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Episode 22: The Wisdom of your Nervous System: Insights from Polyvagal Theory with Courtney Rolfe

Courtney Rolfe

The nervous system doesn't make judgment, it is just an automatic physiological response that makes sense. We don't have to know all the things that have led up to that moment to know why it makes sense. But we can trust the design of the system that is ancient that there is a reason it's responding the way it's responding. And that alone can free us up of all that. I mean, how many people have the experience of they're anxious, but they can't really figure out why, what if

Nik Tarascio

I told you that there was a system inside of you that's automatic, you probably don't know anything about what's going on inside of that system, but it is ultimately controlling the quality of your life. It's the thing that makes you either feel happy, safe, anxious, depressed, it's the thing that allows you to connect with other people and to feel into them and to help them feel into you. Just imagine that that that systems are most of us know nothing about it. And so today, we're going to be talking with an expert on what's called polyvagal theory, which is really the theory of our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system. And I think it's one of the most important conversations we can be talking about when it comes to our own relationship to the world around us and why we do the things we do, why we feel the things that we feel, I hope you find this incredibly valuable. It's gonna be a little heavy, but stick around, it really does have a big payoff I hope you enjoy.

Welcome to the dream beyond. I'm your host, Nik Tarascio. I'm a CEO, musician and overall seeker of Truth, inspiration, and simply put, how to live the most fulfilling life possible. Growing up surrounded by extremely wealthy and successful people gave me unique and unfiltered perspectives of those who have seemingly made it through on the dream beyond, we're letting you in on what it really takes to achieve your dreams. What happens when it turns out your destination isn't the promised land, you are expecting how to process the lessons from your past while mapping of course to true fulfillment. Let's get started.

Hey, everybody, I'm here with the founder of Modern Mind and Heart, a psychotherapy speaking and training platform dedicated to bringing polyvagal theory to the world. She's a leading expert in the field, she helps clients heal trauma and trains clinicians worldwide about polyvagal theory and clinical work. She's also an expert in how the nervous system functions and how understanding this work can lead us to a life of self-compassion and ease, free from shame-based narratives. Please welcome Courtney Rolfe, everybody.

Courtney Rolfe

Hi, it's so great to be here. I just I love hearing that all the words and all the helping people heal and how now I love what I do.

Nik Tarascio

If you want and I'll just I'll just report that as you're grocery shopping.

Courtney Rolfe

She helps people heal she knows about the nervous system. And do it get excited about it, though. I love it. I love the work. So

Nik Tarascio

Very cool. I get really happy to talk about this. It's, you know, polyvagal theory is something that I don't know what that effect is called, would you hear about something you've never heard before. And then you hear it all the time. Like you hear a word or you see like, oh, a yellow Camaro. And then everyone has a yellow Camaro. I remember going like, What the hell is polyvagal theory? And then it's just like, it's everywhere. So I would love to hear about, like, when someone asks what you do, and you say, polyvagal theory, how do you describe that to the to the average person who's never heard of it before?

Courtney Rolfe

I usually don't lead with that for sure. But what I do try to bring in is just the nervous system that we are all influenced, if not, I mean, we're really led by our nervous system experience. And I don't think we don't learn that I don't think we realize that, you know, we're taught that our brain is running the show. And you can see that from even our old philosophers that tell us that we can see that and how we're taught to deal with emotions, feelings, coping all of that, we can see that in the history of psychotherapy, treatments, you know, and what we see in the therapy room, we're really taught that our brains are in charge, and we can out think, whatever the situation is.

And then when we learn that actually, our nervous system is in charge and our nervous system is the biggest influencing factor on our total experience. It's a paradigm shift, it shifts things so learning what is my nervous system doing? How can I learn to track what my nervous system is doing? How can I find out more about you know, what puts me in a survival state or what makes me feel regulated and connected? It really changes how we can show up in the world and how we can relate to people and how we can find fulfilment how we can you know, navigate stressors, everything, everything. So I start with the nervous system, we all have one. It all works pretty much the same way with our own custom, you know, wiring that we that we get through our life experiences, but we can understand the human experience through that lens and it kind of changes our our experience of what we understand about ourselves, life, others, all of it I leave with a nervous system. And then maybe I'll throw in polyvagal theory, but it's a little technical and you know, yeah.

Nik Tarascio

I'd love to even go into that again, like, look, I did biology class and all that stuff. And I've even gone to the bodies exhibit, if you've ever seen that, where they like melt away parts of people's bodies. I think it was like, it was it was a Chinese exhibit, I believe, actually. And I got to see what the nervous system looks like, if it was just like, it's the craziest thing. Just seeing all the network of everything. And then like, the eyes and like, wow, like, is that all we? Are we just a nervous system with a bunch of other stuff built around it to support that system? Yeah, yeah. And I'm wondering, like, again, like taking the very practical approach to this as what really is the nervous system, from your perspective, like, again, beyond just like signals moving around to the body? There

Courtney Rolfe

are so many directions to take that like, what is the lived experience of having a nervous system versus what are the actual nerves, part of what we one of the catching things you probably come across when you you know, hear about polyvagal theory is the vagus nerve, right? The vagus nerve is is pretty hot stuff right now. And so that's part of this autonomic nervous system that we're talking about, we have a central nervous system and an autonomic nervous system, which has its own sort of like set of branches. And that's what we're talking about with polyvagal theory. And we have kind of two branches of it. One is that vagus nerve.

So when we hear about vagus nerve hacks, or heal your vagus nerve, and things like that, they're sort of sort of kind of talking about polyvagal theory. And then we have the, that's the parasympathetic side. And then we have sympathetic nervous system, which we actually most of us know a lot about already without realizing it, because that is what we learned about our stress response. So that's when we learn about, you know, why is it bad to be stressed all the time?

Well, it's hard on the heart, right? We have cortisol, adrenaline, it's, you know, raises our blood pressure, all of those things so that we're more familiar with our fight or flight system. The other side of things, there's some different, you know, takes on what's going on with the other branch of the nervous system. And that's where polyvagal theory kind of steps aside from some of the things we thought we knew about the nervous system and what we actually are speculating about its function and its purpose and everything now that we know a little bit more.

Nik Tarascio

So it sounds like then you don't really getting to the idea that you're focused a lot on the system, when you say autonomic. And again, just to like really dumb that down, is it fair to say like almost subconscious, automatic,

Courtney Rolfe

Automatic is a great replacement word, it's not exactly what it means. But we can absolutely substitute the word automatic, because that is absolutely what's happening. So our nervous system is constantly taking in cues of either danger or safety, essentially, from our environment, from within our own bodies, especially from other people, and other people's nervous systems. And it's taking that information in not on a conscious level, not on any kind of conscious awareness level, but automatically as a body process, taking into detecting this information and then responding in a physiological way, to whatever cues it's getting.

So if it's a cue of safety, that you know, somebody really warm is smiling at us, or we're with somebody really comfortable, or we see a beautiful rainbow and beautiful sky, our system will respond to that safety. And that might mean my heart rate slows down, or my muscles relax, or I can, you know, sit back in my chair, or I'm not as hyper vigilant looking around, I can, you know, rest into a moment. Or if I get some kind of cue of danger, I'm not danger, like I'm going to get eaten by a bear or something. But just danger. Like somebody's posture is a little odd or a noise, that I don't understand its origin comes into the environment or something, my my system is also going to detect that and automatically create physiological change so that my system is ready all the time to give me the internal resources I need to survive if I need it, right.

So we're constantly in this fluctuating kind of pretty complex, but always working automatic response system, where our, you know, the vagus nerve taps into all of our major organs, it's regulating our heart rate our lungs, it goes through our diaphragm, like it's doing a lot of work to create homeostasis in our body. So when we're safe, our body is in homeostasis. Everything is working as like our ultimate plan, design, whatever you want to, you know, refer to it as and as soon as we get some kind of cue of state of danger or something. Everything head to toe kind of shifts, maybe a little bit, maybe a lot. It just kind of depends, but it's all automatic. Has nothing to do with our thinking brain process. happens well, before the brain gets any, any information, these things are happening.

And definitely well before we can make up a story about what's happened, which is basically what happens. The nervous system detects safety or danger, there's a physiological response that happens automatically. And then that information travels up. And we use our prefrontal cortex, you know, up here, the space behind our forehead was highly evolved part of our brain, we create a narrative, we try to make sense of that physiological response. So that's where a lot of our stories come from, and some are maybe kind of accurate, and a lot of them are not accurate at all.

Nik Tarascio

So that's where like, I'm gonna go a couple different ways here. Number one, I remember once someone said to me, it was a person who like, I think his job was to support executives that get death threats from their employees. And so like he was training us, like, as an executive, you should be prepared for something go sideways and know how to survive if you are in especially a large company where some percentage of people might be nuts. Right, like, and I thought that was interesting.

And the thing he said to me that really moved me was, he's like, if you're a hair stands up on the back of your neck, you then get the hell out of wherever you are, is like, you don't know why. But that like is indicative of like, you are actually physically threatened by something. And I was like, well, that's really interesting. I never thought of like, is there this automatic system in my body? That is saying, like, I don't know how the hell in my rational mind, I feel that about someone, but I assessed someone within a split second. And I was like, I need to escape this environment. I don't know why. So is that some of what you're talking about?

Courtney Rolfe

Absolutely. 100%? It is. Yeah. And because really, when we kind of look at what the nervous system is tracking, especially if we're talking about between two people, one of the really cool parts, that really is kind of specific to polyvagal theory is the realization that there's this linking up that happens of all these nerves that go into the face and into the mouth and into the muscles in the eye and the ears and the vocal box. And so basically, are the voice box, we are communicating through the subtlest, subtlest things, safety or danger to somebody else, welcome or warning, you know, so I can we can have a conversation.

And if I just like squint my eyes a tiny little bit, you might not consciously proceed on doing it. But you might have noticed your nervous system just for a little second, go, whoa, wait, Ha, what, what does happen, right, because it's automatic. And it doesn't matter. Even though I gave you the context of what I was doing, when I did it, your nervous system that's going to respond anyway, because it's not a horrible process. It isn't an automatic process. So we're picking up on so many things that are informing our system, and then it's going to express itself in something like a heart rate that's elevated or goosebumps, you know, we're maybe a felt sense, like anxiety, or some some kind of sensation in your chest or, you know, something like sweating muscle, whatever it is. And so that means that our system has detected some kind of danger, where we might get a little, you know, yes, and is maybe a little more in my world where I work with people who have trauma.

And not a lot of people are walking around on the planet without some kind of trauma. If we want to sort of like define that work, we we could ask 1000 different clinicians what they define trauma as and get more than 1000 definitions of it. But for the most part, when we experienced something where we needed a survival state response, at any point in our lives, our body remembers that. And we get set some implicit memory around just some of the random context around whatever happened. And our system is designed for survival. So when I come across that same like, clue or cue, or trigger or whatever we want to call it, or maybe something kind of similar, my system knows, to put my to put my whole body into a survival state and get ready. So I all of a sudden have a rapid heart rate. I don't know what it is.

Nine out of 10 times it could be because the person across from me castledawson shady vibes, and I might not consciously know what it is, but my system is telling me no way. And there's also room for my body may have kind of encoded some cue a danger that we could then call like unresolved trauma that's coming up and we don't understand why. You know, I had anxiety when I'm walking down a peaceful Street. There's a trigger in there somewhere, you know, or it might be within myself that or something but something has cued the nervous system to react and get me ready for some kind of survival. So it's a both and right doesn't mean there's something to Pay attention to absolutely doesn't mean it's necessarily in that room. Let's just go with Yes. And get out of there. And then we can like, you know, take it to therapy and utilize it later and figure out accurate. But yeah, that's, that's when we think about gut instinct or, you know, a gut a felt sense or a gut sense of something like, yeah, that's what we're talking about. Definitely.

Nik Tarascio

So I know a lot of times people talk about like, hey, this person is really intuitive. And that one's more in their head, like, we're really talking about then understanding. You know, that connection, whether it's polyvagal theory, or just connection to the autonomic nervous system, can you be home to vacate that felt sense that intuition? Like, is that part of what polyvagal is doing? Is it giving us the tools to be able to cultivate that?

Courtney Rolfe

Yes, I love that question. Yeah, absolutely. Because what we're now doing is we are giving ourselves a path to get out of the story in the narrative. If we just stay there, we're missing a whole huge part of our experience. When we start to pay attention to our nervous system. Now we're starting to pay attention to our bodies, and our body experience. And for anyone who has trauma that isn't always a very safe place to be or anyone who's used to being Go, go, go go, slowing down and tuning in is really hard. It's been really hard for me as well, it is not I am not a yogi, I do not, you know, meditate, a lot being embodied has been a journey. But I think it's one that a lot of people find in their own journey, that the more we can become aware of our body experience and start to understand what's happening. We have a much more I guess, comprehensive understanding of what our own experiences we get stay in our head, that's actually you know, kind of easy. It's a go to for a lot of people. But I think becoming embodied I do I kind of think it's our life's work. I think it's part of our journey, to create that connection and communication. Yeah.

Nik Tarascio

So I'm going to ask a question that I mean, hopefully you're okay to go down this road, wounded healer archetype. Do you identify with that for yourself?

Courtney Rolfe

My Yeah, wounded healer. I have a colleague who other wounded healer podcast, which is really funny. We just chatted recently wounded healer? I don't know I'm that's a tough one to answer. I'm not sure how to answer that. I was asked this question recently. And I think I really didn't know how to answer it then either.

Nik Tarascio

We can excavate if you'd like.

Courtney Rolfe

I think that I think clinicians, I think there are certain types of people who do have the propensity to sort of sit with others, hardships and trauma. And I think a lot of that does come from that person going through their own journey, and learning their own capacity. I know that a really critical piece of my ability to show up for my clients is my ability to be attuned to my body, I need to know where I am, I need to know where my nervous system is. And be very aware of it at the same time that I'm aware of the person sitting across from, and that is a skill to be developed. And not I'm not saying all clinicians are, you know, there yet, or that therapy is bad without that. But for me, I've learned in order to be an effective therapist, I need to have done my work to do that.

Nik Tarascio

So can you give us kind of the check in what would you like right now, in this moment? Can you tell us like when you drop in, you're sitting across from me virtually, you're on a podcast? Like I'm actually wondering what a status report to yourself would even sound like?

Courtney Rolfe

Well, that's a great question. I love it. Well, when you were saying that I found myself just noticing, oh, yeah, I have a body and it's supported by a chair. And so as you're talking, I'm just aware that like, I have a chair under me, and it's supporting me, and it's making contact with my legs, and it's making contact with the small mind back and supporting me. And so even just that is is going to be enough to allow me to remember and say, oh, yeah, I have a physical body, I am here in this space in myself, and hearing what you have to say and connecting at the same time. And I also was aware of there's a little bit of sort of taking deep breath to breathe into that space so that I can feel a bit of that kind of moving energy that's right here that is part of that. You know, we talked about the two branches of the nervous system. The one that gives us energy is really active right now for me, because I need to be on right I need to be I need to have energy in my system to speak in an engaging way. And so I can feel that in my body and for me, particularly right now in this moment. I can feel it. hear like in my upper chest as a bit of a movement. So it's that physical sensation that clues me into what is happening in my system.

Nik Tarascio

So once you map like the physical sensations in the body, let's just assume you're like, Okay, I could feel my heart rate, I feel the warmth of my body, I feel the chair. Is there additional information from the like the physiological response, then can you draw that to like, I now understand my emotional experience, because I understand the physiological signaling,

Courtney Rolfe

let me back up one step, which is one of the one of the structures that I think is really important to understand the nervous system and how it's working. And how we're going to interpret it in the first place, is that there are essentially, it's more complex than this. But at face, I mean, at one level, we can understand that we have three basic nervous system states. So we have one that is our newest, most highly evolved newest meaning 200 million years old. And that is our, our state that allows us to be socially engaged. So the technical word that you might come across at different points on pontic dock, or whatever articles and things it we refer to it as ventral vagal. So they go meaning like part of the vagus nerve like one section of the vagus nerve. And so that's when we are able to connect socially, my heart rate is like at the right pace that it needs to be everything is working and homeostasis in my body, and I am able to be open, I'm not hypervigilant, I can be creative, I can be hopeful, I can be relaxed, I can be energized and enthusiastic, but I'm connected to the world and I'm connected to myself, all those neuro circuits are, are firing to allow me to feel okay, doesn't have to be joyous to her on cloud nine, but I feel okay.

What happens is, when we get enough of a threat, that our, you know, social engagement or something doesn't resolve it, my system is going to shift into a completely different physiological state. And the first one, it's the same for everybody, we always, always, always are going to follow this predictable path of, as soon as I'm not regulated in ventral vagal, my system is going to take me into a mobilized state. So it might last a second, or it might last quite a long time, everybody's system is different. And all the needs are different. But that's what we think of with, like fight or flight, for example, that a lot, we might call it anxiety, we might call it panic attack, we might call it anger outbursts. But that response that brings us the elevated heart rate and the cortisol and the adrenaline and the glucose boost in the muscle tension in the sweating, and the tunnel vision and the rumination like all that energized kind of response, it's beautiful. When we need it, if I need to get away from a tiger that's about to eat me for lunch or something,

I would like to have all my muscle energy, I want to have my line of sight focused only on the threat and my escape route. I don't want to be distracted by anything else, I don't want to think about anything else, I need all the energy in my body I possibly can have. So I can get out of there. Or I can struggle to get out of the situation and get myself to sleep. The mobilization is amazing. Where it doesn't feel amazing is when I'm at work, and I open up my emails, and there's 100 out of them and my heart starts to pound or when I have to have a meeting with somebody who, you know, the stakes are high, and my system starts giving me adrenaline and then all of a sudden, I can't sleep very well or speak very well, because my brain seems to have gotten scrambled, right. That's also when we go into a survival state. And we lose our homeostasis. And we're operating them out of a sense of urgency and mobilization. And like, uh, you know, gotta do do do, you know, got act. And that does take a toll on the body. And I think a lot of people and a lot of leaders live in that space, because we certainly can get stuff done when we're that mobilize. But it's, you know, it's important to find our way back to let our systems settle. Yeah.

And then if that doesn't resolve the threat that mobilized response, there's a third response that we will the second I guess, survival response, a third state that we can go to, and this is the one that's really important and unique that polyvagal theory brings, we can go into shutdown. So we can go into collapse. So if you think about again, if I'm running away from a tiger, and hopefully I can run and now in my brain, I'm an antelope, right. That's the example I use. If I'm an antelope and I'm running away from Tiger, if that tiger catches me, I'm only going to struggle for a second maybe because it's not going to do me any good that mobilizers bounce. If the Tigers already got me, it's only going to mess me up even worse. So what am I going to do, I'm going to, I'm going to collapse, I'm going to just stop, I'm going to do a 180. And instead of energy output, I'm going to conserve energy. Because if I'm about to get attacked by this lion or tiger, whatever it is, I don't want to bleed out. You know, like, I also want to become as uninteresting to this predator as much as possible.

Like, there's a lot of reasons but my heart rates gonna slow, my blood pressure is gonna drop, I'm gonna get a bit of a spacey disconnection from my psychological state or my brain, I'm going to get natural opioids into my body so that I can not feel pain as much there's like a numbness that can happen. And so, again, if I'm getting eaten by a tiger, yes, please, I would like that response. Because that sounds great, right? Maybe I'll live to see another day, or I won't feel pain or whatever. When we go into that state in our day to day, it doesn't feel so great. It's not so helpful. It's helpful in a survival sense. But it doesn't help us, you know, get stucked on it doesn't help. We're very far from being able to connect with others. We may have no energy, we might call it depression. zoning out tuning out, you know, going through the motions, maybe even dissociation because that's a big part of that survival state.

And the thing is, we go in and out of these states all day long, every day, all of us have already traveled up and down this, I'm going to call it a ladder. That's from Deb Dana's work, she kind of translated the very intense theory into some language we can understand, which is where I've learned everything I know pretty much just from typing, or just, we travel up and down this ladder through these autonomic nervous system state all the time, every day, so it's not an it's not a win. Or it's not an if I go into survival state, it's when. And so learning to pay attention to how does my body Express sympathetic nervous system mobilize response? How does my body express that shutdown? That's what I'm tracking? That's what I'm learning to pay attention to.

So that I know am I okay? Am I in connection right now? Or if I just like disappeared? Or am I so anxious? I'm like just steamrolling whatever the conversation is, you know, so that's sort of the, to tie it back to like, what do we do with that information? We want to learn where is my nervous system? And if it's in a place that's not that connected, regulated place, then I get to get curious about what, why and what do I need? Because then we can go into sort of, you know, how do I regulate my state, which is different for everybody? What was that long answer?

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, no, and I'm not done trying to chase you to share more personal stuff on your side. We're not We're not we'll come back to that in a second. But I am curious to kind of draw back as you were talking about those systems, I almost wonder like when I perform on stage, especially when I was younger, and I was first starting to perform. Again, as soon as I thought I was gonna go up on stage adrenaline like crazy. And I would almost like my could sing higher. I could go bigger energy I can't do. Like, I can't do that stuff in my normal course of my day. But I'd almost become this like battery on stage. But then I've witnessed people that I almost wonder if they overshot.

And they just froze like, you see stage fright where someone gets up there and they just freeze. And it's like, they're all waiting. Yeah. Why aren't you performing? So it almost sounds like on some level, that that second system that you were talking about when there's a perceived threat, which is for me, I didn't want to fail. I didn't want to be embarrassed or ashamed on stage. But it made me super energetic and almost became my stage persona. Yeah, I could see where if someone was like I'm overshooting into the full shutdown mode conserve energy, like I'm getting eaten by the tiger, even though it's really just an audience. I'm in front of, like, it's an interesting lens to look through. Because I'm like, Well, I never, I never understood that. That's actually what was happening in my system, because I could never fake it. That's the other thing. I could never get that energy.

Like if I tried to record music. I'm like, I can't get that. I don't know how to get it now hearing. It's an automatic system, potentially. That was in service of me. Yeah, I am very curious to know if someone is starting to monitor go wow, I feel that first. Tee are kicking in. Like what are some of the things like besides the like, I'm feel myself in the chair, and I'm starting to feel my body and I know I'm safe because I'm here. What else can someone do to keep that system from running away in an environment that we rationally know we're actually not threatened?

Courtney Rolfe

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, the more we can learn that this is an automatic response. It's not a moral judgment. There's no the nervous system doesn't make judgment. It is just an automatic, physiological, logical response. That makes sense. We don't have to know all the things that have led up to that moment to know why it makes sense, but we can trust the design of the system that is ancient. That there is a reason it's responding the way it's yours. Finding and that alone can free us up of all the I mean, how many people have the experience of they're anxious, but they can't really figure out why and what are the messages then we give ourselves what's wrong with me, I don't understand just backed up or man up or about, you know, or like, I'm broke. I mean, so many things that is the source of so many of our really awful, you know, mean stories about ourselves are critical, I should say, really critical stories about ourselves that we have, and so that alone to come to terms with and create some kind of peaceful relationship with our nervous system, a trusting relationship, that if my nervous system is going bonkers, right now, there's a reason I might not have access to all the information.

But I can trust that there's a reason and now I just need to figure out what I need to downshift that system. So this is where it gets, this is not the answer that you want to hear. I know it's not because it's not the answer anyone wants to hear. And it's the opposite of what a lot of people will give you. There's absolutely no one way they're like, a deep breath might be so resourcing for me, and it is for a lot of people, because it kind of like triggers the calming hormones on board and stuff. But a deep breath is not the calming answer for everybody. So we never want to make an assumption about what is going to be calming for everyone, because it just doesn't work that way. So the important thing is to experiment and learn and start making a list of what are the things that I know, do call me down.

Maybe it's certain music, you know, maybe there's a playlist you can put together that you know, shifts your nervous system into like a calmer state when you need it to be calmer. Or maybe it have some breathing exercises. There are a few different types of breathing like long exhales or making some a humming sound or a moose that like stuff like that people do. Could be for some people, maybe it's the opposite. Maybe they need to, like do a really hard workout just to have a place for the energy to go. That's not always available to everybody, maybe no, maybe it means like temperature drops? I don't know, it's it's a wide range, and every person has that chance to kind of start experimenting with Will. Does it make me feel better when I do this? You know, or does it actually make it feel worse. And that's where we start is creating your own list. And same with the shutdown?

You know, if I'm just collapse, can't get out of bed, don't want to do anything, have no appetite? You know, whatever it is, what are the small things that are going to help me get back into my body and get some physicality into my system, you know, some motion or movement or something? Maybe it's just like, Oh, I know that I just need to like, move to a different room, or go outside and take a walk. I've had the capacity for that, or whatever it is. So it's really, everyone's list is gonna look different.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, I wonder in that case, I imagine a lot of people innately have learned, especially high performers, people running businesses, there's only so much you could cry on the floor before you're like, I need to figure out a way to interrupt this pattern when I'm really scared or everything's going sideways or have a big presentation or, you know, whatever ridiculous thing is happening. What is the benefit of learning polyvagal theory or something beyond just the like, I know, to like tap on my wrist or something like that? Or do this breathwork? Like what's what's the value of polyvagal theory applied? For someone who might be curious and saying like, yeah, like, what can I take from this to deepen my self awareness and my self mastery?

Courtney Rolfe

Well, you said a really important word in your question, which is like interrupting the pattern. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about nervous system patterns, responses. And so bringing awareness to it is exactly what allows us to interrupt the pattern. And so sometimes it doesn't matter what you do, it's just more important that you do something different. If every time this thing hits, and then I, I know that I yell and outbursts, and then I collapse on the floor, interrupt that, and what if we just, you know, have enough space in there to do something else? And start breaking up the patterns that are that are there? The benefit of of learning? All of this is? I don't know, you know, I guess just asking yourself is, is what I'm doing now working, gives it enough figured out because if you've figured out your own way, and you aren't caught in patterns that cause problems, or make things harder or that you can't figure out how to unstuck yourself from you know, if you fit if you figured that out and you found your way then maybe you don't need to you know, you found your own way.

Many people in in many different cultures for ages have used the wisdom of the assistants and and call it different things, right. So this is not read polyvagal theory is not new, it's just the expression, you know, we've been able to bring modern science and bring our modern medical terms and our western lens and everything to kind of put it together with a lot more specific information about what's happening in the physiology. But the actual information about the human experience, and what we're talking about isn't new at all. So people have figured out what works for them. And that's great. What I find is, people come to me when they're stuck. And when they continue to have some kind of either interruption to the really important things in their life or relationships in their life. Or they continue to experience an uncomfortable, I was about to use the word symptom, I don't like the word symptom, it pathologized as a normal human experience, they continue to experience some kind of uncomfortable sensation or something, and they can't figure it out.

That's when they come to me. And that's when they benefit from first learning the physiology. And then you create enough space you get out of the judgment, you get out of the shame. And you can actually just from more of a even assigns a big lens, figure out what works for you. And then you keep practicing and keep practicing. And you keep building that list until you can navigate and for me, I think it means it's not about just being in ventral vagal. It's not about just being regulated all the time, we really want those survival states, we have to have them, they're really important. And they're useful. It's when you get stuck in them, that life feels really hard. And we don't know our way back to get to a regulated place. So I think of it more of the benefit is we want to have flexibility. In moving up and down this ladder. We want flexibility in moving in and out of these survival states.

So when I go into sympathetic, I don't have to be scared of it sympathetic of that mobilized state, I don't have to be scared of it. I know there's a way back, my body knows how to get back to regulation. So I can kind of use what I know. One really helpful thing is just to like we kind of talked about before, really name, what are all the things that tells me I'm safe right now. You know, so looking around the room, I'm in the space that I love. And there are things that feel like a resource to me, and there's a beautiful window with a tree and you know, those things like bring safety into the system. And sort of that alone could be enough to shift somebody out. Maybe not maybe we need a lot of other things. But learning it is empowering each person to I guess, kind of take control. I don't love the that.

You know those words? Exactly. But it's the best I got right now like kind of to gain more direct influence over one's nervous system state so that you're not so stuck, you know, so we have some flexibility. That's really what I think of it's the definition of resilience, is that flexibility, that ability to kind of go into survival statement, find our way back and do that more and more quickly over time, and have less than less intense survival state responses over time.

Nik Tarascio

So is it fair to say like, again, we're talking about an automatic system, which inherently has a problem if the damn thing goes off the rails? Right? Like, you're like, dammit, I have this system that keeps on hijacking me throughout the day. And I don't know the inputs and outputs. I don't know where the buttons are, I don't know where the reset. I'd imagine on some level that the value is like, yeah, I want to have control of the system, which is serving me in some capacities, like in many capacities, I imagine, although I imagine the modern world is triggering survival responses that are completely invalid at times. Or maybe I shouldn't say the word invalid. I'm sure I'm gonna get the like wrist slap for do not invalidate anyone's experience. But I you know, again, I would imagine maybe is Yeah, that's right. It's not it's not in service of their mission or their goal. And so like, right, to really again, like a lot of this is, this is so in my wheelhouse. By the way, like, I love this stuff. I'm nerding out like I love all the all the terms. I would love to drill it down to like you as a person, you were drawn to this. And I would love to understand, like, what has it done for you? What were you struggling to understand? Was there some aspect of you that found this to be a saving grace or a real thing that that moved you forward? I'd love to hear it from a very specific lens of what did this do for you and why do you do it now?

Courtney Rolfe

Okay, I can I can I can answer the question.

Nik Tarascio

All right.

Courtney Rolfe

The academicpsychotherapist are the most skilled folks in the whole planet. To be able to not answer a question, but with a lot of really

Nik Tarascio

deflection that flexion mastery. Yeah.

Courtney Rolfe

What I and I share this with clients as well. And that's why I have no problem sharing it because I think it is helpful to hear the the real world sort of experience of it. And so for myself, when I started to learn first, when I went to my first training, it absolutely just turned my world upside down, I started looking at all my relationships, my choices, my world, what is supporting a regulated nervous system and what's not. So immediately I've got this lens of like, Oh, I got it. And then I took, you know, all of this into practice. And of course, my clients are also having these, like, you know, wow, my experience was not set out it was, and it was helpful. And when I continued to do the work, and learn and the thing about polyvagal theory, nervous system states is, I continue to discover depths of understanding that, like, I have these light bulb moments all the time, and I'm, I want to vote yours in,

Nik Tarascio

what's one of those like,

Courtney Rolfe

oh, I don't know, I have, gosh, I don't know if I can think of an exact example. Just the Oh, that was my nervous system. In this situation. You know, it just, it's these little discoveries that keep in it clicks in again, and again, and again, like more and more cumulatively, for me, what was the most powerful is, so dorsal vagal is that bottom, that shutdown, collapse state, that's what we call that one. And that's what we'll call depression, you know, when we get stuck there for a long amount of time, and we lose all of our sense of connection, or hope, or it's really tough place to get stuck. And anyone who's had a depressive episode knows, it can be pretty freakin scary. And so for me, my home away from home has dorsal, meaning when when life gets really stressful, some of us go to sympathetic and just are, you know, really, really anxious all the time. And some of us go into dorsal and just kind of check out. And so that's me, I go into dorsal more than sympathetic when life comes at me, as I did more and more of the work. I know that I had dorsal was very scary for me, because I have had those stuck times when, when, when I couldn't find my way, it was hard. It's really hard. You don't know your way out, I didn't have any tools or resources, I didn't even know what was happening on this type of like level of understanding. So I was doing the work and doing the work. And I kept kind of still waiting for the shoe to drop. And in a way, like, Okay, this is great. I know the nervous system, but I'm still gonna get stuck there. And I'm scared of it. And so the years went on, the years went on. And I started to realize, oh, I don't think it's actually going to happen. Because what was happening instead was one, I'm knowing my system so much better, that I'm able to. If I go into dorsal, I'm not actually scared of it anymore. I know what's happening.

And I know it's temporary, my system knows how to get back up, it might take a while. And I have had like situations where I got thrown into that place. And it doesn't feel good, even when you know what's going on all the beliefs and narratives and thoughts that come with it, you know, so all my competence will go out the window, and all of a sudden, I'm an imposter in my work. And all of a sudden, I'm no good and relationships and all those stories come along with it. But there's also this layer of awareness of, yeah, but I know what's happening. I know that this is a temporary place, because I understand the physiology. So I kept waiting and waiting for that big drop into the abyss of you know, a depressive episode, which I don't call it that anymore, because it's just a nervous system state. And it never happened anywhere close to the intensity, nor was I scared of it. So as I learned to interrupt my own nervous system patterns and processes and bring in some resource that combined with having a more nurturing, respectful relationship, I'm a nervous system on how to be scared of it. I need to be curious about it, and learn what I need, but don't be scared of it. It's doing its job. It's doing what it's designed to do.

You know, it's protecting me from something even if it feels uncomfortable, it is acting in service of survival and it's protecting. So shifting that relationship with my own nervous system and my own physiological response, like those two things, absolutely have shifted that and it's years and years now.

Nik Tarascio

I think the thing I hear the most from people in New York, you know, whether friends or just, you know, when we're like bullshitting I always ask deep questions when I'm not supposed to. You know, a lot of people say they're either depressed or anxious. So I could say like, it's most things get reduced to that. And I am curious. Is, is, so you're saying depression is this dorsal vagal state? And yeah, anxiety is the sympathetic state.

Courtney Rolfe

Look, I probably would get kicked out of a lot of therapy circles. But I would be invited into a lot of other things like I, I kind of mentioned, before we started, I just came from this on big trauma conference where we had some of our biggest leaders in in trauma, and, you know, all things psychotherapy. And this is the shift that the whole industry is going, this is the direction we are taking our turn toward. So for a long time, I've considered myself a bit of an outlier, in the therapy world in the therapist world, because this is not the language that everybody speaks. But more and more people are putting the pieces together and including it into the you know, it's not that therapy doesn't work without this. But having this information really supports the therapeutic work that people are already doing, it really helps it move along. And so I am a little bit of an outlier, in that I don't use terms like depression, I don't use terms like anxiety, because I think it pathologize is very sensical, understandable, normal human experience.

And I would take that even broader to if we want to use labels like borderline personality disorder, or narcissism or, you know, all kinds of different things that we would find. And what we know is that the DSM, which has all our diagnostic labels, I believe that seeing things through the lens of pretty much everything in there is is a different expression of a nervous system that is in different states of dysregulation, or various, you know, stages of dysregulation and regulation or something, we can we can see it through that lens and understand it through that lens. And when we stop pathologizing normal human experience, we actually get some hope. We actually can start working with what we've gotten, we're not stuck in these labels. And in these, you know, as soon as we put a label on it, we start getting curious about what's behind it and in what's causing it what's going on. So I'm not a big fan of diagnostic labels.

Nik Tarascio

That's huge. I mean, I could imagine if someone said to me, I'm anxious, it'd be to respond with, oh, you're just someone who goes into the sympathetic state and doesn't yet know how to get yourself out of it. Like it's like, but like, there's something to that, right. It's like, Hey, I love that of instead of like, making this something other than what it is, it's, you are having the experience of an elevated nervous system, where you have having the experience of a shutdown nervous system.

Yeah, like or, like, there's something really beautiful about that, because it does start to put the power back with like, hey, no one showed you how this system runs, right? No one ever taught you how to manage the machinery and be like putting someone in a car and saying, yeah, go go race, the Indy 500. Like, let's slow down. And I love that, Rob, it's all your fault, because you're broke. That's right. Going back, because you talked about like in your intro, when I talk about self compassion. Yeah, I am. On a 2023, for me has been the self compassion year. Because I'm like, you know, it's one thing to say like, like you said, like, I'm anxious. But then I shame myself for the fact that I'm anxious instead of saying like, no, that's my body's response to normal inputs that I don't quite understand or external factors that are don't yet understand. I love that it's really taking the power back into your system is actually working exactly as it was designed. Yeah, we just don't yet understand it. And so let's get curious and figure out what's going on. So I love that I really like now we're getting to the stuff that I'm just like, hallelujah, like this is really what I think it's all about is getting away from all these really limiting belief systems that are disempowering. It's super disempowering for a lot of people that I've spoken to. I think this is the perfect jump off point for fulfillment in life and satisfaction.

Courtney Rolfe

Can I add one more thing, always. There's another really important part of polyvagal theory that we need to name, which is CO regulation, which is, as humans were designed to connect with each other. And that brings us nurturing and regulation and all of that and we are caught we are basically navigating the world, either communicating welcome or communicating warning with with our body posture, face or voice, everything. And when we receive those cues of safety from someone else, it regulates our system, it calms our stress. So I want to name that because it's a huge part of what we want to do with this information as well. We need community we need connection, we there's a biological imperative, we must have it for survival. And so you know, somewhere in there, maybe that's like, you know, part two of our conversation we could talk about CO regulation for the whole An hour because it's really rich. And so I just don't want

Nik Tarascio

to my favorite topics now, because I just read Terry reels book us. He gets really into that CO regulation piece. And I'm like, wow, that's something I've not done well, because I think my, my, you know, my autonomic nervous system has been so hijacked. And I've just been so like, I didn't have the body connection. So as I'm coming into my body, I'm like, Oh, shit, I didn't know that my inability to co regulate us because I'm, I came really myself like I am, like, just so disconnected from who I am. I don't have that sense. And I might probably saying it all wrong. And you're probably like, Nick, that's sort of how it went, Well, okay,

Courtney Rolfe

what what I just want to add is maybe create a little more space for the thing isn't do co regulate, maybe you're aware of the times that it's hard, you know, but there are times that you do co regulate perfectly well, and that maybe it's something you struggle with. So just some of the language has limited, and it isn't really probably reflective of your actual experience, because even right now we're co regulating, I can feel it regulated, we're good. We're in connection, right. So you do have the ability to co regulate. So that's, that's, that's what I what I do

Nik Tarascio

know, but I really do think this concept of so many people again, like, I speak mostly to New York, but also like I spend a lot of time traveling, I spent a lot of time with again, people that are running businesses, high high high stress, right, like more stress, than the average person should be taking on more responsibility and fear just constantly, I've noticed that a lot of those people, and I'm, you know, again, I self described as one of them have really struggled in romantic partnership, where I think autoregulation is super, super critical, super, super critical. And that does kind of lean towards some people like I don't really find relationships to be that fulfilling. And it's like, oh, there seems to be a co regulation problem here. There seems to be or a denial of something. And again, whether it's co regulation polyvagal theory, I am very curious about how you think all of this ties to fulfillment and satisfaction in life. Going back to my prior question.

Courtney Rolfe

Yeah, okay.

Nik Tarascio

Small question I know, but

Courtney Rolfe

the thing with it for a moment, our realities are limited to the survival state that we're in. Our stories are limited to the survival state we're in. So if I'm in a sympathetic nervous system, mobilized state, basically, my story is going to be aligned with the world. It's dangerous, nobody's there for me, you know, who just got my back, I'm all on my own. I gotta fight my way out of here. Everything's dangerous, right? So that is my reality. In that state, where in there is room for connection, or safety or intimacy or anything, right? Same with dorsal, what is the story that goes along with dorsal now that we know the physiology, it is it's hopeless, I'm helpless, there's no way out, doesn't matter, I give up the world is irrelevant. I don't even exist, right. It's all that kind of stuff. Where in there is the neurocircuitry for connection, it's not lit up, we still have a vagus nerve in our body, but it is not firing. Only in that regulated state. Do we have the neuro circuits that allow us to feel connected, fulfilled, at peace at ease, safe enough to be open to life, you know, so it really kind of is a bit of a black and white, it can't be it's either or, you know, I'm either in a place of connection, or I'm in a place of protection. It doesn't I mean, there's, we can get into some of the finer details, but for the most part, the circuitry only allows one or the other. And so if I'm existing in a survival state of mobilization, because I'm the CEO of a huge company, and I'm taking on too much, and baba, baba, bah, unless we're really intentional in giving our system a freakin break. You know, like finding the spaces where we can let our system just downshift a bit. We're not we're not going to have the space for contentment, or fulfillment are ease or peace or connection or empathy or compassion, or self compassion or creativity or any of those things can't both exist.

Nik Tarascio

Now that's, well thought like that, as well thought out. I had no idea which way you're gonna go with that. But that is

Courtney Rolfe

Me neither. Yeah.

Nik Tarascio

No, that's great. It really is an incredible diagnostic. I think that's what today's talk was about. And I think, you know, we're just coming up to the point where we land the conversation. Yeah. But this was a much more technical than my typical podcast, and I really wanted it to go there because it's amazing to find out that many of us are run by a system that we don't even know we have. We don't know how it works. We don't know what it's doing, but the amount of conversations I have with people Almost everything that they're struggling with comes back to a system that they don't even know. Right? Whether it's like I can't make relationships or I'm stressed out, I don't have real intimacy, or I think the world is out to get me I never feel safe. Or I'm anxious. I'm pissed off. Like, it's like, it's amazing. Like all of that. I'm like, wow, these all touch. Yes. polyvagal theory, the nervous system. And we're not really having that conversation. Instead, we're pathologizing medicated shaming. Yeah,

Courtney Rolfe

it is unbelievable. My work here is done.

Nik Tarascio

Yeah, well done, well done with getting that point across. So what I will say is, before I kind of share some closing thoughts and some opportunities, and, you know, just, I'm going to ask you some ways that people can learn more about this work, if they're down that road, what is your dream beyond? So here you are, you're doing this amazing work, you're helping people. What gets you excited about the future?

Courtney Rolfe

I am so excited about how many people are interested in this and the fact that it has landed in my geeky zone as well, because now I the more and more have a platform to be able to share this. So I am absolutely on a mission of bringing this information to clinicians and laypeople and everybody else in between. Because I see I see the change, I see how powerful it is. So that's, that's where I am. So I'm just trying, I'm trying to get out there speaking more. And there are a lot of resources. And hopefully I'll be part of the contribution to the resources that are available for people to learn more

Nik Tarascio

incredible. Yes. That's it's beautiful work. It's really beautiful, important work. So thank you for doing what you do. And yeah, you know, again, I think my my closing thought for self and building on my 2023 is, this really does seem to be an incredibly powerful way to cultivate that self compassion and self understanding the self awareness like it's just it touches on so many things, like I said, just just a little bit before. And truly I came on this thing, like I've heard the words I've read about it. You know, I always like know a little bit more than I pretend like I know, on the podcast, so I could just ask us if I didn't know anything, but I really didn't understand this. I'll be honest, this is one of those things that I'm like, lots of words, dorsal fins. I've heard of those before, what the hell does like there's ventral fins like what is his we talked about fishes now. Like, I was very confused, and not really like coming to that place of of like, wow, this is so much more important than I ever realized. And I think you've done a great job of giving us a lot of context, some of the technical stuff, but then really getting into the deeper why of to really know how you show up in every circumstance. And to have that self mastery. This seems like a great area of knowledge to to wander into. And just as a, you know, inviting other people that might be like, Okay, I'm it. I'm curious, I want to I want to learn this. I want to spread the message. You told me some some websites you'd recommend and some of your own as well. But what recommend, what recommendations do you have for people that are like, yep, Sign me up? Where do I go? What do I do?

Courtney Rolfe

Oh, my God, I plug my own publications coming out under percent? percent. I'm not sure if it's November, January. I've actually partnered so my mentor is Deb. Dana. So I mentioned her at the beginning on Dr. Porges, steam kortesis, who came up with a theory. And then Deb, Dina translated it for us. And she's my mentor, and now, you know, colleague and CO creator on all kinds of stuff. And so we've actually created, she's written a bunch for clinicians and others. And we created sort of, it really wanted to create something for non clinical people just for folks who want to learn more. And so we created sort of like kind of like a journal, kind of like a little intro like, reflection questions, things like that. So it's called polyvagal prompts. And I think that's out in, we're in 2023, either November or January, somewhere in between measure. So that is a great entry point to just start getting curious about your system. Other than that, Deb, Dana is a great source. She's got a couple of books that are really easy to pick up and read. Anchored is one Pauline Eagle Institute is a place that has some like courses and things. So that's where they take Polly they go into all kinds of different directions in all kinds of different industries. You know, I'm a clinician I mostly speak to clinicians

Nik Tarascio

are your website, modern mind and heart.com? Or a modern mind

Courtney Rolfe

and heart? Yeah, where are usually that's kind of like any trainings coming up and speaking events, things like that. And you know, maybe I'll start putting some podcasts interviews up there one of these days. Gary, hearing Deborah, very cool conversations about it. So yeah,

Nik Tarascio

amazing. Well, I really appreciate everything you shared. And I was, again, maybe it is a co regulation thing. I was excited by your excitement for it. It felt myself like going into almost like I'm on stage. I feel like I'm performing. And it's not just because it's a podcast, because you really seem super, super drawn to this work, and you're just so elevated by it. So thank you for bringing so much heart to it.

Courtney Rolfe

Yeah. Thanks for having me. So much fun. Awesome. I

Nik Tarascio hope everybody He enjoyed and yeah, we'll see you again soon. Thank you for listening to the dream beyond. I hope that you receive whatever message or inspiration you're meant to get from today's episode. Had a great time recording it for you. If you love the show, please take 30 seconds to subscribe rate and review it. That really helps get the word out. And if you want to connect with me, you can find me at

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