Anchored Quotes

“Create an image: Seeing is believing. Imagery is a thought with sensory qualities.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

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

“Create an image: Seeing is believing. Imagery”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Follow these four steps to creating your personal launch plan: 1.​Set the intention: Write your intention.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Our interactions with others are guided by the question, “What does their nervous system need in this moment to feel safe?”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“We are able to stand up for what we believe in and ask for what we need from a place of regulation rather than from a state of protection.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“As we find our way to anchoring in ventral regulation, we begin to experience more physical well-being.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Inside the Circle: Spiritual”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Inside the Circle: Mental”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“In this relational realm, if you don’t feel filled by the action and connection, or it doesn’t lead you to a ventral state, it doesn’t belong in your self-care circle.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Move to the relational quadrant. If you’re using markers, choose a different color for this quadrant, and on the inside of the circle, write the things you do with others that are moments of self-care.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“As you create your self-care circle, you only want to add activities that truly bring you to a ventral state or deepen your experience there.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When self-care is guided by the autonomic nervous system, there are two essential questions to consider: “What does my nervous system need in this moment?” and “Is what I’m doing nourishing my nervous system?” Attending to these two questions is the foundation for creating sustainable, autonomically sensitive self-care practices”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Saying “should” or “shouldn’t” to ourselves is common when we begin to look at self-care. However, these words transmit a demand, not an invitation, a cue of danger not a needed and nourishing message.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Practicing self-care is often confused with being selfish. If we look through the lens of the nervous system, self-care is based in ventral vagal safety and connection while being selfish emerges from a survival state.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When we make an intention and set a goal for our practice without making an agreement that includes our autonomic nervous system, we often don’t follow through — not because we don’t want to, but because our biology doesn’t support it.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Through the simple steps of tuning in, taking in, and tending to, we gather the information needed to create a nourishing action.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Create an intention to beam benevolence.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Each moment of stillness is a moment that nourishes your nervous system.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Biologically, stillness is a blend of autonomic states where the two branches of the vagus, the oldest dorsal and newest ventral, work together so we can immobilize without fear.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Offering and receiving forgiveness are both tied to a regulated nervous system.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“We benefit from the autonomic protection of forgiveness and suffer with the autonomic risks of unforgiveness.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Compassion has a natural partner in forgiveness.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“A practice of creating compassion intentions increases our capacity for compassion, so regularly write a new intention.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“compassion is only possible when we’re in a ventral vagal state,”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Gratitude is an experience of connection. It is an emotion that exists in relationship with others and that pulls us to want to deepen those relationships.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“gratitude is tied to the ventral vagal system. Physically, as we enter a moment of gratitude, our heart rhythms change, our blood pressure drops, our immune function improves, our stress is reduced, and we sleep longer and deeper.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Moments of awe are truly autonomic-shaping experiences. Make an intention to connect with awe each day.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The words we choose can help us move out of a pattern of protection and enhance our experiences of safety and connection. Changing just a word or two can have a powerful impact on the state of our nervous system.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“the power of imagery to create a new story. Follow these basic steps to imagine a new story: 1.​Connect with a state of protection or connection. 2.​Create an image to represent the state. 3.​Listen to the story the image is showing you. 4.​Change the image by adding or taking away one small element. 5.​Stop and see what happens with your experience and story. 6.​Repeat the process until you feel you have reached the point where you have stretched enough and any more would take you into stress. 7.​Rest here in the new image and listen to the new story. 8.​Spend a moment savoring.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory