|
Hello :) First off - thank you for being here - I hope you’re having a beautiful week so far. Not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve been feeling a lot of resistance lately*. I find this showing up when I feel like I need to “figure shit out” and it tends to manifest in the form of unintentional scrolling and procrastination (i.e. taking quizzes to find out what kind of pizza I am, googling definitions of bizarre words, looking up old teachers lol, the list goes on…). While I definitely don’t have all the answers on how to deal with procrastination, I do want to share something that has been helping me deal with resistance and nagging thoughts... Using creativity to soften inner conflict Personally, I find the antidote to moving through resistance is applying some form of curiosity. When we feel resistance, it usually means we just need a lil more info, and once we accept this it almost instantly helps loosen the grip on things. So how can one use curiosity to soften inner conflict? Perhaps a story from the weekend can help illustrate this… On Sunday I decided to treat myself to a lil takeout. As I walked into the shop, I had a gut instinct of what I wanted to order, but then something else on the menu caught my eye. I don’t know if any of y’all are fellow Libras, but making decisions (especially when it comes to food) isn’t my forte lol. So, I asked the clerk which menu option they liked more. They gave me their suggestion and it wasn’t the one I instinctively wanted and I recall myself saying “really?” out loud (pure askhole move here)… but I felt bad, so I went with their suggestion. After I left the shop I found myself obsessing over whether I had made the right decision - nearly the entire way home lol. Then an idea hit me - could I apply curiosity to move out of my head and into my body? In expressive arts school we are often invited to find a way to come into our body after we’ve had a very head-y discussion. Also, it might be helpful to note that in an expressive arts therapy session, therapists will invite a client to move into the felt senses using art to explore a problem vs. traditional talk therapy where a therapist will often use the mind to work through things (note: I’m not casting favourites here - I believe all forms of therapy have their place in one’s healing journey). So I asked myself the following questions about the spiral I was in: What shape would this take on? I decided it would look like a spiral. How would it smell? Smoky. How might it feel? Prickly. How would it taste? Too salty. How would it look? Cluttered.
After I worked through this exercise (literally as I was walking home), it immediately diffused the obsessive thought pattern. Naming how I was feeling through the senses created the space necessary between me and those thoughts, and moved me into my body. If you at all can relate to having an experience like the one above, I’d invite you to try out this exercise sometime. And my inbox is always open if you need specific suggestions on how to move through something with a lil creativity. The science of safety and connection - Polyvagal Theory Last week we looked at how a felt sense of safety in environments can help us flourish. I remember about a year or so ago I was listening to a podcast episode that was speaking to anxiety (I can’t for the life of me remember the episode) and the host mentioned how anxiety is rooted in not feeling safe; and when we experience anxiety it often means our bodies feel threatened in some way. When I heard this, I remember tearing up because I felt like things started to finally click. Ever since I started experiencing anxiety in 2014, therapists + basically all other sources told me: And I guess there is validity to those claims, but not once did I ever hear safety as connected to why someone might feel anxious. Fast forward to trauma school - we are introduced to Polyvagal Theory - developed by Dr. Stephen Porges - and nothing was ever the same lol. Polyvagal theory is rooted in the science of safety and connection. It helps us explore how we can feel safe enough to fall in love with life by bringing awareness to the inner workings of our autonomic nervous system. You might have heard of the “vagus nerve” which is basically a long nerve that runs from our brains, through our face and chest to our abdomen. This nerve is responsible for engaging our parasympathetic nervous system - the branch of our nervous system that is commonly known for helping us “rest and digest”. However, the vagus nerve is responsible for a lot more. Recently I read a passage by Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, who referred to the vagus nerve as the “soul nerve” and I think this is the best description I’ve ever heard. The vagus nerve is connected to us experiencing safety, curiosity, creativity, connection and compassion, as well as our deepest emotions like love, fear, grief, anger, hope, etc. There are 3 main guiding principles of Polyvagal Theory which I’m going to attempt to briefly explain to you as simply as possible: Hierarchy Our nervous system has three main response patterns (basically how we respond to others and the world around us) and these are organized in evolutionary order from oldest to newest: Shutdown: This is the oldest response pattern that is connected to our dorsal vagus nerve and it brings about a complete shutdown state - i.e. depression, disconnection, dissociation, etc. Fight or flight: This is connected to our sympathetic nervous system and brings about feelings of anxiety, agitation, a quickened heart rate, etc. Safe + connected: This is the newest response connected to our ventral vagus nerve and brings about our ability to feel socially engaged and connected with others.
In my opinion, the order isn’t as important as just simply getting to know these three main response states. Neuroception The nervous system is basically survival communication - its main goal is to protect us and keep us alive. To do this, our brain is constantly scanning for threat and responding to cues of safety and danger from the world around us and in our relationships with others. Different from “perception” - neuroception is detection without awareness aka our bodies are working to protect us without us even knowing! It’s important to note here that if someone has experienced trauma, this “scanning” can often mix up safe situations for being unsafe, and this is why it’s important to work with a trauma-informed therapist to process the trauma and further help recalibrate the nervous system. Co-regulation We need co-regulation to survive. Co-regulation happens when we connect with others, and this reciprocal exchange between two nervous systems creates a shared sense of safety. Reciprocity is key here though! Reciprocity is created in the back and forth communication between two nervous systems. It is the experience of genuine listening and responding. — What I love about Polyvagal Theory is that it helps us get to know our nervous system really really well, and teaches us how we can work with it to truly flourish. It also teaches us to honour what our bodies are telling us. When I first started experiencing anxiety, I genuinely thought something was wrong with me. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to be in crowded places without feeling like I was about to have a massive panic attack or why I felt like I was going to randomly pass out in certain social and work settings. Learning Polyvagal Theory taught me that when I was experiencing anxiety, it was due to the fact that my body felt like it was under threat, and the anxiety response was trying to keep me safe. Understanding this helped me be much more compassionate to myself and also get hella curious about what was not allowing me to feel safe in my environments. Next week I’ll share a bit more on how I worked through understanding my nervous system using Polyvagal Theory (and how you can begin to as well) and how it helped me better understand anxiety. Much love, B *It’s also a full moon on Friday and so in addition to feeling super sensitive I feel like others are too? I’ve witnessed excessive road rage lately and just a general increase in crustiness, and it’s not cute. P.S. I would love to hear from you.
Hit reply and tell me what might have resonated, or if you have any Qs and/or comments.
If you’d like to connect outside of this space, you can find me here and here.
Finally, if you want to help support my journey, I’d love for you to share this newsletter with someone you think might benefit from it <3
|
