The Nervous System: The Missing Piece to Creating Greater Connection

Are you exhausted by how much effort you've put in trying to figure out how to help yourself or your partner move out of depression?  Are you sick of the struggle?  Are you longing to finally figure out this seemingly impossible puzzle??  Look no further, the missing piece that will help your whole picture come together is here!  This episode invites you into the transformative world of Polyvagal Theory, a concept that reveals the intricate ties between your nervous system and mental health. By unpacking the dynamics behind emotional regulation, listeners will discover how our biological make-up affects our interactions with the world, others and ourselves. The conversation navigates through the three states of the autonomic nervous system—ventral vagal, sympathetic, and dorsal vagal—providing insights into how they influence our daily experiences and emotional landscapes.

As we explore neuroception, the subconscious mechanism that determines our sense of safety, we highlight the importance of acknowledging adaptive survival states that might lead us to feel overwhelmed or disconnected. You’ll learn how cultivating awareness around these states is essential for fostering connections with loved ones and oneself.

Through engaging anecdotes and relatable examples, we’ll illustrate the vital role of co-regulation in relationships and its significance for handling depression. This episode not only talks about the challenges of emotional regulation but also offers actionable steps to empower you in your journey toward healing and connection.

Join us for an enriching exploration into how understanding our nervous systems can help us reconnect with ourselves and each other, fostering a greater sense of belonging and human resilience in the face of adversity. Ready to take that first step towards emotional clarity and healthier connections? Let's embark on this journey together. Subscribe now, share your thoughts, and remember—you don’t have to navigate this path alone!

As mentioned in this episode, if you are interested in learning further about Polyvagal Theory, one recommended read is Deb Dana's "Anchored," which can be purchased at:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1683647068?tag=&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

- If you are looking to take the first step towards improving your connection and communication with your partner, check out this FREE monthly webinar on "Becoming a Conscious Couple,".

- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

Chapters

• 1:08 Introduction to Polyvagal Theory
• 2:25 PVT Organizing Principle #1: Hierarchy
• 4:40 PVT Organizing Principle #2: Neuroception
• 11:10 PVT Organizing Principle #3: Co-Regulation
• 12:50 The Polyvagal Car
• 23:22 Three Rooms, Three States

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your Bed podcast. Are you ready to hear about the missing puzzle piece that will actually help you and your partner finally begin to move past your struggles with depression? If so, you must check out today's episode, where I will dive into an introduction of polyvagal theory, which explains how understanding your nervous system will help you understand what's happening in your everyday life and also help you begin to understand what you can do about it. Starting right now, I'm your host, trish Sanders, and I can't wait to share more about this with you. So let's get started. As I shared in my last episode, today I'm going to talk about polyvagal theory, which, for me, has been completely life-changing, both individually and how I really and can work with my own depression and can actually help support my husband in his depressive episodes, and it has been as close to magic, I think, as something can possibly get, and so I am extremely excited to share with you more about it today. So I mentioned last time that polyvagal theory was developed by Dr Stephen Porges, and it explains how our autonomic nervous system, particularly the vagus nerve, which runs from our brainstem all the way down and throughout our body, and how the nervous system is actually involved in our emotional regulation and our social engagement, which means our ability to connect, and how actually the nervous system is the basis for how we experience our life. It explains how our biology impacts how we move through the world or, in the case of depression, how we don't move through the world, how we stay feeling stuck or immobilized, and it's really quite fascinating. And last time I shared how its theory about the nervous system supported my own lived experience of depression, meaning that what I discovered about depression through my own living with depression over many, many years was actually explained through the nervous system. And so today I'm going to take a little bit more of a wider scope sharing about what polyvagal theory is all about, and I will continue to make ties to what this means for dealing with depression in yourself and or in your partner.

Speaker 0: 2:25

There are three organizing principles in polyvagal theory. The first one is hierarchy. Essentially, hierarchy refers to the fact that our nervous system has three states, which I referred to in the last episode, and we move through these three states all day long. And so when we talk about depression or even anxiety, we're talking about when our nervous system sort of gets stuck in one of these states, but actually our nervous system is moving throughout these different states for a very important purpose that actually supports our basic functioning in the world. And so these three states are the connected, safe grounding state that I mentioned last time, which is called ventral vagal, and then the other two states are survival states or protective states. We have the sympathetic state, which is the mobilized state of our nervous system, and so when we're in survival mode, this would be known as fight or flight response, that something is happening to me, I'm feeling threatened or in danger and I have to react, I have to do something about it. But we also really need our sympathetic nervous system to help with our body functions, including regulating our heart rate, our blood pressure, our breathing. And then the third state is called our dorsal state, and it is a state of disconnection, a state of shutdown. It would also, in a survival state, be thought of as our body's freeze response, but it also helps us with our digestion and other functions in our body. I share this because it's so important to understand that there is no such thing as a bad state. We need all of our states and they support us in our functioning day to day and understanding how they work together and what's really happening and how that relates to our mental functioning and the thoughts that we're having and how we're connecting or not connecting with others in the world is really related to this and what we can do about problems we may be experiencing in our connecting or in our mood, or in the negative thoughts that we're experiencing or our diminished functioning. Understanding how it's connected to our nervous system really starts to give such clear ideas about what we can do to help us feel better.

Speaker 0: 4:40

The second organizing principle of polyvagal theory is something called neuroception. Essentially, it is the perception of the nervous system. The reason it has its own separate name is because perception when you think about that, it is how we perceive things and it's a brain function, and when we perceive things, we often have thoughts and words attached to our perception of something, and neuroception actually happens below our thinking ability. So this is not a brain function. This is a starting from the brain stem, in the lower base of our brains, in the back of our necks, going down through our neck and into our bodies. This is actually how the nervous system communicates with the world and it is so incredibly interesting and important to understand how neuroception works.

Speaker 0: 5:26

Neuroception is always paying attention to what's going on, and this makes a lot of sense because our bodies and brains are really well equipped for dealing with danger. The nervous system is always paying attention, it's always listening, it's always assessing Am I safe, am I in danger? And in the words of Deb Dana, who is a clinician and consultant who specializes in the polyvagal theory and teaching it and using it in the office, she talks about the three ways that the nervous system gets information and she refers to them as inside, outside and between. So this means that the nervous system is always paying attention to what's happening inside the body. Is there any disturbance? Is there any pain? Is there something that is noteworthy that I need to pay attention to, that might be indicating danger? It's also listening outside of the body, in the environment, outside of us. Are there any cues of danger that I need to respond to to keep me safe? And then it's also looking between nervous systems, which means in relationship in this nervous system to nervous system communication, which I will talk much, much more about in many more episodes, I'm sure. But in the space between nervous systems, what cues of danger or cues of safety am I receiving? Is this a safe relationship or is there a potential threat or danger that I'm sensing?

Speaker 0: 6:48

I will also take a moment just to note that I mentioned that the theory was created by Dr Stephen Porges and he has a lot of wonderful resources and readings and more available that really are about the theory of polyvagal theory and it's super fascinating. And then Deb Dana is a clinical practice of polyvagal theory, so she's the clinician, how it applies in the office, what it looks like, and they both have extraordinary material that I highly recommend. But just to name one, if you're interested in polyvagal theory or you want to learn more, deb Dana's book Anchored is a fantastic read. I really think that everybody should read it. I don't get paid for, I don't get any kickbacks for anybody reading it, but it is something that I think is a transformative read and I will include a link to it in the notes below so you can check it out for yourself as well.

Speaker 0: 7:36

Another really important thing to know about neuroception is that most of what the nervous system is picking up is actually coming through sensory cues in the environment or in our body, our felt experience. This is a bottom-up stream of information, meaning the information is coming through the body and being sent up to the brain, which, in the other direction, we can have thoughts which originate in the brain and we sent up to the brain, which, in the other direction, we can have thoughts which originate in the brain and we're trying to tell our body, which is a top down stream of information. This is so important because I'll use an example actually with children, because we see in our culture and our society quite often a child who falls and gets hurt on the playground and they skin their knee and a lot of the time, very loving, supportive adults gather around them and they say you're okay, you're okay, and they're trying to calm the child down by using words right, this top-down approach. And the child probably is okay. Right, they probably didn't break a limb, they just need a little band-aid, they'll be fine in just a minute or two. But in that moment, that child's body, from a bottom-up stream of information, is saying I'm in pain, I am not okay. Right, it's not something that could be received necessarily that oh, I am okay now, because their body is telling them they're not, they're in pain and valuing the information that our nervous system is getting from our sensory experience is so incredibly important because this also gives us really incredible clue about how to help us feel better that it's not always this idea of you know, convincing somebody that they're okay or you know, telling somebody to relax doesn't usually work, and that is because of neuroception. We are really listening largely to our felt sensory experience over words a lot of the time.

Speaker 0: 9:16

Now, just to note, the sensory experience gets sent to the brain and very quickly we do attach words and stories to neuroception. But when we're not aware because neuroception happens at a level below conscious thinking we start to believe the stories very automatically. And sometimes those stories that we tell ourselves, these interpretations that we tell ourselves about a situation that may seem dangerous this may be, if you imagine, you know, if you walk into the room and your partner is sort of in a slump on the couch on their phone and that might be a cue of danger for you, oh, my goodness, they're depressed again. This night's going to be terrible. I was looking for a fun, relaxing evening and now I'm really in for it. All of a sudden we attach these stories that may be inaccurate and then we react to those stories and that is where change and growth and healing can come in when we start to bring consciousness and awareness to our neuroception. Ah, I'm experiencing a cue of danger. I'm noticing that my nervous system is going into a protective state. Now I can start to do something a little bit different, which I will talk a lot more about that process in great detail, with many examples in future episodes. But just to know that we do attach words and stories to our neuroception very, very quickly, and the way we can use neuroception to help us grow and change and learn is to actually begin to bring conscious awareness to our neuroception and start to understand what really is happening. What is the cue of danger? Is there something that's really threatening or is it really reflecting something else that's going on that we can actually respond to with warmth and compassion and connection, rather than going into a survival state? And knowing that we can work with our body and our nervous system and our neuroception and our felt experience in order to help us to move our nervous system to a feeling of safety, it really starts to open up the possibility of how we can respond.

Speaker 0: 11:10

The third organizing principle of polyvagal theory is called co-regulation, and this is a beautiful, beautiful concept that can support having better relationships with anyone and everyone, and it is absolutely vital for parents, for partners, for friends, for family members, co-workers, educators, for everyone. It is just such an important thing and there is a shift in society of beginning to understand the power of co-regulation, but I think it really needs to be at the forefront of everything we do, because it is the power to create what we want to create the relationships we want to have, the societies we want to have, the communities, the schools, the businesses, the organizations. It's really core to everything, and so co-regulation essentially refers to the fact that we are biologically wired to be in connection with other people. It's a biological imperative, as a matter of fact, which means we cannot live without connection, and our nervous systems actually want to connect to other nervous systems. And if we're unable to connect with other nervous systems which, in the case of depression, depression is disconnection, as you've heard me talk about before, which is fully supported by polyvagal theory If we can't connect because we're trying to protect ourselves, we can really start to emotionally starve, so to speak, because we are longing to be in connection and we're not able to connect and this can be absolutely completely detrimental to the human experience and we can fall far from living a joyful, connected, passionate, thriving, alive life and fall into absolute despair when we're not in connection with other nervous systems, or, in other words, when we're not having relationships with other people.

Speaker 0: 13:09

This becomes a problem if we experience relationships with others as a place of danger, a place of threat, a place of hurt, a place of harm, a place where we're let down. This becomes absolutely key and gives us yet another huge clue and insight into what do we need to do in order to help support a person in being able to connect, if that's something that they biologically need to do. Well, we have to be able to work with our nervous systems in order to find out what safe connection is and start to be able to move towards that experience of safe connection and how to create safe connection. So these are the three organizing principles, the hierarchy that there's three states to our nervous system and I don't know if I mentioned this actually, but as I'm saying it out loud, the hierarchy means that there's a predictable way that our three states move. And so if you imagine a ladder which is a Deb Dana visual that she offers, the top of the ladder is ventral, vagal, that safe, connected place. The middle of the ladder is that sympathetic, mobilized energy, that fight or flight, and then the bottom of the ladder is dorsal, which is that disconnected, collapsed, withdrawn, immobilized state of the nervous system. And when we say it's predictable and we say it's a hierarchy, if you imagine that ladder, you can't jump from the bottom of the ladder and dorsal right up to ventral. You actually must pass through the sympathetic state.

Speaker 0: 14:36

Now in depression, if you can imagine, if you're in this depressive episode and maybe your partner comes to you and they tell you that you forgot to do something that they had asked you to do, maybe you know you might stay in dorsal and you might turn over and ignore them or not listen or just feel hopeless and say, oh my goodness, another thing that I can't do, another example of how I'm a failure. That's one possible way to react. But you actually might. Depending on many circumstances and depending on neuroception. You might actually rise up the ladder into a sympathetic response and maybe you get rageful or angry. Rage energy, anxiety, energy. Those are mobilized, there's action, there's movement in that kind of feeling. And so you know, a person can go from feeling very depressed and seeming very disconnected to going into a rage very quickly. The good news is that you're kind of coming up the ladder and I will talk more in detail about what I have noticed and experienced again prior to learning about polyvagal theory and now, since I have awareness of polyvagal theory, what I have really learned about this process and what I have experienced. But if you move into sympathetic, you also a few more rungs up the ladder and you can rise up again into that ventral connected space.

Speaker 0: 15:44

Although a lot of people tend to stay sort of fluctuating between a dorsal collapse experience and a sympathetic either rageful, angry or sympathetic anxiety, anxious experience, and so sometimes people lose touch, it's still there. They're ventral connected, grounded, safe place. Our nervous system knows that place it really does. But a lot of the time certainly when there's something that is affecting mental health a lot of the time we're disconnected from that, our ventral experience, and I know that that was absolutely true for me. I feel like it's only been in the last maybe year and a half or two now that I have been on this incredible journey of reconnecting with my ventral state, and it's really a huge part of the reason that I'm even here today sharing this information with you because in the process of me being able to reconnect with my ventral state, it has opened up so many new possibilities and my day-to-day experience of my depression is so drastically different than when it's ever been before that I knew that I had to share this information with other people.

Speaker 0: 16:43

So again, the hierarchy idea. It's predictable. You know that the nervous system will go through these stages. The other option doesn't have to be. You don't have to stay in survival state to go up the ladder. But if you know that sympathetic has energy in it, just the idea to get out of bed for somebody or for me a lot of the time, like my administrative work, is something that's hard for me to do and can feel overwhelming and is a huge cue of danger for me a lot of the time. But to do my administrative work, to sit down and do my billing or call an insurance company or something like that, that takes sympathetic energy. So I have to be able to find ways to be able to move up that ladder of the nervous system and then that lift also can help me open up whatever software I need to open up to be able to complete my task.

Speaker 0: 17:25

When I take that first step towards completing the action. When I sit down on my laptop and I'm like, oh yeah, look, I did it. It wasn't so bad, right, it didn't kill me essentially which sounds so silly to think about you know, doing paperwork is not going to kill me, doing administrative tasks is not going to actually harm me in any way, but it feels that way. And then I can say, oh, look, it wasn't so bad and I feel safe. And then, when I'm finished with my task, maybe I moved all the way up the ladder to that ventral space, to that calm, connected, grounded space. And so, again, it's very helpful to understand the hierarchy because it can indicate what is happening in our behavior like, hmm, what's going on here?

Speaker 0: 17:58

And also, in the words of Deb Dana, how to befriend our nervous system and gain nervous system flexibility, which essentially is the increased ability to move our nervous system into the state that we want it to be, in which most of the time, of course, we want the ventral, grounded, safe, connected space. There are blends of states that I won't go into right now, but just a quick word the blend of sympathetic and ventral state is like a playful, fun state. It's energetic, safe, connected groundedness, which is a beautiful state. I refer to that as my flow state. It's one of my favorite states, actually. But to know that hierarchy gives us a lot of information on what we can do with our nervous system and how we can work with our nervous system to actually create the lived experience that we want to create for ourselves and certainly the relationships that we want to create for ourselves.

Speaker 0: 18:48

So just to recap on the three organizing principles, there's hierarchy, which I went into in greater detail just now. There's neuroception and how our nervous systems intake information that essentially let us know if we are safe or if we're in danger, and the organizing principle of co-regulation that our nervous systems, in order to survive, need to be in connection with other nervous systems, or in other words, of course, that we need to be in relationship to survive. Now, this does not necessarily mean intimate partner romantic relationships, of course, but we need to be in connection with others in some sort of way. We need community in order to truly move beyond surviving, certainly into thriving. So when people come to work with me in therapy and I explain to them about polyvagal theory, I use two different analogies to explain these concepts, and so I'm going to share them with you today. The first is an analogy I use about how your nervous system is moving through those three states every day and there's no such thing as a bad state and they're all necessary, they're all working together and they're always present all the time as well.

Speaker 0: 19:54

It's not like you can kick out one of your states. So I use this idea of a car and you're the car, you're the whole vehicle, but inside the car you can kick out one of your states. So I use this idea of a car and you're the car, you're the whole vehicle, but inside the car, you can imagine, are our three different states, and so we have ventral and sympathetic and dorsal, and sometimes one of the states is really in the driver's seat. You might be leading with ventral energy, which was lovely. If ventral is driving the car, you're probably feeling pretty good, and even if you're feeling frustrated or angry, you're going to take that and be like oh, I'm having a feeling. That means I have a need. Let me try to respond to that in a helpful way. So it's a good place to be if Ventral is driving.

Speaker 0: 20:28

If you're depressed, dorsal is driving the car right and so dorsal that collapsed, withdrawn energy. That's in the driver's seat. Now you might have an experience where sympathetic is in the passenger seat and ventral is just in the back seat, so they're all really close together and maybe some level of ease you might be uplifted by some sympathetic mobilized energy to be able to take some helpful action that you know. So then sympathetic kind of jumps over into the driver's seat and then maybe ventral is able to grab the wheel pretty easily because you're, they're all kind of close together. However, sometimes one of your states is in the driver's seat and maybe both the other states are in the back seat or even maybe locked in the trunk.

Speaker 0: 21:10

So when I describe a severe depressive episode, I say look, dorsal's in your driver's seat right now. It's taking the lead, it's calling the shots, it's determining which way you turn, and when you look through the windshield of out at your life, it's the lens you're looking through and maybe it feels like ventral and sympathetic energy, moving energy, calm, safe energy. Maybe they feel like they're nowhere to be found, but they're not completely gone. Maybe they're just in the trunk and there's ways that we can figure out how to go back and maybe pop the trunk open and set them free so that they can come be in the car and that they can help drive sooner. Maybe not immediately, it might take a little bit of time. If a dorsal's got a hand on your wheel, sometimes it can take a little bit of time for it to loosen its grip, but it's definitely possible.

Speaker 0: 21:52

And so the reason I use this analogy is because I think it's so important to know that they all work together, they all exist inside of us together and they're all taking turns based on neuroception, really based on the information that they're receiving from inside the body, from outside in the environment and in relationship, to determine who is the best person to drive our car right now and from a survival place. If we're perceiving danger, then it makes sense for one of our survival states to be driving the car. However, sometimes what we're perceiving as danger is not really dangerous. For example, a negative emotion, sometimes we feel frustrated or disappointed or sad or hurt. That becomes a cue of danger for many, many people, and then we go into a survival mode, which it's not really helpful relationally and when I say relationally, it's not helpful for being in relationship with other people, but it's also not helpful for the relationship you have with yourself If a survival state kicks in and is driving your vehicle, you're probably not going to make very helpful choices, and so we really want to start to identify. Oh, I think the dorsal is driving the car right now. What do I need to do? Because I really want to get as close as possible to ventral driving the car, or at least I want ventral, you know, in the passenger seat so that I can, you know, have some ventral energy near as I'm making these decisions about where we turn, where our vehicle essentially.

Speaker 0: 23:13

So, a lot of the time I use that analogy of the car to talk about the nervous system experience through a polyvagal lens. And then the other analogy that I use when explaining polyvagal theory is what I call three rooms, three states, and I also alluded to this concept in the last episode, and it is one of the most important, mind-blowing, helpful, transformative concepts that I have ever learned in my entire life, and I share it today with you. So when I talk about three rooms, three states, I use this analogy to describe the idea that our interpretation of the world, meaning how we see ourselves, how we see others, how we see the greater world at large, our interpretations of those things, are directly connected to the state our nervous system is in. So to explain that I talk about three rooms, three states. This is particularly true when we're talking about being in a survival state of dorsal or sympathetic. Our nervous system is moving through all of our states all day long just to maintain our body function, and so it may not feel quite as distinctly different. But when we're talking about survival states of dorsal, which is that freeze, shut down, withdraw, hide, disappear, place of self-protection, or we're talking about that sympathetic, fight or flight place of protection, then that's when the three rooms, three states concept really applies. So if you can imagine three different rooms and each room represents each of the three states.

Speaker 0: 24:39

So for me, when I picture my eventual room, it's really beautiful. It's very sunny, there's big windows, it's painted a nice light color. It's probably painted for me in this moment a nice yellow, bright yellow is coming to mind. It's got very comfortable furniture. It's very welcoming, it's very comforting, lots of artwork on the walls, some beautiful green plants. There's a feeling of life and energy and beauty and certainly a place of safety. And so my eventual room is a beautiful, beautiful place.

Speaker 0: 25:13

And if I can switch into thinking about my sympathetic room. My sympathetic room is definitely a bit darker. It's a mess. It is absolutely a total mess. I think the wall in my sympathetic room is probably covered with post-it notes of things that I have to do and there's piles of mail and paperwork and lots of things communicating that stuff needs to be done and I'm way behind on doing it. That's probably what my sympathetic room looks like in this moment, and my dorsal room, if I move into that third room. That's definitely a dark room. Today, in this moment, I do feel like there might be some light coming from a crack under the door. I have definitely been in places when thinking about my dorsal room. It's really completely black, but today I feel like there's a little bit of light coming in and it's really very bare. There's not much furniture, maybe a, maybe a hard chair, maybe a hardwood chairs in there. No windows, I don't think. Or if there's a window, it's got a very heavy dark curtain covering it. So for me again, this could change. My nervous system might feel differently tomorrow, but in this particular moment that's a little taste of what my ventral, sympathetic and dorsal rooms look like. So here's the thing depending on which room I'm in is how I'm going to start perceiving the world.

Speaker 0: 26:32

When I go into my eventual room, my comfy, beautiful, bright room I bright room. I'm like, oh yeah, like life is great, I'm feeling good, I'm ready to problem solve, I can take on my to-do list, like what should I do now? I'm ready to connect with people, I'm very available. I want to reach out and make a plan with my friends. I definitely want to hang out with my husband, have some fun, go do something we both enjoy. You know the world is great, right, there's so much promise and opportunity and everything is wonderful. But if something happens while I'm moving about in the world, when I'm in this room, and there's a cue of danger that sends me into a sympathetic state, now I'm on guard.

Speaker 0: 27:07

Now, again, my room was really messy. Clearly I had a lot of things on my to-do list going on Now when I'm in that place. Ugh, my to-do list going on Now when I'm in that place ugh, like everything is going to look like what I see in that room. There's going to be feelings of overwhelm. I'm going to be thinking that you know I have so much to do and I have to just keep doing it. I have to like push and push and push. There's no time to rest because look at this to-do list, I'm never going to get through it. Other people they either don't try at all, or they try and they don't know what they're doing, or no one actually can be really helpful, right? And so I start to see the world as if I'm in that room, right.

Speaker 0: 27:43

And then perhaps, if there's more cues of danger, maybe my to-do list is so very long that I feel so incredibly overwhelmed that I go into that dorsal room and again, my dorsal room is very bare and there's not a lot going on, very little light. I have this hard, uncomfortable chair, and so in that place, my nervous system moves into that room. I'm going to feel everything and see everything as if I'm in that space. Everything is bleak, and I'm not even thinking about what there is to do anymore. Because I'm in this horrible place. I'm avoiding thinking about any of those things that might feel overwhelming. I'm uncomfortable, I'm definitely disconnected. There's no way out, there's no way to communicate from here, there's no window even to look out of right, and so the value of thinking about these three rooms is to know that when you're in one of the rooms, you might remember what one of the other rooms looks like.

Speaker 0: 28:38

Right, like when I'm in Dorsetown, I'm like I think I vaguely remember there was this really bright room that I've been in before. It was really beautiful, it had like really wonderful artwork on the walls and it had these big, beautiful windows and they had sunshine pouring in. But, like, maybe it was a dream, I don't really know, I don't know, I'm not even sure I was really there. Maybe I made it up or maybe I'm like you know what. I know I was there, but I have no idea how to get back there and it really feels like it's a completely distinctly different, very separate place from where you are right now.

Speaker 0: 29:11

And so this is so important because, when I realized this, it was yet another huge aha moment for me, because I have understood, quite honestly, have felt pretty crazy at times, thinking I don't know why. There's been times when I felt very able to do an administrative task, or with my husband, there's been times when I've been able to come to him whether he's depressed or whether he's stressed at work or whatever he's at and be able to come to him with a lot of compassion, and sometimes my compassion is gone, right. Why Yesterday, last week, a month ago, I had all this compassion for my husband. Today I have none. Why is that? Am I crazy? Is something wrong with me? Does it mean that our relationship has gotten to a place where it's so awful I just don't care about it anymore?

Speaker 0: 29:54

What does all this mean? And it can mean a lot of things. All those are interpretations and I might have to figure out exactly what something really truly means. But what I know it means and now this is the thought I have when I have this experience I know it means that my nervous system is in a different state. My nervous system is in a different room.

Speaker 0: 30:12

I am not crazy, because I wake up on some days able to take on responsibilities, take on my to-do list, move through my morning with ease and joy. There are days that are like that for me, and then there's days that it is not like that for me, where it's hard to get out of bed. Before I even open my eyes, I'm like ugh, ugh. Right, I don't know if you know that feeling, but I know that feeling very well. And it's not that there's something wrong with me, it's just that my nervous system is in a different state and when I start to say, oh, I'm in a different room, okay, now I get it, now this makes sense. I'm seeing the world because I'm in this different room, and so the whole world, my experience of myself, my experience of others, it feels different because I'm in a different room right now.

Speaker 0: 30:51

Then my goal becomes how do I get back to the room I want to be in? How do I change my state? How do I get my nervous system back, closer to that ventral state? And there's answers to those questions. There's actually answers what you can do. So stay tuned for much more as I talk about what you can do so that you can move closer to being in that ventral room, that beautiful room, and your ventral room and your sympathetic room and your dorsal room may look very, very different than mine, and that's totally OK, but if you can have an idea of where you want to move towards and I will continue to support you in figuring out how to make your way there.

Speaker 0: 31:30

As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments, because I want to thank you for showing up today and I want to leave you with an invitation as you hit stop and move back out into the world on your own unique wellness journey In order to move from where you are today to the place where you want to be. The path may seem long or unclear or unknown, and I want you to know that if that seems scary or daunting or downright terrifying or anything else, that is totally okay. Know that you do not have to create the whole way all at once. We don't travel a whole journey in one stride, and that is why my invitation to you today is to take a step, just one, any type, any size, in any direction. It can be an external step that can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize, taking in your mind. It can be a step towards action or towards rest or connection or self-care, or whatever step makes sense to you.

Speaker 0: 32:32

I invite you to take a step today because getting to a place that feels better, more joyful, more connected than the place where you are today is possible for everyone, including you, and even when depression is in your bed. If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media at trishsanderslcsw. Your feedback will help guide future episodes and I love hearing from you. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared. Until the next time we connect, take care of yourself and take a step.