We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us.
—HERMAN MELVILLE
Connection is a biological imperative, vital to our survival (Porges, 2015a). Through our biology, we are wired for connection. Our autonomic nervous system longs for connection with another system and sends signals out into the world, searching for signals in return. By means of co-regulation, the third organizing principle of Polyvagal Theory, we connect with others and create a shared sense of safety.
WIRED FOR CONNECTION
Belonging to a group or being part of a tribe has been a survival strategy throughout evolutionary history. Humans are social beings “and our nature is to recognize, interact, and form relationships” with others (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2014, p. 1). We find purpose in our social connections and when our belongingness needs aren’t met, we feel less meaning in our everyday lives (Stillman et al., 2009). Connection is a wired in biological necessity; isolation, or even the perception of social separateness, leads to a compromised ability to regulate our autonomic states and impacts our physical and emotional well-being (Porges & Furman, 2011). When we feel alone in the world we suffer. When that feeling is chronic, medical and mental health risks multiply. Cardiovascular disease and death, an exaggerated inflammatory response, cognitive decline, sleep disturbance, and depression are just some of the consequences of being stuck in a loneliness loop (Cole et al., 2015; Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010).
Beginning with the way we are welcomed into the world the autonomic nervous system starts to build a story about relationships. How much of that story is about connection and how much is about protection depends on whether we have regulated and regulating people surrounding us. At birth we move from anatomical connection through the umbilical cord to autonomic connection through face-to-face, nervous system to nervous system co-regulation. Kangaroo care, skin-to-skin contact between mothers or fathers and babies, has become common practice in hospital nurseries and neonatal intensive care units. Positive outcomes for babies include heart, breathing, and temperature stabilization; more organized sleep; rapid improvement in state organization; and parents report feeling more sensitive to their babies and more able to adapt to their baby’s signals (Jefferies, 2012). In these earliest interactions, babies depend on their caregiver to bring a regulated nervous system to the connection.
In attuned parent-child relationships, parents recognize their child’s changing autonomic needs and respond appropriately. In this co-regulation of autonomic states, there is a shared autonomic experience, a shared emotional experience, and a shared experience of safety. The attuned dyad creates a biological synchrony that forms the foundation for navigating interpersonal relationships (Manini et al., 2013). Uninterrupted attunement isn’t necessary to develop a regulated autonomic response system. In fact, that match needs to happen only about a third of the time (Ostlund et al., 2017; Tronick & Gianino, 1986). The essential ingredient is what happens after the mismatch. A regulated, flexible, and resilient system is built when the ruptures are recognized and repairs are made.
The ability to self-regulate is built on ongoing experiences of co-regulation. Yet, even as we develop self-regulating capacities, the need for social interaction and co-regulation remains throughout our lifetime (Porges & Furman, 2011). We depend on the people around us for co-regulation and try to offer experiences of co-regulation in return. Sometimes, however, rather than a co-regulating experience we find we are engaged in mutual dysregulation. We follow a friend into anxiety, lose hope along with our partner, or find ourselves in a state of opposition to others.
MISSED CONNECTIONS
When there is ongoing misattunement, when ruptures aren’t recognized and repaired, the autonomic experience of persistent danger shapes the system away from connection into patterns of protection. Loneliness is a subjective experience. It emerges not from the objective facts of social isolation but out of a perception of social isolation (De Jong Gierveld & Van Tilburg, 2010). Loneliness is a common human experience. A study of 20,000 people in the United States (Cigna U.S. Loneliness Index) found that 46% reported feeling lonely sometimes or always, 46% reported feeling left out sometimes or always, and only 27% feel as if they belong to a group. A 2017 survey in Britain (Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness) found over nine million people reported feeling often or always lonely. Loneliness prompts us to reach out to others but can also activate patterns of protection (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2014). We feel both the pull to connect and the fear of rejection. Cues of danger and life-threat interrupt the ability for co-regulation and the creation of relationships (Porges & Carter, 2017). When we move into hypervigilance for threat, it’s difficult to send signals of welcome to others. Through the cues of safety and danger we send out into the world people feel our social temperature—warm and welcoming, hot and bothered, or cold and calculating (Ijzerman et al., 2012).
MINI EXERCISE
Think about the people in your life and consider which connections are most often co-regulating and which more often bring mutual dysregulation.
– When do you feel an autonomic match?
– When do you feel an autonomic mismatch?
Social connection is the subjective experience of being connected to others (Seppälä, Rossomando, & Doty, 2013). Social support on the other hand may be an exchange relationship in which services, information, and advice are offered. While social support has a necessary place in your life, if you don’t also experience social connection, you can feel a deep sense of loneliness. In fact, in studies of social support it appears that it is the quality and not the quantity of the support that impacts life satisfaction (Utz & Breuer, 2017). Interestingly, studies indicate that perceived social support shows higher correlations with well-being than received support (Utz & Breuer, 2017). When offers of social support and acts of social interaction include the sense of companionship, then co-regulation and social connection ease the sense of loneliness. When social support is being delivered from a state of misattunement, then the autonomic experience is one of needing protection from harm (Porges, 2012). It’s the “perception of safety [that] is the turning point in the development of relationships . . .” (Porges, 2003, p. 39).
MINI EXERCISE
Take a moment to consider the people around you. Notice which category (support or connection) people belong in. Some people may be in one category while others may be in both.
– Who is in your social support network?
– Who do you feel socially connected to?
RECONNECTING
The research on loneliness proves what your autonomic nervous system knows; you need social connection and suffer both physically and emotionally when you don’t experience enough of it. The UCLA Loneliness Scale, a 20-question survey that you can locate easily on the internet, assesses the perception of social isolation and is used extensively in research. One way to begin to consider your experience of loneliness is with the short, three-item version of this scale:
On a scale of Hardly ever, Some of the time, Often,
1. How often do you feel that you lack companionship?
2. How often do you feel left out?
3. How often do you feel isolated from others?
According to Porges (2016, p. 5), “Survival is dependent on opportunities to successfully co-regulate.” With enough experiences of co-regulation you become able to successfully self-regulate as well. He goes on to state that “ . . . a history of successful and predictable co-regulation tunes the nervous system to be sufficiently resilient to function during periods of separation” (Porges, 2016, p. 6). With this understanding of co-regulation and self-regulation comes the recognition that being alone does not always equate with feeling alone and being alone is not always an experience of suffering. When you suffer from loneliness, being alone means being isolated, but with a foundation of social connection and predictable opportunities for co-regulation, you can safely enter into the experience of solitude. “[Language] has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone” (Tillich, 1963). What are the autonomic differences between isolation and solitude? Isolation arises from a state of protection. This may be the sympathetic nervous system mobilizing a desperate search for connection or the dorsal vagal system bringing a collapse into despair and disconnection. On the other hand, solitude is a ventral vagal–resourced experience of choosing to be alone and feeling a sense of peace in the separateness.
MINI EXERCISE
– When do you feel lonely?
– When do you feel the sweetness of solitude?
If a core component of well-being is the predictable opportunity for co-regulating relationships, then trauma might be described as the chronic disruption of connectedness (Porges, 2014). Trauma creates ongoing adaptive survival responses that keep the autonomic nervous system from finding safety in connection. Without experiences of co-regulation, and without trust that ongoing opportunities for co-regulation are available, the autonomic pathways that support moving out of protection into connection aren’t exercised and strengthened. The autonomic nervous system remains on guard, ready to act in service of survival. When two people co-regulate and share a state of safety, their autonomic nervous systems create the possibility for health, growth, and restoration. Within a co-regulated relationship, your quest for safety is realized and you can create a story of well-being.
SECTION I SUMMARY
If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships.
—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Life is experienced from the inside out through neuroception and state changes and from the outside in through co-regulating or dysregulating connections with others. Experiences are carried in autonomic pathways: trauma stories rooted in states of sympathetic and dorsal vagal dysregulation and stories of well-being anchored in the ventral vagal state of safety and connection.
The autonomic nervous system is designed to help you successfully navigate the challenges of daily living. Formed through the history of human evolution and individually shaped by day-to-day experience, the autonomic nervous system continuously assesses risk, inhibiting some responses while initiating others, all in service of survival. Cues of safety and danger, often outside of your awareness, activate autonomic states that are translated into patterns of protection or connection. Through the lens of Polyvagal Theory, these experiences of moving toward or away from people, places, and things become understandable and predictable.
The autonomic nervous system shapes the ways you experience your life. Through your physiology, you hear the call to connect and feel an autonomic response. Where does your autonomic nervous system take you? Moving toward or backing away? Extending a hand or clenching a fist? When you learn to partner with your autonomic nervous system, you can reshape the system and rewrite your stories. When you are anchored in a state of ventral vagal safety, you can open the door to change.