Intentional Awareness of the Nervous System

I was doing an educational training program the other day - for my professional license renewal - the topic of which was “Polyvagal Theory” and trauma recovery. I chose to do this training because I had heard of Polyvagal Theory only in passing and lacked any deeper understanding of the framework, as I’m sure many folks have. Its unique name certainly makes it memorable though few folks take the time to understand what it truly means.

I won’t be explaining it - if you want to learn about what Polyvagal Theory is, I’d suggest watching this short Youtube video.

I also won’t be explaining the criticisms and counterclaims levelled against Polyvagal Theory, though these are growing in number and are well-documented as well (like in this NIH peer-reviewed article).

After completing the training and doing some supplemental reading and research on both sides of the theory I can only say that it appears to me that more research on and clarification of key principles is needed before I personally commit myself to integrating too much of Polyvagal Theory into my counseling practice. Much of what I heard in the training, and read from the Theory’s founder, Dr. Porges, seems to ring true on a human level, though, there does seem to be empirical evidence that certain biological phenomena have been misunderstood, oversimplified, or otherwise misconstrued in this theory.

What I took away from the training in a more personal manner was how much I had grown to take for granted my own awareness of what my nervous system was doing in my own body, which runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. I am often mindful of what my head feels like, or what my gut is doing, or how my left knee is feeling. But my nervous system seems to have been flying under the proverbial radar far more than it ought to have been.

I consider myself a fairly mindful person; I maintain a mindfulness practice, I enjoy yoga, I have a toolbox of strategies for when I lose my mindfulness and need to regain it. I rely a lot on curated imagery to help me do this and maintain a collection of mental images to assist me in my mindfulness practice. So imagine my surprise when I found my usual everyday mindfulness was neglecting one of the most important parts of my body most days! And, to boot, I seemed to lack strategies, imagery, or other tactics in observing and regulating this nervous system of mine. Wow!

The nervous system is often spoken about in terms of the flight-or-fight stress and threat responses, but it’s so much more complicated than that! The extent to which we’re well-regulated in our nervous system can impact how our body feels (e.g. gut health, skin health, etc.); it can also impact our abilities to see our worlds accurately, thereby impacting our ability to interact with the world and the people in it effectively.

Those of us with poor awareness and poor regulation of our central nervous system, which is often due to the absence of regulation in childhood and early life, suffer unnecessarily due to these deficits. It makes relationships harder, it makes work harder, and it makes achieving our best physical selves nearly impossible.

In making a more intentional effort this past couple of weeks to maintain a mindful and compassionate awareness of my nervous system I’ve found many, many moments where I was dysregulated but wouldn’t have previously thought so. The best way I can describe it now is using the imagery of the gears in a car: I’d find myself in fourth gear when I really only needed to be in first or second gear, or sometimes I’d find myself in reverse when I had no reason to be in anything other than park. Wild!

Furthermore, in these moments, I’ve made a new intentional effort to curate new strategies, many of which are imagery-based for me (a well-documented best practice in Polyvagal Therapy), to help me regulate my nervous system in these moments. So far, I’m achieving real success in getting myself and my body back on the same page; putting myself back in the right gear for the moment, to continue the metaphor.

So, I simply wanted to share this experience. That I too, as many mental health professionals can admit, struggle sometimes to maintain our awareness on all the important things we know we need to if we want to be the healthiest and best versions of ourselves. It’s not about neglecting these things, it’s all about what you do about it once you realize it. And so far I’m happy with what I’m doing about it.

And no one has to believe what I believe, but I choose to believe that the universe helped me out by putting this training in my path, perhaps specifically at this particular time. Perhaps this is exactly what I needed to hear not only professionally, but personally. If you’re interested in speaking about any of this with me, I’d welcome the conversation. In the meantime, I continue my work…