‘Containor of Safety’

Understanding Your Inner World: A Path to Healing and Resilience

Our human experience is unique and complex. We possess the remarkable ability to journey through time in our minds, revisiting the past and imagining the future. This capacity for mental time travel, while highly developed in humans, highlights the intricate workings of our minds and nervous systems. It is this same inner world that can sometimes feel like a difficult place to be, especially when dealing with the echoes of trauma.

The Power of Words and Unconscious Activation

Have you ever felt a sudden wave of anxiety or panic without knowing why? It could be a response to something as simple as a word. Our brains are wired to make connections, and sometimes, a seemingly neutral word can become linked to a past distressing event. This is similar to the concept of classical conditioning; the word becomes an unconscious trigger, activating our body’s defense system without our conscious awareness. This can leave us feeling anxious or on edge, without a clear understanding of the cause. Furthermore, this association goes both ways and could literally be seemingly random and totally unrelated

Your Body’s Internal Surveillance System Scanning for threats

This surveillance scan works exceptionally fast, 4x/sec we are looking for fresh signs of threats to our survival, and they will react accordingly. While we are dependent on caregivers, they may help develop safety and independence the largest consenus I have heard; I also have no certain time…

This continuous stream of information comes from three key sources:

• Your Body (Soma): Your physical sensations provide a wealth of information about your internal state. This is Interoception.
• Your Neuroception: This is the subconscious perception of your autonomic nervous system (ANS), the part of your nervous system that regulates involuntary processes like heart rate and breathing.
• Your Environment: The world around you is constantly being monitored for signs of safety or threat.

The Defensive States and the Path to Safety

When your neuroception detects a potential threat, your autonomic nervous system shifts into a defensive state; however, this state was used historically to ensure your Survival. This can manifest as the “fight or flight” response, leaving you feeling anxious, agitated, or angry. It can also result in a “freeze” or shutdown response, where you might feel numb, disconnected, or hopeless. Learn more by Joining a Monthly POLYVAGAL Q&A

Healing from trauma is the process of learning to feel safe and comfortable in your own body, allowing you to move out of these defensive states more easily. It is about strengthening your nervous system’s ability to return to a state of calm, connection, and social engagement.

Choosing to Heal

While the trauma response is an automatic, protective mechanism, the journey of healing is an intentional one. It begins with the conscious decision to understand and work with your body’s responses. By learning to recognize the signals from your soma and your nervous system, you can begin to create a sense of inner safety and build resilience. This journey allows you to move from a state of reacting to the past to intentionally creating a future where you feel more present, connected, and in control.s describes as a vagal brake, so when tiny people have no option but to be so upset they scream and cry, if they only continued to increase sympathetic activation, they would not survive. Thus, to survive, the Autonomic Nervous System uses what’s called the Vagal Brake, which is built in to create a shutdown/collapse, so the baby has no energy, and “extra” processes like digestion and our immune system aren’t prioritized, heart & respiration rates slow. This can inhibit a process of becoming able to sense safety, and instead develops a pattern/s, so that the reactivity occurs whenever we feel unsafe, which particularly when we ARE safe can cause a strong protective pattern to become a way of ‘being’ and relating.

CO-REGULATION IS HOW WE LEARN TO SELF-REGULATE

Social Connection a biological imperative.

Capacity, Choice, Clarity, Hope.