Anchored

1. Polyvagal Theory: The Science of Safe Connection

Polyvagal Theory is the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living.

Wired for connection. Polyvagal Theory, developed by Stephen Porges, explains how our nervous systems are wired for connection and find balance in relationships. It provides a map of the nervous system, offering skills to anchor ourselves and others in safety amidst life's challenges. This theory emphasizes that our biology shapes how we navigate living, loving, and working, and understanding this can improve individual, family, community, and global well-being.

Translating the science. The book translates complex neurophysiological constructs into accessible language, making the core concepts of Polyvagal Theory understandable and applicable to everyday life. It introduces new terminology like neuroception, hierarchy, and ventral vagal, while also providing simpler alternatives like safe, connected, or regulating. This translation aims to empower readers to befriend their nervous systems and actively operate them.

Regulation is key. A regulated nervous system is fundamental to navigating the world with a sense of safety and ease. By learning to track states and anchor in autonomic safety, we can manage challenges more effectively. When faced with problems, understanding how the nervous system works allows us to shape our systems toward safety and connection, opening up new options and possibilities.

2. Autonomic Hierarchy: Three Building Blocks of Experience

Through the process of evolution, three building blocks came into being one after the other: dorsal vagal (shutdown) around 500 million years ago, sympathetic (activation) around 400 million years ago, and ventral vagal (connection) around 200 million years ago.

Evolutionary order. The autonomic nervous system is organized around three building blocks: dorsal vagal (shutdown), sympathetic (activation), and ventral vagal (connection). This hierarchy dictates how we react to daily challenges, with each block affecting our biology and psychology. Understanding this sequence is key to anchoring in regulation.

Ventral vagal: connection. The ventral vagal pathway, the newest, supports health and well-being, allowing us to connect and communicate with others. In this state, daily irritations feel manageable, and we can go with the flow. When overwhelmed, we move down the hierarchy to the sympathetic pathway.

Sympathetic: action. The sympathetic pathway, commonly known as fight or flight, activates when we feel overwhelmed. If challenges persist without resolution, we descend to the dorsal vagal pathway, leading to collapse, shutdown, and disconnection. Recovery requires moving back up through the sympathetic system to the regulation of the ventral vagal state.

3. Neuroception: The Unconscious Sentinel of Safety and Threat

Stephen Porges created this word to illustrate how the nervous system (neuro) is aware (ception) of signs of safety and signals of danger.

Internal surveillance. Neuroception is the nervous system's internal surveillance system, detecting cues of safety and signals of danger without conscious awareness. A neuroception of safety invites connection, while a neuroception of danger triggers fight or flight, or collapse. This process operates below conscious awareness, influencing our autonomic state changes.

Three streams of awareness. Neuroception follows three streams: inside (body awareness), outside (environmental awareness), and between (relational awareness). These streams work constantly, guiding our responses to people, places, and experiences. Our stories, thoughts, feelings, and actions originate from neuroception.

Bringing perception to neuroception. While we can't directly control neuroception, we can become aware of our body's responses to it. By bringing perception to neuroception, we transform an unconscious experience into conscious awareness. This allows us to work with our experiences, notice the autonomic state, and connect with feelings, beliefs, behaviors, and ultimately, shape our stories in new ways.

4. Co-regulation: Our Biological Imperative for Connection

Co-regulation, regulating with another, is an experience that is necessary for survival.

Essential for survival. Co-regulation, or regulating with another, is essential for survival, especially in early life when we depend on caregivers for both physical and emotional needs. These early experiences form the foundation for self-regulation. Even as we learn to self-regulate, the need for co-regulation continues throughout life.

Reciprocity, rupture, and repair. Healthy relationships are not always in balance but are reciprocal, involving cycles of connection, rupture, and repair. It's the lack of repair after a rupture that causes suffering. The nervous system never stops longing for safe and reliable connections, making co-regulation a lifelong need.

Foundation for well-being. Despite the focus on self-regulation, co-regulation is the bedrock for safely navigating daily living. We depend on others to show up with a regulated system when we are in need. This ongoing need to connect with others drives us to seek opportunities for co-regulation every day.

5. The Social Engagement System: Your Face-Heart Connection

The ventral vagal pathway to the heart, joined with the nerves that control our eyes, ears, voice, and the way we move our head, make the social engagement system truly a biological face-heart connection.

Biological face-heart connection. The social engagement system, a biological face-heart connection, involves the ventral vagal pathway to the heart, along with nerves controlling eyes, ears, voice, and head movements. This system broadcasts invitations for connection or warnings to keep distance. It also seeks signs of safety from others.

Elements of the system. The social engagement system includes signals from the eyes (stare, neutral look, gaze), sounds of safety and danger (tuning into human voice vs. threat sounds), and head movements (slight turns and tilts indicating safety). Prosody, the music of our voice, and vocal bursts (nonlanguage sounds) also play a crucial role in communication.

Pathways of connection. We are nourished by connections to self, others, the world, and spirit. These connections are grounded in the nervous system. When anchored in ventral safety, we are ready for connection. Disruptions in these connections challenge our ability to anchor in safety and regulation.

6. Autonomic Landscapes: Mapping Your Inner World

Knowing how each pathway works individually, we can now look at how states work together and explore the relationship between them.

States work together. Understanding individual autonomic pathways allows us to explore how states work together. We naturally travel between states, moving out of ventral regulation into sympathetic or dorsal dysregulation and back again. The ability to flexibly move between states is a sign of well-being and resilience.

Regulated landscapes. Each autonomic state has its own landscape. The ventral vagal state brings a landscape of safety and connection, inviting exploration. The everyday dorsal state brings a landscape of nourishment, while the sympathetic state brings a landscape of safe, mobilizing energy.

Survival landscapes. Survival landscapes offer protection through disconnection (dorsal) or mobilization (sympathetic). These landscapes differ from nonreactive, everyday landscapes. It's important to explore these places while keeping an anchor in the ventral landscape to avoid getting hijacked by survival energy.

7. Anchoring in Safety: Finding Your Invincible Summer

I think of our ventral vagal state of regulation as the autonomic nervous system’s invincible summer.

Ventral is key. The ventral vagal state is essential for well-being, providing a pathway to health, growth, and restoration. It's the place where life feels manageable. When the ventral state is active, the sympathetic and dorsal vagal systems work in the background, creating physical and psychological well-being.

Critical mass of ventral. We don't need to be fully immersed in ventral, but rather have a critical mass of ventral energy to bring the system online and keep it operational. This allows us to access our four pathways of connection and meet daily challenges.

Everyday safety. We can anchor in ventral vagal safety through everyday experiences, such as wearing a favorite item of clothing, smelling a familiar scent, or being in a place that feels like home. These simple actions can bring a sense of confidence, comfort, and regulation.

8. Gentle Shaping: Stretching, Not Stressing, the Nervous System

Our goal in shaping new patterns is to stretch but not stress our system.

Friendship and intention. Shaping our nervous system requires an attitude of friendship and an intention to befriend the system. We need to understand how the system works and use that information to create a life of well-being. The goal is to stretch, not stress, the system.

Autonomic awareness. Shaping is about attending moment to moment to what is happening in our autonomic nervous system, connecting with the information, and respecting what we find. It's about tuning in and listening to the nervous system, bringing curiosity and compassion to the experience, and staying out of judgment and self-criticism.

Stretch-to-stress continuum. The stretch-to-stress continuum helps us recognize when we're stretching and shaping versus stressing and surviving. By staying on the stretch side of the continuum, we can create new patterns and deepen existing ones without triggering survival responses.

9. Re-Storying: Rewriting Your Narrative from a Place of Safety

As our biology changes, so do our stories.

States and stories. Each autonomic state brings a different kind of story. Dorsal states bring stories of losing hope, sympathetic states bring stories of adversaries, and ventral states bring stories of possibility and choice. By listening to our three stories, we can interrupt survival stories and deepen stories of safety.

Re-storying process. Re-storying involves bringing attention to subtle autonomic shifts and weaving them into a new narrative. This can be done through art, movement, or words. The goal is to make small changes to our stories, guided by the regulation of our ventral system.

The space between. Re-storying requires us to navigate the vulnerability of being in the space between, where we're no longer stuck in an old story but not yet grounded in a new one. This process involves letting go of old patterns, taking a leap of faith, and landing safely in new territory.

10. Self-Transcendent Experiences: Connecting Beyond the Self

A self-transcendent experience takes us beyond the ordinary and transports us across a boundary.

Beyond the ordinary. Self-transcendent experiences take us beyond the ordinary and into a deep sense of interconnection. These moments, rooted in the autonomic nervous system, include awe, gratitude, compassion, elevation, and stillness. They connect us beyond our singular self.

Awe and gratitude. Awe brings a sense of wonder and stimulates curiosity, while gratitude is an appreciation for what is valuable and meaningful. Both are tied to the ventral vagal system and bring physical and psychological benefits.

Compassion and stillness. Compassion combines an emotional response with a desire to help, while stillness takes us out of our ordinary experience to a place of feeling a deep sense of connection. These experiences, grounded in ventral regulation, nourish our nervous system and enhance our well-being.

11. Caring for the Nervous System: Tuning In, Taking In, Tending To

We all have the seeds of love in us.

Tuning in, taking in, tending to. Caring for our nervous system involves tuning in, taking in, and tending to. This process involves connecting and listening, followed by taking an action based on what we learn. It's about nourishing our nervous system and creating sustainable, autonomically sensitive self-care practices.

Flexibility and resilience. Flexibility and resilience go hand in hand. A flexible system is a resilient system, and a resilient system is a flexible system. Well-being is not defined by a nervous system that is always in regulation, but by one that can flexibly return to regulation.

Self-care circle. The self-care circle is a tool for creating an autonomically informed self-care practice. It involves identifying activities in the physical, relational, mental, and spiritual realms that nourish our nervous system and support our well-being.

12. Creating Community: The Ripple Effect of Regulation

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

Autonomic conversations. The nervous system is a sending-and-receiving hub for information, engaging in autonomic conversations within ourselves and between ourselves and others. These conversations transmit cues of welcome or warning, shaping our interactions and relationships.

Moments of missing. Healthy relationships are naturally filled with moments of missing. When we, or the people around us, move out of regulation, misattunement and disconnection happen. These ruptures are a normal and expected part of our relationships, and when they are noticed, named, and repaired, they form a foundation for strong and resilient connections.

The ripple effect. As we find our way to anchoring in ventral regulation, we begin to experience more physical well-being and offer our regulating energy to the people around us. This creates a ripple effect, transforming our relationships, communities, and the world.

Last updated: February 22, 2025