Heyyy friends! So happy to be back with you for a Coffee with Gabi episode of Pain to Passion Live!

I hope you'll grab your favorite hot beverage and come hang out with me for a few minutes as we have a fun chat today about nervous system regulation.

Do you ever feel anxious, nervous, or on edge and you don't know why? Or do you struggle with dipping into depression a bit too frequently? Those of us who are complex trauma survivors or who have CPTSD tend to chronically experience dysregulation of some kind, and every person on the planet will experience dysregulation sometimes. It can be really frustrating to not feel in control of your physical and emotional responses to different situations, but the good news is we can begin to rewire our nervous systems to recognize safety more often, and to find states of regulation on a regular basis.

On today's episode I'm giving you a basic overview of Polyvagal Theory, which helps us understand different nervous system states. I also give you some practical tools to help you regulate yourself wherever you are and whatever state you find yourself in. I hope this is educational and helpful for many of you!

If you'd like further help, please go schedule a FREE connection call with me, and we can chat about some different ways we may be able to help you heal and regulate your nervous system more frequently.

FREE CONNECTION CALL: Click here to book

Referenced in this episode:

Dr. Stephen Porges - Polyvagal Theory

Deb Dana - Autonomic Ladder

Connect with Gabi:

Instagram - @gabiruth

TikTok - @gabiruth84

Facebook - facebook.com/gabiruth84

Website - gabiruth.com

(TRANSCRIPT) Ep. 24: Coffee with Gabi! Nervous System Regulation & Polyvagal Theory

Note: Transcript is created by AI; please excuse errors.

Coffee with Gabi Feb 3

Gabi: Hey, hey, hey there. How are you all doing? It's been a few weeks since I have been able to do a Coffee with Gabi episode, so I definitely wanted to make that happen this week, and I hope that you are able to take a few moments for yourself. Grab your favorite hot drink. If you don't drink coffee, no shade, you can grab your tea or whatever it.

You like to drink, cuddle up under a warm blanket and find a cozy spot and pretend like we are having coffee together because I would love to just sit and chat with you for a few moments. Today, I want to just share a little bit about the Polyvagal Ladder. I was able to teach a class about this a couple weeks ago, and it was so much fun and I thought it would be cool to share it on this.

um, what is the polyvagal ladder you may ask? Well, let's just give you a very brief overview of what Polyvagal theory is. Okay? So you have this nerve that runs from your brain all the way down to your intestines, and it has all of these branches that branch out through your system. And this affects your autonomic nervous system.

It runs the way. Feel, it's a fascinating thing, which I can't go into in depth right now. , basically, you know, like how people say, I have a gut feeling. Or when you have anxiety and you feel it in your gut, like that's your vagus nerve talking to you, and I think it's something like 80% of the signals go from your body to your brain instead of from your brain.

To your body. Isn't that fascinating? So I always talk about how it's so important to do body work before you do mindset work. Now, I believe in a healthy mindset, absolutely, but you cannot hack your body with your mindset. You have to understand and process things with your body before you can process things with your mind.

Because the way that your autonomic nervous system works is it respond. Subconsciously, like before you even have a chance to think your body is going to react to different stimuli, different situations, and it tends to react in a way based on information it has from your past. So a lot of us who deal with trauma or are healing from trauma or who experienced complex trauma, especially, Our bodies react to a lot of things because basically our autonomic nervous system is like our own personal surveillance system or security system.

It's constantly on the lookout for threat, and anytime that it detects threat, it's going to tell your body certain things so that you know whether you should fight, whether you should flee, whether you should freeze, whether you should shut down and play dead. These are all signals that your body is going to send you based on what is seen by your autonomic nervous.

So that could be like a certain smell. It could be a facial expression you see on your friend. For me, it's like if someone is looking at me and intently listening to me and they break eye contact like. My mind goes blank because literally what happens, guys, when you are, what a lot of people call triggered or what we could call activated is your prefrontal cortex, which is where all of this thinking and logical stuff happens, goes offline.

It literally goes offline and your amygdala takes over. Your amygdala is that reptilian part of your brain that basically is just for survival. So you won't even be able to think coherently. This has happened to me. I'm not gonna lie at therapy. Literally, like, because my therapist is so wonderful and she is so attuned and she's so, um, engaged.

She'll lean in, she looks you in the eye, which I'm terrible at eye contact, so that's a whole other thing. But she's good. And, um, she like sneezed, you know, like a normal human thing. And I completely lost where I was in the middle of my train of thought because my prefrontal cortex went offline cuz my amygdala got activated.

Saying threat. Threat, like this person doesn't actually care about you. I know it's crazy, but it's a great example. So polyvagal theory, because we have very limited time, and if you are interested in more of this, let me know because I love teaching this stuff. But Polyvagal theory is basically this theory that was created by Dr.

Steven RGUs. He is an amazing, amazing scientist. Therapist, neurologist. I actually don't know what his credentials specifically are. I'm sorry, Dr. Steven. But, um, he created this theory which says that there are several parts of the vagus system, the vagus nerve system, and depending on how you are activated or if you are activated, that turns on certain parts of that system.

So at the top of the system, if we think of it like a. , which is another really helpful way to think of it because thinking of all of these networks going through your body can be really confusing. But if you think of it like a ladder, okay, you will have at the top of the ladder what is called ventral vagus, and ventral is where you are not hijacked at all.

You can think clearly, you are calm, you. have, um, energy for what you want to do, and you feel like I can do this. Like you can, I am capable. It's where you want to be most of the time. That is the goal of body work. That is the goal of understanding polyvagal theory is to know how to get up into this ventral area.

Okay? So when you go down the ladder a little bit, you go into what is called the. Vegas area. And this sympathetic area is where fight or flight occurs. Okay? So this is where your anxiety kicks in basically. And you have physical responses, like your heart rate will increase, your pupils will dilate, your hands might shake, and your body is basically looking for a way to get out of this situation.

Um, a lot of people who have been through a lot of trauma live in the. Frequently. Um, where you have chronic anxiety really is where you are in this sympathetic VA state. And you will either fight, you'll, you will flee, or near the bottom there is freeze where you're between like this, do I give up or do I do something?

And there's just thoughts racing through your brain, but you're, you, you're kind of frozen and you don't know what to do. So that's the sympathetic area. It's a very. Brief overview of that sympathetic area. And then at the bottom is what we call dorsal, and dorsal is shutdown mode. It's where these, um, things that your autonomic nervous system is picking up that are, appear as a threat are too much.

It's just too much. Your system is like, you know what? There's no way out of this. And so let's go numb. Let's go into shutdown mode. This is where chronic depression comes. At the very, very bottom of the dorsal area is where you just wanna give up on life. So this is a place that is really hard. It's really scary.

It's very numbing. You can often dissociate. I found out a few years ago that for most of my life I had been living in a chronic state of dissociation. What is dissociation? You can think of it kind of as like your brain is up in the sky and your body is down on earth. You really have no connection to your body.

you may not really understand or feel what's going on inside your body. You feel kind of disconnected from reality. If you've ever had this feeling, you will understand, and it's on a spectrum as well where you can ha be a little bit dissociated or you can be extremely dissociated. There's even on the far side of the spectrum, dissociated identity disorder, where you completely forget who you are, but this is.

Dorsal area where life is just too threatening, it's too scary, and you sink into depression, you can be very, very fatigued. You feel like incapable of, um, mobilization of doing anything. You just feel like the world is hostile to you and you just cannot do anything. . Um, so these are those three states up at ventral is where we wanna be.

In the middle is sympathetic and at the bottom is dorsal. Again, this is such a simplistic view of this, but it's a really important for your understanding. So if you kind of even draw a ladder for yourself on a piece of paper, you could kind of line up like where you are on the. . I like to encourage clients to set a timer a couple times a day.

I got that idea from my coach, Sarah Baldwin, that I learned all of this from, um, to just set an alarm a couple times a day and just check in with your system, like, where am I on the ladder? And it's, again, a spectrum. So at the very bottom would be like, life is not worth living. But there in that dorsal area could be just fatigued, depressed, kind of depressed, not really motivated, and then you get up into that sympathetic area, which could go all the way from like, I wanna do something, but I can't to.

I'm super, super anxious. I gotta do something, I gotta, I gotta make this happen like running around in circles up into ventral, which at the very top is just like calm, clear-headed. I feel completely safe, I feel capable, all of that. So it's kind of fun to fill in that ladder and think about like where you might be on that whole spectrum.

right? So the thing about this ladder, this polyvagal ladder, is you, you can't like jump from the top to the bottom. You can't jump from the bottom to the top, and you can never jump off the ladder. You're always somewhere on this ladder. Okay? So that means that you have to learn how to climb. If you are down.

So there are some really simple ways that you can start climbing up the ladder. And again, this is a work that you can work on for years to figure out what works for you, what works for your body. But let's say that you're feeling anxious. Today, you're feeling really, really anxious about something and you can't calm down, like your body is just on high alert and you're feeling shaky and your thoughts are racing.

What can you do to kind of ground yourself and start lifting yourself up into that ventral state where you feel more clear-headed, where you feel more capable and calm? One really simple thing to do is what is called orienting. And orienting is something you can literally do anywhere. Like right now, I am sitting in a parking lot in the library like I usually do when I record these episodes, solo episodes.

So if you're hearing like cars going by and doors closing, that's why, but. As I look out my windshield orienting would be me just taking notice of what I see and slowly scanning my environment. So as I look right in front of me, I see an apartment complex and a little bit to the left is this tall tree, and to the left of that I see a jeep.

Parked next to a little Nissan. And then if I look a little left more, there's a red Ford s u v. And when I look the other way, there's some bushes with brown leaves. It's dying. It's dead. And then right next to me, there's actually a woman getting into her car. And you can even scan behind you because that tells your system like, there's nothing coming for you behind you.

Behind me, I see the car seats in the back of my car. So you can do this anywhere. You're just scanning and taking notice. You're noticing, okay, I see this, um, sign up across the street and, and notice what you notice, like if something's sticking out to you like. The name of that apartment is interesting, and I like the colors.

It kind of makes me feel calm. Like even right now as I'm doing this and explaining it to you guys, I can feel my system calming down because what this is doing is it's bringing you into your present moment. It's showing your system. You can slow down enough to look around and take note of things, so you must be safe.

And you're here now. You're not in the past when whatever, uh happened is now telling your nervous system be to be triggered and scared. Okay? Another thing you can do is any kind of grounding. So even as you're sitting where you are, you can notice how your feet feel on the floor. Slowly work up to your ankles.

Notice how your calves feel. Feel into your knees and up through your thighs and continue to do that all the way up to the top of your. . This is a really wonderful way to calm down your system, get into the present moment. Breath work can also be very, very useful and helpful when you take deep breaths in and then you breathe out for longer than you breathe in.

Like let's say you breathe in for four and breathe out for eight, that literally sends a signal to your system that you're safe, that you're okay, that there's no threat, because you're taking this time to slowly breathe. . So those are some very simple ways that you can calm down your body, get back into the present moment and climb up that polyvagal ladder.

Okay? And then when you are down in dorsal, you are going to want to gently mobilize. What you can't do when you're in dorsal is just force yourself to do. Like you can, but it's not going to be helpful. It's going to be harmful for your system. And I know I did this to myself for a long time where I just forced myself to do stuff because I thought I had to, which just caused more panic, more anxiety, and then in the end caused me to sink deeper into a depression afterward.

So when I am in dorsal now, which I still, I end up there more often than I would like, but I know now I know what I can do and it's gentle mobilization staying inside that window of tolerance where you can feel a little bit activated, but you're not thrown into dysregulation, which I can get into more, uh, in another episode.

But basically it's that space where you're, you can stay. Okay. Even. Bit of discomfort. So for me, if for example, I wake up in a dorsal state, which sometimes I do, mornings are hard for me. I know that if I gently, gently mobilize and move my body in ways that. Show me I'm safe that I will start to climb up that ladder so I can put on some mascara.

That's one thing that I do a lot. If I'm feeling depressed, if I just go in my bathroom, turn on the lights and put on some mascara, I start to feel more competent, more capable. I can make myself a cup of coffee. I can go for a walk. Bilateral stimulation is a very complex way of basically saying, utilizing both sides of your brain.

And your body. So going for a walk is bilateral stimulation that sends signals back and forth between your brain and shows your brain like, okay, we're in this time right now. It helps time become a linear thing in your brain and body instead of this like mishmash of different signals. Where your body thinks like yesterday is today, or, um, what happened when you were four is happening right now.

That bilateral stimulation is really, really important for integrating different signals in your body. This is why E M D R is so useful. I don't know if you've heard of e emdr, but e EMDR is another, um, Way to bilaterally stimulate your brain. Basically the eye movement back and forth. I apologize for the, um, fire siren you can hear right now, but your eyes moving back and forth in EMDR is doing that same thing.

It's connecting the right and left hemispheres of your brain and putting things into a linear order in your mind and your body. . So these are simple things that you can do to move up the ladder. Now the interesting thing is that you do have to go through a sympathetic state to get to Vail, to a ventral state, um, if you're dorsal.

But that's okay because. Sometimes, often, especially if you're like in a situation like I'm talking about where I'm feeling depressed in the morning and I'm trying to mobilize, it doesn't last long. Where you go through that sympathetic state, like at first I might feel like, okay, I, I feel a little bit anxious.

I'm putting on this mascara, I'm feeling a little bit shaky. Um, Going for a walk that an anxiety kicks in as you're going up the ladder. But the good news about that is you're no longer in an immobilized state. You that sympathetic state still says you're alive, you're kicking. And as you continue to give yourself these regulating tools, you'll move up into ventral.

One story that I like to share that I shared in the class that I taught a couple weeks ago as well, is, How going skiing for me is always a journey up the ladder. , I start at the bottom, not so much anymore, but at first I would start at the bottom and it's because skiing was a completely new activity for me.

Um, where it's not something I'm very familiar with and doing something that I really dunno anything about is very, very activating for me and can send me into shutdown mode. Cause it's like you're not capable, you're not gonna survive. This is basically what my body is saying. And so even last year, um, when I started skiing again after a few years off of skiing because of kids and injuries and things like that, um, I.

Was just so, so dal. Every time I'd get in the car with my husband or by myself to go ski, I'd be like so numbed out, so dissociating and then by the time, you know, I grab my skis out of the back of the car and start walking up the hill, I go into panic mode like, oh my gosh, I'm actually doing this. It's cuz I mobilized.

I started taking this. Up the hill means I'm actually doing this. So I got out of that dorsal state, but I'm sorry. I need to freak out like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm actually doing this. I don't know what I'm doing. This is so scary. Sometimes I would get so anxious that I would like. Fall as I'm getting on the chair lift or whatever.

Or my husband would be trying to talk to me on the lift and I'd be like, I can't even focus right now. I'm gonna need you to wait until later to talk to me. He was so confused until I was able to explain this to him later. Again, it's not so bad anymore. I'm very, um, used to skiing at this point, but this is a really good example.

Like I mobilized through that dorsal. I got into that sympathetic state, but I made a choice, like I'm gonna show myself, I am capable. I can do this. I'm gonna keep moving forward. So I would look around at the trees as I'm on the lift. I would breathe deeply, try to calm my body, and honestly, within a couple of runs, I would be in such a ventral state of like, I am full of joy.

This is wonderful. I feel so free and capable and clearheaded, like it's the best feeling ever to the point where I knew I would be able to push through that initial like, Shut down mode of, oh no, we're going skiing today. Because I knew that the reward would be, I would end in such a ventral, clear-headed state.

So that's really the goal. There's going to be discomfort involved in learning how to regulate your nervous system. You can't avoid it. It's that discomfort that. Stretches your window of tolerance until it gets bigger and bigger and you have more activities that you're able to do without getting dysregulated.

It's so exciting guys, cuz you're literally rewiring your brain, your nervous system to. Know that you are capable, you are safe, and you can live in that ventral state more frequently. So that's my brief overview of Polyvagal theory of how to climb up the ladder. I really hope that was helpful for you. If this is something.

That really fascinates you and you'd like to learn more. Or if you really struggle, um, like your home, away from home is dorsal or sympathetic, I'd love to chat with you more. I offer free 15 minute connection calls. You can see those on my website. You can schedule one anytime. Um, it'll link you to my Calendly.

We can connect and see if there's a. That we can work together to help you, um, find your way to vent more often. I provide safe spaces for you to share your story and regulate your nervous system, and I love doing that. I will also be sharing more on this podcast because I wanna give you as much value as I possibly can.

I love you guys. I think you're amazing. If you are enjoying this podcast, would you please take a moment to go rate and review it? Me so much as I try to get the word out, I've had a significant spike in listenership. So thank you. If you're a new listener, I'm so thrilled that you're here, um, and I would love to see that reflected in the ratings and reviews as well.

I hope you have an amazing day. I'll see you again on Tuesday with another wonderful guest, and I love you, and I hope that you find yourself in ventral vagal for most of your day today. Talk to you soon friends.