Deb Dana > Quotes

“The job of the autonomic nervous system is to ensure we survive in moments of danger and thrive in times of safety. Survival requires threat detection and the activation of a survival response. Thriving demands the opposite—the inhibition of a survival response so that social engagement can happen. Without the capacity for activation, inhibition, and flexibility of response, we suffer.”
― Deb Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

“Take a moment and find something that reminds you of the feeling of being anchored in regulation and then put it somewhere you’ll see it as you move through your day.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The cycle of reciprocity, rupture, and repair is the nature of healthy relationships”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“If we are not safe, we are chronically in a state of evaluation and defensiveness” (Porges, 2011b, p. 14). It is a ventral vagal state and a neuroception of safety that bring the possibility for connection, curiosity, and change. A polyvagal approach to therapy follows the four R’s: Recognize the autonomic state. Respect the adaptive survival response. Regulate or co-regulate into a ventral vagal state. Re-story.”
― Deborah A. Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

“Neuroception precedes perception. Story follows state. Through a polyvagal framework, the important question “What happened?” is explored not to document the details of an event but to learn about the autonomic response. The clues to a client’s present-time suffering can be found in their autonomic response history.”
― Deborah A. Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

“Through a polyvagal lens, we understand that actions are automatic and adaptive, generated by the autonomic nervous system well below the level of conscious awareness. This is not the brain making a cognitive choice. These are autonomic energies moving in patterns of protection. And with this new awareness, the door opens to compassion.”
― Deborah A. Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

“It is when we feel as though we are trapped and can’t escape the danger that the dorsal vagal pathway pulls us all the way back to our evolutionary beginnings. In this state we are immobilized. We shut down to survive. From here, it is a long way back to feeling safe and social and a painful path to follow.”
― Deborah A. Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

“can also intentionally manipulate. Breath is a direct pathway to our autonomic nervous system, making it both a regulating resource and an activator of our survival states.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Autonomic listening is inextricably linked with the need for self-compassion.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Using the examples above, the sentence that emerges from a dorsal state of collapse, “I’m so tired, I could give up,” could be changed to, “I’m so tired, I could rest for a bit.” The sentence that is fueled by sympathetic activation, “I’m so angry, I could scream,” might become “I’m so angry, I could take a break and come back in a while.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“You can use the following questions to begin to listen from the outside in: Where am I? (Locate yourself in time and space.) What’s happening in the environment? Who is around? What am I doing? What state has been activated? Notice that the questions are designed to evoke curiosity, identify concrete external experiences, and lead you to identifying your autonomic state. Use these five questions to practice listening from the outside in.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“We hope that if we disappear, become invisible, and don’t feel what’s happening or inhabit where we are, we will survive. We escape into not knowing, not feeling, and a sense of not being.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“A glimmer can be a micro-moment that’s predictably present in your world.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When we know where we predictably find glimmers, we can make a practice of returning to those places and experiencing the ventral vagal energy they offer. Keep a glimmer notebook or find a place to note them in your journal.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The cycle of reciprocity, rupture, and repair is the nature of healthy relationships.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Setting an intention is a way to support this new practice. My glimmer intention is to look for the glimmers that are on my path today waiting for me to find them.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Reflection practices strengthen our connection to self.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The normal breathing rate for adults is between twelve and twenty breaths per minute. An easy way to find your breath rate is by counting your exhalations over the course of a minute.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Connection is the antidote to the isolation that trauma creates. Through connection, we find safety, support, and the possibility of healing.”
― Deb Dana

“Coming safely into stillness requires the ventral vagus to restrain the escape movements of the sympathetic nervous system and join with the dorsal vagal system while inhibiting its movement into protective dissociation. For many clients, the autonomic challenge of becoming safely still is too great. Without enough cues of safety from another Social Engagement System to co-regulate or the ability for individual regulation through a reliable vagal brake, the autonomic nervous system quickly moves out of connection into collapse and dissociation.”
― Deborah A. Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

“Eighty percent of the information coming from our vagal pathways flows from the body to the brain in what we call afferent pathways, while 20 percent returns from the brain to the body in what we call efferent pathways. (An easy way to remember the two terms is afferent arrives and efferent exits.) The brain takes the information that it receives from the body and turns it into a story to make sense of what’s happening in the body.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“deepen, and experience more of them. We are naturally drawn toward the patterns that are draining as we feel the effects in physical symptoms and emotional distress. Attending to changing these patterns is often where we begin but can’t be where we end. In order to fully experience well-being, we need to attend not only to the pathways that drain but also to the ones that fill.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Inside the Circle: Mental”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Offering and receiving forgiveness are both tied to a regulated nervous system.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“In the middle of winter, I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer. ALBERT CAMUS”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Start with finding the color of your center dorsal circle. Then add the color of your surrounding sympathetic circle. And finally the color of your ventral outer ring that holds the others in a circle of safety.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Look around your daily living environment and find your personal connection place.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Critical visualization: What are the challenges you’ll have to navigate?”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The good news is that no matter how the nervous system has been shaped, the capacity for moving out of protection and returning to connection is built into our biology.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“To summarize, our autonomic nervous system is made up of the parasympathetic and sympathetic systems with the vagus providing the primary pathways for the parasympathetic system through the dorsal and ventral branches.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory