A Polyvagal Perspective
Understanding Emotions: Anger
“We are wired for connection. Our nervous systems are social structures that find balance and stability in relationship with others… our biology shapes the way we navigate living, loving, and working.”
Stephen Porges, PhD’s Polyvagal Theory has invoked waves of excitement and curiosity amongst the legions of Somatic Therapists and Educators, Psychotherapists and Counseling Social Workers worldwide. The discovery of the ventral branch of the Vagus Nerve (Cranial Nerve X of which there are twelve) and its role in our socialization as a species is helping to rewrite the manual for therapies and therapeutics everywhere.
This quote from Deb Dana clearly states
that we are beings rooted in bodies that shape how we live, love and work and that our nervous systems are social structures. Our nervous system is a social structure? And that social structure needs to be in relationship with others in order for it to find balance and stability? Maybe we can make some sense of this if we go back to the beginning.
Here’s a brief and highly simplified description for those who haven’t encountered this before. For those who have, please pardon any errors or omissions as I develop my own comfort level with writing and talking about this theory and how it provides a most powerful and potent tool for one to manage their body, mind and emotions. First let’s familiarize with the vital aspects of the nervous system to help lay the groundwork for understanding the Polyvagal Theory and how we can use it.
STRUCTURAL DIVISION
Structurally, our brain and spinal cord comprise what is called the CNS (central nervous system). The CNS has a counterpart called the PNS (peripheral nervous system).
While the CNS is comprised of the brain and spinal cord, the PNS is made up of 12 cranial nerves and 31 pairs of spinal nerves and their associated ganglia (or cell bodies). Formulate a rough image of how this looks. Imagine the brain as you have seen it depicted and then imagine it having a very long tail. That’s the spinal cord. The bones of the spine form a hollow passageway for the actual spinal cord to live within, safely protected. I’m including a picture of these parts so that you can start to have a better image of this fundamental part of the body you live in.
FUNCTIONAL DIVISION
This next part might get a bit confusing, so stay with me. This nervous system is also subdivided in another way - functionally. The functional behaviors are voluntary and involuntary. They have different names, though: Somatic and Autonomic.
The somatic subdivision controls voluntary movements like walking, talking, or picking up a fork to eat. These are the kinds of things that we have conscious control over.
The autonomic nervous system runs the show for things that we can’t afford to have to remember: heart, glands, smooth muscle tissue of our organs. For this blog post we’re interested in the involuntary stuff.
Now we’re going to get more intimate with understanding our involuntary system, so let’s give it a pet name. Let’s call it ANS. ANS’ involuntary nerve structures are distributed throughout the body and live in both the CNS and the PNS.
ANS is also a 2-part system. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? The nervous system itself is organized in patterns of relationship pairs. The pairs here are called Sympathetic and Parasympathetic and in our discussion today, the focus is finally on this last subdivision pair.
The Polyvagal Theory will bring our attention to the behavior of the nerves that are ultimately and necessarily concerned with our survival and our restoration. I’m willing to bet that you’ve heard of “Fight or Flight” and maybe some of you have heard of “Rest & Relax” as ways to describe Sympathetic (SNS) and Parasympathetic (PNS*), respectively. Think of SNS as the gas and PNS* as the brakes. One activates or speeds us up. The other calms us or relaxes us down. Both of these serve vital roles in our state of survival. But it turns out that this is not the entire picture.
Porges’ PVT (Polyvagal Theory) brings to light the unique ability and necessity of the human being: socialization. This is a fundamental component of our positive mental and physical health. We need relationship. We find balance and stability in relationship and connection. This is a truth that we’ve all had a chance to learn by experience during the past 2+ years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
To get to the main thrust of this exploration, I’d like to explore the PVT as it might apply to the emotion of anger.
Anger is defined as a strong feeling of annoyance that is hostile, displeasing or negative in nature. And in the nervous system, it is a state which is demonstrated by the activation of the SNS.
Example: Let’s say it’s May 2020 and you’ve been working from home for a couple of months alongside your spouse, Honey, who has also been working from home for months. Let’s say the size of your space is not designed for two people to be constantly together almost 24 hours every day. It’s challenging enough to be sitting at a computer for hours being showered by EMFs and blue light, your bodies are getting soft, your tempers are getting short, the world is filling up with sick people and lots of them are dying. You’re standing in a line 6-people deep at the grocery store, responsibly wearing your mask. The person behind you is just a little too close and their mask has slipped down their face. You want to scream, but you don’t. Instead you stuff it down and by the time you arrive home, you are a live wire. Look out, Honey!
That feeling of not being able to control the situation provokes a response in the nervous system that is akin to danger. Danger requires a response. You either fight, flee or play dead. In this example, you are in the state of “fight” and it hasn’t yet been resolved. A cascade of physiologic events were tripped and all the neurologic and emotional dominoes haven’t yet fallen. You don’t yet know about the PVT and so you haven’t learned to regulate your system.
A LITTLE BIOLOGY
In our biological evolution, we started as organisms focused on staying alive with only the tool of ‘playing dead’ (Dorsal Vagal). As we evolved, survival became the ability to be activated, survival by fighting or fleeing. This change in our biology (Sympathetic) began to allow us to exist with our environment, interacting through work or play. And our environment worked or played back with us. Perhaps, at times, our environment did not work or play so well and we experienced a loss of control. In these cases, maybe we acted in aggression to protect ourselves or even to kill the other. But gradually, over millions of years, we acquired the ability to engage with and perhaps even trust our surroundings and with this, we developed into social beings. Social beings that had the ability to relax and relate to one another in a state of connection (Ventral Vagal). This, the theory purports, heralded the emergence of our Ventral Vagal system.
Of course I’m skipping a whole lot of evolutionary science in this description, but I want to cut to the chase. When we are Ventral Vagal activated, we are likely to be experiencing emotions of peace, calm, relaxation, maybe even bliss. When we are primarily in a Sympathetic state, we are activated toward being activated. We might be moved to get out of bed in the morning or we might be ready to go 3 rounds in the metaphorical ring with our spouse. And when we are in a Dorsal Vagal state, whatever it is that’s impacting us, we are likely to be feeling quiet, withdrawn and possibly even emotionally paralyzed. Each of these 3 states in the hierarchy have a whole range of possibilities that go from primal, survival to modern, civilized daily behavior, which we know isn’t always so civilized. That’s because our emotions are intimately interconnected with this intricate system and our responses are biological.
These evolutionary advancements we have made are the result of our growing brains and our growth in consciousness. Within the biology of our nervous system remains this very necessary survival system that we continue to use today. We have the ability to be self-aware, reflective, and to exhibit behavior by choice rather than explicitly by impulse. We have a tool that can be mastered. We can learn to discern where we are on the PVT Hierarchy and take an action.
Example Part 2 - Options: Walking your groceries to the car, you walk slowly and take the time to notice the sky, gazing at the puffy, white clouds. You pack your car with groceries and spend your drive home breathing deeply into your belly. You begin to feel the decline of that Sympathetic and the rise of the Ventral Vagal, calming response. Maybe you pop on your music subscription and blast the B-52s Love Shack, singing along at the top of your lungs to dissipate some of that suppressed anger toward the Half-masked Wonder at the supermarket. And by the time you arrive home when Honey greets you at the door, you are ready with a smile and can appreciate the relieved feeling of being back to your cozy, little space with someone who loves you.
As I write these thoughts, the one that is predominating in my mind is about the biology of our neurology and how it demonstrates that the path towards our evolution is the one that leads in the direction of peace. It’s the path that is derived through connection not aggression. It lives in our brains, in our bodies, in our minds and in our hearts. As we watch the brutal violence of war unfold on our personal devices, we can easily see the contrast between the states of fight, flight, freeze and the hope for peace.