To live will be an awfully big adventure.
—PETER PAN
Science continues to demonstrate that your brain and body systems are in a constant state of change. The concept of neuroplasticity (the way brain networks reorganize) has been incorporated into mainstream thinking. In an explosion of interest in the past several years, Polyvagal Theory has not only been embraced by therapists but is finding its way into the legal system, medical settings, the business world, and schools. We are drawn to want to know more as we recognize the profound changes evoked in individuals, families, groups, systems, and even society when we are held in the safety of ventral vagal energy.
The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of daily living. The three circuits of the autonomic nervous system “co-arise, co-exist, and co-mingle to create the array of complex human physiological, emotional and behavioral states” (Sullivan et al., 2018, p. 5). These autonomic circuits continually assess safety and risk and initiate actions to help your clients navigate the demands of the day. With the evolutionary emergence of the ventral vagal system, clients have the ability to regulate their autonomic nervous systems through connection with others in face-to-face interactions (Flores & Porges, 2017). Through a polyvagal lens, social engagement is the “go-to default activity” that people use to regulate (Lucas et al., 2016, p. 6). With a system shaped in safety, your clients are able to embody these patterns of connection. With a system shaped by trauma, their pathways to regulation through connection are disrupted and they are guided instead by patterns of protection.
Your clients’ stories begin in their bodies. Science has shown that behind the scenes, the autonomic nervous system, through habitual patterns of response, generates stories. With awareness and practice, you can help your clients reshape their responses and rewrite their stories. With a map of their autonomic circuits, you can help your clients use autonomic exercises to create new patterns, move out of adaptive survival responses, and begin to meet the ordinary, and perhaps even the extraordinary, challenges of daily life from an autonomically regulated state of safety.
“The capacity for affect regulation is not biologically guaranteed or innately hard-wired into our nervous system at birth” (Flores & Porges, 2017, p. 6). How often your clients are met with attunement or misattunement, how they are seen, heard, and held, and the ways they are offered the safety of co-regulation all combine to organize a personal autonomic profile. While their early life experiences establish their autonomic profile, ongoing experiences can modify it. Exercising neural circuits supports the essential ability to “immobilize without fear, mobilize without rage or anger, and socially engage with others” (Williamson et al., 2015, p. 2). Regularly exercising circuits of connection promotes flexibility and shapes a system that can respond and not simply react.
Helping your clients engage with their autonomic nervous systems through polyvagal exercising is an invitation for them to become students of their systems. Repatterning the autonomic nervous system happens over time, not only in therapy but in the time between therapy. The following two vignettes offer a look at what is possible when clients engage in exercises to shape their systems and is a reminder that polyvagal exercises have impact when they are practiced over time.
Autonomic Exercising
Before I started using polyvagal exercises, I was stuck in a state of dysregulation. Although back then I didn’t have words for it, I know now that my system was moving between dorsal vagal collapse and sympathetic activation in an endless, enduring loop. I was living a story of survival and suffering. Like most complex trauma survivors, I couldn’t imagine feeling relaxed and present in the moment. I couldn’t imagine feeling safe.
When I was introduced to Polyvagal Theory, I didn’t know there was anything except a survival state and even when I learned about ventral vagal safety and connection, I rarely found myself in that place and couldn’t hold on to the moments when I did. Now, after many months of practice, I find my way to ventral with relative ease and I’ve learned from experience that it’s only when I have enough ventral energy on board that a positive outcome is possible.
Over the time I’ve been using polyvagal exercises, I’ve become much less reactive. I’m more tolerant, compassionate, and even self-compassionate. I experience moments of calm, curiosity, humor, and gratitude and worry less about what might happen to overwhelm me. Even my longing for co-regulation is no longer shameful. Now I know it’s a normal, autonomic experience. My daily challenge is to tune in to what I need and then find ways to safely and wisely meet my needs both on my own and in connection with others.
An essential part of my autonomic exercising is to notice and name. In the beginning I had to physically stop and ask myself what state I was in and for a long time I could name dorsal, sympathetic, and ventral but naming the nuances of those states was difficult. Now I feel the flow of big and small changes in my system and noticing and naming has become second nature to me.
When I’m not regulated, I find a ventral vagal anchor. I’ve created many anchors since I first learned about them, but my go-to one is still my breath. And recently I’ve discovered that the more I notice, name, and anchor in ventral, the more I can look at other people and see their states. While I’m still improving, tracking my states and seeing other people’s states is incredibly helpful in learning to set boundaries and the biggest gift is that other people’s dysregulation no longer automatically triggers me.
My favorite practice of all the exercises is finding glimmers. Life before polyvagal exercising was mostly black and white and finding a glimmer felt as impossible as finding a four-leaf clover. Now there are colors and, while I faithfully do the “find three glimmers a day practice,” most of my days bring many more than three glimmers.
I have a regular autonomic exercise plan and am committed to daily practice. I know I am building new wiring and resilience. I feel it in my body, see it in the way I move through my day, and hear it in my stories.
An Expert State Detector
The notice-and-name practice is the foundation of my polyvagal exercise program. I’m skilled at putting myself on my autonomic map and sensitive to recognizing even subtle state shifts. I can tell when I’m in a ventral vagal state and things are emotionally difficult but manageable. I know when I’m getting close to slipping into sympathetic fight or flight. And I can track when I’m in a sympathetic mobilization, becoming overwhelmed, and heading toward shutdown. Noticing shifts and being able to tune in to the feeling that I’m just about to move into a different state gives me the moment I need to interrupt my familiar habitual response and attempt something different. When I am able to name my state, that awareness translates into having some choice in my reaction. If I notice I’m heading toward sympathetic, which would normally bring an angry outburst, I try to use the energy in a different way, to use flight in a healthier way. I might end a conversation or leave a situation in a way that isn’t aggressive. And if I’m sinking into dorsal, I’ve discovered that moving (shifting my body, standing up, moving to a different place) and looking for just a moment of social connection can stop the free fall.
There are still times when the shift happens so suddenly that I don’t notice until it’s already happened. Even then, if I can name the change, the experience feels less scary and I can move out of it more quickly. I’m trying to build a community of people who speak “polyvagal” because I don’t feel so alone when there are people around who know the language. Sharing my state with someone who understands my autonomic shorthand can help me return to regulation quickly. I use the smile experiment when I notice the beginning pull toward dorsal. I head out to the places around me where I know there will be people and make a point of looking at the faces of clerks, customers, and people around me and smile. I’ve found with just a bit of feedback from another face, I can begin to move away from the dorsal vagal hole I’m in danger of falling in.
Noticing and naming is now built into my daily life and I find I not only attend to my own states but I’m also able to think about what’s happening for others. When coworkers or family members direct their anger at me, I find myself wondering why their system is reacting in that way and I consider the underlying need. It used to be impossible for me to not get sympathetically triggered or retreat into dorsal vagal disconnection when someone was yelling at me or accusing me of something. Now I can usually see they are having an autonomic response of their own and most of the time I stay regulated and even look at them with compassion.
Since beginning to use polyvagal exercises, I understand more about my autonomic nervous system. I know that while dorsal shutdown is my familiar pathway of protection and still feels more livable and less damaging than the anger of sympathetic, I also recognize the huge cost I pay in the way it limits having the connections I long for in my life. Seeing small changes add up to more regulation makes each day a bit easier even with the ongoing challenges in my life. I can often move through the day without my old survival responses taking control. I’m beginning to trust that my ventral vagal state will help me meet whatever the day brings.
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
—MOTHER THERESA
Polyvagal exercises are one way to bring William James’ century old invitation to befriend our nervous systems into practical application. Polyvagal exercises are designed to engage the power of the autonomic nervous system and help clients (and therapists) move out of automatic survival responses into the possibilities held in the ventral vagal state. It’s my hope that you will experiment with the practices yourself and feel the benefits both in your personal life and in your professional practice. Then, with a polyvagal exercise savvy therapist as a guide, your clients can explore practices and create an ongoing autonomic exercise plan that leads to shaping their systems in new ways and writing stories of well-being.
Through a polyvagal lens, benevolence is the active, ongoing use of ventral vagal energy in service of healing. Benevolence can be the stone we cast across the water. If we each are a regulated and regulating force in the world, we will change the world one autonomic nervous system at a time.