WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks, Sally Riggs here, psychologist, fellow long hauler, and your long COVID Coach, and welcome to another Wellness Wednesday. So today on Wellness Wednesday, I wanted to talk a little bit more about Polyvagal theory and this concept of Fight, and how it's really crucial in our recovery journey to find a way to give up that fight.

So you will remember me talking about the autonomic nervous system and how there are three nervous system states. And typically they are organized like ladder, so you've got Rest and Digest at the top, which is sometimes called Parasympathetic. And in Polyvagal theory is called Ventral vagal. Then you've got Fight or Flight in the middle, which is called Sympathetic. And then at the bottom, we've got Shut down, Immobilization sometimes referred to as the Freeze response. And in Polyvagal theory is called Dorsal vagal.

So Fight is in that middle level of Sympathetic activation. And the important thing to remember about each of these three nervous system states is that they all are functional, and they all serve a purpose. So it's very easy because Shutdown and Sympathetic activation are so uncomfortable to think that those two states shouldn't exist and that the ideal is to get back to Rest and Digest permanently and that just isn't true. But also, these states of Sympathetic activation and of Shutdown, or the Freeze response, have been incredibly functional in our lives up until now. And it's incredibly important that we honor that as part of our journey in our recovery.

So for example, if you were raised in a very chaotic environment, maybe lots of people shouting it to each other, maybe lots of expressed emotion, maybe somebody was struggling with addiction, et cetera, et cetera, that that type of unpredictable and chaotic environment, many of us can then wind up using a Freeze response as a way to safety. And obviously, it's not true safety, because the only true safety is at the top, Parasympathetic, Rest, and Digest Ventral vagal. But if we are in that type of dangerous, chaotic, unpredictable environment, our bodies can quite frequently go into Shutdown as a way of keeping us safe.

Maybe it was a way of keeping out of all of the drama, maybe it was a way of keeping your body's systems away from all of the stress, that that shouting and over-activation would have triggered. But it more than likely served a very functional purpose for a long time to keep you safe. Equally, thinking about Sympathetic activation, the Fight or Flight, and for most of us, let's be honest, it was Fight. Again, that has served a purpose for us for a very long time. Maybe you are in a different type of environment whereby there wasn't terribly much-expressed emotion there wasn't terribly much affection or warmth.

And so through striving for achievement and success that was your way of getting people's attention and getting people to pay attention to your needs and help you with the things that you needed. So it may be that for you that type of drive was a way of getting your needs met. Or fighting against something having a cause, having something that was important to you righteous indignation was a way again to get your needs met. And I certainly when I look back through my life, yes, there were definitely moments of Freeze and Shutdown.

But prior to that, there were many, many, many, many moments of Sympathetic activation. And I think most of us that phrase, yep, "Sympathetic is pretty much where I live kind of resonates". And I can see that that did serve a purpose for me. And, in fact, I remember a friend of mine, Gosh, 5-10 years ago, saying, "Sally, you always need to have something that you get angry about". And at the time, I was quite insulted by that comment, but thinking about it, "Yes, I needed to be in Sympathetic activation. That was a functional state for me to be in. And when we're in Sympathetic activation, there is usually anger".

For many, many, many years, I worked inpatient psychiatry, which I inherently disagree with from a moral and ethical principle. And so my 24/7 work existence was fighting against the system standing up for people being righteously, indignant, etc, etc. And, obviously, that was a benefit to that for me. And hopefully, I also was able to gain benefit for the patients that I advocated for through that work. And if you think about not just your life, but also your recovery journey, of course, because there's nobody out there telling us what treatments to follow, because there's no clear treatment pathway, because the majority of medicine are telling us we're making it up, or we're never going to get better.

There does need to be a degree of Fight. For us to find some answers, you may be used to furiously researching on the Internet, looking at papers, looking at YouTube videos that people in the community have done listening to podcasts, going on Facebook groups searching for particular keywords. And yes, there are some wonderful resources out there. And we're all enormously grateful to the people who have put those resources together. But finding them in that furious research way does constitute Fight. And the thing about that is that it keeps our body's in Sympathetic overdrive.

So in terms of that Dorsal vagal, Freeze response, we get stuck in a loop. Because, yes, our bodies are meant to have these three states. But what they're supposed to do is default setting Parasympathetic, Rest and Digest, get a little bit activated, Sympathetic, complete the Sympathetic response, go back to Rest and Digest. If at some point, when we're in that Sympathetic response, something happens that thwarts our energy, and I can talk about this in more detail in another video, then we get slammed down into Dorsal, Immobilization, Freeze response.

And yet that also is a process that we need to complete and the body will naturally complete that process, come back up to Sympathetic, complete sympathetic, come back up to Parasympathetic. But if we are constantly revving the sympathetic engine, what happens is we get a little bit of energy in our bodies, move out of Freeze into Sympathetic, and then get overactivated, or energy gets thwarted again, and we're slammed back down. And so we just keep going up and down, up and down. Round and round, navigating back to Rest and Digest.

And Fight can definitely feel that we get into sympathetic, we're fighting we're doing this we're doing that we're researching, we're messaging people. And I get it, I was there for a very, very, very long time. And even to the point where somebody would text me and I'd have an angry response because they had to understand how bad it was what we were going through. And what we're going through is really, really, really bad, but each time we use that Fight to explain it to somebody who doesn't get it, we're just shooting ourselves in the foot.

And so what I'm challenging you to do today, which is not an easy process at all, but you've heard me talk about this before, is leaning into the Freeze state, when our bodies are in Shutdown when we are in that Dorsal Ventral state, rather than fighting it, and moving back to Sympathetic and fighting that and then slamming back down again, we need to accept where we are. And know that it's difficult with the acceptance piece because those states we don't have a ton of acceptance available. But whatever you can do, to thank your body for taking care of you to thank your body for this necessary autonomic state that you're in right now.

And a big part of the word that we're doing with Polyvagal theory is also noticing which state we're in minute to minute throughout the day. But thanking it, not fighting against it, in order that you can build up those energy reserves, and then move up and then move up again. So if you can relate to what I'm describing today, just challenge yourself. "What am I doing that constitutes Fight? Is it furious research? Is it booking 20 Different intake appointments with potential people that can help me?" One is okay, 20 is maybe a little too much.

Is it sending a furious email? Is it reaching out to somebody for reassurance? Because reassurance can still be fine, "But I don't believe you tell me again. But I don't believe you're telling me again", there we are fighting it. And if so, can you give that up and lean in and thank your body for the state that it's in now. In order that it can build up the energy that it needs to complete whatever that response is, and move on up.

A quick reminder that all of these videos are now hosted in YouTube. So even if you have gotten them all, every single week on the email, you don't have to go back through your email inbox, you can just click through on the link below. And all of the different videos that I've ever done are there with descriptions and keywords. So if something that I'm saying today references another video and you're thinking, "Oh, I don't remember that video", you can go and take a look at some of those other videos.

And if my assistant is very savvy, I might even be able to get her to tag some of them on here for you. But just so that you know you can go and see them all there. They are also in our Facebook group, but obviously, in YouTube, they are completely accessible to the whole world. And you can share them with anybody that you would like. And we do have a free workshop coming up in a couple weeks, March 9. So if you're not registered for that, we are going to be talking more about Polyvagal theory and how it helps us with that chronic fatigue, Immobilization, Shutdown, and how we can recover from that. I hope you have a tolerable week and I look forward to seeing you soon on another Wellness Wednesday. Take care.