Anchored Quotes

“Take a moment and find something that reminds you of the feeling of being anchored in regulation and then put it somewhere you’ll see it as you move through your day.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The cycle of reciprocity, rupture, and repair is the nature of healthy relationships”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“We hope that if we disappear, become invisible, and don’t feel what’s happening or inhabit where we are, we will survive. We escape into not knowing, not feeling, and a sense of not being.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“can also intentionally manipulate. Breath is a direct pathway to our autonomic nervous system, making it both a regulating resource and an activator of our survival states.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Using the examples above, the sentence that emerges from a dorsal state of collapse, “I’m so tired, I could give up,” could be changed to, “I’m so tired, I could rest for a bit.” The sentence that is fueled by sympathetic activation, “I’m so angry, I could scream,” might become “I’m so angry, I could take a break and come back in a while.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“A glimmer can be a micro-moment that’s predictably present in your world.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“You can use the following questions to begin to listen from the outside in: Where am I? (Locate yourself in time and space.) What’s happening in the environment? Who is around? What am I doing? What state has been activated? Notice that the questions are designed to evoke curiosity, identify concrete external experiences, and lead you to identifying your autonomic state. Use these five questions to practice listening from the outside in.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Autonomic listening is inextricably linked with the need for self-compassion.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The normal breathing rate for adults is between twelve and twenty breaths per minute. An easy way to find your breath rate is by counting your exhalations over the course of a minute.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When we know where we predictably find glimmers, we can make a practice of returning to those places and experiencing the ventral vagal energy they offer. Keep a glimmer notebook or find a place to note them in your journal.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Setting an intention is a way to support this new practice. My glimmer intention is to look for the glimmers that are on my path today waiting for me to find them.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Reflection practices strengthen our connection to self.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The cycle of reciprocity, rupture, and repair is the nature of healthy relationships.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The ability to flexibly move between states is a sign of well-being and resilience. It is when we are caught in dysregulation, unable to find our way back to regulation, that we feel distress.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“It is when we are caught in dysregulation, unable to find our way back to regulation, that we feel distress.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“you have a list of endless demands? Do you feel like you have responsibilities that keep adding up no matter what you do? Notice your body’s response to this sympathetically fueled state.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Persistent experiences like being surrounded by difficult people, living in a place that feels unsafe, or working in an environment that feels toxic can bring an ongoing cortisol response that feels like a swirl of energy and leaves you in an unending, and unattainable, search for calm.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“nervous”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Eighty percent of the information coming from our vagal pathways flows from the body to the brain in what we call afferent pathways, while 20 percent returns from the brain to the body in what we call efferent pathways. (An easy way to remember the two terms is afferent arrives and efferent exits.) The brain takes the information that it receives from the body and turns it into a story to make sense of what’s happening in the body.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Look around your daily living environment and find your personal connection place.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“In survival mode, the dorsal vagus takes us out of awareness, out of connection, and into collapse and immobilization. In this survival state, we feel disconnected and numb and have the experience of being here but not here and the sense of going through the motions of life without really caring.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The information carried along this vagal pathway travels in two directions, with 80 percent of the information going from the body to the brain and 20 percent from the brain to the body. When we are disconnected from our bodies, we are also disconnected from the ability to tune in to the important information being sent from the body to the brain through the vagal pathway.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When choice is limited or taken away, or when we have a sense of being stuck or trapped without options, we begin to look for a way out. In this search for survival we may feel the mobilizing energy of the sympathetic system with some form of anxiety or anger, or we may feel our energy draining as we are pulled into a dorsal vagal collapse.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“On the days we’re not anchored in ventral safety, as we move through the world we broadcast cues of danger.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Connection begins with a neuroception of safety. From an anchor in ventral, we are a welcoming, safe presence for the people around us.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Deep listening is only possible when we are anchored in ventral safety.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Share your plan: Remembering that the nervous system looks for and”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Write your plan: Bring your intention and visualizations into concrete form.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Critical visualization: What are the challenges you’ll have to navigate?”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Process visualization: Process visualization gets you from here to there. Staying”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory