Key Concepts

Question 1

Polyvagal ladder states

Answer 1

• Ventral vagal: safe, confident, connected
• Sympathetic: fight, flight, mobilize. Thought pattern: “I need to do something about this now… or else.”
• Dorsal vagal shutdown: if body becomes overwhelmed by survival energy from sympathetic state, body pulls E brake to put body into dorsal vagal shutdown.
• Fatigue, emotionally numb, spacey, hopelessness
• Story is “I can’t, I don’t have what it takes, I’m overwhelmed”
• Freeze: state in between sympathetic and dorsal vagal. Story is, “I need to do something now or else… but I can’t.”

Question 2

Why it’s important to regularly nurture the survival brain and protective parts with sensations and uplifting emotion?

Answer 2

Sensation and emotion are their strongest language. Thoughts alone don’t speak strongly to them.

THIS IS A KEY TO HELPING THEM FEEL SAFE AND WHY VISUALIZATIONS AND THE OTHER PRACTICES OF FEELING AND EXPERIENCING ARE SO EFFECTIVE.

Question 3

What is attunement and its three parts?

Answer 3

A loving and empowered way of moving toward what we’re feeling on a bodily and soul level. It is the container in which we heal.

Three parts:
- Awareness of what you are experiencing
- Understanding, to the degree you can, what you’re experiencing
- USING YOUR UNDERSTANDING TO SHOW LOVING CARE

Question 4

Why it’s important for the survival brain to feel loved and safe?

Answer 4

Once it feels loved and safe after being in sympathetic state for example, it will discharge the stored survival energy bc it doesn’t feel the need to run or fight anymore.

Question 5

Why it’s helpful to identify and NAME what you’re feeling under the fear, anger, etc.?

Answer 5

Naming emotions can take some of the power away from them and make them more manageable. Example: feeling the need to control the breathing

Question 6

New relationship between thinking brain and survival brain?

Answer 6

My survival brain is so fiercely committed to protecting me and sometimes it gets a little hyper vigilant or stuck in survival mode so I’m going to collaboratively work with it to understand what it’s experiencing and therefore what my body is experiencing so that I can bring all my wisdom and power to help to effectively create change in my body

Question 7

When cultivating interoceptive awareness, use what kind of words?

Answer 7

Start with descriptive words and avoid judgmental words like “good” or “amazing”, to detach the negative stories that come with our judgmental words of those sensations

Question 8

One of the most common sources of resistance related to identity?

Answer 8

Survival brain thinking a person is less than/not worthy and therefore not worthy of healing, from internalized past experiences. Can show up as shame in achieving, performing, perfecting, trying to add value, etc.

Question 9

When our limbic system comes in upset, it first wants what (like a small child)?

Answer 9

Our love before using tools, using the language of sensation, which is what the survival brain speaks. (Visualized sensation from container of love practice)

Question 10

Why can healing feel threatening to the survival brain?

Answer 10

Because we are telling it that we don’t need its old protective mechanisms anymore. And if the survival brain doesn’t feel safe yet, it’s not going to want to give up these protective mechanisms… And then it will kick up resistance even more.

Question 11

The survival brain wants to make sure that you feel what?

Answer 11

Safe, valuable, and dignified, and like you belong.

Question 12

Why are visualizations so important?

Answer 12

The daily visualization time gives the brain a break from stressors and also is a guide for it as to what regulation looks like.

Visualizations (warm and fuzzies in particular) also help the brain FEEL safe instead of just TELLING it.

Question 13

Reason for doing both memory and future visualizations?

Answer 13

Memory visualizations help the body remember the good felt emotions and rehabilitate the limbic system’s stored memories.

Future visualization help signal to the brain what we expect to do.

Question 14

What is the Window of Tolerance (WOT)?

Answer 14

The zone within which your nervous system is resourced to process the stimuli and experiences of your life.

Question 15

Key point about my relationship with my Window of Tolerance:

Answer 15

If I live at the top of the window or just outside of it, this perpetually depletes the nervous system, hindering the WOT

Question 16

What’s one of the key characteristics of being outside the WOT?

Answer 16

An adversarial relationship between your thinking brain and survival brain

Question 17

How to use attunement with DNRS?

Answer 17

Instead of an adversarial relationship where the thinking brain tries to suppress the survival, we teach them how to work in collaboration to transition from the old ways of thinking to the new.

Question 18

Some keys to widen the WOT?

Answer 18

Using our awareness to bring the thinking brain and survival brain into collaborative relationship to learn to work together.

Consistent, regular resourcing helps us expand the WOT.

Incremental training: incrementally expose to a stimulus that feels a little activating over time with consistency, resourcing your nervous system with each exposure.

Question 19

How to work with protectors?

Answer 19

1. Imagine protectors as a younger version of yourself.
2. Remember that they have experienced hard things in the past and desperately don’t want you to experience these things again.
3. When feeling something from a protector, step back and realize that it is trying to tell a story from the past. Ask questions to understand what it wants you to hear.
4. Listen to what it’s saying and reassure it why now is different.

Question 20

How to know when protectors are present?

Answer 20

Feeling uneasy or tense, resistance to practicing tools, avoidance by watching TV or getting on social media, or random habits that pop-up.