also my trauma recovery courses. There's three of them, and those three put together form my Polyvagal Trauma Relief System. They teach you the Polyvagal Theory simply and clearly in two hours. The second phase is building safety anchors, which is building the strength of your safety state. And the, in preparation for the third state.
Uh, or third phase, and the third phase is unstucking defensive states, which teaches you how to actively and compassionately feel all of what it's like to be you, including the defensive state stuff, including the trauma stuff. It does not force you to retell trauma narratives. It doesn't push you farther than you're able to go, but it is the third phase of actually relieving what you're, relieving your stuck defensive state.
If you want to learn more about that, Head on over to justin l mft.com/total access. Again, justin l mft.com/total access. I will also have a link for you in the description. I'm really glad that you're here as a part of the podcast and I hope to welcome you in the Community Fellows duck dot. I really hope this episode has been a helpful resource for you in your own trauma recovery journey or just understanding this polyvagal stuff.
Bye. This podcast is not therapy, not intended to be therapy or be a replacement for therapy. Nothing in this creates or indicates a therapeutic relationship. Please consult with your therapist or seek for one in your area if you are experiencing mental health symptoms. Nothing in this podcast should be construed to be specific life advice. It is for educational and entertainment purposes only. More resources are available in the description of this episode and in the footer of justinlmft. com.