Anchored Quotes

“Imagery facilitates perception and evokes powerful messages.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Movement can also help us anchor more deeply in connection.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Honoring your autonomic wisdom is essential.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Think about the categories of art, movement, and words and feel what your autonomic nervous system response is.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“chapter 2 and revisit your ventral landscape, chapter 6 and the “Connecting with Cues” practice, or chapter 7 and walk your ventral continuum.)”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“In this exploration, I want to make sure I am first feeling regulated and anchored in ventral safety.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“feeling one experience in three very different ways.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“One way to listen to our three stories is to take a particular experience and look at it from each state. I think of this as looking through the eyes of a state.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When we learn to tune in, we find there are at least three stories always waiting to be heard, one being told from each state.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“We humans are storytellers, meaning-making beings, and it is through our autonomic nervous systems that we first create, and then inhabit, our stories.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Memories of moments when touch was offered in a way that was unexpected or unwanted activate our survival states.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Our touch memories are held in our nervous system, and when we make contact with a memory we move again into a pattern of protection or connection”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“With your personal touch continuum, you can now bring curiosity to where you are on that line.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When we offer someone a touch, we are sharing the state of our nervous system with them, and when we’re touched by someone else, we know the state of their system.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“There are some basic ways we sigh. We sigh with frustration to release some energy, and we sigh when we feel down or depressed in an attempt to bring in some energy”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“we can use intentional sighing as a way to interrupt our state and find a momentary reset and also to deepen an experience of regulation and connection.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Another way to use breath as a shaping practice is through sighing. Sighing is a natural way our lungs stay healthy.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“When we stay open and curious, we often discover something new.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“While it’s comforting to have sets of words that reliably bring us into connection with our breath, there are also times when we want to experiment to see what words emerge in the moment.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“awareness to your breath rhythm. Bring your words to mind as each breath arrives and leaves, and notice what happens. See what happens if you say your words out loud. Try placing your hand on your body where you found your breath in the earlier exploration and see how that changes your experience.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“One way to bring attention and intention to your breath rhythms is to bring breath and language together by adding words to accompany each inhalation and exhalation. Look for pairs of words that speak to the slight rise of energy that goes along with an inhalation and the return to ease that accompanies the exhalation. For example, energize and rest or reach out and tune in.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“we can explore shaping new patterns by taking the original sentences and writing companion statements for each, keeping the feeling (I’m so) but changing the action (I could). The goal is to bring enough regulating energy to the writing to soften the two survival pathways and deepen the pathway of safety and connection.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“End with the feeling and action that creates a ventral-inspired sentence.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“The next step is to write three sentences, one from each of your states.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Did the sentence emerge from a ventral state where the words feel regulated, interesting, and filling? Did your words come from your sympathetic state, bringing a flavor of danger and a feeling of being fueled by too much energy? Or maybe the words emerged from your dorsal state and captured the sense of losing hope, disconnecting, and shutting down.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Begin this exploration by listening in to see what your system is saying. Use the sentence structure “I’m so _____, I could _____” to notice this moment in time and fill in the blanks with whatever words appear.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Shaping requires us to be patient, to be persistent, and to persevere.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“While we want change to happen now, in an instant, the autonomic nervous system most often finds its way both to creating new patterns and into deepening the pathways that are already present and nourishing by doing small things over and over. Marie Curie in her Autobiographical Notes wrote, “I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Shaping our systems in new ways is a gentle process that unfolds over time.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“deepen, and experience more of them. We are naturally drawn toward the patterns that are draining as we feel the effects in physical symptoms and emotional distress. Attending to changing these patterns is often where we begin but can’t be where we end. In order to fully experience well-being, we need to attend not only to the pathways that drain but also to the ones that fill.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory