Here’s a short story to introduce today’s teaching video.

Over a decade ago, I was at a business conference in San Diego and I sat down at one of those round tables to claim my area for the day.

To my delight, a couple was sitting there already who were interested in and teaching nervous system health and polyvagal theory to their clients. 

I started to geek out and ask them how they were teaching their clients about the different branches of the vagus nerve, and the various low and high tone nature of the parasympathetic dorsal responses (the ‘gears’ as I like to call them)…because this is what decides if a person heals (or doesn’t)…and so on. 

(Now remember: this was circa 2014 maybe – so very few people knew the importance of this stuff back then, at least in these circles, so I was excited!)

Before I could say much more, the man said to me: “Oh no no no, we don’t do that, we just teach them the techniques because people don’t care about that stuff!”

He kind of dismissed my interests and I could not tell if he acted that way because he truly believed people didn’t need that level of detail or if he actually had no clue what I was talking about. Maybe it was a bit of both? 

I immediately wanted to get up and find another table, which I did, politely of course.

****

I’m sharing this today for two reasons: 

1 – The new video I have for you is a clip from a Q&A I did last summer talking about the autonomic nervous system branches: what they are, the basics of why they are important, how they interact with us and impact our capacity to heal. 

2 – If you are here, there’s a good chance you WANT this theory and you want to learn deeply about your body and how it works so you can be the master of it (rather than it, and your survival stress, being the master of you!). 

People have always said that when folks are educated they make better choices for their families and communities. I have found this applies to the individual as well. 

When we are aware of how our systems work, like really work, we begin to be the driver (and master) of our experiences and behaviours. 

If you’re new here, get your crash course today by clicking over to watch. 

If you’ve been around for a while, consider this a review to test your memory.