Finding Our Way Back To Safety With Food
So far, in this series on our autonomic states, I’ve written a post about how to bring awareness to: Why I do the things I do? (by making conscious the often unconscious reactions and behaviors we do all day long, specifically around food). Last week, I wrote a post about glimmers and triggers that help us to answer the question: How did I get here?
The autonomic nervous system is our personal surveillance system, always moving towards safety while ever-scanning for danger.
This week, I want to offer some actionable steps to answer the question: How do I find my way back to the ventral vagal state and stay there?
When we are in the ventral vagal state of regulation, we have access to a range of responses including calm, happy, meditative, engaged, attentive, active, interested, exccited, passionate, alert, ready, relaxed, savoring, and joyful (Dana and Porges, 2018)
Where I see this being helpful in the practice of moving away from dieting and into an attuned, connected, organized eating style (aka “intuitive eating”) is that when we are in a ventral vagal state of regulation we are more likely to have an optimistic, engaged, big-picture-way of thinking about and being with food.
Remember the idea of “story following state”? Here is an example of a scenario with food and how the story about that food sounds differently in each state:
Scenario: You get caught up in an unexpected errand and find yourself ravenously hungry with only Taco Bell to choose from as a viable lunch option.
Ventral Vagal state story: “Not my favorite but One Chalupa Extreme, please.” And, on you go with your day without much thought.
Sympathetic state story: “All fast food is bad for me. I’d rather go hungry than to lower my standards. I don’t think I can live with myself if I eat fast food. Why didn’t I plan better?! I’m so {the worst things you say about yourself}. Big business is out to get me. Fast food restaurants should be outlawed.” Gets food and compensates in some way later on; or skips the meal, choosing restriction as a course of penance or in the service of maintaining a perfect diet.
Dorsal Vagal state story: “Well, of course this is happening. Nothing ever goes my way.” Gets food and is numb to the eating experience.
This is a big part of the work I do: help people recognize their state and work to move into the ventral vagal state prior to eating. When we are operating from the ventral vagal state, our outlook is more optimistic and compassionate, our digestion is regulated, our sense of hunger and fullness is recognizable and trustworthy.
Are you interested in an exercise that will help you come up with resources to self-regulate (things you can do on your own) and co-regulate (things you can do with others) you back into ventral vagal when you are inevitably pulled down into sympathetic and dorsal vagal?
The Regulating Resources Map helps you identify resources you already have access to as well as creating new resources where they are absent. This is helpful if you are feeling stuck in your food freedom work. Once you are used to mapping your state and finding the glimmers and triggers, you can start to find ways to move back to safety and connection with your body and your values, making eating less chaotic and reactionary.
A moment of care:
I would invite you to notice if you are being triggered by the idea that there is an autonomic state that is “better” than the others. It’s easy to mistake what I’m saying as “You should be in ventral vagal if you really care about yourself.” Your internal narrative may be “Oh, no. I always seem to be in the sympathetic state or the dorsal vagal state. Here we go again. Another way that I’m broken. Another thing that I need to try to strive for.”
My fear around using Polyvagal theory in sessions is that we may turn this knowledge into another way of pursuing perfection and a narrow view of measuring health and wellbeing.
I want to offer you this: If you feel triggered, it makes sense and I believe you. It makes sense because our culture tells us that we, as individuals, are 100% responsible for achieving and maintaining a high standard of personal health and function. Manifest destiny...if you want it bad enough and jump through all the right hoops and pray the right prayers and eat the right vegetables and take the right supplements and sit in an ice bath you too can be in perfect health (and your kids will love you, your spouse will treat you well, you will win friends, and influence people).
I call B.S. on that.
Yes, we have a nervous system that can tell us a lot about ourselves AND there is a collective nervous system and structures of oppression that influence a lot of what goes on inside us at a neurobiological, spiritual, genetic, etc., etc., etc level. We do not live in a test tube. We exist in a living world.
All humans are moving from one autonomic state to the next all day long. ALL OF US ARE. In some seasons of life, we hang out in the sympathetic state and other seasons we may find ourselves more often in dorsal vagal state. Welcome. To. Real. Life.
Invitation:
Wake up to and befriend whatever state you find yourself in. Knowing about the defensive autonomic states (sympathetic and dorsal vagal) does not keep us out of them. We cannot control what our nervous system perceives as a threat. What we can do is notice when we are pulled into a defensive state and practice caring for ourselves and asking for care from others to move us back into ventral vagal.
Reach out for help. Reach out for a moment of co-regulation. Together we can do this.
The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation, by Deb Dana and Stephen W. Porges, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, p. 26.