Recognizing the Parts of Self that are Communicating from Survival Mode (And Befriend Them, Without Letting Them Run the Show)

"I’m so pleased that I had the chance to work with Rhea in the Polyvagal Character Work. I often refer back to those sessions – the drawings and the feelings I identified – and find them very resourceful. Being able to recognize and name different states of being has allowed me to be more compassionate with myself while dealing with a lot of uncertainty and change."  -Azriel LaMarca

At the crux of the Orienting: A Pathway of Self-Discovery workshops is the Polyvagal Theory model of the three primary nervous system states.  According to the theory, we have our ventral or most regulated self, our sympathetic or fight/flight self, and our dorsal or collapsed self. 

Every person moves through these states in their daily life.  We have a natural flux as we respond to our lives and the signals from the body, our relationships, our life scenarios, and the culture/world at large.  

Each of these versions of ourselves creates its own sensations, emotions, and feelings about our life. 

So for instance, when going through lots of unknown, change, or times of transition we may be fluctuating a great deal between these parts. 

In the orienting pathway I will guide you to develop these parts into characters that get into dialogue together around your current life circumstances.  This becomes a way to work with the circumstances of your life while gaining the ability to listen to yourself in a very holistic way.  New perspectives can open up as all parts of the self are heard.

Instead of feeling shame for being in the lower states where self-doubt perpetuates, we can understand why we are there and offer ourselves compassion.  This compassion can honor the needs of the self in that state, while also helping it to access the safety needed to turn the disconnection of collapse into the comforting quiet of gestation.  

Likewise, we can offer our sympathetic self the compassion and understanding needed to express itself.  We can honor the worries, the need to know, and the anxiety as a valid part of the self.  We can learn to let it know that we are here for it- it isn’t in this alone.  We can and will mobilize for ourselves.  

In essence- we can learn to gentle parent ourselves through a process designed to allow for listening to all parts of the self!  We can learn to validate our own experience.

For example, let's say you are moving through a career transition and health issues while navigating perimenopause (raises hand).  

Example of Characters You May Meet:

Serendipity (Regulated)

Miss Fixalot (Fight/Flight)

Cave Woman (Collapse)​

Listening to these parts could reveal that Serendipity feels like this is a natural part of life that many people go through.  She’s looking into new ideas and feels a sense of inspiration and even purpose around her circumstances.

Miss Fixalot feels a great deal of anxiety.  Is she doing everything she could be doing?  Does she have all of the answers?  What is she missing?  

Cave Woman feels really down.  What is the point?  Nothing really changes anyway.  Everything feels so hopeless and no one cares anyway.  She is isolated.  Alone.

Whose voice do you listen to?  In Orienting, the answer is all of them.  We trust that the body is trying to communicate to us via the nervous system- which produces these emotions, thoughts and scenarios.  They are either picking up on real cues to listen to, or, they are over-actively picking up on cues and, guess what- still have needs to address.  We learn to validate ourselves and in so doing, find the soil of self-compassion needed to truly hear what our whole self needs and wants next.

Connect with me about joining the next Orienting small groups beginning next week (the last time I am running this as a small group this year), or about beginning the process one-to-one.