Polyvagal 101

Summary

Feminist Survival Project: Polyvagal 101 – Detailed Long-Form Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Feminist Survival Project
• Hosts: Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
• Description: A podcast for feminists who feel overwhelmed and exhausted by everything they need to do, and still worry that we're not doing enough – hosted by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, authors of BURNOUT: the secret to unlocking the stress cycle.
• Episode: Polyvagal 101
• Release Date: December 13, 2024

---

1. Introduction to Polyvagal Theory

[00:10 – 00:33]
Emily and Amelia Nagoski open the episode by introducing the topic: Polyvagal Theory. Emily humorously mentions her chapped lips before diving into the discussion, acknowledging that her understanding of the theory is less thorough than Amelia's and inviting Amelia to fill in the gaps.

2. Understanding the Vagus Nerve and Its Branches

[00:33 – 03:14]
Amelia explains the fundamental concept of Polyvagal Theory, emphasizing that it concerns the structure of the nervous system, particularly the vagus nerve, which plays a crucial role in determining our physiological states of safety or threat. The vagus nerve is described as a two-way conduit connecting the brain to the heart, gut, face, and other peripheral areas, facilitating communication both from the brain to the body and vice versa.

Notable Quote:
Amelia states, “This is all about your nervous system's sense of safety” [00:33 – 00:57].

3. The Three Branches of the Vagus Nerve

[03:14 – 05:13]
Emily elaborates on the three primary branches of the vagus nerve:

• Dorsal Vagal: Located at the back of the brain, associated with the freeze or shutdown response.
• Sympathetic: Positioned at the front, linked to the traditional fight or flight response.
• Ventral Vagal: Situated in the middle, related to fawn or social connection behaviors.

She clarifies that these states are protective responses but also acknowledges their non-protective counterparts, illustrating that these states are intrinsic to human physiology and not inherently good or bad.

Notable Quote:
Emily explains, “So none of these states is good or bad inherently. None of these states is superior to any other” [07:00 – 07:07].

4. Protective vs. Safe States

[05:13 – 10:05]
Amelia discusses how the brain assesses safety through neuroception, a term coined by Stephen Porges, which integrates external sensory information and internal physiological states to determine whether the environment is safe. This assessment influences whether one remains in a protective state (dorsal or sympathetic) or transitions to a ventral state of safety and connection.

Notable Quote:
Amelia emphasizes, “It decides, okay, so right now we are safe. And we can smile and relax and look into the eyes of the people that we care about” [08:30 – 09:25].

5. Blended States

[05:40 – 15:00]
The hosts introduce the concept of blended states, where different branches of the vagus nerve interact to create nuanced physiological responses:

• Play State (Ventral + Sympathetic): Represents energetic and connected behaviors, akin to playfulness in mammals.
• Peaceful Immobilization (Ventral + Dorsal): Described through the analogy of puppies snuggling, highlighting a deeply nourishing and safe state.

These blended states demonstrate the flexibility of the nervous system in adapting to varying levels of safety and activation.

Notable Quote:
Amelia shares a relatable example, “Peaceful immobilization is one of the most nourishing states that a body can be in” [06:15 – 06:18].

6. Personal Experiences and Clinical Insights

[12:33 – 17:14]
Emily recounts her traumatic experience of hospitalization, describing it as feeling “held hostage” [23:24 – 23:27]. The conversation delves into how such traumatic events can trap individuals in a dorsal state, leading to feelings akin to depression ("We have been stuck in dorsal, and it's similar to how I was in dorsal") [15:27 – 15:54].

Amelia mentions the work of Deb Dana, a clinician who has translated Polyvagal Theory into practical clinical applications. She recommends Dana's works, including Polyvagal World, which simplifies Porges' complex theories for broader understanding and application.

Notable Quote:
Amelia states, “If you're stuck in dorsal, depression is what happens” [16:18 – 16:50].

7. Clinical Applications and Resources

[17:14 – 24:35]
The hosts discuss various resources and books that help translate Polyvagal Theory into actionable strategies. Amelia references her book Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection and acknowledges the challenge of reading Stephen Porges' original work, recommending more accessible guides instead.

They also address the concept of medical trauma, underscoring how negative experiences in healthcare settings can reinforce dorsal states, making healing more challenging.

Notable Quote:
Amelia advises, “If you want to read about polyvagal theory directly from Stephen Porges, try our Polyvagal World, which talks about the applications of polyvagal theory” [17:37 – 18:21].

8. Techniques to Shift Physiological States

[24:35 – 35:18]
Emily and Amelia explore practical techniques to transition out of a dorsal state. They highlight two primary methods:

1. Internal Healing (Turning Toward Stuckness): Emphasizing self-compassion and acknowledging difficult emotions without judgment. Emily shares her breakthrough in recognizing depression as a protective mechanism, despite its destructive potential.

   Notable Quote:
   “Trying to keep you safe in some circumstances… learned helplessness is dorsal” [13:08 – 13:13].

2. Receiving Care: Accepting external support, such as cuddling or being held, to signal safety to the nervous system.

Amelia introduces the practice of “glimmers and glows”, encouraging listeners to identify and reflect on small moments of safety, peace, or joy each day to activate the ventral branch.

Notable Quote:
Amelia explains glimmers and glows: “Glimmers where you think about like, what's a thing that happened today where you felt a sense of peace, safety and connection” [51:02 – 52:28].

9. Masking and Autism

[30:08 – 50:58]
The conversation shifts to masking behaviors, especially in the context of autism. Both hosts reveal their diagnoses of ASD Level One, discussing how masking affects their ability to manage physiological states. Amelia highlights how masking can make it difficult to access glimmers and glows, as external behaviors may obscure internal experiences.

Emily shares her experiences with masking in professional settings, likening it to maintaining a "Muppet face" to project stability and control.

Notable Quote:
Amelia notes, “Things like social connection is necessary. Play is part of what is necessary for us as human beings” [46:16 – 46:17].

10. Concluding Insights and Practical Advice

[50:58 – 67:12]
In wrapping up, the hosts emphasize the importance of flexibility in navigating different physiological states. They reassure listeners that no single state is inherently dangerous, but being stuck in a dorsal or sympathetic state can lead to mental health challenges like depression and anxiety.

Amelia shares a poignant quote from Deb Dana’s book, highlighting the necessity of recognizing true safety in one's environment and the body's role as an ally rather than an enemy.

Notable Quote:
Amelia concludes, “Our bodies are a safe place for us to live. We are safe. And all the lack of safety comes from outside of us, not from inside” [62:00 – 63:57].

Emily reflects on a recent dream where she found a clean room amid chaos, symbolizing personal progress and healing, underscoring the episode's themes of resilience and self-compassion.

Final Notable Quote:
Amelia reaffirming, “Nothing's a project. Everything's a project” [60:08 – 60:13], emphasizing the ongoing journey of self-healing and understanding.

---

Key Takeaways:

1. Polyvagal Theory explains how the vagus nerve influences our physiological states of safety and threat, categorized into dorsal (freeze/shutdown), sympathetic (fight or flight), and ventral (social connection) branches.

2. Neuroception is the brain’s way of assessing perceived safety, influencing which physiological state is activated.

3. Blended States like play and peaceful immobilization demonstrate the nervous system's adaptability.

4. Personal Trauma and negative experiences can trap individuals in dorsal states, leading to depression and anxiety, but understanding Polyvagal Theory provides pathways to healing.

5. Practical Techniques such as glimmers and glows, self-compassion, and receiving care can help shift out of stuck states.

6. Masking Behaviors, especially in autistic individuals, can obscure internal states, making it challenging to access positive moments of safety and connection.

7. Flexibility in navigating physiological states is crucial for mental wellness, emphasizing that no single state is bad, but being stuck can lead to mental health issues.

8. Resources like Deb Dana’s books offer accessible insights and exercises to apply Polyvagal Theory in daily life.

---

Overall, “Polyvagal 101” serves as an insightful exploration into how our nervous system governs our perception of safety, impacting our mental and emotional well-being. Through personal anecdotes, clinical insights, and practical advice, Emily and Amelia Nagoski empower listeners to understand and navigate their physiological states, fostering resilience and self-compassion in the face of overwhelm and burnout.

Transcript

[A]

My lips are all chapped. All right, so we're doing Polyvagal 101 today.

[B]

Polyvagal 101.

[A]

I will go through my less thorough understanding than yours. Okay. And you will fill in the blanks where I leave things out. Yeah.

[B]

And that'll get us far enough. Yep.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the function of just everybody who's listening. Why are we talking about polyvagal theory? This is the structure of your nervous system that's going to explain which state you are in, why you are in that state, and how to get out of it and how to know if you're okay. Because this is all about your nervous system's sense of safety.

[A]

And how this happens is through a nerve called the vagus nerve. It's a. It's a big fat nerve that runs from your brain into your torso and branches off into kind of two main areas that we can think about as your heart and your gut. And it's a two way nerve, meaning the communication goes.

[B]

But also your face.

[A]

And your face. Yes, but that's in your. Okay, I was making the connection that it's from your. From your brain to your. But yeah, it's not the only thing that it does. Yeah, okay. And also your face.

[B]

It's important because. Because we want to. What? We want people to talk about ventral. I want people to be thinking about ventral. Great, great, great. People be like, what the fuck is that?

[A]

Okay, we'll explain, we'll explain.

[B]

Sorry, I get ahead of myself. I get excited. You totally do. Vagal theory.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's a two way nerve, meaning communication goes from your brain into the rest of your body. So when your brain senses something, that means it can tell that information to the rest of you. And also it goes from the outside periphery of your body into your brain. So when the extremities or from stuff in your torso gets a thing that happens that goes into your brain. So your brain has the opportunity to take that information and turn it into an idea or a feeling that you think about or are aware of. Does that all make sense?

[B]

Right. So when we were talking about gender, I was talking about the ways that our brain will receive feedback from our peripheral nervous system about the way the world has responded to the choice we made. That's information going up in. And then the brain receives that and it sends a response back down of like, here's what we're going to do as a result of that thing that happened.

[A]

Right. There are three connections from the vagal nerve into the brain. One is in the back. And it's called dorsal because it's in the back of the brain. Of the brain. The connection of the nerve into the brain is in the most rear of these three connections. So it's called the dorsal connection. And that relates to a polyvagal state that. That is called dorsal.

[B]

Dorsal.

[A]

And the dorsal state is the one we associate with freeze or shutting down. That's enough for now. There's the one that's furthest in the front is called sympathetic. The sympathetic state, you know, the sympathetic nervous system when you connect it to like fight or flight, that kind of thing. And the one in the middle is called ventral. And that's the one we associate with, you know, fawn with connection. So the one in the back is freeze. The one in the middle is kind of vaguely fawn. And. But so these states I'm describing as freeze, fawn and fight or flight are the protective versions of these states. There are also non protective versions of these states that are just like I'm in a state and it's not like. It's not a response to fear or an extreme sensory input. Does that make sense?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I find it helpful to explain that that dorsal nerve, it's. It begins at the rearmost of the branch of the vagus. Primarily innervates the gut.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The sympathetic primarily, but not exclusively innervates the heart area. And the ventral primarily, not exclusively. They all actually go to all three. But it primarily innervates the. The face. So I think about it dorsal. Think about it as being like your gut functioning. Sympathetic. Think about it as your heart, cardiovascular. And ventral. Think about it as being. Face. Social.

[A]

Yeah. So the other idea of freeze is the parasympathetic nervous system. It's the stop doing things state which is also known as rest and digest.

[B]

Yeah. If you got Physiology 101 in high school, you probably got like fight or flight versus rest and digest.

[A]

And in the middle is tendon befriend.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah. Ventral.

[B]

Of the protective versions of. So the question is which branch of the vagus nerve is currently activated that will tell you what state you are currently in. And very broadly speaking, there are protective versions of the activation of these states and there are safe, peaceful activations of each of these three branches of the vagus.

[A]

And I want to add that there are also blended states.

[B]

Heck, yes. Yes.

[A]

A combination of ventral and sympathetic is sort of like play because you're activated and you're also connected.

[B]

Yeah, Play is my favorite of the blended states. There's also a blended State of ventral and dorsal. So the safe. When you are feeling safe and connected and you're also in a rest and digest dorsal shutdown state. That's the technical term for it when you're, you know a mammal is peaceful immobilization.

[A]

Yeah, that's.

[B]

That's your, your pile of dogs.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Sleeping on top of each other, just puppies, just like moving and flopping around and lying on top of each other. That's called peaceful immobilization. And it is one of the most nourishing states that a body can be in. If you can just lie peacefully against another mammalian body. No, it does not have to be a human. Yeah, that's a blended state. That is like so good for you.

[A]

The snuggly feeling when your cat just lays on top of you or your dog snuggles up close.

[B]

So that is so good for you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's a blended state. That's not pure dorsal. That is a safe ventral activate version of dorsal activation.

[A]

Yeah. So none of these states is good or bad inherently. None of these states is superior to any other. They're just three states that we have.

[B]

Access to that your brain is going to choose.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Based on its perception of your current situation.

[A]

Yeah. It doesn't happen with conscious thought, but you can influence your state with like focused kind of awareness. And the same way you can change how your voice changes. You can't operate the muscles of your voice voluntarily, but you can sort of imagine your way into something new. And you also have access to that kind of. I'm not going to say control.

[B]

I want to talk about how you change your state after I talk about. After we talk about the kind of information that your body uses to assess. Okay, so we're going to start with the obvious stuff. Your extrasensitive senses. Everything that you see, hear, smell, touch and taste. Right, Right.

[A]

Yeah. The senses that you're taught in school, your exteroceptive senses.

[B]

And I'm going to use that word on purpose because it is comparable to your interoceptive senses. So we've used the word interoceptive a lot because we talk about trusting your body, which means being aware of your body's internal state. So your interoception, as opposed to your exteroception is your awareness of your internal physiological state. That's your heartbeat and your digestion and some other things that you can be aware of. So like tightness in your muscles and stretching in your tendons. These are interoceptive states and they combine along with everything you think Believe or imagine, that's your higher order cognitive stuff to create something that Stephen Porges calls your neuroception. And your neuroception is your sense of sense safety. It's taken in all this information, combined it with everything you have already ever experienced in your old entire life, including all, like, the bad that happened, but also all the healing that happened, all the safety you've experienced. And it decides, okay, so right now we are safe. And we can smile and relax and look into the eyes of the people that we care about. We can look into the eyes of a stranger and see a neighbor as we would love to be. And that's a ventral state. Because your brain has decided that you're safe. And so you've got primarily ventral activation.

[A]

Keeping in mind that your brain does have a bias towards unsafe memories because they're the more important ones for your survival. It's more difficult to remember the safe things than it is. You know, the ax forgets, but the tree remembers.

[B]

It takes more deliberate, intentional effort. Which is, which is why we're teaching you about it so that you can practice it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because otherwise your brain will most of the time be like, okay, so, like, shit is wrong. And the deal with this moment in history is shit truly is wrong. Many people ask, how can I ever interpret the world as being a safe.

[A]

Place to be when it isn't?

[B]

And the reality is, like, it's not always a safe place to be. And that's okay, I'm going to talk about that. But let's go through the other two states. When your brain assesses the situation as being unsafe and your best chance of surviving this unsafe state is a degree of vigilance or hypervigilance. You're either going to. That's when you get sympathetic activation. Right. Your heart rate increases and your blood pressure increases and your digestion goes away and your blood, like, moves away from the surface of your skin. So if you get cut, you don't bleed as much. And this is preparing you, and your.

[A]

Mental focus decreases into kind of a tunnel vision. You don't get distracted by, you know, if you're running for your life, you don't want to be distracted by, ooh, pretty horses over there. Which is applied to real life is. Makes it really difficult to remember that you have access to safety. Yeah, because you're being protected by this tunnel vision. But turns out is not protective in this instance.

[B]

Which is why we're going to talk about strategies for noticing what state you're in.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And this is either going to Turn into I need to get the heck out of here flight, or I need to destroy this thing that's in front of me, which is fight. And it's important that we remember that the function of the motivational state of fight is destroy. So when you are angry at someone, when you're frustrated, when you're annoyed, when it escalates up, threw into rage, your body's motivation is to destroy whatever's in front of you. Okay. Okay. So that's sympathetic. And we all. That's. I hope people know that's not true. I was about to say we all know what that's like. But I have absolutely talked to people, particularly women who are like, I think I just don't have a rage state. Like, I think, yeah, my brain. Just as you were.

[A]

As you were describing that I was thinking, it also occurred to me, I don't think I have much rage. And then I remembered that I do have a lot of rage, but my body learned to hide it from me so good so that I was not consciously aware of it.

[B]

I mean, and by so good, I mean your body learned so well to hide it. Your rage space is basically like the attic. It is a storage space full of storage bins all labeled. That's no fucking fair. Let's move on to dorsal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And these are evolutionarily hierarchical. So the sympathetic vagus evolved.

[A]

Wait, I want to go back for one second and talk about why your body might hide your rage from you.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And that's because it's trying to keep you safe in some circumstances. Unsafe to feel and express your rage. Or you have learned helplessness, that you have no agency control over your circumstances. You have no agency to affect change in your environment. So it learns just that this isn't going to do any good. So we're just not going to feel that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. We're just going to. Well, so the thing is, learned helplessness is dorsal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So when your brain interprets your best chance of survival as not like, you can't run, you are too slow, you cannot fight, you are too weak, Whether that is too physically weak or too sort of positionally weak socially, you go to dorsal, which is a kind of shutdown. This can be freeze, where you lock up. It's actually complicated to me. I'm not totally sure neurologically. Like, is freeze 100% dorsal, or is there. Because freeze is a highly active state, as opposed to flop, which is like, you want to fall asleep. You're in the middle of a stress response and you want to fall Asleep. Sometimes people experience tonic immobility where they cannot move their limbs. This is the most extreme where your body has decided that your best chance of survival is to shut down. Play dead, essentially.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And hope that help comes and just, like, get through it. Just like, allow a bad situation to happen and see if you are still able to stand up at the end of it.

[A]

That's dorsal shutdown, the happening in wild animals example that we have used a lot. When the tiger attacks, the gazelle chomp onto the gazelle, and then the gazelle collapses, falls flat, plays dead. But it's not consciously choosing to play. Its nervous system has shut down and collapsed it.

[B]

Yeah. Because it was literally not fast enough to escape the lion. Yeah.

[A]

So then the lion walks away to go get its, you know, cubs. Like, hey, here's dinner. And while the tiger's walking away, the gazelle shakes like crazy.

[B]

Like, if you've ever seen a dog, like, running in its sleep. Yeah, it looks kind of like that. There's like, heavy breathing, high shallow breathing. There's movement of the limbs.

[A]

Yeah. So that's kind of like completing the stress response. It's activating the leftover sympathetic stuff to free it from dorsal to get it.

[B]

To get up and limp away so it can escape.

[A]

Ultimately saved its own life by shutting down.

[B]

Yeah. So those are. And so when you are in the dorsal state and when you're not a gazelle, when you're a human, that's going to feel like despair. So when you're in dorsal, which is where a lot of people are these days, and it's not a familiar state to them, because unlike Amelia, that is not their neurological home away from home, as we call it.

[A]

I'm basically an opossum. I have default. Default door shutdown. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

You have resting dorsal face.

[A]

That's not wrong.

[B]

So you feel numb, you feel heavy, it's hard to get out of bed. You feel low energy. Everything feels more difficult than it should feel.

[A]

Hey, Emily, this sounds a lot like depression. Is there a relationship between dorsal and depression?

[B]

Well, I'm glad you asked. There surely is. None of these states is bad. We've said that before. We're going to say it again. None of these states is bad. What can be dangerous is getting stuck stuck. And depression is what happens when you get stuck in dorsal. Anxiety is what happens when you get stuck in sympathetic. And as far as I know, there's no such thing as getting stuck in ventral. Because the world is a dangerous place.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. And your brain does default to bias.

[B]

To interpreting as unsafe because that's how it protects you. It's a protective state.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So depression is a protective state, but you are stuck. You are trapped in this possum shut down defense. This is what I have in the past called my blueberry pie.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so there's a clinician named Deb Dana who has done the most work to translate the science. And the science here is like, whoa. Like you can read the Polyvagal theory by Stephen Porges.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's difficult to read like I.

[A]

It's so difficult to read that he actually produced a pocket guide to polyvagal theory which is also.

[B]

Which is also very depth.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There's a new book called it's just shorter, Our Polyvagal World, which is co written with his son who's a journalist. So it is much easier to read. So if you want to read about polyvagal theory directly from Stephen Porges, try our Polyvagal World, which talks about the applications of polyvagal theory, including ways to make our healing environments use our exteroceptive senses to enhance the likelihood that our brain will interpret a space as safe. Like hospitals should not have those lights.

[A]

No.

[B]

Because they trigger a sympathetic response. All of the beeping, the waking you up eight times a night, like none of that. None of that eventual healing state. It all is really stressful. Being in a hospital activates a sympathetic state. And I did mention that your immune system gets suppressed. I might have not have mentioned that your immune system, but your digestive system and your cardiovascular system and your immune system all get suppressed in both protective states. Yeah. And if your immune system is suppressed, you can't heal. So if you're in a hospital and you're in a sympathetic activated fight or flight state, you're not going to heal as readily.

[A]

Naturally. Basically, if you're hospitalized for something, you have a choice between getting 247 care and being in an environment where you feel safe.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's. That's why when you're in the hospital, all you want to do is go home.

[B]

All you want to do is go home. And you know, the, the insurance company wants to send you home also so that they can stop paying for that 247 care. Sometimes you need. They kick you out before you are no longer need that care. And then you end up at the emergency room.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And sometimes they keep you longer and you have to get angry and make them let you out.

[A]

Anyway, that happened to me.

[B]

Our Polyvagal World is a book about how like prisons also like how Our environments can be constructed in a way that are. That is more healing, that facilitates a sense of connection and joy and so that we can be actual human beings with each other as opposed to what we've turned into.

[A]

After I was hospitalized for four days, I had to process that experience like I had been a hostage. I was.

[B]

Oh, it was massively traumatizing.

[A]

It was so horrendous.

[B]

And it absolutely did not make it easier for you to heal from the thing that you were in the hospital for.

[A]

No. Which I was told was stress induced and I needed to relax.

[B]

Like, then let me go home. Yeah.

[A]

Well, they told me that in the follow up appointments, but I felt like I had been held hostage.

[B]

Yeah. Many people have experiences of hospitalization with, where they. They feel very grateful for the care that they received. And if you have had experiences of hospitalization where it was enraging and you felt humiliated and trapped, that's dorsal.

[A]

Yeah, there's a. There's a term for it. It's medical trauma. It's a thing.

[B]

Hashtag medical trauma. So anyway, our. Our polyvagal world is to understand how our environment impacts stuff. And if you. There's a book called Anchored by Deb Dana. Deb D E B Dana, D A N A. Deb Dana is the clinician who has done the most work to translate the science of polyvagal theory into clinical applications. And a lot of what we're going to talk about today comes from a clinical book that I use called Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection. And then there's also some other stuff that I've written that we're also going to talk about.

[A]

I'm just going to add my feeling of a compulsion to tell the story. Once you brought up the hospitalization thing. Telling stories is one of the ways we move through.

[B]

It absolutely is. Yeah.

[A]

Stuck states into.

[B]

Do you want to tell it?

[A]

No. I feel like the fact that I had to process it as if I had been held hostage is the part of the story that needed to be.

[B]

Needed to be shut out of my.

[A]

Body into the world.

[B]

So this is the point at which I want to introduce the phrase the polyvagal ladder. The ladder, like all ladders, starts at the bottom and you climb to the top. And dorsal is the bottom of the ladder. And Amelia, in her hospitalization experience, correct me if I'm wrong, was deep in dorsal, trapped in dorsal, feeling helpless, trapped, isolated. And she rose up through dorsal. She climbed the polyvagal ladder into sympathetic activation to the point where she had enough energy. She was Activated enough to feel enraged and to fight against the people who were trapping her there, which was the nurses.

[A]

I have since learned that. What they told me it was illegal for them to tell me that if I left against medical advice, my insurance wouldn't cover the stay.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

I was told that. And that's a, that's a, that's a crime to tell that lie to a patient.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I was, I was the victim of a crime.

[B]

Yeah. You are the survivor of a crime.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That was perpetrated by people who are supposed to be caring for you. Yeah. Oh, that makes me mad too.

[A]

Yeah. I had to process it. Like I'd been held hostage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like I'd been kidnapped.

[B]

And this was like 15 years ago.

[A]

It was 13 years ago. Yep. It was 2011. Yeah. I still get very emotional about Malin's hospitalization.

[B]

Oh. Yep.

[A]

Like, I mean, so he, my husband.

[B]

Has had his are not our stories to tell.

[A]

Dozens of surgeries. But when he is not treated the way I know that he deserves to be treated like a human being who is thoughtful and aware and you know, I. Oh, I get so mad.

[B]

Because we don't just get protective states about ourselves. We get protective states about people who are ours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, so the dorsal ladder, if you are trapped in dorsal, there's sort of two things you can do. One is you can follow the advice that I gave about my, my blueberry pie, which is that you and it's both of these ways are basically the same thing. One is an internal turning toward your. Whatever the metaphor is for you, the dark place. You turn toward it with kindness and compassion and you hold if whatever metaphor works for you. If you know, an injured lost dog would activate a sense of like, care and love. And of course I'm going to take care of you. You are that lost, injured dog. If a lonely wailing baby would activate a sense of of course I'm going to take care of you. It's a lonely wailing baby. If it is like a 14 year old girl curled up in bed experiencing her first ever heartbreak because she fell in love and she got her heart broken. And you're like, she's like lying in bed in the dark crying. It is not ready to talk to you. But you're allowed to stand in the doorway and just like radiate your affection for that teenager. Whatever metaphor works for you. You turn toward that dorsal shut down, scared, lonely, isolated part of you and like let that part know you are not alone. You are not alone. And the reason you're not alone is because you are right there to care.

[A]

For you or for people who have very difficult time with parts work and like, imagining the different parts themselves and pointing at me, because that's me. For me, the breakthrough helpful thing was turning toward the stuckness itself, toward that feeling of darkness and heavy fatigue. For me, it was turning toward my depression and, like, talking to the depression and not hating it, which is really hard to do because depression is trying to kill you.

[B]

How is that not parts work?

[A]

I don't know. It just doesn't feel like a part of myself. It feels like an external thing.

[B]

Oh, you feel like your depression is not a part of you. It's a thing that's happening to you.

[A]

Or that's how I. At first. Yes, that's at first how I. That's what it took for me to be able to do this. That's helpful because depression's trying to kill me. How do I turn toward it with any kind of compassion? That was the hard part. And the answer is that it was trying to protect me. It was just doing, like, a shit job.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it was trying.

[B]

Do we want to go all the way? We're at the half hour mark. Is this the point at which we go to all the way deep into the all the way darkness?

[A]

No.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I think we've been dark enough today, so.

[B]

Yeah. Like, let's just put a bookmark here into the place where maybe sometimes it feels like there's a part of you that wants you to be dead. And there are ways to address that. And we can do that in a future episode. Yeah, Mine makes me laugh a lot.

[A]

Just for the record, we're both here and alive and glad to be so.

[B]

Yeah. You know, there is always a way out.

[A]

Yeah. There's always a way out. There's successful ways of surviving.

[B]

Unfortunately, the most effective ways out are to turn toward whatever's happening with kindness and compassion. Even though it feels so, so dumb. But it feels so dumb to be kind and compassionate towards something that hurts so much. But even when it's physical pain, when the physical pain is overwhelming, the thing you do is. It's a kind of like loving surrender.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You just. You just allow it. You stop fighting it. You allow it because there is nothing that can happen inside you emotionally that is dangerous to you.

[A]

Right, Exactly.

[B]

So there's no need to fight it. You can allow it.

[A]

Yeah. There's no feeling that is a threat.

[B]

And like, if you need to get shit done while you're in a dorsal state That's. Yup. That's going to be hard. Feel free to get much less done. Yeah. And while you are dragging your dorsal ass through your dorsal day, you consistently, when it feels so hard and a party wants to be like, fuck this. Like, yeah. I'd be like, hi, Dorsey. This is. Yeah, it's just going to be like extra hard right now. Yep. Yep. After the 2016 election, I was speaking at a conference in December. And I was standing at the check in desk at the hotel for the conference and someone came up to me cheerfully and was like, how are you doing? And I was like, bad, bad. Why isn't everybody just bad? Like, this is bad.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Isn't this bad? And it was somebody that, like, I know and who has had struggles in her own past. And it shocked her that I was just like not masking it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because she was pretending that like, we're all gonna be okay. And I was like, we're not all gonna be okay.

[A]

Cause your mask is like a millimeter thin and easily broken. Where my mask is like a half an inch thick.

[B]

I don't know. There are ways that my mask is much stronger than yours. It depends on the state. Yeah. Maybe when I'm in dorsal, my mask is a millimeter thin.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When I'm in sympathetic, my mask is made of sympathetic. My mask is powerful. When I'm in like a like activated masking is a whole other thing related to her autism, but also to the fact that they were raised as girls.

[A]

Oh. And also the community who masks the most at a population level is trans people and non binary people. So when my neuropsych evaluation showed that I had the highest masking score that my, this psychiatrist had ever seen. Probably because I'm masking autism and masking gender. Gender. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Things that would have been helpful to know in my 20s. Oh, well.

[B]

Yeah. Anyway, so I was like bad in 2016 and now it's 2024. I have to go to that same conference in December.

[A]

Ooh.

[B]

Okay. So the way to like shift up from the up the polyvagal ladder. The, the second way is to take instead of like relying on your interoceptive to like turning toward your own internal experience with kindness and compassion is cuddling, is receiving care. And receiving care will help communicate to your dorsal state that you have a level of safety that is enough for you to climb that ladder act, get some energy moving in your body and let you run or fight. So the, the way to move up the ladder is to activate just enough ventral either like through kindness and self compassion or through receiving care. Allowing your body to be held. Allowing yourself to receive kind, wor. Loving support. Just the idea of someone loving and caring for you will help to, like, shake off the door. Solar.

[A]

Am I right in interpreting what you're saying? That ventral is the middle rung of the ladder?

[B]

No, ventral is how you move up the ladder to. It's kind of a circle. It's not really a ladder the way you get up to. So talk about your. I mean, do you have a sense in your hospital experience, how you transitioned out of dorsal into sympathetic?

[A]

No, because it was 2011 and long before I had learned to pay attention to how I felt.

[B]

Can I tell you my hypothesis?

[A]

Okay, sure.

[B]

You got well enough because you were. You were so sick. You were hospitalized out of the emergency room.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You were. You were unwell.

[A]

We're gonna admit you.

[B]

They said they provided you with some medical treatment.

[A]

No, they didn't give me any treatment. No, they gave me pain pills. They gave me pain relief.

[B]

Yeah, they gave you pain relief. And that's not nothing.

[A]

That's not nothing.

[B]

Dilaudid is not nothing.

[A]

The joy. I have such a clear memory of when they relieved that.

[B]

It was like.

[A]

It was like a dream of falling backwards into a cloud of rose petals. Like, it was just like, thank God. Because the pain was so severe. And like, it was just this transition. Yeah, that was good.

[B]

So the pain relief provided your nervous system with enough of a sense of safety that it could rise with some energy and be like, I need to go the fuck home and I need it two days ago. And you fought.

[A]

Yeah. The pain relief was only for the first, like, 24 hours. And then I wasn't in pain anymore. They weren't giving me any more pain meds. They were just keeping me there waiting to do more tests. Right.

[B]

And you got angrier and angrier because you no longer had the pain. You're like, why the fuck am I here? You're just running tests. And I could do this outpatient. So, like, the longer you stayed there without the pain, the more your nervous system was like, nothing is helping here. Everything is just making me feel desperate and uncomfortable and it's ruining my sleep. And I need to get the. I need to get out.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And feeling helpless, isolated and trapped is sort of dorsal. And the desperate wildness to escape a trap is flight.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Does that make sense? So it was, I think, ultimately the relief of your pain. Allow. And this is why I'm like, never be a hero about pain. Pain hurts. All pain hurts. And sometimes you just need to numb the pain, whether it is emotional or physical or. So usually a combination of the two.

[A]

Yeah. It's a step in the process of healing. Having pain is. Causes stress in your body.

[B]

Yeah. So pain relief helps. It's the reason why people get addicted to opioids. That's another conversation. We're still in the. We're like moving from dorsal into ventral because we want to get some energy moving. We want to get some sense of safety, some sense that you have the capacity to run or fight. Do we have that?

[A]

Yeah. There is also a level that of me that was like, I came here for help and you're not helping me.

[B]

Which is betrayal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is source of deep rage, profound rage.

[A]

And triggered some old stuff in me from past times in my life when I've been like, I need help and.

[B]

Nobody came like the first 20 years.

[A]

I don't want to get into specifics.

[B]

Mad props to our mother, who absolutely did her fucking best. And one's best is not always enough under bad circumstances. So we have a lot of nobody came to help in our bodies.

[A]

Yeah. And that's depressing.

[B]

We have both been in therapy for 20 years. We're doing a lot better. Yeah. I'm doing a lot better.

[A]

I've been in therapy for long. I've been in therapy since I was like, 19.

[B]

Yeah. I didn't start therapy until I was 21 or 2.

[A]

28 years.

[B]

Yeah, 21 or 22. So 25 years for me.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, not consistently. I've had breaks almost. Anyway, what is.

[B]

For me, there were a lot of.

[A]

Levels in which both my shutdown and my rage were activated simultaneously. Yeah.

[B]

And that's an important thing that went out was flight. Yeah. To recognize that that in the end.

[A]

Was the experience I was in.

[B]

When your brain is assessing whether a situation is safe or not, or the extent to which it's safe or which protective state is going to be most appropriate. It calls on your entire life history. It remembers all the times you did not feel safe, you did not feel protected. No one came to help you were you asked for help. Someone said they would, and then they betrayed you. All of that gets activated and then suddenly you're the lady at 8:45 at a Borders books and music in the 1990s yelling at the barista me that you have never had to drink a cup of coffee out of a paper cup before in your entire life. And how. How could it possibly be that in the last half hour at the cafe at a Borders Books and Music in Wilmington, Delaware, in the 1990s that she should have to drink. Like, we only serve our drinks out of paper cups for the last half hour so we don't have to run the dishwasher anymore. And she was so mad. She was not that mad about the paper cup. It was the symbol of the paper cup. A whole bunch of other shit was activated. And look, we've all been that person. Haven't we all been that person?

[A]

I've been that person.

[B]

Where we're, like, mad at somebody in public generally. Like a person behind a counter of some kind or a service person. And they are not actually. They are just the trigger for all of this stuff that has been longing to be released.

[A]

Yeah. This is why we need to, like, consistently complete the stress response cycles so we don't just explode at random times.

[B]

Yeah. This is, again, the moral of the story. There were a couple morals of the story of the first edition of the Feminist Survival Project. One was kindness and motherfucking compassion. And the other was you need to heal your own shit.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So that before you take your shit out on somebody else, because your shit is, like, in your brain and body and it's going to get activated by the bad shit that is going to happen soon. And the more you heal your shit, the more you can deal with the bad things that are coming in a way where you are just dealing with the bad thing that's happening right now instead of all the bad things that happen to you in the past. Does that make sense? Y. Yeah. So that's why we're talking about polyvagal theory.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is because Amelia got that mad at her medical providers because she wasn't just mad about what was happening in the hospital.

[A]

It was an enraging situation on its own.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Add into it what I was carrying into that situation. For the record, I never yelled or screamed or was irrationally rude to anyone in the hospital.

[B]

Absolutely. Because you have enormous control.

[A]

Because I'm made of mask.

[B]

You were in the hospital because of how much control you have.

[A]

Yeah. So I was persistent and insistent, but as polite as I could possibly manage to be.

[B]

As you could possibly manage to be. Yeah.

[A]

To people who were holding me hostage. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So.

[A]

So polyvagal 101. It's important to know what state you're in.

[B]

Yeah. You might be in dorsal if you feel stuck.

[A]

And to know that this information comes from the outside world through your external senses, and also from changes in your internal state. So, for example, if you just, like have extreme stomach pain in some place in your abdomen.

[B]

Just as a random example.

[A]

Just a random example. That information is going to go to your brain and your brain is going to tell a story about what that means.

[B]

Right. Your brain is going to tell a story about what that means.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

State versus story is a thing you hear a lot when you're working with polyvagal clinicians.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because there's the state that you're in and the state that you were in was trapped.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the story that your brain told was, they're holding me hostage. And there was an extent to which that was literally true. And also there was an extent to which your brain was laying that story over your state. Because that's a story that was real familiar to your brain.

[A]

Yeah. But even in, like, lower key situations, you might have, like stomach rumblies, like bubble guts going on. And your brain is going to come up with a reason for that. And it might be, oh, I'm nervous right now. Or it might be, I must have eaten something. And it may or may not be accurate, but your brain is going to.

[B]

Okay, here's. You're going to hate this story.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

In the ninth grade. Ninth grade, I got called back for the. I was auditioning for the fall play and I got called back and I was standing in the stairwell outside the auditorium and I had a sensation in my stomach and I was like, what is. Am I nauseous? Do I have pito diarrhesis? What's going on? And I was like, oh, this is what they mean when they say butterflies. I'm nervous. I was 14.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was like, oh, I have noticed my internal state and I have correctly attributed to my emotions. Good for me.

[A]

Good for you. Yeah.

[B]

And then 20. No, third, 25 years later, I was at the dentist and I was getting Novocaine and they did the injection and suddenly my heart rate just like went way up. And I was. I like, I like, was taking a deep breath, I was noticing what was happening to my body. And I communicated to the dental assistant. I suddenly feel really anxious and I'm not usually anxious at the dentist. And she said, oh, that's the epinephrine. And I was like, oh, I'm not anxious. I just have this chemical in my bloodstream. That makes sense. And she made a note that they would never give me that kind of.

[A]

That's nice.

[B]

Novocaine. That would give me the kind without epinephrine. So. Because clearly I was extra sensitive to it. So in that case, I was attributing an emotional state to my physiology.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But when I got the information. No, no, we just did a thing to your body. I was like, okay, I'm not nervous. I just have extra.

[A]

Sometimes it's just a thing happening to your body, and sometimes it's an emotional thing. But that's. That is exactly the point I was trying to make.

[B]

Yeah, thanks. Okay. Because I'm good at those stories. I mean, I have the things that I'm good at, and I have the things that I am not good at. This is one of the things that I. Okay, so we're going to keep. We're going to keep moving up the dorsal ladder.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And as Amelia has already indicated, there is a blended state between ventral and sympathetic. So sympathetic is fight or flight, where it's a protective state that interprets the. Like something not safe is happening. And so you go into a protective state to either run away or destroy something. But if you feel safe enough, you transition, you can get to a state of play. And my mask actually is made of play.

[A]

Yeah, you have, like, one of those. Your mask is like one of those peel masks where it's just very thin but flexible. We should talk about masks probably in a separate episode.

[B]

We should probably have a mask episode separately, but play. Anybody who's a dog person will recognize. When a dog goes down on her elbows and her ears are up and her face is soft and her eyes are soft and her tail's wagging. That is a play bow. That is an invitation to play. Play is the mammalian. The universal mammalian system of friendship. Play is any behavior that you engage in for its own sake because you like it, and there is nothing at stake. Nobody has anything to lose. If you make a mistake and accidentally hurt someone you're playing with, they're going to go, ow. And you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. And you can go back to the play because you both know that there was nothing at stake. You have nothing to lose. You mean no harm. That's a play state. It's where and so many things are play for humans, for dogs, it's mostly like rough and tumble play, tug and chase and wrestling. Humans also have story play, like kids story play. I'll be the helicopter and you be the baby. Right. Like role play. There is an episode of this American Life about the kind of stories that children play. And in one of the examples, it's literally, I'll be the helicopter, you be the mommy, and people should. It's. It's a Story that's technically about dolls. So if you look for this American life episode about dolls, there's a segment that's really about stories. And in particular, at around the kindergarten age, children, over and over and over want to be told the same story. That when you are alone, someone will come along and say, I'll play with you. When you are alone, some will come and say, I'll play with you. And in this case, it was the mommy coming along and telling the helicopter.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which was the avatar for the lonely boy and said, I'll play with you. Play is because social connection is necessary. Play is part of what is necessary for us as human beings. And we can only get there when we feel safe enough. But it is energetic, as opposed to, like, cuddle, peaceful, immobilization, flop. Play is energetic. It can also be like, card games, like mental play, word play. It can also be all music. Marching, singing, dancing. That's all playing.

[A]

I have to say, a solid 80% of the effort I expend when I'm conducting a rehearsal is to help my singers feel like they're safe, like there's nothing at stake, like they can make mistakes. And it's all just. It's all just good vibes. It's all just for fun. Even when we're singing, like, dark, heavy music, we're doing it from a place of joy. Like, all my musical training, all my sort of, like, practical training about being a musician and correcting their vocal technique and their vowels and like, whatever. All that.

[B]

Like, that stuff that I do is so easy.

[A]

It's so easy. The hard part is maintaining a space that feels like play, even in the midst of all that hard work.

[B]

Yeah. That's amazingly similar to my work as a sex educator, because people. Yeah, go. Go to a protective state as soon as you start talking about sex. Because their whole lives, they've been taught that sex is dirty, dangerous, disgusting. And so they go to a. Either they're, like, sympathetic runaway. You're not allowed to talk about this. Or shut down dorsal. I mean, I have seen the survivors in particular. I come in and I start talking about my thing. And I have seen a survivor fall asleep with her eyes open because she just needed not to be there.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, like, props to that nervous system for giving that human all of the doors open, the safety and protection that that body needed. 100%.

[A]

All of the dorsal.

[B]

Yeah. I do not take it personally when my students fall asleep, because there's any number of reasons why a student might fall asleep in a classroom where I'm talking about sexuality. So the Emily show, as I call it, is play. Like, let me, like, whoop, we're up in a play state. It is energetic. I want you to be here. And, like, we're safe. We can say. We can say these words and we're safe. We can say it and we're safe and it's fun.

[A]

Oh, see, you're thinking about that as a mask.

[B]

That's my mask.

[A]

I wouldn't call that a mask because it's a conscious choice.

[B]

Oh, are you choosing it?

[A]

Yeah, I choose it.

[B]

Well. So you were trained as an educator. Right. So you had explicit formal education in how to show up in a classroom.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so maybe you deliberately constructed the Amelia show.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Whereas I never had any training as an educator. I was relying on instinct and life, my own personal life experience.

[A]

It was also intuitive for me to go to that place, like, the face, that, like, Muppet face.

[B]

I'm a Muppet. I can't not be a Muppet when there's a camera.

[A]

Yeah. The Muppet face has been a default since very early in my training. But anyway, we should have a separate masking episode, clearly.

[B]

So play.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Ideally, it's not a mask. Ideally, it's your actual state and not something you were laying over top of your terror because you're autistic and nobody told you you're autistic. And you think everybody's working this hard. You think everybody's doing it this way. We need another masking episode. P.S. a thing that has happened since the end of the first feminist Survival project and the Zombie Apocalypse Edition is both of us have been diagnosed on the spectrum ASD Level one. That's us.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And mostly we're level one because we have access to all the resources that we need in order to cope.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which, like, if we didn't have access to these resources, we. We probably would have higher needs because our needs would not be being met anyway.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we should. P.S.

[A]

We should maybe do an autism episode or something.

[B]

So we are traveling up the ladder and we get to ventral. Ventral vagal activation is peace, joy, and connection, where you can go out in the world. And your brain interprets that as a safe place for you to be so that you can look in the face of a stranger and see a neighbor, so that you can notice that, like, somebody's being mean to the person behind the counter. And you can. You can kind of feel compassion for the person who's being mean. And when that person goes away, you can turn toward the person behind the counter and be like, some people have not worked out their shit. Some people really need to like heal their past hurts. Wow, how are you today? Right? That's when you are in ventral state. You have a sense of like glimmer. You have a sense of gratitude, appreciation for the good things that are happening. Food tastes delicious, pleasure feels good. Some of the practices to help you just occasionally access ventral is through an exercise called Glimmers and glows. Glimmers where you think about like, what's a thing that happened today where you felt a sense of peace, safety and connection? And I'm going to tell a funny joke. It's a joke that's funny to me.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

One time when we were in a class where we were being trained in glimmers, like we were supposed to identify and write down a glimmer every day. Like a thing that gave us a moment. And one day I like, I couldn't think of a glimmer. And I told my husband like, I can't think. I haven't had like a moment of safety, peace and connection today. And he's like, I could take off my pants, right? And that was my glimmer for the day. That's funny. So like that's a very easy. Just like daily it doesn't have to be as big as a gratitude practice. It's just like what is a moment when you felt a sense of safety, peace, comfort, connection, maybe even joy. Doesn't have to be as big as joy. And the way you transition that into the second exercise to glow is that you think about like, what are all the circumstances that made that glimmer possible? Like that glimmer, that funny joke happened because there's this person in my life who stays around even though I have days at a time when I don't experience any glimmers. And that's pretty fucking amazing to take that joke and turn it into this whole human and the life that we have constructed together. And that's some shining light that is me activating the ventral branch of my vagus nerve. Does that make sense?

[A]

Yeah. And going back to the fact that this is a two way communication process, when you are in ventral, it's so easy to access those glimmers and those glows. Like so easy that to be like, oh God, I just love my husband so much, man. Or the two way street he can remind you of how hilarious he is. And you're like, oh, right, oh right. I'm now reminded. And that can put me in a ventral state or the thing that I first think about is when. When you eat delicious food. If. When you're in ventral, it tastes so good. But also you can eat delicious food and it can put you in a ventral state.

[B]

Yeah. If you notice. So there's a way of eating to numb pain.

[A]

This is a delicious donut. It's so good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm not eating a donut now. I'm imagining one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I haven't had sugar in a week.

[B]

It. It requires the noticing because there is a way of eating to numb pain that, that you do not taste the food. You just shovel it in to get the serotonin into your gut as soon as possible so that the pain stops feeling so painful.

[A]

Yeah. When you use sugar as a drug.

[B]

Yeah. And then there's a way of eating delicious food where you're like, I am safe enough to sit here down at this table in front of this food and take one bite at a time and enjoy the shit out of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that is eventual practice.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Mindfulness. Fucking mindfulness every time.

[A]

I guess we haven't. We didn't actually start talking about how to change your state. Except we've been talking about that this.

[B]

Whole time we've been talking about it. We've been talking about how to transition out of dorsal is to create a sense of enough safety.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Either from your own kindness and self compassion or by receiving care.

[A]

Have a mindful donut.

[B]

Have a mindful donut is absolutely one way to generate enough energy to shift up. So the transition between any of the states is actually ventral. That's sort of like the mind trick here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the main thing, if all you get out of this is being able to like notice it a couple times a day. Oh, I'm in dorsal. That's why this feels so hard. Or I am in sympathetic. I am standing in line at the grocery store feeling rage about. About what exactly? About that picture on that magazine. Maybe I'm not just enraged about that. Maybe I just have some rage because the world is giving me a lot of reasons to feel rage today. And let me just notice that. Let me just notice that. And close glimmers notice. The first step is noticing.

[A]

And that's a Deb Dana exercise.

[B]

Yeah. Those are from the polyvagal exercises book that I mentioned. And noticing is easier for some people than it is for others. And we have three episodes on how to listen to your body that Amelia made specifically because this is.

[A]

I had to learn.

[B]

Really difficult for some people. My interoception, my internal state will not shut up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And this is like a thing that happens with autism, is that your senses tend to be either hyposensitive or hypersensitive. And Amelia got the hyposensitive interoception. I got the hypersensitive interoception.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is why, at the age of 14, I could be sitting alone, noticing a sensation in my body and being like, oh, I'm anxious. I'm nervous because I'm about to audition for a play. Yeah, that makes sense.

[A]

Whereas I was not quite sure my body existed at all.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. You wouldn't notice a body sensation until it was literally physically disabling.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So if you're more on the Amelia end of that spectrum, we got three whole episodes that you can go back and listen to about how to listen to your body, because noticing is the first step. So we gotta wrap up. It's been an hour. My God.

[A]

I think we've said all the states. How to recognize when you're in a state, how to actively change your state if.

[B]

Yeah, if you're ready for that. But the most important thing is that you practice noticing which state you're in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And, like, not worrying about it. No state is dangerous. One of the best things for me in this past month or so has been that I have been moving all around. I have been going from dorsal into ventral with, like, tiny sparking moments of ventral. But, like, lots of sympathetic. Lots of sympathetic into dorsal, up into sympathetic, and dorsal up into sympathetic, up into ventral into sympathetic. And that movement is a really good sign that my body is alive and coping.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's a mess. Like, it feels a mess. It feels so uncomfortable.

[A]

None of the individual states is dangerous. Getting stuck is when problems start to arise. And the fact that you can move through that. Flexibility is a sign of wellness.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. Are you moving flexibly through different states or are you in dorsal?

[A]

I'm not locked into dorsal, but dorsal's definitely still a default.

[B]

Yeah. So it's funny, a friend of yours said that she can tell our voices apart because I'm the one who sounds a mess.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Physiologically, I'm probably less of a mess than you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Maybe because I freely sound a mess.

[A]

Yeah. Because all my mess is locked behind a mask made of dorsal.

[B]

Yeah. And that's. That's a project for you.

[A]

Look, everything's a project.

[B]

Everything. Everything's a project.

[A]

I'm in therapy. I'm working on it. There's a lot.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, there's. There's a lot.

[A]

I have A cozy mug and some apple spice tea. And this is how I'm managing.

[B]

Yeah. And that's great. That's really good role modeling, I think. I think we're. We're modeling because you're in, like, cozy and, like, literally with my hoodie and your fucking mug and your tea, and the whole thing is just like, cozy af. And I'm mostly in sympathetic today, and I am pushing it up to play for the sake of the podcast. And, like, that's feeling kind of nourishing, actually. And I'm going to be tired after this and I'm probably going to cry. But that's because it, like, is healing to, like, connect. Like, the work that we do, I think it matters and I think it works and it helps. And, like, not everybody can explain polyvagal theory. Stephen fucking Porges cannot explain polyvagal theory.

[A]

He's bad at explaining it. It's really that shit.

[B]

It's pretty hilarious, actually, because, like, I understand it and I hear him explain it. I'm like, what? What? Anyway, I want to read a quote from the polyvagal book that I was talking about. It's on page 148. We're talking about autonomic overload. That is when your body is overwhelmed. It occurs when, one, an environment is filled with frequent cues of danger, two, when the autonomic nervous system, that's your vagus, can't adjust to the needs of the moment, or three, when a survival response keeps going long after it should turn off. So one of the things the world is a bad place right now. And in this moment, is your body currently safe in your home or in your car or wherever you are? Like, is there a physical place you can go where your body is actually safe, go to that place and feel safe and notice that actually in this moment, you are safe, even though the larger outside world is not a safe place. The lesson in particular white cisgender women like me need to learn. The lesson we require is that our bodies, even though we have spent our whole lives being told that our bodies are the enemy, they are actually our primary ally in life, and our bodies are a safe place for us to be, even when our bodies are not in a safe place. Because what's going to happen in the coming era is it is going to be asked of us that we place our bodies in harm's way because we have so much privilege. We're going to be asked to put our bodies in front of the bodies of people who don't have as much privilege and we're only going to be able to do that if we know for sure that our bodies are not the enemy. Our bodies are a safe place for us to live. We are safe. And all the lack of safety comes from outside of us, not from inside. Does that make sense? So we need not to get stuck. We need to notice when our environment actually is safe and allow our nervous systems to transition up that ladder into a feeling of safety, turning toward our body, noticing our self critical thoughts and being like, we're not going to do that anymore. Because safety, our bodies are a safe place for us to live.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Even when our bodies are not in a safe place. Resilience, she goes on to say, emerges. And like, fuck resilience. I get it. But resilience emerges when you are accurately able to detect and effectively respond to cues of safety and danger and to the needs of the moment. That's our goal. Yeah, because we smell smoke, that's a sign of danger. And right now we're not on fire. If you're on fire right now, that's not true. But if you feel like you're on fire, even though your body's in a safe place, that means you are still healing some old burns. You got old wounds that need to be cared for. And some of us have had like second and third degree burns that leave long term damage that require long term care. Does that make sense? Have we talked about polyvagal theory? Do you feel like you have learned something?

[A]

I do feel like we've talked about. I think we got the. Those are the things we did it.

[B]

Polyvagal 101.

[A]

Yeah. Okay.

[B]

How do you feel?

[A]

I had a dream last night about living in a house or an apartment complex or something, and every room was disgusting, like dirty with bugs and pests. And for those of you who are unaware, I do kind of. I work with dream analysis and my brain has learned.

[B]

We have an episode about that too.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. My brain has learned to give me stories where like a house represents myself. It's kind of a Jungian approach. And I've. Because I practice it so much, I think my unconscious has learned to make this more and more literal. And I finally went into one room that had been cleaned and it felt so good and I was so grateful. And that's how I feel.

[B]

Like, you've got one room.

[A]

I've got one room.

[B]

You know what?

[A]

It's in really good shape.

[B]

You have a place to go, I have a place to go.

[A]

There's. Yeah, that was most of the dream is I had nowhere to go. That was nice. And at the end of the dream, I had. Oh, my God, it's so nice here.

[B]

It's clean.

[A]

Thank you so much for helping me clean this all up. I couldn't do it by myself.

[B]

Yes, that's dorset with a moment of ventral, which in principle will create enough energy to activate the energy to do the metaphorical cleaning.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And also to call for help, which you need also.

[A]

Yeah. Anyway, so that's how I feel like.

[B]

You got one spit. We got one place to go.

[A]

I got a place to go. Whew.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. We did it. Polyvagal101. Hope this was helpful. We'll be talking about the polyvagal theory a lot in the future, so we're gonna, like, just put. Just, like, note this episode. There's a reason it was this long. Believe me when I say thank you for listening. Kindness and motherfucking compassion. Emotional presence turning toward difficult feelings with kindness and motherfucking compassion. Kindness and compassion.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He turned toward it with kindness. Okay. Turn toward it with kindness and compassion. Said with some annoyance and resignation. Kindness and compassion.