Applied Polyvagal Theory: The Befriending the Nervous System process begins we will fill out your personal profile map together. This month you will begin to develop the capacity to notice and name the flavors of the states that are being experienced.  You will be invited to create your personal profile art, using it as a tool to help you to see where you are on the map of states in relationship to other states/possibilities.

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Somatic Movement: Your somatic movement journey begins here in conjunction with the polyvagal focus of noticing and naming nervous system state. You will also be invited to begin to develop an at-home somatic movement practice, starting with the micro-movement’s of attending to self through self-compassion, the Basic, and the Lunar Breathing in this month’s practice.

Applied Polyvagal Theory: This session we will really focus on connecting to what vagal tone feels like in your nervous system. Together we will identify what we call vagal anchors specific to your life- the who, what, when, and where that bring about moments of reliable safe sensation.  You will be encouraged to intentionally place these vagal anchors into your daily experience in order to start creating more time for your nervous system in the ventral vagal state (safe and social). Skills will be introduced for feeling and amplifying moments of vagal tone. You will be invited to build the benefit of intentional predictability into your life with a "resilience ritual" planning tool, as a way to move resiliently with unpredictability as a benefit to the nervous system.

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Somatic Movement: This month we will continue to increase the interoceptive or interior space sensing in the body. You will receive two guided movement videos this month in order to increase somatic movement resources that help regulate the nervous system throughout the day. Begin increasing the sense of fluidity in the breath, spine, and body in a regulating way in order to create more space to feel at home inside of the body.

Applied Polyvagal Theory: This month we continue befriending and attending the nervous system as we introduce the concept of neuroception- the automatic inner sensing of cues of danger and cues of safety. This will help lead towards the shaping of the nervous system as we practice moving (pendulating) between the states. This also will build towards recognizing and attending to triggers and glimmers as we move along the journey into month 5. You also may notice moving through this month where you have been either not noticing cues of danger while amplifying cues of safety, or on the other side, where you have been over-amplifying cues of danger while not taking in cues of safety. Making these explicit helps you to re-write new habits of taking these in.

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Somatic Movement: Noticing the interior movement of pendulation between cues of danger and safety. Moving between sensations of the body that are cues of danger/cues of safety. Noticing how movement can be micro movement, macro movement, and the movement of attention. Using movement metaphor to experience new textures of mental concepts from a body perspective. Allowing body/movement perspective to add to, and integrate with, mental perspective. Continuing to add resources to your movement library, noticing what is appealing to your nervous system.

Applied Polyvagal Theory: This month we are befriending and attending to the reality that co-regulation is a vital part of our nervous system’s ability to be safe and social. We will together go through many of the social cues we are always providing and receiving through the cranial nerves associated with the polyvagal theory. It is like our own surveillance system as well as our reciprocity system.  

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Somatic Movement: Playing with movement metaphors in giving and receiving and hiding and revealing. Seeing how this somatic movement play offers moments of new awareness inside of the movement of your life and relationships. Tonifying the cranial nerves of the social engagement system in order to amplify safety in the body. Amplify awareness of the role the face, eyes, ears, neck, and heart are playing in keeping you safe and social.

Applied Polyvagal Theory: We move towards shaping of the nervous system through intentional awareness work with triggers & glimmers.   In studio we help you to create a map of the themes and experiences that bring on survival states.  We then help you to begin to exercise the nervous system to re-route previously automatic trigger responses into new resources by increasing awareness of what is triggering biological survival states.  We also continue to shape the safe and social experience through intentionally amplifying glimmers as they occur. 

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Somatic Movement: Amplify choice as a nervous system regulator by offering the opportunity to check-in with self to notice what is appealing to your nervous system this month. What is appealing to use as your own somatic movement resources from what we have been introducing? We also introduce the practice of the Vagal Break exercise as a way to increase the fluidity of the nervous system and take steps towards building confidence in the Vagal Break.

Applied Polyvagal Theory: Now that we have laid the foundation of noticing and naming our states, and noticing what tends to trigger them, we are ready to focus even more on organizing the resources that help nourish the nervous system into a feeling of safety. We will review the resources you have gathered so far through this program, as well as begin the process of noticing the resources you already have in your life. Often we have them, and we don’t even know that is what they are doing for us.

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Somatic Movement: This month in our reclined practice we will focus on a somatic movement exploration that helps to locate ourselves in relation to space. Our sense of “where am I?” can be like a central sphere that holds us through the contractions and expansions of our nervous system states. You will also have two new standing practices of support. 

Applied Polyvagal Theory: We are expanding our internal awareness of states this month by noticing the range we can have when Ventral Vagal is on board to support us along a continuum from Stillness to Mobilization. These are considered blended states because safety in stillness occurs when Ventral Vagal is supporting Dorsal Vagal, and safety in mobilization occurs when Ventral Vagal is supporting Sympathetic. A mentor of mine, Amber Grey, calls these “nourished” states, which I enjoy, because it helps me to connect to the felt sense of having ventral on board. Inside of this range, we can experience a great degree of dynamic range in our movement with our life material while still feeling a sense of “at home in the body.” This month we are bringing our attention here so that we can practice noticing and naming these blended/nourished states of being.

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Somatic Movement: We will connect to “movement mapping” the blended/nourished states in studio as we use the movement of the body to connect to the lived experience of these dynamic states. Inside of the somatic movement practice video I will be sharing, we will be playing with micro-movements to deeply notice stillness as rest, and the movement between deep rest, the impulse to mobilize, and mobilization both micro/slow, and fast. We also notice inside of this experience (with more frequent practice), the movement between the familiar/predictable, and the unfamiliar/novelty. This is another playful way to inquire into one’s connection to these two very much needed ingredients in our life and neurology. They naturally fluctuate with the material of our life, so we are continuing to befriend ourselves as we notice our relative fluidity and need for more familiar, or more unfamiliar/novelty on any given day.

Applied Polyvagal Theory: This month we will expand on our awareness of the social engagement system and the role of co-regulation in our life. We will amplify the noticing of ruptures & repairs in the relational space. We will relate these internally to state change and befriending one’s own rhythm with regards to the ability and energy requirements for moving through ruptures & repairs of various sizes. Notice pendulating between “stretch” and “savor” in one’s relational space. Learning is “stretch”, and needs to be rhythmically tonified with “savor.” We will also consciously create the “Personal Connection Plan” this month as you notice what kind of social engagement sounds appealing.

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Somatic Movement: The somatic movement practice this month is a standing series designed to do as a conscious “opening to social engagement” practice. This is another way to make the implicit explicit as you consciously prepare for, and engage with, social engagement. The video includes a 5 minute video from my personal footage of engagement with nature, since nature becomes an element of the world that we can co-regulate with. You may enjoy practicing as well a kind of “savoring” after social engagement where you practice the more inward oriented somatic movement from session 4.

Applied Polyvagal Theory: Within our experience of the three primary states and the two blended states, lies a great continuum of sensation, emotion, and story. In this final session of the series, we will be connecting to a continuum of the ways in which our survival responses show up and move this continuum. This can be a helpful way to notice survival states arriving in their more subtle forms, as well as to rehearse the bridge between the survival states and landing home in the ventral vagal. We will also connect to the idea of emergence as we land here, in the space where we complete this portion of the journey, and feel into where your natural inquiry may take you in response to your life material and unique inner impulses.  For those who want continued support, I offer a process of layering back through the material with new layers of in studio movement explorations that meet whatever is arising in your life now.

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Somatic Movement: This month’s guided somatic movement is entitled “Tummy Love” and is intended as a practice to connect to “what you have been digesting lately in your life.” You will notice some familiar guided movements along with some new ones as you drop in to nourish the belly, the home of the dorsal branch of the vagus. I imagine this as a way to nourish the source of our most ancient survival response, nourish it, and connect to it as a source of strength, openness, and vulnerability as it comes on board to help us integrate our life material.  In the studio, we will connect to somatic movement through a journey through the continuum of our states, moving from ventral down and then back up the ladder.