Polyvagal Quotes

“As long as I was aligned with listening rather than with an intention to receive a particular response or to shift something, we would stay on safe ground.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“the practice of nonjudgmental, agendaless presence [is] the foundation for safety and co-regulation.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“In these pages, we keep returning to one foundational principle: providing the possibility of emotional/relational safety for our people, be they patients, children, partners, friends or strangers.

We are able to make this offer when they are experiencing their own neuroception of safety, not continuously, but as the baseline to which we return after our system has adaptively moved into sympathetic arousal or dorsal withdrawal in response to inner and outer conditions.

When we neuroceive safety, we humans automatically begin to open into vulnerability, and the movement of our "inherent treatment plan" (Sills, 2010) has a greater probability of coming forward.

When we have a neuroception of threat, we adaptively tighten down at many levels, from physical tension to activation of the protective skills we have learned over a lifetime (Levine, 2010). In that state, our innate healing path will often wisely stay hidden until more favorable conditions arrive.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“by aligning with her autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation instead of trying to move her toward a ventral state, ventral could arrive on its own.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Our infant muscles let go and mold to the shape of our mother's bodies when we are securely held.

Our bodies learn the meaning of the sensations of hunger and thirst from the interpersonal sweetness of our need being seen, met and satisfied by our mother as food is offered.

We take in her attentiveness along with the nourishment, and this shapes our openness to all kinds of nurturance throughout our lives.

Our hearts beat more slowly and our amygdalae calm when she is in a ventral state, her presence reassuring us of the possibility of safety in connection.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

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

“We have a brain in our belly, a very sophisticated one, and it responds to everything that’s happened in our lives, so it accumulates a lot of stories over time.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

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