Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses
Weekly doses of strategy and advice for mental health professionals building a practice the smart way. Non-Texans welcome!
Kate Walker, Ph.D. LPC, LMFT from #counselorsdontquit Blog and Kate Walker Training You Tube Channel reveals all of her practice and practice side-hustle strategies, clinical techniques, and killer marketing tips and tricks so you can be ahead of the curve with your mental health practice. Discover how you can create a mental health practice that works for YOU so you can have the time and freedom to do what you love, whether it's traveling the world, or attending your nephew's volleyball game.
Since 2007, she's been co-supporting her family (along with her amazing husband) with her counseling practice achievebalance.org and counselor education company Kate Walker Training LLC. Dr. Kate openly shares wins, losses, and all the lessons in between with the Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses Community.
Author of My Next Steps: Create a Counseling Career You'll Love, researcher, speaker, and professor of counselor education, Kate helps you learn about positioning yourself as your community's expert resource, marketing, building HIPAA compliant scalable systems and outsourcing, content creation, podcasting, search engine optimization, niche development, social media strategies, how to get more clients, creating online courses, becoming a clinical supervisor, and productivity tips so that you create something amazing without burning yourself out.
It's a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from Dr. Kate you're not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses
116 How Polyvagal Therapy Transforms Trauma Treatment with Jennyfer Rosado, LPC-S
Discover the transformative potential of polyvagal counseling with our esteemed guest, Jennyfer Rosado, LPCS, who stands as one of the only therapists in Texas with specialized polyvagal training through 2021. Jennyfer shares her remarkable journey as a trauma counselor, enriched by prestigious trainings like the Rhythm of Regulation and the Polyvagal Congress in Germany. Together, we explore the pivotal role of the nervous system in therapy, promising insights that are both enlightening and comforting.
Gain a deeper understanding of polyvagal theory in therapeutic practice. We unpack the three vagal states—ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal—and their profound connection to the autonomic nervous system. Guided by the pioneering work of Stephen Porges and Deb Dana, our discussion reveals how concepts like neuroception and co-regulation can aid therapists in helping clients transition from states of defense to homeostasis. By mapping emotional states and identifying vital cues, therapists can support resilience and emotional balance.
Navigate the complexities of trauma responses and the adaptive behaviors that arise within our nervous system. We'll examine physiological states such as fawning, hyperarousal, and dorsal states, offering strategies for better regulation and emotional awareness. With practical tools like emotional mapping and identifying "glimmers," listeners can foster a state of ventral regulation, akin to maintaining emotional cruise control through life's challenges. Don't miss the exciting updates and future presentations that promise to expand your therapeutic toolkit.
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Happy Wednesday everyone. I am Dr Kate Walker. This is Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses and Kate Walker Training, giving you a free CE tonight. So we have a lot of people registered for this and I believe our presenter for yep, she's here Jennifer Rosado LPCS, and I met Jennifer on Facebook, so I have not actually met Jennifer in person, but her credentials blew me away because I want to learn more about this. I don't know anything about this, so when she agreed to do this, I was super excited.
Speaker 1:So just a little bit about Jennifer. I hope everybody can hear me. Everybody thumbs up. Can you hear me? All right, good deal, all right. That's why we play the music. Well, also because I like the music.
Speaker 1:So Jennifer attended a six-month rhythm of regulation training recently. Fun fact, when she moved to Texas I'm reading this when she moved to Texas in 2019, she was the only therapist in Texas to have that polyvagal training through 2021. She's attended multiple trainings in this and she's working on her second book, because I was looking at her website for her counseling practice, which is called CELA Trauma Counseling Center, and so I'm going to turn it over to you, jennifer, and please, please, tell us more about you, because this topic fascinates me, and you've warned me. You said you're going to give us a little soothing tonight, and you have agreed to even go a little bit longer than an hour, and so I welcome that, of course. Those of you that have to jump off at an hour, we totally get that.
Speaker 1:And oh sorry, one more thing Housekeeping. If you've never attended one of our CEs, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, but we do need you to fill out a form. You'll see that in the chat soon, and once you see the Google form, we'll be sure to remind you to fill out the form. Also, you got to keep your camera on, because it's just more fun that way, and then we know you're here. All right, jennifer, I'm going to turn it over to you.
Speaker 3:JENNIFER WANGERHAUSER-.
Speaker 1:Hi everyone. Jennifer WANGERHAUSER I see you I don't hear me my speakers have been acting weird didn't anybody else hear me? There you are.
Speaker 3:Okay, you are now in my headphones okay, you never know, technology is a time fun, delight and I made you a co-host so you can share screen to your heart's content. So tell us more about you. That's probably the hardest thing, the hardest question ever to answer, because I don't know. I just enjoy what I do. So I'm a trauma counselor. I've been doing this for about 10 years. I come from New Hampshire now through Wichita Falls and yeah, so that's about it.
Speaker 1:Wichita Falls has represented in this group. We have so many people. That's awesome. That says something about Wichita Falls and Midwestern State University and all the peeps. All right, so tell us where you want to start.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let me just jump into the PowerPoint, because I've got everything built into it, perfect, and then we can go from there. So this is the first time I will have shared on Zoom. So please bear with me, no worries. So please bear with me, no worries. It doesn't go exactly as I would have expected to.
Speaker 1:In theory in your co-host you'll see all the people who are entering, but just ignore them.
Speaker 3:I'll get them just ignore, okay, so we're gonna do. I make this slightly smaller, sorry guys.
Speaker 1:That's okay.
Speaker 3:Trying to navigate.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm just happy I hit the record button.
Speaker 3:All right, now I have to give it permission, so that's super fun.
Speaker 1:And if all goes wrong on your end, you can always email me the PowerPoint and give me the permission and I can present it for you. So don't worry, we've always got to work around.
Speaker 3:Okay, so it's telling me I may have to log on and log back off, but we shall see, okay, okay, so back to that.
Speaker 1:Back here, okay, back here, okay and if you need to log on and off, that's all right, we'll still be here. Yep, I see things, things, things are happening, all right.
Speaker 3:Okay, and then in theory, if I push present, is it doing what it's supposed to do? I see an animation of a nerve system Perfect but I cannot see anybody. Okay, so.
Speaker 1:I will. If I see questions in the chat, I'll call them out to you.
Speaker 3:That'd be fabulous. That's kind of weird, all right. Well, this is polyvagal counseling and it's a lovely nervous system, vagus, nerve visual here that we have of the brain as we get ready to dive in. So a little more about me. As Kate said, I've trained with Deb Dana through the Rhythm of Regulation in 2018-2019. I've done polyvagal embodied yoga, the safe and sound protocol. In June I went to the Polyvagal Congress in Potsdam, germany, and I've done polyvagal EMDR training. So that's just a small little snippet of all the trainings that I've done, but those are just kind of more specific to polyvagal. Beyond that, just a social statement. I am Caucasian, cisgender, female-bodied, and I currently live on the unceded lands of the Wichita or Kickapoo tribes, which is now known as Wichita Falls, texas. So as we go along, please let me know if my words or actions cause offense and I pledge, of course, to listen and attempt to repair Any questions so far, I think we're good.
Speaker 1:I don't see anything in the chat.
Speaker 3:Okay, my background, like I said, is an integrative trauma therapist. I use the integrative word because I like to bring things together and you'll see how polyvagal really blends into this process. I typically work with mostly complex trauma, developmental traumas, and that ranges from first responders to kids and adults, and spend a lot of time with survivors of sexual violence. So that happens to be typically the people that I work most with. And, of course, my practice is Saylor Trauma Counseling Center and we specialize here in trauma, but we're able to treat couples with an LMFT associate and then we can treat families and individuals and kids as well. And then a little more about me. I personally volunteer with BrainSpottingHelp and have been offering free, brief crisis therapy to the Ukrainian refugees or those still involved in the war since that started, and I have a second book that I am currently in process where I am querying agents, and that is quite a process. So you know, pause here. Are there any accessibility accommodations that need to be met before we go on?
Speaker 1:I think we're good. I had one question about the Google form. We have not posted it yet, so I'll be sure to let y'all know when we post the Google form.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I've got a nice little visual here. It's been a long few days with all the election stress and the things that are going on around us. I'm going to pause together with us for about five minutes. We could go longer if people would like. I'll play some music in the background and if, for any reason that it's triggering, I can wave to indicate if you need to step off. I can wave to indicate um when that music is over. You're welcome during that time. If you do step off, um to do whatever brings you peace. In that time, and as the music begins, I'm going to invite you to look around and start to orient yourself to your surroundings, letting your eyes maybe wander if something catches your eye jennifer, we're not able to hear the music
Speaker 3:I haven't started that quite yet. Okay, I can if people would like. I was just going to give some instructions first, but we can do that. Um, if something catches your eye when you're orienting around, you're welcome to stay there as often as you'd like, letting your eyes just naturally line on something, um, in the horizon or something neutral, and if you feel inclined, you can allow your ears to adjust to the sound, far away and near with the sound of your breath and can you hear the music. So next thing, if I did it correctly, it correctly.
Speaker 1:If you want to unshare and then reshare.
Speaker 3:It'll ask if you want to share with sound. It'll be a check box. That's what I was wondering. Okay, stop sharing. Is everybody see the correct screen?
Speaker 1:We see leaves with sunshine, beautiful, okay.
Speaker 3:Now, sometimes we just need a quick restart. Let's see if it'll play. I hear sound Okay, we just needed a quick restart, all right. So as we start to pause, I'm just going to have you explore and invite, if you'd like, your awareness to your muscles and what it would feel like to release the tension, maybe just even 1%, noticing your breath, that you need more expansion, a longer exhale, and then, for the next five minutes or so, just invite you to close your eyes and let your mind wander.
Speaker 2:Thank you so.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you, we start to arrive back in the present. Consider gently stretching. Maybe we need to take up some space with our arms wide open bit and I'd say let's begin, but we already have. This was a bilateral sound, but it is a way to help us start to anchor in our nervous system. The agenda today is to identify the three vagal states. We'll learn how to map your and your client's nervous system and then we're going to learn how to apply the three key principles of polyvagal theory in therapy. Evt is just the quick abbreviation.
Speaker 3:Some background Stephen Porges is the creator of polyvagal theory, coming out of the research studying infant mortality, specifically SIDS, in the 70s, and then through the years and the applied polyvagal theory in the early 90s began to take shape. So if you've ever read any of his older books, it's pretty technical and scientific. Deb Dana really began translating this into an accessible language for therapists and now it's included in nearly all trauma trainings, including EMDR, somatic experiencing, sensory motor, brain spotting, internal family systems and so on. So applied polyvagal theory is the science of safety in you, your clients and relationally with the world.
Speaker 3:You're looking at that relationship between the autonomic nervous system, human health and experience. The ANS, or the autonomic nervous system, is the intervening and modulating variable. Modulating is where and intervening is where we get to come into play. So the autonomic nervous system has its own language. It's not now, excuse me, it's not why, what or who, but how we are. It's relational, as all organs are connected in a rhythmic neural signal through the vagus nerve. Are you giving your nervous system permission to recover into homeostatic function, which is the idea behind the music just a moment ago?
Speaker 3:So allow ourselves a few moments to recover from and prepare for stressors over the next little bit and just another reflection are you disrupting this process through stress, anxiety, illness, pathogens? So it's not so much about the events but about the state, and I'll go further into those states in a moment. So there's a dual awareness in applying polyvagal to counseling the awareness of our own nervous system and the capacity to be present. And then for clients, they need to have capacity in the present moment before moving to integrate or release accumulated stress or trauma from the past. How can we feel safe to release something from the past when we can't be present with everyday things? It's as much learning to feel safe when feeling positive emotions as it is about the capacity for holding that negative emotion as well. I've got on screen a little bit about the social engagement system and beginning to see those states. There's a lot of arrows that's okay, we'll go through those and a little simpler sliding scale, if you will, from Magdalena Weinstein in 2020. So a little more science and why the vagus nerve hacks have become so popular, and you can see in that left video where the cranial nerves start to go into the brain. And then, of course, our introduction video, as you can see how that nerve goes all the way through our body. I use biology to reduce shame and help our clients gain agency. So, if you recall, through the modulating portion of the ANS we're able to do that. These videos really show how the systems start to communicate everywhere and they do so bidirectionally. So 80% of the information from the vagus nerve goes up into the brain. So we've evolved from this to have a tiered response to threat which is further identified through those states. The vagus communicates to nearly every organ in the body and the vagus communicates interoceptive information, so that information it's gathering all the way up into the prefrontal cortex about those changes in arousal. This occurs often without conscious awareness, but we can bring conscious perception to our experience. If you're thinking about physical movements, you're not only using, like your bones and your muscles, you're using nerve pathways in the brain and between the brain and the rest of the body to communicate how to move those muscles, how to move your bones. The more you stimulate those pathways by using them, the more efficiently they work. The same principle is going to apply when we're working with the vagus nerve and any interventions and the states. The more we work with them, the more we get comfortable with them, the easier those pathways are to follow. So a mnemonic to help you as we go along.
Speaker 3:One, two, three. One vagus nerve splits into two main branches. We've got the parasympathetic and the sympathetic and then with the three states between those two parasympathetic and sympathetic branches. Those three states are ventral, sympathetic and dorsal. So the hierarchy of the ANS here. I've written it as the window of tolerance. So technically we've got a sympathetic branch and a parasympathetic branch that comes down and they blend to become this ventral area right here. How we get there is through neuroception and co-regulation. So those are the three organizing principles, as I mentioned earlier in the agenda, that help create how we apply and how we understand polyvagal theory with our clients and ourselves. So we'll focus on the hierarchy when we're mapping and then understanding neuroception and co-regulation, how that informs those states that we work with.
Speaker 3:So neuroception is the term coined by Stephen Borges for threat detection, scanning it's in the brain and referencing am I safe? Am I loved? What can I learn? But we can't learn first if we don't feel safe, which is why we come back to this being the science of safety and helping us return into a homeostatic place. The goal, if we're counseling and strictly focused on nervous system. Work is to build resilience through so slowly supporting the nervous system to reshape itself. This happens by noticing more cues of safety and connection and releasing tension held instead of staying in that state of defense, all tensed. Essentially, we're returning to homeostatic function and not getting stuck in cures.
Speaker 3:This can be mismatched. So your client may, or you may even, neurocept cues of danger and feel anxious and activated when they're in your office, even though logically we know they're perfectly safe. They know they're perfectly safe. They don't feel it. It doesn't match. And vice versa, of course, there can be an inactivation when there's danger, and that is learned through time. For neurodivergent brains, common danger cues may be neutral to someone else. Unexpected touch, light, sounds, loud sounds, bright lights all those things may be neurocepted as danger. The Trauma Geek is a brilliant Facebook page. I think her name is Janelle, not really recalling her last name, but her page is the Trauma Geek, and she has a website and she does a beautiful job of just explaining neurodivergence and polyvagal theory and merging those two.
Speaker 3:So on to co-regulation. We're going to naturally do so when we're in groups or through each other. It's in conjunction essentially with neuroception, so we're using like mirror neurons in the brain, the DMN in the brain and different areas in order to feel, see and be with people. We are wired for connection and we cannot survive without it, especially during threat. We really need another nervous system essentially to help influence ourselves to come back into a place where we feel safe enough to move forward. We do so through vocal intonations, head movements, facial expressions. All of those can affect that neuroception of safety. And interestingly there was a study done with preemies having underdeveloped neuromuscular structure and parents actually having a hard time recognizing that the baby was attached to them. And I don't know about you all but those awful still face experiments. You recall those videos and how terrible that was to watch. You know that was co-regulation. And then the lack of going on as well as neurocepting danger through those still faces.
Speaker 3:Thinking of how your clients and your energy or state influences each other is important. Through COVID it's been a long road back, especially socially, because our bodies learn people are a threat. So neuroception, co-regulation are very important and then later as we move forward we'll see how those affect our states. Before we dive in to those states, I'm just going to invite you to look at this as an opportunity to see a little bit about trauma and we have somebody walking along here in the here and now. Something ordinary happens which cues those implicit memories of then and there and we have that stress response happen. And it's then and now, in the present. We might be drained, we might be activated. So our brain and our bodies really work together like a symphony.
Speaker 3:Even though I'm talking mostly about the nervous system today, know that the brain is also part of this, because what's in the brain is in the body, what's in the body is in the brain. It all works together. We're thinking about a symphony and in order to understand or play a symphony we have to break it up into parts. When we're watching a concert, we might not pay attention to all the moving pieces. You know it's going much faster than what we actually understand it to be, and that's the same with our brain and our body. So that is how quickly here and now becomes then and now. That might happen through facial expressions, voice, eye contact, body cues. Those are all giving us a toolkit to work with and we can observe those things also in our clients From the moment they arrive. We can help them start to apply strategies and interventions just based on.
Speaker 3:If they're walking, like this individual here, a client becomes your shared partner on a journey to improve their health and that looks like through attuning to our own senses that we're taking in. Is there safety and danger in our own environment? Welcoming and warnings, connection, disconnection. If you're looking around your office, you know, is that everything feeling okay? I know, if my desk is messy it's probably not. Those things, as we take the cues in, come up through again that vagus nerve into our brain and now we're trying to make sense of it. So that story follows the state the story being compromised of course of the summation of sensory input and the things that have happened in our past. Just as the client gives us our toolbox, we have our own attunement and proximity and voice and tone and cues. So we're going to invite our client to begin with to explore those things what's safe in our room, what's neutral or secure in the way to the office or at in their workplace. These are things that help them start to orient to their own body needs and give them some agency as well.
Speaker 3:One way that I use this often is that I let people know they can move things around in my office.
Speaker 3:I let them know I'm also going to move it back, but they're free to move it here.
Speaker 3:Or they might tell me about a specific candle that is not okay for them.
Speaker 3:Or in one case I had recently changed my sound machine noise and when my client walked in she was just completely tensed and activated and I was curious and what was going on.
Speaker 3:This was so different from how she normally presented and as we went through all of these cues and the sensory pieces, we found out that the noise machine actually sounded much like a monitor that she'd had during a perinatal trauma and loss and so obviously we stopped that. So asking your clients to explore those triggers during intake can be really important and then also throughout your sessions, they may have new and different cues that come up as you're doing your work together. The big piece is getting curious, and even getting curious about their phones. How many cues of danger are they taking in as the millions of times that we are disrupted in looking at our phones? Are there things on there or a way to put a picture that might be more soothing so that every time you look at it you're taking in a cue of safety? Those are going to be how we start to offer corrective experiences to return into that homeostatic state.
Speaker 3:Jennifer you have a question I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:And you may cover this later. The question is how would one approach a client with regulation if they are highly dissociative?
Speaker 3:So is that something you'll cover later or you want to tell? We can address it here a little bit. Okay, so somebody that's highly dissociative? That's the ultimate form of self-protection, the ultimate activation in our nervous system. So that's all self-protection. So we're not necessarily looking for regulation. What we're looking for is enough neural challenge and enough safety being built in a gentle way to bring them back to that present moment, to create safety in the present.
Speaker 3:And we do that through the senses. And we do that through the senses, um, it's not something that I specifically covered, but I can give you a quick example of a client that we were doing some pretty intense, um, brain spotting session, um, and essentially they disassociated pretty hardcore and I invited them to lay down and we had already gone through all these cues that we already knew what would support. So that's part of doing this in the very beginning is helping them know from the very beginning. Um, and so you know, we got our water bottle and I offered her water and as she was laying there, um, we, you know, just had her gently rock back and forth. She invited me to sit beside her and I had a weighted blanket for her and then we used some gum and just kind of, as she slowly began to eat the gum and kind of had that cinnamon taste and exploring how that was shifting in her body, she began to come back into the present moment and then from there we were able to kind of keep working on staying present.
Speaker 3:So that's how I invite that in, just knowing that it's the ultimate form of protection. It doesn't scare me so much as it just says oof, there's a lot of cues of danger here. I'm going to help them find safety in the moment. And I say safety knowing not everybody feels safety. That might be just neutrality, it might be security, but for terms of this training, safety just seemed the easiest to say.
Speaker 1:Any more question on that? Nope, you are good to go okay.
Speaker 3:So cues we neurocept from the outside world, between people and the outside world, and then internally you, or how we arrive into those three states. So here we go, here's our states. When I say the ultimate form of protection, we're talking down here into hyperarousal. If you're looking at the vagus nerve, I previously said it was a hierarchy and it branches into two places the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. So we're always going to hit that sympathetic first with too much energy here in fight or flight and then we'll peak at overwhelm and freeze and drop down here into freeze or hyperarousal or what is termed dorsal in polyvagal. So I've got two different forms here and I've got a ton of different graphics for you as we go along. But we're all. I'm a visual learner and I like to see different ways of communicating that information. So I put up a bunch hopefully help people take in the information in ways that would feel okay to them. This window here of ventral is going to be that balance of energy and I'll jump into that in a moment. So if we start with our sympathetic nervous system, that energy is all well, it's all about energy. It's in the brain, associated with the limbic system, so the middle part of our brain and it's more focused on stress or threats in that red zone that we've got up there and too much energy. But keep in mind, energy could also be you know what. We need to stay awake during a session to focus or play or exercise. So it doesn't have to be energy that's activated in a negative association, it can just simply be energy. Sympathetic is going to have physiological similarities. That might be a ice constricting, rapid heart rate, shortness of breath. Maybe we have some flushing happen as we go into that state and as it's coming up, then our brain's going to assign it that meaning. There's that story we have based on our own past history. So it's like when we walk into a room you can feel the tension and you're like what is that? What's going on? So I might be curious about that, while another person might be like oh no, that's dangerous and I'm out. So the polyvagal saying is story follows state.
Speaker 3:So learning about sympathetic state, you know you start to look at these words here rage, panic, fear, survival mode. I don't care, scared and overwhelmed. We can't register consequences right Because we're not having access to our prefrontal cortex, all that blood flowing to the limbic system. We are ready to fight, flight or freeze, and that's often over time with my complex trauma clients for sure because there's been danger down here in stillness. So when we enter this area, say we're doing all right, we're feeling connected, and then a trigger happens right, we might move up here into dysregulation and then we might quickly jump right over here into hyperarousal, depending on what that story means to us or the level of threat that happens.
Speaker 3:Dysregulation might look like irritability or worry, friend self-criticism. So if you can think of a slight stressor right now, in this moment, you might move from irritable to anger and thinking about like how did I go from here to here? When did that shift happen? What sensations do you notice in your own body? Fight and flight have their own stories, and so does freeze. Freeze, when I said earlier, it's starting to. Is that the tip here? It's because it's starting to pull in parasympathetic energy. So we'll have an immobility in the muscles but internally very active, shaking. There's an adaptive behavior that arises here. This is the story of the child who listens to the weight of the footsteps coming down the hallway to determine if that person is drunk or unpredictable. Tonight that child, now an adult, that nervous system is super alert, use and detect dysregulation in the room, start adapting and people-pleasing to reduce the potential for danger, otherwise known as fawning.
Speaker 3:I just want to quick invite you to take a big inhale and an exhale, maybe shake it out before we move on into dorsal. And the reason we're going to shake it out is we want to get that energy just kind of moving through. We don't want to hold it where it becomes anxiety, we want to just move that through. It's a practice we can teach our clients too. So dorsal is our rest and digest system. Parasympathetic branch Immobilization happens and that especially happens in that unsafe side where there's a life threat and that becomes again survival mode as well.
Speaker 3:But the ultimate activation if say we're not in survival mode and we just need our parasympathetic branch to work, right, we have rest, digest, you have prayer and meditation there, you have just a lovely sleep, that happens and then moving back over into a place of unsafeness, we start to maybe feel burnout or you have a hard stop of you know collapsing because of something that happened. You might have this going through the motions is often talked about or just you know going through it, um, and we have grief. That also lies here as well, and when we're sick we automatically have more parasympathetic energy coming into our body. So if we haven't fully arrived at burnout, maybe we're hovering here in this dysregulation zone. That might look like meh, I love that word, I think it was a beautiful addition to our verbal stories of emotions, and here we also have.
Speaker 3:If we're moving all the way down into dorsal or hypoarousal, what we have is a story of appeasement. This happens when there is a life threat, and this happens when there is a life threat and it becomes again another ultimate act of survival. So we're shutting off completely in order to survive. So things that come to mind would be a Black man pulled over by a police officer who's coming in hot and heavy on a simple traffic stop. Might be a sex trafficking victim keeps going back or isn't able to escape out of that situation just yet it's appeasement that happens. It often in the past was referred to as stockholm syndrome.
Speaker 3:Those are the two big stories of self-protection in our bodies. They're actually stacked, but we have dorsal that's associated with kind of like our intestinal area, and then stacked on top of that would be sympathetic, more located in the lung area and then ultimately another big deep breath, maybe some movement coming up into what is now referred to in this graphics of our window of tolerance or capacity, ventral energy, and that is our blend of the parasympathetic and sympathetic, and that state is referred to as our social engagement system due to the connection it makes. So we're taking in these cues of joy and softness in the face. We might have patience and curiosity and we have full access to our whole brain and thinking. This also includes full access to our emotions. We're not avoiding them or shutting them down. We're able to feel. And that's really what we mean by regulation is that we're able to feel everything and not shut down or not go into activation. We're able to be with those emotions. Activation we're able to be with those emotions. We can also edge towards one or the other and, depending on into going into that dysregulation zone, we don't have to fully activate. So to recap again, that story follows state.
Speaker 3:If I go to the grocery store, as another example, at the end of the day and I am done hypoarousal right my body's probably going to be more collapsed on itself. I'm not maybe making eye contact, my voice is going to lower, I'm exhausted and why bother? So I'm going to get milk and cereal, because who cares anyway, moving into hyper arousal and my sympathetic state. Oh man, I am fast. I am annoyed at people driving because they are terrible drivers. I'm in the store, people are in my way. Let's go, go go. I'm in the store, People are in my way. Let's go, go go Grabbing things, get out. I got stuff to do and I get home and I was supposed to make spaghetti but I forgot, you know key ingredients like noodles or sauce, maybe both, because I'm in such a hurry that I just don't see everything. And if I arrive in Ventral, I've taken a little bit of time to sit with myself and move things through. I'm going to recognize oof, I might have had a hard day today. I'm going to go to the store, I'm going to get everything on my list and I'm probably going to pick up a little treat for myself because it was a hard day.
Speaker 3:And that's kind of a way to help us distinguish in our own selves what's going on in our bodies or these different states and how they arrive or look.
Speaker 3:Another shift or another way to explain it to clients would be a gas in the brakes, gas being sympathetic, right, our energy, bra breaks being full, stop down into that parasympathetic branch of dorsal. You know might be a little herky-jerky, getting started to slow down as we're starting to teach our clients how to be still that there's safety there, get there, it just takes practice. Or if they're up in hyper arousal, soul gas man, we're going, we're going, we're talking fast and taking that exhale, giving ourselves a moment, shaking it out. That is gas and we want to learn how to operate that car in a much smoother motion. And ultimately we want to be on the highway with cruise control up in ventral and with the balanced energy right, because cruise control slows us down as we go down hills, speeds us up as we go up, right, it's taking care of those things. It's that balance. Before I move on and go into further explanation, are we good?
Speaker 1:I don't see any questions and I think we're good, beautiful.
Speaker 3:So the capacity of a client often looks this way right, much smaller window, much, much smaller. You're going to start to notice those patterns with your clients. So this client and many of our clients sort of ricochet between sympathetic and dorsal, going up and down, up and down, up and down. And this is where the true beauty lies with Polyvagal and starting to support them to slow down enough to feel a little bit of that ventral energy and capacity before they fully shut down and then coming back up. Is the energy safe enough to feel and then allowing sort of a rhythm to happen and take place in our bodies. It's a beautiful foundation of therapeutic work where we're going to allow whatever modality you're already using or trained in to be perfectly fine. Polyvagal is just our foundation. We set it on, or we set what we already know on top of it, and we just kind of take in these cues and learn more about what's going on to help support what we're already doing and just for fun, if the animation will go, nope, ah. Most of the time our clients look like that quick slide through Of sympathetic and dorsal when accessed by stress, danger, threat, remember are both in service of survival. Behaviors, then, are in service of survival. That might mean behavior of workaholics, lying behaviors, disassociation. We're just not in connection with ourselves. That's all in connection with ourselves. That's all. So here we go into mapping With clients. You're going to begin exploring relationships with each state. This is our original map, created by Deb Dana If you see down there in 2018, this was what she originally used in her first book. So the relationship becomes really important. And how I start out and I'm going to invite you guys to do the same, if you'd like making notes just create three little spots for yourself, labeling them ventral, sympathetic and dorsal. And, in practice with clients, I give them a choice of markers or pencils and then choosing whichever color feels right for them. Not to spend too much time laboring over it, but just thinking okay, this is what feels right for sympathetic, this is what feels right for dorsal, this is what feels right for sympathetic, this is what feels right for dorsal and this is what feels right for ventral. And then that's what they'll use for each place, and we're going to invite them to start either in sympathetic or dorsal. We want to end in ventral energy. We want to end as close to regulation as possible, even if they've only completed one section and the full hour is up End in ventral. Give them a minute or two to think about some cues of safety, regulating resources, something like that glimmers, awes, moments of awes, those types of things to just help them take a pause and be able to leave session a little safer, a little better than what they were. And this can be very dysregulating for clients to go through. It can be very sad for them as they realize how often that they spend activated and shut down. So you'd be invited, of course, to jot a few things down for each section and we start with thoughts that arise, emotions and feelings.
Speaker 3:How do you know you've arrived in sympathetic? How do you know you've arrived in dorsal? You might include body sensations and thinking about yourself. Turning to relationships and looking at sleep if I'm activated, do I sleep well? Am I up at 4 am? If I'm shut down, am I sleeping too much? Maybe I can't sleep at all? I'm beginning to go through each of those states there with the intimacy and that relationship. Change friendships and am I pushing them away or pulling them in? Activity and work, food, our spending habits, our relationship with ourself, and how it changes when I'm in sympathetic and I'm activated. You're collapsed and dorsal and shut down. You might start to get an idea and a picture that maybe I spend more time in one state than the other.
Speaker 3:My home away from home is sympathetic.
Speaker 3:I'm an activated person. Dorsal feels terrible to me. I do not enjoy being shut down. Through the years I've learned how to be there, but for a long time slowing down was not. It was no good. No, thank you. So I just kind of you keep yourself going right and then you fall into burnout and that's no good. So then you come back up and find those ways to essentially keep yourself activated.
Speaker 3:And I know many people that spend their time and their home away from home in dorsal and that might be even like a happy, melancholic person. You know that just lower energy that's where they're at. Too much energy does not feel good to their system. So, interestingly like, if you think about a workmate or a spouse or maybe even your kids thinking oof, we might have a mismatch in our nervous systems. They might be activated and I might be someone who spends more time more in dorsal and so their energy is just like, absolutely not okay and learning how to find the balance for both of you guys is important and that becomes part of our therapeutic work too.
Speaker 3:So this idea within the map is that we're going to have markers on here where you know how or what it looks like, those clues and cues to help us begin to identify where we're at, what state am I in. And as we're in there, there we're going to ask ourselves if I'm in sympathetic. I am, and you fill in that blank. And the world is, and you fill in that blank. I often tell my clients I'm not worried about labeling an emotion so much, just need to know where you're at on your math. Are you in sympathetic or are you in dorsal today? Where are you? Because we don't have an association with that name or with either name. So we haven't made it negative or gross or bad, it just is.
Speaker 3:We can invite curiosity into this place, and if we're inviting curiosity, that means we're starting to pull in ventral energy. We can start to do something about it. Energy, we can start to do something about it. What you'll hear me say is where are you and what do you want to do about it Makes it pretty simple that way, once those two areas, the sympathetic and dorsal, have started to shape each other and you can really get to see what those look like, you can go on up to ventral and do the same things. How do you know you've arrived? How do you feel when you're balanced, thinking about like times you're on vacation, you know a lot of times.
Speaker 3:I have to really prompt clients to help them find what ventral is like, and it might be simple as reminding them what did it look like when you went outside and saw the stars tonight? Just a tiny little glimmer, that's all we need. And over here on the right side we have spots, if you wanted, or you could invite your client to name what those are. So I've had kids call different states like broccoli, like cause I hated broccoli, and so they would come in and talk about oh, I wasn't broccoli again today. It's awful when we share those with our loved ones or dear ones. You know they can help cue us into and create that awareness. And the more we're aware, the more we can start to change further with these maps. After they've gotten you, you know, for a while, you know they're starting to really understand themselves and where they're at. You know you begin to expand the maps with triggers and you can expand the map with the glimmers and the ways that they're activated or maybe they're exploring the stories that happen.
Speaker 3:I'm going to shift to a second map, same thing, but now we've arrived into our window of capacity. So this piece here. Dan Siegel first came up with the window of tolerance, but I find we can tolerate a lot. That's not great. What we want is capacity. So up here, hypoarousal would be sympathetic state, down here in survival, dorsal and right here in the middle, so safe, social and engaged ventral.
Speaker 3:And this map comes from linda tie and she does a lot of great work with polyvagal and really highlights too much energy, too little energy. I think that's helpful for clients to kind of see. This is where I'm at learning those stories of protection and disconnection is another way to map. We can go into the story they tell themselves when they're in rage or fight, shame and shut down the story can reinforce that state. So when we ask about I am and the world is, we can see how they view themselves, how they view the world, and that starts to make their behaviors make a little more sense, like, oh, okay, or you can help them put those pictures together. Of course it feels that way because people are dangerous or the world is chaos.
Speaker 1:Why would you want to go?
Speaker 3:out another map. This was released in 2023, so they updated the hierarchy instead of having it be a ladder. Now we've got circles, we've got blended states and I love that this is highlighted so you've got your quiet moments and intimacy. So there's that immobilization parasympathetic pathway and you've got ventral, and then we've got this hybrid of play and dance and sports with immobilized energy and that parasympathetic ventral pathway. And then here, of course, when the mobilized and immobilized meet and there has been a threat detected, you've got that free state of defense or, over time, if there's a higher level of threat, you know we move from freeze into fawning and then, of course, the appeasement. One way that I explain this to first responders is sometimes using the states like a stoplight, and I might use terms like tunnel vision or auditory exclusion, and they'd be really familiar with those happening in that sympathetic state.
Speaker 3:Some therapists give dates colors. They just automatically assign them most often blue for dorsal and red for sympathetic. Assign them most often blue for dorsal and red for sympathetic. There's some other ideas. Because I tend to work with so many folks that have had no choice or their agency taken away, it's very important for me to offer and give as much agency as possible. So I invite them, I give them all the options or if they're too overwhelmed like narrow it down a little bit and I stick with what works best for them. So one client I might use the circles for mapping and they may fill those in for their own pieces. For another one, it might be that previous one with linda kai's work, or the first with just that hierarchy. Any questions?
Speaker 1:I don't see anything in the chat okay.
Speaker 3:Well, let's move on to the best effort, which is glimmers. So glimmers are the opposite of triggers, those moments of awe, because we haven't spent a lot of time in ventral yet and we have to use intentionality with them. You could have your clients track them in a journal or usually on their phones, because they always have their phones with them. You could have them change their screen saver to a glimmer on this lovely little photo. Here I have some of my own glimmers. So down here at the bottom we've got biscuit, my dog, and in spite of her face, she really does love swimming in the pool. But those moments of awe, awe, places that bring us peace, people might bring us peace. I tend to not use people as much for like a regulating resource only because, unfortunately, people pass away or things can happen to them, and so that can. What had been regulating in the beginning may, through your work, end up not being such a great thing. What are your guys' glimmers, as that brings us just a few resources I wrote down. There's so many out there. A quick Google or Pinterest search. You'll have many maps of your own. Rosenberg does a basic exercise using the vagus nerve. Be happy to take you guys through that pandiculation exercises, which there's a spelling error, um. Beaconhouseorg from the uk has some really great resources. And then, of course, in the middle we've got the polyvagal institute. You've got Deb Dana, who's got a ton of books. She has one coming out, I think this month. The Polyvagal Institute was also mentioning there's a new book coming out or just came out this fall regarding autism. I was pretty excited to snag that book when it comes. We've got Dr Ariel Schwartz. She does some fantastic work with movement and the body. Linda Tai she's one of my favorite people. She's just a neat human and she has like a 12-week offering for kind of deep diving into embodied and regulating resources. So if you want a class full of them, you'll definitely get those from her and it's a very affordable cost.
Speaker 3:Rebecca Case does EMDR and polyvagal blending. And then, of course, the trauma geek and then we have a degree, the hearts aligned. That was a study. So if you Google that or look it up on YouTube, it was really cool for all of us pet lovers. They put a heart monitor on the dogs and their humans and then they separated them and then they put them together and they were studying and watching their hearts and literally their heart rates, even though they were a little bit faster for the dog than the humans they aligned when they met after a certain very short amount of time. So it was really cool to see.
Speaker 3:And since then, I believe neuroscience news has also, within this last year, released something similar the body perception inventory. You can find that through the Polyvagal Institute or if you use the Safe and Sound Protocol that assesses the state, so you can use that as a really cool tool to help your clients. And then, of course, safe and Sound Protocol. They are getting ready to release the rest and restore option Right now.
Speaker 3:Safe and sound is just meant to bring you up into a state of ventral, of safety, and so through the sounds that are modulated and filtered sounds that are modulated and filtered, what it's doing is essentially working with the ears and the muscles in the ears and toning them, and the safe and sound moves you up. But so many people like myself, you know, have not ever been comfortable in dorsal, and so there's this offering that is releasing, I think at the end of this month, and it's still, you know, again same thing using sound to help ease our way into dorsal. Easing is the key word we don't want to drop. It doesn't feel great. So there we are's, our, my two practices, selah trauma counseling center and then my own, jay rosado, where I originally started out, and then, of course, I'm just doing mostly intensives over there, or, um, my books jennifer, this is wonderful.
Speaker 1:So how would you prefer people contact you? I mean, you're giving us the information here, but do you prefer phone calls? Leave messages, because I know people are going to seek you out, especially if you do intensives on this. I mean, I'm so relaxed just hearing you talk.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm actually hoping to. Life got a little chaotic the last couple months, but I'm hoping to release a whole series of trainings on this and teaching people to. There's so much missed when we go to like an EMDR weekend or a brain spotting weekend or whatever you're doing, unless it's like the three-year sensory motor training. So there's so much missed and that's my offering and that's what I've been putting together. It just had to kind of go to the side for a minute because between that and then I'm in a book class and then there's some things with the practice that I'm building, and so I'm like, okay, something has to pause.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well these are great resources. Would we, would you be willing to let us have the PowerPoint when we send out the certificates?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely, and email's probably the easiest way. I will be honest, I hate answering the phone. That is a cute disconnection to me.
Speaker 1:I was asking because I saw phone numbers. I'm like no, we shouldn't call her right, let's just email her.
Speaker 3:No no, I mean you can, I'll get back eventually.
Speaker 1:What email then? Because I think you had websites, but I didn't see an email. What would you like I can type it into the chat.
Speaker 3:Oh, probably the easiest. I can type it into the chat. Oh, probably the easiest. If you want me directly, it's just Jennifer J-E-N-N-Y-F-E-R at salatraumacccom.
Speaker 1:Okay, is that it? Yep.
Speaker 3:Awesome, I love, love, love helping people. So absolutely reach out. If I don't respond or you know it's been a couple days, send it to me again. It's likely I'm just a little bit overwhelmed and so I tend to like put things like I'll get to that, I'll tend to that in a minute. Good, that's good.
Speaker 1:All right, well, thank you. Thank you so much again, and you are also in the Badass group, and so that's how I found you Super excited that happened. So can folks tag you if they have questions as well?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely, and I can stay on a few more minutes if people want more questions. I mean, this was like a. This was very fast, I know.
Speaker 1:I know, but you gave us so many tools and I just I love, I love the resources you provided as well. So thank you again. And so everybody I see people are starting to and totally good, I know you guys are Take a moment and you know the drill. Please click the link right now. I just put it back into the chat and if you click it now, you don't have to fill it out now, but you can fill it out once we end the meeting. Also, recognize that if your name on your screen, your Zoom screen, is not the name name you registered with or there's some sort of a mismatch, certificates may be delayed.
Speaker 1:Our next presentation I'm super excited about if you're a supervisor, we have Amanda Esquivel, who will talk to us about actual stuff you can use during supervision techniques and ideas and drills. And then I think we have a kind of a coup or not a coup, nevermind, but in December we have a really cool thing that's what I meant to say, a cool thing happening in December. We have Dr Melissa McEffrey. She is a documentation queen, as far as I know, so she's going to talk to us about documentation and I've asked her to include information about ai, so you won't want to miss that, jennifer. Thank you again so much. I'm dr kate walker and I'm about to hit the end button. Uh, and you guys grab the link. Have a wonderful evening, go do great things and eat a good dinner, take care.