You're depressed. You have found and learned the polyvagal theory and you know the dorsal vagal shutdown is your dominant autonomic state. So you've started learning about coming out of shutdown and even tried some stuff out. But nothing's changing. You're desperate, frustrated, maybe pissed off. My name is Justin Sunseri. I'm 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. And in this episode, I'll be discussing what you're doing wrong and why you're still stuck in shutdown. Two disclaimers. Number one, this podcast is not therapy, nor is it intended to be a replacement for therapy. Number two, if you sense a bit of fight energy in my system, I am a little, a little miffed. The 49ers lost for the second week in a row.
And I am, uh, not feeling very good about it. So, you might sense a bit of frustration, disappointment, irritation, pissed offedness in my voice. The first thing to address is the question, are you keeping yourself stuck in shut down? So I don't think that someone gets stuck in shut down randomly. No one chooses to be in shutdown. It's a fairly unpleasant state of affairs, right? So no one chooses to be in shutdown. And no one really chooses to remain stuck either.
Day to day, it's not a, you know, the most wholesome or fulfilling existence. So no one chooses to be in shutdown and no one chooses to stay in shutdown. In the first place you're likely in shutdown due to things that you've been through in your life and most likely I would bet generally is due to your upbringing, something to do with your upbringing.
Shutdown often comes from a chronic disruption of connectedness, usually involving parents or parenting or lack of parenting, parents that did not provide adequate or enough co regulation, enough safety, enough predictability, enough love, and enough support. In my work with teens and also with adults as a therapist, it seems like shutdown often, if not always, is connected to some past issues with family, with upbringing, and with parents.
That can look many different ways, like outright abandonment or just generally not available emotionally to connect with their children. But shutdown can also come from ongoing, chronic, inescapable life circumstances. Things like poverty and neighborhood conditions can contribute to shutdown. I don't necessarily think that poverty equals shutdown, but I think it's in, it's a circumstance that contributes to the potential for shutdown.
And, you know, neighborhood safety is another one of those things. Domestic violence, chronic disease. Illnesses, the death of a loved one, especially if that person was your safe person, and a whole bunch more stuff can contribute to Shutdown or to being in a shutdown state and even a chronic shutdown state. I'm more thinking about the stuff from the past, those circumstances that have left you, or left somebody stuck in a shutdown state, like from family or from parenting.
Not from the current life circumstances that they're currently stuck in, or that you're currently stuck in. So to answer the first question, did you cause your shutdown? No. But, can you do something about it? Yeah, you can. And this isn't about blame, I'm not trying to say you're not doing good enough. I really hope this is more empowering. I hope this is more hopeful. Actually, I think the word empowerment is a really, really good word for it.
Because when you come out of your shutdown state, the first thing you're likely to feel is your flight fight activation, but more likely is your fight activation out of shutdown into fight. Then flight and then up into safety up your polyvagal ladder. Empowering though, I think is a good word for it because when we enter into that fight state from shutdown, we go up. We want that to be an experience of empowerment.
But that only happens when you have enough safety in your system, when your ventral vagal safety pathways are strong enough to handle that, that returning and even welcome that returning fight energy, that sympathetic fight energy. So as of right now, you may not have enough safety in your system. And again, it's not a fault or a blame thing. It just might be the way it is. You may not have enough safety or those vagal, ventral vagal pathways may not be developed enough or strengthened enough.
So as you come out of shutdown or as your body attempts to self regulate out of shutdown into fight, it can be really overwhelming. We need that safety state to be developed more to welcome the sympathetic activation of flight and fight, especially a fight initially. So that's the first thing that you're doing wrong, quote unquote doing wrong, is that your safety system is probably just needs strengthening probably, I think it's a big part of this.
And this is how I work in therapy a lot or foundationally is do we have enough safety, do we have enough ability to feel our defensive activation to come out of shutdown. So, you need to practice being in safety before sitting with your shutdown experiences. That might be something that you're doing wrong. You might be trying to process the inner experiences of what it's like to be in shutdown, to be depressed, to be alone, rejected, abandoned.
You might be delving into the stories of your upbringing, the stuff you've been through. If you're not ready for it, delving into that stuff can be re traumatizing. Yeah, these things are super important, and eventually it might be very important to talk about them. But, right now, today, and yesterday, and the day before, you may not have been in a place or have your safety state be strong enough to handle that discussion.
As you discuss the past, as you think about it, as you remember it, you're also going to feel it, and on some level you're going to flat out re experience it. If you can't handle that, if your safety state's not strong enough yet to welcome that with curiosity and compassion, then it just reinforces the traumatized state of shutdown. The other thing you might be doing is rejecting your shutdown state. And again, this, this stems from probably not having enough safety in your system.
If you don't have the love and the compassion necessary to welcome shutdown, which only comes from your safety state being strong enough, then you'll likely reject your shutdown. You need the safety state to be more, more strengthened. As you come out of shutdown into fight, You might use that energy to reject the experience, to blame yourself or maybe somebody else, probably yourself, to shame yourself, to be mean to yourself in some way.
As we come out of shutdown into fight, we want to use that sympathetic energy, that returning sympathetic energy to mobilize and maybe be productive or motivated or just more physical in some way. We want to welcome it and use it. But, if you're unable to welcome it with curiosity and compassion, then that's when we lean into those things like rejection and blame and shame and negative thoughts.
So instead of judging yourself for what you have not accomplished in life, like maybe you've done that today or will do that today, like I didn't do enough, I didn't do good enough at work, I wasn't a good enough spouse, parent. Instead of focusing on that and continually blaming yourself, maybe focus on the small things that you can do from shutdown. I'm not saying like give yourself a pass.
I think those thoughts of like, "I didn't do good enough" can be valid because you do want more and that's okay. But I don't know how productive it is and how helpful it is to bash yourself for those things day after day. So, instead of that, or if you could do less of that and then increase your focus on those small things that you actually can accomplish from shutdown, that might be more productive. Maybe there are small, achievable things that you can do every day.
Maybe there are small changes that you can do in your routine that might involve a bit more mindfulness. Something like starting off your mornings with more slow and more quiet. Maybe focusing on the external world, the external environment. Connecting to it through your senses every morning. Listening for safety inside of yourself.
If you can set up some sort of small routine in your day like that, that requires more mindfulness from your safety and your shutdown state, that's probably going to be more productive than, you know, using your fight energy to be mean to yourself or to use your shutdown lack of energy to also be mean to yourself. The other thing you might be doing is using behavioral adaptations instead of feeling your shutdown.
Again, and from shutdown, we need to eventually feel it from safety to allow shutdown and then to emerge out of it. From shutdown, you might be oversleeping, that's kind of a behavioral adaptation. You don't have much energy in shutdown, so it makes sense, but it's also not mindfully experiencing shutdown because, well, you're asleep.
When coming out of shutdown, you might be doing other behavioral adaptations, like as that energy comes back in your system, that fight energy, you might be numbing it through, uh, doomscrolling, I guess it's called doomscrolling, where you're just kind of like, you can't stop using your phone, I think that's what it means, I'm not quite sure what it means in all honesty, I've heard a couple people use that recently, I'm not quite sure what it means, but I think
it means something like, you're just constantly on social media or scrolling through stuff and you can't stop. But basically you're numbing your emotions through using your phone, that's uh, something I think a lot of people do. Instead of feeling your shutdown, feeling that returning fight energy, that mobilization, you're numbing it through some sort of behavior like doom scrolling, or other sort of numbing behaviors or addictions, or maybe, you know, being irritable and mean to others.
But that's kind of the other thing you might be doing wrong, is that you're not feeling the shutdown and you're not mindfully experiencing it. Instead of that, we need to allow it. We need to allow it. Eventually. Eventually. We need to allow it. We need to feel it. Eventually. It might be too much right now, and that's fine. But eventually, it does need to be felt.
You need to embrace what it's like to be in shutdown, and then that mindful experiencing of it gives your body permission to come out of it. To allow shutdown, that's probably going to look like being quiet and in calm and having lower stimulation. Probably. The way it looks for you might be different than me, but that's generally what people are pulled towards.
So if you don't, if you're truly in a shutdown state and you don't give yourself that, then you're not giving yourself the context, the environment to mindfully experience shutdown. And if you're not mindfully experiencing it, then you're just staying in it. One way that you may not be feeling your shutdown mindfully is through judging it instead of allowing it.
You might be stuck in these negative pessimistic thoughts and these are very common from a shutdown state is to be very pessimistic or have negative types of thoughts to project future failure and to dwell on yourself as a present moment failure and a past failure as well. You're judging your shutdown. You're not allowing it. When these thoughts come up, I would recommend just notice them as best you can. Say hi to them maybe, uh, but then focus on the present moment.
Those thoughts are there because story follows state, so it's, it's normal to have those types of thoughts from Shutdown. I don't think it helps to, you know, dogpile yourself and say how horrible you are to have those thoughts from Shutdown. Instead, say that, "yeah, these are normal from Shutdown. I see them. Hello." As best you can. And then focus on the external environment and try to reconnect with the external environment. Because the internal might be too much, or... Too numb.
So connecting with the external environment might be more approachable. But yeah, it's very normal. We know story follows state. We know the thoughts of our mind come from the state that we are in. So if you're stuck in a shutdown state, your thoughts are going to be shut down as well. They're going to be flavored by that state. And they're going to reinforce the state. So those pessimistic thoughts make total sense. But they act as this top down cue of danger that reinforces the shutdown.
Again, I'm not trying to blame or, or, you know, do my own dogpiling on, on top of what you're doing to yourself. I'm not, that's not the intention here. It's not about blame. But it is about, "what can I do differently? What am I doing?" Although, of course, unintentionally.
But yeah, "what am I doing" even though it's unintentional "what am I doing and what can I control?" And maybe "what can I do differently?" and there's lots of things that you can do differently two things are number one Listen to the previous episode of this podcast.
It goes deeper into the shutdown state and number two is check out my total access membership You know that being stuck shows up in many different ways, and from the shutdown state, it can present itself in many different ways as well. Loneliness, depression, dissociation, isolation, and more. And you already know that.
But if you're ready to take that next step... in your getting unstuck process, and you don't want to spend a ton of money, then I invite you to consider subscribing to Stuck Not Broken Total Access Membership. In Total Access, you will gain total access to the knowledge that you need through my Polyvagal Trauma Relief System. You'll also have the option of connecting with others and spending more time with me in the community.
No, you don't have to, and especially I know from People who are in shutdown that they don't want to connect, you know, potentially usually often. And the idea of connecting with other people, even in an online community is too much for them. So no, you don't have to. But you can, if you want to. Actually the majority of people that joined my community, they just kind of want to do the courses on their own. And that's fine. I have a core group that is really active in the community.
I think they're fantastic. So you are welcome to join and to contribute in any way that feels comfortable for you, or just take the courses and do your own thing at your own pace. There's also a whole bunch of other stuff in the total access membership that you get as well to, to go deeper in your unstucking process. And, you know, I actually have a nifty gifty for you for listening to this episode. I updated my Polyvagal One Pagers.
This is like 20 pages, I think 19 20 pages of the Polyvagal Theory Fundamentals. And they're super easy to print out and hand out if you want to. But it has information on all the Polyvagal Fundamentals, like the primary states, the mixed states, behavioral adaptations, bagel break, and more. And I just updated it with all of the new stuff from the new book, including the new mixed dates. Uh, those are in there now as well.
So those are updated and I also updated, well, I updated a whole bunch of stuff. So the way you can get access to that is by joining my free membership on my website, which is different than stuck, not broken total access. That's a paid community. On my website, JustinLMFT.Com, I have a free membership. It's like a website membership.
Sign up for that and you get all of my resources as well as my learning hubs, which has all of my, well, learning gathered into hubs, you know, like the polyvagal states, like more stuff on shutdown, but also I think I have a parenting hub, relationships hub and a bunch of others. So just from signing up for free on my website, you get access to the member center with the learning hubs and the downloads.
Otherwise, fellow Stucknaut, I really hope this episode has been a helpful resource for you in learning about and applying the Polyvagal Theory to your trauma relief. Again, it's not about blame, but I think it is helpful to say, this is what I'm doing and this is what I can do about it. 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.