Self Energy and the nervous system - how combining polyvagal theory enhances IFS
First – brief info into IFS
So…what is Internal Family Systems – Lots of info about IFS out there on the internet, some great introductions on youtube – look out for Dick Schwartz, Derek Scott. I’ve posted some links on my website www.stroudtherapy.com
Very simply.. Bringing together Polyvagal theory and IFS can work synergistically to address trauma, regulate emotions and create deeper awareness through the integration of body and mind.
We are multiplicitous and that’s a good thing. I invite you to imagine that there are many little personalities inside of you who are all wanting to look after you, or who are little young ones looking for healing.
Then there’s YOU. The subject of this talk… It is an absolute fundamental of IFS that we each have a core Self and the Self is not broken. Major aim of IFS is restoring you at the centre of your system, reestablishing Self Leadership. Qualities of Self are the 8Cs.
Calm, Clarity, Confidence, Courage, Creative, Connected, Curiosity, Compassion…. also includes the P’s Patience, Persistence, perseverance, presence and playfulness
Dick Schwartz likes alliteration… qualities also include presence, flow, wisdom, open heartedness. Sarah Bergenfield, on the autistic Self – ND might add in regulation, ease, safety, aloneness
I imagine we all have a different proportion of each of the qualities accessible. Julia Sullivan 2010. I like to say your version of Self is up to you, a) the age you are with all your capabilities and life experience and overview, in your physical body, right now…. Vs b) the seat of your consciousness, your core spiritual Self… ageless, timeless, bodyless… connected to others’ somewhere in the ether. Dick Schwartz etal are keen to talk about the wider spirituality, where my Self connects with yours, and everyone else too.
What we aim for is a Self to parts two way relationship… getting to know parts from Self. Like the sun, with the parts as clouds. Driver of the bus. Chair of the meeting. Conductor of the orchestra
I’ll come to Self and how it relates to the nervous system and HRV later, but here I want to say we don’t in IFS chase Self. Self is innate in us all and it’s a matter of unblending, asking parts to give us some space so we can be there. The ‘help’ I’m suggested is not part of the IFS process, but in my experience can be a way in.
So.. IFS calls the protective parts that are proactive ‘manager’s.. who try to keep us looking good so we don’t get rejected. Lets subgroup here…. Examples of managers include thinking, analysing, skeptical, inner critic, judge, blamer, numb as a way of life.
The parts that have taken on burdens we call exiles. Examples of exiles include abandonment, rejection, worthless, powerless, helpless, shame. Beliefs like I’m a mistake, unseen, unheard, I’m a failure, I’m not good enough, I’m too much
The parts that react when we’re feeling hurt or vulnerable, we call those Firefighters. The unsung heroes. Examples include rage, fog, dissociation, scrolling, booze, drugs, fantasy, suicidal thoughts, cutting, distraction.
Parts take on roles to protect us from childhood injuries, from slights, rejections, mini and big traumas. From feeling powerless, helpless, alone. Our protective parts work hard for us, they have no choice but to do their behaviour right now, they have good intentions, even if their effects are difficult.
What’s the point of IFS?
1. Reestablishing you, the Self, at the centre of the system. To restore trust in Self leadership.
2. Forming Secure internal attachment, liberating parts from their extreme roles and achieve balance harmony and wholeness.
3. Unburdening the internal system and our cultural, societal and familial legacy burdens.
4. Bringing more Self Energy into external systems, Collective Self Energy..
How do we do IFS? We’ll try this in our meditation, so this isn’t literal, unless you’d like it to be. There are many more on Insight Timer. Lots on the internet about doing IFS. You could join the local Stroud WhatsApp Buddy Up group, and practice with someone else locally. You could find an IFS or and IFS informed therapist. There are IFS Facebook groups too to practice and learn. I hope you’ll keep coming back here.
It’s really good if you can do this with someone else, we really need each other. I need you, I’d like to think you need me or warm mammalian nervous systems like mine, we heal and thrive in relationship. We need to mirror and validate, and bathe in each others Self energy. Might you find a buddy, or a therapist, its not work to be taken lightly..
Close your eyes, or at least soften them.. turn attention inward. Breathe a little slower and deeper… see whats inside.. Pausing, breathing. How might your parts show up? We might hear them, see them, feel them… we become curious about the F’s Find the part, focus on it… two way relationship … who does it think you are? Can you share some of your wonderful Self energy with it? Make friends with it. How do you feel towards it? Ask it what it’s hoping to achieve for you, what it is frightened of… How old is it? How old does it think you are? Let it know you’re there, you have the overview. If it feels right - if you mean it and you want to do this work - you can say I’m sorry I haven’t been around but I’m here now. I’d like to be trustworthy, if you’d give me the chance. Forming a relationship inside with your protective parts, and later with your little ones.
So… how does IFS relate to the Nervous system? How does Polyvagal theory enhance IFS? What’s this got to do with me? Why amalgamate and integrate polyvagal and IFS? I suggest you listen to Deb Dana’s IFS and Polyvagal IFS talks. For more info on Polyvagal.. Watch Seth Porges Nerd Night talk.
1. It gives a good snapshot of where I am – notice where I am, use this or another infographic to help children too! Find and focus of the IFS… Understanding your nervous system can change the way you think of these states in yourself, there can be less self judgement and more compassion. You can feel less hopeless when you’re in dorsal as you know ways to help you move out of it. You can also more easily enlist the help of others, as you’ll know we need connection with others to feel safe.
2. To consciously return to ventral vagal in the moment … remembering the feeling of your system when its in ventral vagal (outside! Rainbow! Holding someone you care about. Something magic from childhood). Or using heart centred breathing based techniques. Heart focused sincere feelings, accessing the ventral vagal state boosts your immune system for up to six hours! A smoother heart rhythm is a sign of good health and emotional balance.
3. To help Self and parts recover from a trigger – help shake it off. You can shift between states. So you can feel safer and more connected… You can find someone to co -regulate with - find someone with warm, ventral vagal ‘Self Energy’ and help the threat subside.
4. As part of a radical Self love care plan to heal from trauma and to improve vagal tone (remyelinate) and change your heart rhythm patters from chaotic to smooth, like ocean waves, consciously shifting focus, checking in with your parts… even a few minutes a day. Both on your own and with another, Self Energy/coregulation
5. To spread the love, be a safe person and let others be your safe person (and help heal our community!) We need each other. We need each other to coregulate. We’re biologically wired for connection, we were born in relationship, wounded in relationship and we can heal in relationship (Harville Hendrix). These things are all connected and work in a beautiful way together.
Polyvagal is a platform that sits underneath all models of therapy, a way of understanding the biology that work in ourselves Polyvagal Theory gives us a roadmap to be able to tune into those conversations and have explicit communication, nervous system to nervous system, bringing flexibility back to the nervous system: when I get pulled out of Self, thriving, I have pathways to find my way home – to find connection to Self. Know when you've been pulled into a part or hijacked by a part and be able to find enough connection to Self to come back to that place of regulation so that you can be with a part, not hijacked by it. 3 important things about polyvagal:
1 it's a hierarchy. 2 Neuroception 3 co-regulation
Also the vagal break… a biological circuit that runs from your brain stem to your heart and regulates your heartbeat. How fast or slow your heart rate is, you can influence it.
So in this infographic I doodled, from the work of Deb Dana with IFS and polyvagal her talk on IFS talks is just great
Noticing where you are on the polyvagal ladder, can you feel into it? Here’s a quick exercise. Please only just gently feel into it. First .. remember a time when you felt a sense of activation.. just enough into mind and body to get a flavour, please not too much. For ventral, you can bring the full experience.. So sympathetic first… train station…The world is... I am… dorsal… feeling very low… the world is… I am… Ventral the world is…. I am… always end in ventral.
If I’m feeling good, It maybe I am anchored in ventral, I'm anchored in that biological state that allows me to feel safe in the world or safe enough in the world and connect. I can THRIVE! With connection through biology I can connect to myself, to all my parts. So internal connections and the world around me and connecting to spirit. It's probably not such a one-to-one correlation, Self to Ventral vagal but certainly, Self is an emergent quality of ventral. Its likely we also have managers that work in service of Self that live in ventral, Self like parts. I’m breathing well, I’m in the flow, there’s a sense of safety
If I’m feeling active, seeking safety in action… I’m likely to be in sympathetic, my ear is tuned for high and low sounds, my heart speeds up, muscles tense, my breathing is shallower and more rapid. This is Survive not thrive! Listening out for danger so we pick up higher and lower frequencies. We’re fixed on fight or flight… energy, adrenaline.. so looking at the infographic - certainly the active firefighters, see their hats! the firefighters that use energy to move are in sympathetic. Rage, fight, running out.. drugs that make us high, fantasy etc The managers that work so hard to prevent us from connecting to exiles are probably sympathetically mobilized. So these could be catastrophisers, ones that are critical of others and oneself, analysing, thinking, “doing”, perfection, hypervigilence etc see these managers on the left - one is criticising the other for looking in the mirror, that one who’s seeking safety in perfection (and being criticised instead)
nb Its also possible to have a combo of ventral and sympathetic… nourishing, excitement … creative drive! Here’s my little stick person riding a bike, looking quite happy! For me.. I swim most days to move with that excess sympathetic activation and I love it (most of the time!). Thriving with action..
So then…
If feeling disconnected… seeking safety in disconnect. Again this survival not thriving. Breathing slows or even almost stops. Here on the infographic are the firefighters that take us into numbing or dissociation or disappearing are dorsal firefighters. I’ve got here avoiding, addictions that numb. Fog, dissociation. Our exiles, most likely, live in dorsal because shame has been mapped to dorsal and exiles usually carry shame.. here they are behind the rock and looking so despairing and defeated
If we’re feeling frozen, hyper activated… between sympathic and parasympathetic. Frozen… here’s a stickperson in ice. Hyper activated but not being able to move yet. Like a deer caught in headlights
Peoplepleasing or “fawn” can also be both, sympathetic and parasympathetic - activated and also shut down. I wonder about shopping too - I get a high and also feel numbed out what about you? What’s in your system? I’m not the expert here! You’re the expert in your system!
Its also possible to be a combination of ventral vagal and dorsal vagal energy… rest, rejuvenation and restoration… dorsal rest. Thriving in disconnect. here’s my chilled out person listening with headphones, alone, quiet, still and really ok!
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what to do with all of this?!
So… which order works for you… I don’t know what’s right for you - listen in to what you need - for me it changes according to the day and the thing … these are some ideas, you can feel into what works for you?! If you can be curious, what’s right for you?
First - a little personal story from this week to illustrate and maybe give some ideas, bring this more to reality than theory. Filing papers. Losing things. Can you relate? I lost something this week. I find filing difficult.. I do it, its good enough, but i wasn’t taught how to do it, i also have a history of not knowing about Self care. I have firefighters that go filing is boring, it’s a waste of time. I’m busy “I’ll do it later” I have others that worry what others will think if my filing is messy, some things just get put in piles.. So … I needed a document about my car and it wasn’t in my filing system. As I looked for it, I could feel myself getting more activated, (this could have been a time I could have paused and spoken with my parts! But I didn’t) and finally I panicked. In physiological terms, my executive functioning went off, I flipped my lid and I went into massive sympathetic arousal. I completely forgot my IFS. I forgot to breathe slowly. I forgot my breathing techniques. Fortuitously, I had a call scheduled with a friend 10 mins later. I then was blended with a part that said ‘pretend to the friend and they won’t think anythings wrong’. (Hear the presence of shame?). Something in me asked that to step back… and in the call, my friend’s co regulating/Self Energy calm, warm presence soon helped my nervous system soothe. We talked a bit. We looked at the infographic together. And we identified that I was bouncing between states. I checked into my body and was only then able to breathe a little towards the feelings. In sympathetic I had strong body sensations… and I could identify some critical managers (at me and at the - their words ‘stupid people’ who want my form), and some firefighters (filing is SO boring!). I had catastrophising managers who imagined all sorts. I also had an urge to run away and end the call. When I listened more I could feel shame and feelings of being distraught, a very little girl who just had no idea how to do this grown up stuff… down in Dorsal. We sat quietly with those for a while. We quietly talked about how we could bring some ventral energy to sit with my little inner child whilst I quietly sorted my filing and organised what I needed to do. We also identified the legacy burden I was carrying, from my mum who also used to panic at filing and losing stuff.. I’ve taken that on and I can work with that another day. I breathed a bit more, this time from my heart. My friend and I, we imagined going up in a lift together to ventral. There I could find Self again and I could say hi to my parts, update them with what had just happened and say did they see? I phoned a friend, we’re not stuck. We can move. I’m there, and if I disappear which I briefly did, I’m soon back, with a little help sometimes from my friends. I can work with my parts to help me remember my own self care, my radical self care plan that I sometimes forget. And then after the call ended, my little girl inside and I sat and played at filing, I listened in to her when I was doing it too hurridly (somehow she let me know!) and so repacked the Uno cards that I’d mushed in together. (incidently, I found the form I was looking for with ease - in my car, next to some apple cores. It all turned out fine. Better than fine. The situation really moved me. Of course, I could have done it the other way.. organising a meeting with my parts, unblending and asking everyone to step back but sometimes its helpful to use other tools in my toolbox for finding Self.. and finding other warm people or animals to help regulate first.
So some ideas…
First… breathe, take some breaths, a pause. You can directly affect your nervous system by deeper slower breathing. Deb Dana suggests making a Breath map… Find your breath, feel your breath, follow your breath, before we do anything. There is a breathing pattern that is resonant with you! Simply saying, "Let's take some deep breaths together," can be incredibly activating to another nervous system. We need to know where we are… If you know where you are extend inbreath and sip… wakes you up… If rushey… extend outbreath … 3 of those… we can help our nervous system. Breathing slowly, affects Heart rate variability (HRV). Breathing your heart consciously into that.. something called ‘coherence’… affects your heart, emotions and breathing. Heart Centred Breathing It reduces intensity or turns down the volume of my parts, establishes a calm but alert state, shifts and sustains balance. It also increases our resiliency capacity. Can we try it? Focus your attention in the area of your heart… Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual. Activate a positive or renewing feeling…. Such as calm, love, compassion.. You can then radiate that to your parts, to yourself, to the people in this room, this town, the humans and non humans, our world…
2 Saying hi to my parts, maybe get them round a campfire Noticing whats going on in your body. Asking parts to give you a little space… Heart centred breathing or feeling your body We can find our way back to Ventral, to help our bodies thrive for that moment and then …
If we’re sympathetically activated, if we can feel parts busy – is this feeling nourishing and bringing good energy or if there excess, is it bringing with it symptoms… anxiety, insomnia, can’t sit still. Talk to your parts, call a meeting… and then when it feels right…you might consider some organised movement - such a good thing. Bike rides, swimming, walking, especially in nature… dancing, clean that oven.. On your own… or even better with someone else. Co regulation. Then slowly put on the vagal brake and find some rest in parasympathetic. Keep checking in with your parts… see how you feel towards them, what they’re needing…
If your energy is down regulated, seeking safety in disconnect, again check – is this feeling like rest, nourishing, alone time. then this might not be an issue, enjoy that rest, sounds like there’s Ventral and Dorsal here, which brings in restoration, rejuvenation, and healing. If however, it feels heavy, lonely and hard, there’s no ventral, then again, a good time to speak with your parts, ask them to give you some space… let them know you’re there with them. Sit with your feelings. Even better if someone with you. then very gentle moving fingers and toes. Listen to audio books, comedy, visualise walking along a beach. Take comfort in lovely anchors round your room, candles, fish tank greens and blues.. cuddle your pet. We need times to reset, comfort food, time and space alone, listening to music, audiobooks, watching Netflix, reading, colouring, meditation, visualizations, breathwork, yin or restorative yoga, some of us need sensory defenses - shades drawn, headphones on etc doing “nothing” - day dreaming, spacing out, cuddling with a pet. Slow walks in nature, baths, reading, I love puzzles. Give yourself permission to rest, be quiet, slow down.
And then…. Deb Dana has such lovely ideas… once you’ve been in those states for a while – maybe spoken to the protectors and maybe exiles – you can consciously choose to leave those states… Up in an elevator or up the polvagal ladder, climb up a tree. Climb up a rock face on your own or you with your parts. We can practice moving between states once we know what each feels like.
So to conclude
Vental vagal is not totally synonymous with Self but Self is an emergent quality of ventral vagal energy. We can help our nervous systems by doing IFS… and also from supporting our different nervous system energies… by heart centred or other breathwork, slowing down our breathing and pausing… by connecting with others and their co-regulating ventral vagal energy. Lots of things to do on our own, lists of things… but we also need common, everyday experiences of being in connection with another human being in a safe and regulated way. Just being in that over and over and over, begins to reshape our systems because we're getting an experience of safety of connection. Rebuilding vagal tone, remyelinating, can be a couple of years. We are influencing other people’s nervous systems simply by moving through the world, so we can support others by doing our own IFS work, with integrity, and sending out the cues of safety that welcome others to feel safe, too. Collective Self Energy, co regulation in ventral vagal, safety.. whatever… important, crucial work.
I hope you’ll enjoy doing IFS, forming secure inner attachment and creating an inner community, Self to Parts. I also encourage you to add in some nervous system supports too.. Both on your own and in your outer community, lets connect with our collective Self Energy and help each other. We need each other.
