The ventral vagal safety state of the polyvagal theory may not be easily accessible, especially if you exist in a traumatized state. And it's maybe even more difficult to deeply settle into it and experience for extended periods of time. I'll discuss what the safety state is, the spectrum of how the safety state can be used and when to do so. This will give you a framework for where you're at, what you can handle, and next steps. My name is Justin Sunseri.
I am a therapist, a coach, and the creator of the Polyvagal Trauma Relief System. 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 not therapy, nor is it intended to be a replacement for therapy. First things first is what is the ventral vagal safety state?
According to the polyvagal theory, the ventral vagal safety state is the state of your body when it's prepared to connect with others or connect with yourself, connect with the present moment. It's all about connection. The safety state utilizes the ventral vagal pathways of the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system. The safety state's active when you're safe in a safe environment, when you're with safe others, or even when you're in solitude, like when you're alone, but you're safe.
This is when the safety state comes on, and it evolved within us in order to connect with each other. Mammals require connection. We rely on each other and the safety state is the thing that facilitates that. The safety state's also responsible for "health and growth and restoration," which is something that the polyvagal theories creator, Dr. Stephen Porges says so often. What that means is that it's responsible for self regulation, homeostasis.
The polyvagal safety state optimizes our body's, uh, resources. So it uses resources for health and growth and restoration rather than for defensive measures. So it better utilizes the same resources versus using it for defense. But for some people, the safety state is not easily accessible. They might not have much contact with their, their safety pathways at all. Day in, day out might be very little, if any. And this really depends on the context of your current life, but also of your past.
If you are currently living with someone who is actually dangerous or emotionally manipulative, toxic, that's going to really challenge your ability to access your safety state. Actually, probably won't happen in that context. BUt it also depends on how your past impacts your current state. So you might be stuck in a state of defense, flight, fight, shutdown, freeze.
You might be stuck in one of those states of defense, maybe even, it might have even been for like years at this point, maybe even decades, honestly, it potentially could last a very long time. So if you're stuck in a defensive state, then accessing your safety state is a lot more challenging. And when you do, because you do at times, but when you do, it's extremely uncomfortable and it's lost really easily.
Or when you do, other emotions come along with it that need to be felt, like sadness, or abandonment, or shame, all kinds of stuff is going to come up from your past that needs to be felt. And so when you access safety, you easily lose it. I've been playing around with this idea of a safety state spectrum. Basically, What does it look like when we have zero safety and how do we deal with that all the way over to tons of safety and how do we get that?
So in my mind, this makes sense on a spectrum and I have four points here for you on the spectrum. And the first one is using mindless coping strategies when it comes to moderate to severe dysregulation. So basically there's no safety state activation or no significant safety state activation. The dysregulation is moderate to severe.
It probably would be felt like a panic attack or high level of anger, high anxiety, overwhelm, stress, but not just like a little bit of stress, like a lot of stress to the point of overwhelm. I would call that severe dysregulation. Of course, things could get worse, but we will call that moderate to severe dysregulation. So, if this is happening, that means you're too far into your defensive state activation.
If you're feeling panic, then you probably have a really good amount of freeze going on in your system. If you're feeling angry, there's too much fight. If you're feeling too much If you're feeling high anxiety, there's probably too much flight activation. Overwhelm and stress are probably also freeze, I would argue. When it comes to the moderate to severe dysregulation, there is no safety state activation. And doing so is very challenging for anybody.
So, at this point, what you probably will do and have done are just, like, mindless coping strategies that probably involve, like, distracting yourself, maybe numbing the dysregulation, checking out, maybe focusing on something else.
Things like doom scrolling through social media or watching, you know, those reels, those one minute video clips, binge watching some sort of series, maybe you're using food, like over eating, or even reading can be used as a mindless way of dealing with dysregulation. Really immersing yourself in reading endlessly can be a way to distract yourself from what's happening inside. So there's tons of ways that someone might cope, and none of these are bad, I'm not saying that they're bad.
But they're not exactly activating of the safety state. They might help reduce the dysregulation, but they don't really ground somebody in their safety state. If you're panicking and you turn to doom scrolling through your phone, that can help maybe reduce or cope with the panic. But that doesn't mean that you're necessarily ready to have a real connection with somebody in that moment. The safety state is still probably not online enough.
So again, these things are not bad, but they're also not really experiencing the present moment because the safety state's not on. So I would call these mindless coping strategies. If there was safety state activation, the defensive activation wouldn't be as dysregulated. It wouldn't be as out of control. It also wouldn't be a mindless experience that you'd be having, and you probably wouldn't be trying to escape the defensive activation or trying to numb it.
So that's the extreme end of our safety state spectrum here. And a lot of the people that come into my courses in my community, this is kind of where they're at. And that's real. It's valid. We're not going to judge it or try to shut it down. Let's just recognize it for what it is. And maybe you can put a little point on your spectrum and say, yeah, this is where I'm at more often than not.
It may help to realize then that your capacity for really immersing yourself in safety and connecting with yourself in the present moment is very limited. There's no need to judge it. We just recognize it for what it is and then maybe work on the next step on the spectrum. The next step on the safety state spectrum is using safety cues with mild dysregulation. Cues are different than anchors, which I'll talk about in a little bit. Safety cues are mostly passive and can trigger your safety state.
It can help to turn it on, basically. So safety cues might help to reduce that defensive state activation. But safety cues are not like doom scrolling. A safety cue would be something that your senses pick up, like dimming the lighting, or having a candle on that provides a passive cue of safety through scent.
Safety cues are great to have at all times because it just kind of provides that nice platform of passive safety, but you could also use the safety cues when it comes to mild dysregulation. If you're in moderate to severe, it might still be kind of helpful, but I don't think it's going to do a whole lot. And you'll know that you're in mild dysregulation. You can identify it because you'll have emotions that are uncomfortable, but for the most part tolerable.
They're noticeable, but they're not too much. So like irritation, anxiety, frustration- those might be things that are noticeable but they're not going to send you into a spiral of panic or overwhelm Safety cues might help to reduce the intensity of these defensive state emotions. The safety cues that you're going to use or have at your disposal around you are pre planned.
They're just kind of there For the most part they can just kind of exist like you could have the right type of lighting in your home. You can have the right sense or music playing for for audio. They're just kind of there and they can help to reduce the defensive activation, but you can also use these in a pre planned kind of way. You can have like a regulation station That is filled with things that you know will help to trigger your safety state and to reduce the defensive activation.
So in this regulation station, you might have that texture that just kind of feels right or that certain thing that reminds you of a happier time where you felt safe and connected. Your regulation station might have sensory things like the right smell. Things that you can go to to help reduce the irritation or the anger or the mild stress. So then the safety cues can be either passive or active. You can have them in the environment just providing you with passive cues of safety.
Again, which I recommend pretty much all the time. I think it's a great idea to have there. And in my building safety anchors course, I teach you how to set up environmental safety through these passive safety cues. But these safety cues you can also use more actively, and that would be through mindfully experiencing and really focusing on what's it like for me to touch that blanket that feels right, or to smell that candle or that spray that you like so much. So it's passive because it's there.
but you can also focus on it and make it more active. So at this point in the safety state spectrum, the goal is to reduce probably or to eliminate the defensive activation. You're not really welcoming it. You're not trying to really feel the defensive state activation. You're not really making space to have safety and defense active at the same time. These cues that you're setting up are intended to reduce or hopefully even eliminate that defensive state activation.
So you're basically getting through the moment, but it's not with mindless coping. It is more of mindful coping. The third spot or point on our safety state spectrum is using safety anchoring while allowing for defensive activation. So the point here at this point, three out of four, is not to dismiss or to reduce or eliminate or ignore the defensive activation, but actually to allow it and maybe even mindfully feel it if you can handle it, but we're gonna do that while anchored in safety.
So we're not trying to get rid of it. We're actually actually letting it be there. So, at this point, we're doing more than just setting up passive safety cues, we're actually trying to settle more deeply into safety. At this point, we want to feel connection. Connection with ourself, connection with the external environment, maybe connection with somebody else through co regulation, but also even allowing and feeling connected to the defensive state activation.
If you're doing this, at this point of the spectrum, point three. If you're doing this, you can, this unlocks the ability to use pendulation, which is the ability to go from safety to defense, if you want to. So you can feel your safety state, but then also choose to feel your defensive activation. And then choose to go back to your safety state and do like a bookend kind of thing.
At this point on the spectrum, you'd be able to recognize where your defensive activation lives within you, but also where your safety activation lives within you as well. So if you want to do this level of safety activation on the spectrum, and you're interested in doing pendulation and going from safety to defense to safety to defense. It's really helpful and actually pretty darn necessary for titrating stuck trauma and titration means releasing it a little bit at a time.
Through the process of pendulation, you can actually start to titrate to release a little bit of that stuck defensive activation a little bit at a time. Pendulation and allowing both safety and defense also is necessary for welcoming Uh, returning sympathetic activation, so coming out of shutdown into flight fight, you have to, I think it's helpful to be able to pendulate.
Pendulation is really more for stuck freeze trauma, I would say, but I do think it's helpful for coming out of shutdown into flight fight again, or into fight more specifically. Point three on the spectrum here, which could involve pendulation is also helpful for, maybe even necessary for, building the strength of your vagal break. The vagal break is the influence of your safety state on your heart.
It helps keep your heartbeat at a calmer pace, even in the face of what would otherwise be dysregulating. So it's the ability to tolerate more defensive activation, we'll put it that way, without losing access to your safety state. So at this point, being here where you can allow defense and allow safety while going back and forth between them can help to build your capacity or the strength of your bagel break.
But at this point on the safety state spectrum, you really already have to have a good amount of safety there. You have to have a strong enough vagal break to allow the defensive state activation without getting sucked into it. So you can see at the beginning of our spectrum there was no safety state activation or almost none. And now we're at 3 out of 4 which requires a pretty good amount of it.
So if you're just starting out on your trauma recovery journey and you notice that you're constantly in a defensive state, And you can't allow it while being safe. That's because your safety state, your vagal break is probably just not strong enough yet. It may have nothing to do with you and your value as a human being, how weak or how strong you are, but instead it might be more about your safety state and its ability to tolerate defense.
It is possible to get to this point of the spectrum by practicing the last one, which was being in your- practicing having safety cues and experiencing those safety cues. As you practice that and build the strength of your safety state, eventually you'll be able to do this third point here, which is being in defense and safety at the same time. And if you can do that, then the defensive activation, not only will it not be dysregulating, but it won't really be a hindrance to you.
It'll, it'll be there, but you'll still be able to function. You'll be able to have compassion for your defensive activation while you also just live a normal life and do whatever you need to do it. It won't be as disruptive to your daily functioning or at all, maybe. So on the other extreme end of the safety state spectrum is using safety anchoring To deeply immerse into your safety state. So a much fuller more robust experience of your safety state of connection.
When you're deep enough into this, you can have connection with yourself, with your inner world, all of it. Not just the good stuff, but also the stuff that feels not so good. You'll have connection with the present moment, with your senses. And you'll also have, potentially, probably, or possibly, connection with other people. Or maybe other mammals like your pets. When you're deep enough in your safety state, you can comfortably access your mixed states of play and of stillness.
You can be silly and be okay with it. Someone in my community today said that she feels silly or she allows herself to be, to feel silliness when she's deeply enough immersed into her safety state. But you can also access stillness, which is the ability to be immobile and be okay with it. When you're deep enough in your safety state, you can meditate and be curious about your inner world without judgment. You can allow whatever is inside of you to be there without judgment, without fear.
And you can feel it with compassion. And that even includes defensive state activation. And that even includes stuck trauma that might still reside within you. When you're deep enough in your safety state, you can have an appreciation for life, for other people, you'll have an experience of awe, at least for me, that's what comes up for me a lot, is appreciation and this experience of awe, of really of existing.
In this state, when you're deep enough, connection's not scary, I think before this point, the idea of connection is terrifying, even the word connection for someone else in my community, she said, the word connection is terrifying for her. But when you're deep in your safety state, you're not scared of it, and you actually have this impulse to connect with others, with yourself, with the environment. You sort of seek it out without choosing to. Your body is just ready for it.
Very difficult to get to this level of safety. I think it requires that, obviously, you purposefully practice and mindfully experience your safety state. Then allow and feel defensive state activation, build the strength of your vagal brake, and then get to this point where you could even go even deeper into safety. But again, very difficult, and it is a long process, and it requires a really strong safety state to get to this level.
So when you're hearing people talk about, you know, don't let your joy go, or find things that make you happy, have healthy boundaries, empower yourself. All of these things come from a really strong safety state. If you're not there yet, that's okay. It just means you're not there yet. You're still progressing on the spectrum toward these like points three and four you are. You're progressing there. Your body does want to allow safety and defense to exist at the same time.
Your body does want to have deep moments of connection with yourself and with other people and with the present moment. Your body wants to naturally self regulate in that direction. It has to. It's a, as an organism, that's what it's evolved to do. So you might not be that far along on your spectrum, and that's okay. The word yet here is really important. No matter where you're at, I think practicing being in safety is very important.
I think setting yourself up with passive safety cues in your environment is very important. I think mindfully having little micro moments of connection can be helpful. And that might just be using your senses to detect what you feel more goodness of versus more badness, to put it very simply. And eventually the level of stuckness that you have in your system will get less.
You know that being stuck shows up in many different ways, anxiety and anger and depression, overwhelmed panic, fear, and a bunch more. So if you're ready to move down the spectrum toward that deeper sense of safety and connection, even if you're not, even if that scares you, but you want to move in that direction, I invite you to consider subscribing to my Stuck Not Broken Total Access Membership.
In the membership, you'll get my three courses that are built on the knowledge of the Polyvagal Theory. I call it my Polyvagal Trauma Relief System. You'll also have the option of connecting with myself and other people in the community. We do meetups twice a month where it's like an open Q& A. Plus, there's a second podcast.
There's a whole bunch of stuff that you get to really deepen your learning to get the connections, the light connections that you need in a way that feels right for you. And it helps you to move down the spectrum toward getting unstuck and accessing your safety state more and more and more. So thank you for being a part of my podcast. And I look forward to welcoming you as a member of my total access community. I also have tons of freebies for you. If you go to my websites, JustinLMFT.
com, I have a members center there. And in that member center, there are learning hubs and there are some resources you can download. JustinLMFT. com. It's a free membership, member center, head over there, sign up and yeah, start downloading and taking in even more stuff to deepen your knowledge. Fellow Stucknaut, I do hope that this episode has been a helpful resource for you in learning about and applying the polyvagal theory to your trauma recovery journey.
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.