The Psychological Oasis

03/11/2025

03/11/2025

02/11/2025

02/11/2025

02/11/2025

28/10/2025

28/10/2025

The autonomic nervous system ladder is adapted from the wonderful Deb Dana’s work.

She highlights our nervous system has three key states:

🔆SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT (PARASYMPATHETIC/ VENTRAL VAGAL)

🔆FIGHT OR FLIGHT (MOBILISATION/ SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM)

🔆SHUTDOWN (IMMOBILISATION/ DORSAL VAGAL)

With this ladder, it can help us to get to know our different nervous system states & with knowing these triggers, we can better regulate ourselves.

So for example, we might use the ladder, to notice when we have dropped from ventral vagal, where we feel safe & connected, down to the bottom of the ladder, or as some say - down the dorsal drain, to a place where we feel shut down and disconnected.

We can begin to do things to help bring us back to ventral vagal. Some tips could be:

✨Keeping a trigger log of the times you drop down into mobilized/ immobilised.
✨Get to know what your body does in these times - for example, does your heart race in certain situations or you become all tense?
✨Meet yourself with compassion, your body is adapting to keep you safe!
✨How can you regulate/ or Coregulate - what resources are helpful to you? It can be helpful to have these written down as reminders too.

i teach these skills in my FREE live webinar From Survival to Safety which will teach you all about where you are just now on the ladder and what to do about it

Just say REGULATE & I’ll whizz it your way ❤️
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26/10/2025