Deb Dana Quotes

The job of the autonomic nervous system is to ensure we survive in moments of danger and thrive in times of safety. Survival requires threat detection and the activation of a survival response. Thriving demands the opposite—the inhibition of a survival response so that social engagement can happen. Without the capacity for activation, inhibition, and flexibility of response, we suffer.

Take a moment and find something that reminds you of the feeling of being anchored in regulation and then put it somewhere you’ll see it as you move through your day.

The cycle of reciprocity, rupture, and repair is the nature of healthy relationships

Autonomic listening is inextricably linked with the need for self-compassion.

The cycle of reciprocity, rupture, and repair is the nature of healthy relationships.

can also intentionally manipulate. Breath is a direct pathway to our autonomic nervous system, making it both a regulating resource and an activator of our survival states.

Reflection practices strengthen our connection to self.

A glimmer can be a micro-moment that’s predictably present in your world.

Setting an intention is a way to support this new practice. My glimmer intention is to look for the glimmers that are on my path today waiting for me to find them.

The normal breathing rate for adults is between twelve and twenty breaths per minute. An easy way to find your breath rate is by counting your exhalations over the course of a minute.

Using the examples above, the sentence that emerges from a dorsal state of collapse, “I’m so tired, I could give up,” could be changed to, “I’m so tired, I could rest for a bit.” The sentence that is fueled by sympathetic activation, “I’m so angry, I could scream,” might become “I’m so angry, I could take a break and come back in a while.

Use this question to look through the lens of discernment: In this moment, with this person, in this place, surrounded by these things, are you actually in danger, or are you safe?

. Looking through the lens of the nervous system, we understand that we are all trying to anchor in the state of safety that supports connection to self, to others, to the world, and to spirit and provides the energy we need to navigate our days. When the inner workings of our biology are a mystery, we feel as if we’re at the mercy of unknown, unexplainable, and unpredictable experiences. Once we know how our nervous system works, we can work with it. As we learn the art of befriending our nervous system, we learn to become active operators of this essential system.

Inside the Circle: Mental

Inside the Circle: Spiritual

Movement can also help us anchor more deeply in connection.

Imagery facilitates perception and evokes powerful messages.

the power of imagery to create a new story. Follow these basic steps to imagine a new story: 1.​Connect with a state of protection or connection. 2.​Create an image to represent the state. 3.​Listen to the story the image is showing you. 4.​Change the image by adding or taking away one small element. 5.​Stop and see what happens with your experience and story. 6.​Repeat the process until you feel you have reached the point where you have stretched enough and any more would take you into stress. 7.​Rest here in the new image and listen to the new story. 8.​Spend a moment savoring.

As you create your self-care circle, you only want to add activities that truly bring you to a ventral state or deepen your experience there.

Move to the relational quadrant. If you’re using markers, choose a different color for this quadrant, and on the inside of the circle, write the things you do with others that are moments of self-care.

In this relational realm, if you don’t feel filled by the action and connection, or it doesn’t lead you to a ventral state, it doesn’t belong in your self-care circle.

Saying “should” or “shouldn’t” to ourselves is common when we begin to look at self-care. However, these words transmit a demand, not an invitation, a cue of danger not a needed and nourishing message.

When self-care is guided by the autonomic nervous system, there are two essential questions to consider: “What does my nervous system need in this moment?” and “Is what I’m doing nourishing my nervous system?” Attending to these two questions is the foundation for creating sustainable, autonomically sensitive self-care practices

Place one hand on the base of your skull and the other hand over your heart. Imagine the ventral vagal pathway and feel the energy moving between your two hands. Take a moment to acknowledge the abilities for regulation and connection this system brings. And now move your hand from your heart to your abdomen. With one hand on your brainstem and one hand on your abdomen you’re connected to the dorsal vagal pathway. Imagine this pathway and feel the energy that moves here.

From the diaphragm upward is the realm of the ventral vagus. This is the place where we anchor in safety and can both self- and co-regulate.

On each inhalation the vagal brake offers a slight release and the heart rate speeds up just a bit, and then on the exhalation the vagal brake reengages, and the heart rate returns to a slower beat.

The function of the vagal brake is to allow us to feel, and use, some of the mobilizing energy of the sympathetic nervous system without being pulled into the survival state of fight and flight.

Without the vagal brake we lose our anchor in safety and connection and move into the protective states of fight and flight.

Once you gain confidence in your ability to stay anchored, you can intentionally adjust the balance toward calm when you feel a rise in anxiety or toward more energy when you need to take action.

In addition to this quick, short-term adrenaline-fueled response, the sympathetic system also responds to distress with the release of cortisol.

In our evolutionary history, being a part of a tribe was essential for survival. We survived in groups. There was strength in numbers. When we are anchored in the safety of ventral regulation, we look for connection and see possibilities for friendship.

the three pathways of the autonomic nervous system (dorsal, sympathetic, and ventral) emerged and formed the building blocks of the system (hierarchy). Our preferred place, the place where we find experiences of health, growth, and restoration, is anchored in the ventral vagal state of safety and connection

The ability to flexibly move between states is a sign of well-being and resilience.

Ventral vagal energy is the active ingredient in safety and connection.

The image I have been using recently for the ventral vagal state is a colorful umbrella that is sheltering the sympathetic and dorsal vagal states, keeping them safe and dry.

Connection begins with a neuroception of safety. From an anchor in ventral, we are a welcoming, safe presence for the people around us.

Offering and receiving forgiveness are both tied to a regulated nervous system.

Practicing self-care is often confused with being selfish. If we look through the lens of the nervous system, self-care is based in ventral vagal safety and connection while being selfish emerges from a survival state.

Moments of awe are truly autonomic-shaping experiences. Make an intention to connect with awe each day.

gratitude is tied to the ventral vagal system. Physically, as we enter a moment of gratitude, our heart rhythms change, our blood pressure drops, our immune function improves, our stress is reduced, and we sleep longer and deeper.

Gratitude is an experience of connection. It is an emotion that exists in relationship with others and that pulls us to want to deepen those relationships.

Each moment of stillness is a moment that nourishes your nervous system.

Create an intention to beam benevolence.

Biologically, stillness is a blend of autonomic states where the two branches of the vagus, the oldest dorsal and newest ventral, work together so we can immobilize without fear.

The words we choose can help us move out of a pattern of protection and enhance our experiences of safety and connection. Changing just a word or two can have a powerful impact on the state of our nervous system.

compassion is only possible when we’re in a ventral vagal state,

A practice of creating compassion intentions increases our capacity for compassion, so regularly write a new intention.

Many people find writing SAFE stories helps them reconnect to remembered moments of safety and bring the experience alive in the present

I felt the first stirring of energy in my body that signals I am beginning to come back to life, and I turned toward it. Next I felt a bit of hope returning and that opened up my well-traveled path back to ventral and feeling alive again. I experimented with ways to honor and deepen this experience so I could stay anchored there. What I discovered was that feeling grateful for finding my way to safety and regulation was not enough. I needed a more active celebration to bring my system alive. It was the act of celebrating by saying out loud and with passion, “I’ve arrived! I’m here!” that helped me feel fully alive and anchored again. I’ve discovered that for my system, actively acknowledging by celebrating out loud is an important part of the experience. When I celebrate, I strengthen my ability to stay anchored in safety.

micro-moments of savoring accumulate. With a savoring practice, they add up and shape our systems toward connection.4

Savoring is a practice of twenty to thirty seconds at the most, making it possible to do many times during the course of the day.

Everything is accomplished bit by bit. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE,

Take some time to explore your own loops. Start by looking at a moment of mobilization. Feel your embodied response and then hear the thought that starts this particular survival story. Watch how your thoughts and stories get stronger and begin to magnify the experience. Continue by looking at a loop that ends in collapse. Notice your embodied response, listen to how this story begins, and feel how you are pulled into the experience, falling deeper into disconnection.

In order to change, it’s necessary to find the right degree of challenge that keeps us safely anchored in the shaping process.

I’ve come to know I’m losing my ventral anchor when my thoughts begin to get just a bit chaotic or disorganized. I start to feel stuck in one story and forget that there are other possibilities.

Complete the exploration by looking at a loop that creates an upward spiral of connection.

As we find our way to anchoring in ventral regulation, we begin to experience more physical well-being.

We are able to stand up for what we believe in and ask for what we need from a place of regulation rather than from a state of protection.

Our interactions with others are guided by the question, “What does their nervous system need in this moment to feel safe?

Follow these four steps to creating your personal launch plan: 1.​Set the intention: Write your intention.

Create an image: Seeing is believing. Imagery

Outcome visualization:

Create an image: Seeing is believing. Imagery is a thought with sensory qualities.

Process visualization: Process visualization gets you from here to there. Staying

Critical visualization: What are the challenges you’ll have to navigate?

Write your plan: Bring your intention and visualizations into concrete form.

Share your plan: Remembering that the nervous system looks for and

The information carried along this vagal pathway travels in two directions, with 80 percent of the information going from the body to the brain and 20 percent from the brain to the body. When we are disconnected from our bodies, we are also disconnected from the ability to tune in to the important information being sent from the body to the brain through the vagal pathway.

When choice is limited or taken away, or when we have a sense of being stuck or trapped without options, we begin to look for a way out. In this search for survival we may feel the mobilizing energy of the sympathetic system with some form of anxiety or anger, or we may feel our energy draining as we are pulled into a dorsal vagal collapse.

Through the eyes of compassion, from your own regulated nervous system, you can see another person’s dysregulated system, respond with regulation, and connect with kindness. From the energy of your ventral vagal system, you can also connect inside and be with your own suffering in an act of self-compassion. Ongoing experiences build the capacity for connecting with compassion. Find the combination of practices that brings your ventral vagal system alive. Create your own compassionate connections.

On the days we’re not anchored in ventral safety, as we move through the world we broadcast cues of danger.

In survival mode, the dorsal vagus takes us out of awareness, out of connection, and into collapse and immobilization. In this survival state, we feel disconnected and numb and have the experience of being here but not here and the sense of going through the motions of life without really caring.

We hope that if we disappear, become invisible, and don’t feel what’s happening or inhabit where we are, we will survive. We escape into not knowing, not feeling, and a sense of not being.

deepen, and experience more of them. We are naturally drawn toward the patterns that are draining as we feel the effects in physical symptoms and emotional distress. Attending to changing these patterns is often where we begin but can’t be where we end. In order to fully experience well-being, we need to attend not only to the pathways that drain but also to the ones that fill.

Shaping our systems in new ways is a gentle process that unfolds over time.

While we want change to happen now, in an instant, the autonomic nervous system most often finds its way both to creating new patterns and into deepening the pathways that are already present and nourishing by doing small things over and over. Marie Curie in her Autobiographical Notes wrote, “I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.

Shaping requires us to be patient, to be persistent, and to persevere.

Begin this exploration by listening in to see what your system is saying. Use the sentence structure “I’m so _____, I could _____” to notice this moment in time and fill in the blanks with whatever words appear.

Did the sentence emerge from a ventral state where the words feel regulated, interesting, and filling? Did your words come from your sympathetic state, bringing a flavor of danger and a feeling of being fueled by too much energy? Or maybe the words emerged from your dorsal state and captured the sense of losing hope, disconnecting, and shutting down.

The next step is to write three sentences, one from each of your states.

End with the feeling and action that creates a ventral-inspired sentence.

we can explore shaping new patterns by taking the original sentences and writing companion statements for each, keeping the feeling (I’m so) but changing the action (I could). The goal is to bring enough regulating energy to the writing to soften the two survival pathways and deepen the pathway of safety and connection.

One way to bring attention and intention to your breath rhythms is to bring breath and language together by adding words to accompany each inhalation and exhalation. Look for pairs of words that speak to the slight rise of energy that goes along with an inhalation and the return to ease that accompanies the exhalation. For example, energize and rest or reach out and tune in.

awareness to your breath rhythm. Bring your words to mind as each breath arrives and leaves, and notice what happens. See what happens if you say your words out loud. Try placing your hand on your body where you found your breath in the earlier exploration and see how that changes your experience.

While it’s comforting to have sets of words that reliably bring us into connection with our breath, there are also times when we want to experiment to see what words emerge in the moment.

When we stay open and curious, we often discover something new.

Another way to use breath as a shaping practice is through sighing. Sighing is a natural way our lungs stay healthy.

we can use intentional sighing as a way to interrupt our state and find a momentary reset and also to deepen an experience of regulation and connection.

There are some basic ways we sigh. We sigh with frustration to release some energy, and we sigh when we feel down or depressed in an attempt to bring in some energy

Through the simple steps of tuning in, taking in, and tending to, we gather the information needed to create a nourishing action.

When we make an intention and set a goal for our practice without making an agreement that includes our autonomic nervous system, we often don’t follow through — not because we don’t want to, but because our biology doesn’t support it.

Maybe you take an elevator or ride a stream of light. Take time to find your own unique route between states. Now experiment with traveling your personal pathway.

How do you slow the descent? You can use your regulated pathway and add details to safeguard your journey. You might want resting places along the path, a railing or handholds, more stopping points in an elevator, or more shades of color in a light stream. Sometimes the path through protection is totally different from the path through regulation.

To continue the journey upward to ventral connection, we need to connect with the mobilizing energy in an organized way.

When we offer someone a touch, we are sharing the state of our nervous system with them, and when we’re touched by someone else, we know the state of their system.

With your personal touch continuum, you can now bring curiosity to where you are on that line.

Our touch memories are held in our nervous system, and when we make contact with a memory we move again into a pattern of protection or connection

Memories of moments when touch was offered in a way that was unexpected or unwanted activate our survival states.

We humans are storytellers, meaning-making beings, and it is through our autonomic nervous systems that we first create, and then inhabit, our stories.

When we learn to tune in, we find there are at least three stories always waiting to be heard, one being told from each state.