10/05/2024
The state of the nervous system influences the various organs and other systems of the body, their functionality, what they perceive or take in, and how they do so. This, in turn, affects our emotions, sensations, behaviour, thoughts, and beliefs.
For instance, being in a state of survival physiology (e.g., fight or flight) impacts hearing and gaze among other things, narrowing our attention to internal and external cues of danger or threat and filtering out other information. Defensive orienting and hypervigilance accompany this kind of state, and the story that our words and body tell reflect this as well: ready for action, preparing for battle, attempting to get away, trying to make nice, or other kinds of "working hard" in the face of something overwhelming are common themes that show up in the words and in the body.
Similarly, being in a state of conservation physiology (e.g., freeze, collapse) can result in a state of disorientation and disconnection, being partially aware of internal and external cues of danger or not at all, or going in and out of such awareness. Our story can reflect this as well, with gaps in awareness, memory lapses, missing details, confusion, disconnection from other aspects of the experience, which can also be accompanied by blank faces, vacant expressions, and rigid or floppy posture.
And sometimes there are blended states, demonstrating a complex mix of degrees of awareness, behaviours, sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, sensory perceptions, and so on.
When we are used to being in survival or conservation mode, our "noticing" systems (as Kathy Kain calls them) can become somewhat less reliable. We may not recognize what information or details we have missed, because we may not be familiar with noticing cues of safety and what our body feels like when not in those modes.
False positives and false negatives can begin to feel like our "truth", and it can feel very destabilizing to hear someone say that what we are noticing is inaccurate, especially if we were invalidated, gaslit, or we experienced crazymaking in the past (especially when we were little, but not exclusively so) by others who tried to dismiss or deny our accurate perceptions of what was happening, making us question our sense of reality.
In response, me might find ourselves contracting, avoiding, and doubling down on our current misperceptions to stay in control because of the fear that recognizing false positives or false negatives in some areas might:
(A) discredit what we noticed or experienced at other times that may very well have been true;
(B) feel scary because it puts in question our ability to trust ourselves, which might feel like we are losing our grip on reality, and/or
C) mean having to face things that we are not yet ready or willing to face, such as guilt or shame for something we did or failed to do; grief or sorrow for what did or did not get to happen; or rage, needs, or other incomplete responses or vulnerable pieces that are still in the queue that were not possible to express in the past, all of which feel safer to keep tucked away in the Pandora's box of our mind and physiology.
Teasing things apart when our perception and neuroception have become affected in this way is slow and nuanced work. That includes taking a step back and recognizing how "story follows state", an expression Deb Dana is known to say. And what comes before state? What prodromes and pre-prodromes occur earlier in the sequence leading up to any given phenomenon that has caught our attention? These antecedents can be internal to the individual, or external in the environment or in relationship. Similarly, what comes next in the sequence? What are the post-dromes, so to speak, whether internal or external?
In other words, what was the thing before the thing? What is the thing after the thing? Sometimes the thing before the thing is not in our awareness because it was too overwhelming or too painful to notice, or because we learned that noticing it was pointless because others that had the power to help or change things would simply not see it or would deny it, resulting in extinction of the awareness of that particular thing (also known as under-coupling) and an over-awareness or presence of other things (also known as over-coupling). It is important to trust that if something is over- or under-coupled, there is likely good reason for this, even if that reason is not immediately clear. Appreciate the amazing mechanisms of the mammalian being that you are, and proceed in a titrated way, one bite at a time.
The greater context or situation -- the complex interplay or coupling of other variables in the sequence -- is just as important to be curious about as the state in question that influences the story that is being told, whether that story is about ourselves, others, or the situation itself.
Meta-awareness, or the ability to step back and be curious as you hold a bird's eye view of the "terrain" (sensations, behaviours, emotions, thoughts, memories, patterns, parts of ourselves, etc.), is supported by sustainable physiology. Growing the capacity to be in a more sustainable autonomic state (as opposed to fight or flight, freeze and appease, dissociation, etc.) in turn supports exploratory orienting to the current conditions and cues, which in turn can support more accurate threat detection.
If you imagine zooming out into a more spacious view of the terrain as a whole, what do you notice about your eyes? Your hearing? The muscles of your face and neck? The rest of your body? What happens if you imagine your eyes didn't have to work so hard, and they could just rest and soften? How does the terrain look with softer eyes?
What areas of the terrain of your experience (or the experience of another) are you more drawn towards? What is different when you move towards or away from those? Which areas of the terrain do you notice more activation about or do you tend to miss altogether? How far or near to those parts of the terrain do you need to be so that you can stay curious about them, as opposed to getting overwhelmed by them or avoiding or denying them altogether?
If zooming out to seeing more of the terrain results in too much activation, shutdown, or coping mechanisms to try to discount what you are perceiving, see if you can notice how much you are able to tolerate attention on, then see how it might be to hang out at that edge and from there notice just a little bit beyond that?
What supports you to stay present and curious as you notice that "little bit more", as you dip a toe into a little more of the current beneath the words?
As Peter Levine says, "no one can do it for us but we can't do it alone." Sometimes what supports us in this process is another nervous system that has the maps, curiosity, and sustainable physiology to help us navigate the terrain. Sometimes orienting to that becomes the first step in the process of restoring our capacity to orient and be more present and alive in the midst of the sequences of life.
