Anchored Quotes

“Complete the exploration by looking at a loop that creates an upward spiral of connection.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“I’ve come to know I’m losing my ventral anchor when my thoughts begin to get just a bit chaotic or disorganized. I start to feel stuck in one story and forget that there are other possibilities.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“In order to change, it’s necessary to find the right degree of challenge that keeps us safely anchored in the shaping process.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Take some time to explore your own loops. Start by looking at a moment of mobilization. Feel your embodied response and then hear the thought that starts this particular survival story. Watch how your thoughts and stories get stronger and begin to magnify the experience. Continue by looking at a loop that ends in collapse. Notice your embodied response, listen to how this story begins, and feel how you are pulled into the experience, falling deeper into disconnection.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Everything is accomplished bit by bit. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE,”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Savoring is a practice of twenty to thirty seconds at the most, making it possible to do many times during the course of the day.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“micro-moments of savoring accumulate. With a savoring practice, they add up and shape our systems toward connection.4”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“I felt the first stirring of energy in my body that signals I am beginning to come back to life, and I turned toward it. Next I felt a bit of hope returning and that opened up my well-traveled path back to ventral and feeling alive again. I experimented with ways to honor and deepen this experience so I could stay anchored there. What I discovered was that feeling grateful for finding my way to safety and regulation was not enough. I needed a more active celebration to bring my system alive. It was the act of celebrating by saying out loud and with passion, “I’ve arrived! I’m here!” that helped me feel fully alive and anchored again. I’ve discovered that for my system, actively acknowledging by celebrating out loud is an important part of the experience. When I celebrate, I strengthen my ability to stay anchored in safety.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Many people find writing SAFE stories helps them reconnect to remembered moments of safety and bring the experience alive in the present”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“And then there are objects that bring the tangible reminder that we can find our way back to a ventral connection and anchor there.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Take a moment and create your own glimmer intention. Write your intention and then read it out loud to yourself.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“you may notice a glimmer through your senses: a smell, a taste, a sight, a sound, the touch of something.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Humans have a built-in negativity bias. In order to support our survival, we’re wired to respond more intensely to negative experiences than equally intense positive ones. We have to actively look for, take notice of, and keep track of these moments, or micro-moments, of safety and connection that are our glimmers. Otherwise they can easily pass right by without our knowing”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Along with calm and happy, when we’re anchored in our ventral state, we can be excited, joy filled, aware, engaged, passionate, curious, compassionate, alert, ready, and focused.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“There are many flavors of ventral, but the common ingredient is the neuroception of safety that underlies the state.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“I sometimes hold my hands clasped tightly together imagining dorsal, spread my fingers apart, just touching, for sympathetic, and then have my hands wide apart to hold the other two in ventral. Along with hand motions, explore other ways to hold your states. You might imagine holding three different-sized balls of light or three streams of energy. Take a moment and experiment with the variety of ways you can hold your states.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“I sometimes hold my hands clasped tightly together imagining dorsal, spread my fingers apart, just touching, for sympathetic, and then have my hands wide apart to hold the other two in ventral.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Start with finding the color of your center dorsal circle. Then add the color of your surrounding sympathetic circle. And finally the color of your ventral outer ring that holds the others in a circle of safety.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Find the way of connecting that feels co-regulating.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“See how it feels to be with someone and hold them in your ventral embrace.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Once you find your movement, use it to extend your energy to someone. Feel what happens for you when you use your movement to make an offer, and imagine what happens for them as they receive the invitation.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Sometimes I use the image of reaching for ventral and other times I actually stretch my arm up over my head to reach for some regulating energy. Then I begin to hear the ventral story that reassures me there is in fact enough regulating energy available in my system and I can stay in connection with it.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“We only need enough of a connection to ventral to bring the system online and keep it operational.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“In the middle of winter, I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer. ALBERT CAMUS”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Take a moment to send a message of gratitude to this state, this home away from home that’s been such an important part of your life. You know this place now in a new way, can journey here again when you want, and can trust that your home away from home will be welcoming in the moments when your system reaches for protection. Now, return to present time. Come back to this time and this place. Take a moment to reflect on the journey you just took. Document what you discovered and want to remember.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“To continue the journey upward to ventral connection, we need to connect with the mobilizing energy in an organized way.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“How do you slow the descent? You can use your regulated pathway and add details to safeguard your journey. You might want resting places along the path, a railing or handholds, more stopping points in an elevator, or more shades of color in a light stream. Sometimes the path through protection is totally different from the path through regulation.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Maybe you take an elevator or ride a stream of light. Take time to find your own unique route between states. Now experiment with traveling your personal pathway.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“first notice the survival state and then name it. When you look through the lens of your nervous system, where are you? Mobilized or shut down? Remind yourself that this response is activated because the connection/protection equation is out of balance. Your biology has reacted to a neuroception of danger.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory

“Remember information is traveling the body-to-brain pathways. It’s your brain’s job to make sense of what’s happening in your body, so the brain creates a story filled with motive and meaning. The story is often one of blame, criticism, and judgment of ourselves or others. As you explore, remind yourself to just listen. This is an information-gathering step, not a time to make changes.”
― Deb Dana, Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory