Deb Dana Quotes

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Connection is the antidote to the isolation that trauma creates. Through connection, we find safety, support, and the possibility of healing.

Reflection practices strengthen our connection to self.

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

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.

You can use the following questions to begin to listen from the outside in: Where am I? (Locate yourself in time and space.) What’s happening in the environment? Who is around? What am I doing? What state has been activated? Notice that the questions are designed to evoke curiosity, identify concrete external experiences, and lead you to identifying your autonomic state. Use these five questions to practice listening from the outside in.

When we know where we predictably find glimmers, we can make a practice of returning to those places and experiencing the ventral vagal energy they offer. Keep a glimmer notebook or find a place to note them in your journal.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Deep listening is only possible when we are anchored in ventral safety.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Compassion has a natural partner in forgiveness.

We benefit from the autonomic protection of forgiveness and suffer with the autonomic risks of unforgiveness.

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

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.

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.

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,

Create an intention to beam benevolence.

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.

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.

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

Inside the Circle: Mental

Inside the Circle: Spiritual

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.

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.

One way to listen to our three stories is to take a particular experience and look at it from each state. I think of this as looking through the eyes of a state.

feeling one experience in three very different ways.

In this exploration, I want to make sure I am first feeling regulated and anchored in ventral safety.

chapter 2 and revisit your ventral landscape, chapter 6 and the “Connecting with Cues” practice, or chapter 7 and walk your ventral continuum.)

Think about the categories of art, movement, and words and feel what your autonomic nervous system response is.

Honoring your autonomic wisdom is essential.

I’ve found that an easy way to bring some self-compassion is by adding one of my favorite words: yet. Yet holds a feeling of change and a sense of possibility.

Make a statement, add yet to the end of the sentence, and see what happens.

Staying in curiosity and out of self-criticism is the key to this exploration. We need an anchor in regulation to be curious and not judgmental.

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.

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.

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

In the middle of winter, I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer. ALBERT CAMUS

Sometimes I use the image of reaching for ventral and other times I actually stretch my arm up over my head to reach for some regulating energy. Then I begin to hear the ventral story that reassures me there is in fact enough regulating energy available in my system and I can stay in connection with it.

There are many flavors of ventral, but the common ingredient is the neuroception of safety that underlies the state.

Along with calm and happy, when we’re anchored in our ventral state, we can be excited, joy filled, aware, engaged, passionate, curious, compassionate, alert, ready, and focused.

Humans have a built-in negativity bias. In order to support our survival, we’re wired to respond more intensely to negative experiences than equally intense positive ones. We have to actively look for, take notice of, and keep track of these moments, or micro-moments, of safety and connection that are our glimmers. Otherwise they can easily pass right by without our knowing

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.