How to Survive the Holiday Season Using Safety Anchors.

The Festive Season is upon us all again.

Just take a moment and notice how your nervous system and body responded to that sentence. Did you get a flutter of excitement? A jab of anxiety in the stomach? Or a crunching, grinding feeling of tension or nausea? Did your shoulders start moving towards your ears?

This year in the shops ”Festivities” started in mid-November, with the zombie-like invasion of Festive products creeping into and over the Hallowe’en treats as one “celebration” morphed into the next. I saw the first advert for Xmas party restaurant bookings in late August. As a friend of mine would say, “this Xmas mishegoss is out of control!”

Let’s add another element into the mix.

Family.

Extended family.

Chosen family.

Family of origin.

What is your nervous system and body doing in reaction to that?

Now, let’s zoom out and think about all of the grief and horror (both personal and global) that has happened in the world this year too (and if you need a reminder you can take a look at 2023 in a timeline here.)

Geo-political strife, environmental catastrophe, systemic and colonial oppression on the one hand, along with continued institutional and interpersonal assaults on LGBTQ+ people, women’s reproductive rights or the right for Black and brown people to be safe in their own home, the street, or to tell their history, on the other hand. And lest we forget, the COVID pandemic also continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Those hands had better be big!

What is your body and nervous system doing now? Is it in a state of hypervigilance, numbness, grief, anger or anxiety? Does it feel mobilised or paralysed? Does it feel stable or unstable? Maybe it feels all of these at the same time? Or it’s rapidly cycling between all these states and just feels overwhelmed, exhausted, confused, and disturbed.

Deb Dana’s book “Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory” draws upon the work of neurophysiologist Stephen Porges to offer an explanation for how the nervous system tries to cope with the cascade of stressors that hits it every day. It’s a complex and nuanced explanation centred on the Vagus nerve (the long set of nerves that regulate heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion). Polyvagal theory offers a broad hierarchical framework of three nervous system modes:

Ventral vagal – when we feel safe, settled and at home in the world – the “top” of the ladder;

Sympathetic – when we need to activate fight/flight energy in order to survive dangerous situations

Dorsal vagal – when the system is overloaded and has to shut down, numb out or collapse in order to keep us safe. This is usually the last resort and is the “bottom” of the ladder.

The nervous system (along with the brain) continually scans for threat – its job is to keep us safe and keeping safe may not always mean it keeps us happy. Information is relayed into the nervous system and then the brain via neuroception – looking outwards to the environment, but also looking inwards to the body, and noting any changes in biophysiological states then acting on them very, very quickly.

In other words we are being continually cued into what’s going on around and inside us. So imagine what watching the news, negotiating a Holiday supermarket on Xmas Eve or sitting around a dinner table with those “wise elders” railing against immigration or “all those confusing pronouns” does to us.

One important aspect of the nervous system is co-regulation, this is the biological need we have to connect with others. If we’re lucky and those people feel regulated, safe and calm, our nervous system will power down and move into what Dana calls “the rhythm of regulation”. We can also generate feelings of safety using vagal anchors which are reminders of being in ventral state too.

Here’s how you can create your own vagal anchors to generate feelings of safety during the Holiday Season and while you’re dealing with this messed up world:

1. Stop – take some time to do this – don’t rush it and don’t try and squeeze it in between a zillion other tasks.

2. Think of a time you felt safe and happy – use imagery/memory to activate the ventral state.

3. Think of WHO makes you feel safe and welcome and list them – ideally someone in your life now, animal companions are also people so include them too, then expand this out to people you’ve met along the way during your life including ancestors, and then again to include mythical or spiritual figures if that works for you too.

4. Think about WHAT you do that creates feelings of safety and connection and write it down. As Dana writes “small actions that feel nourishing, relaxing and inviting of connection”. In a similar vein to Rick Hanson’s “Taking in the Good” or Russ Harris’s “Flavour and Savour” exercise, notice, name, and appreciate all of those small moments that create ventral-vagal regulation.

5. Think about WHERE you also feel safe – places in the locality, places you travel through everyday, maybe a coffee shop, a park, the beach or a place of worship or maybe it’s only home that works for you or you have to imagine what such a place would be like. Just notice when ventral-vagal is activated.

6. Think about WHEN in your life your felt safe (even if it was very brief) and anchored in ventral vagal and write it down. This can be difficult for those of us from unsafe environments but stay with it if you can.

7. Create a way of reminding yourself of your ventral vagal anchors – this could be a list, some artwork, a mood board, a sculpture – whatever floats your boat.

8. This is a lifelong practice so keep going with it.

9. You can also practice this when out and about, noticing when you feel OK, clocking it and storing it.

Those of us from minority communities need this practice to temper and balance the hypervigilance and fear that economic, structural and interpersonal oppression has trained us into.

These dangers are real and I don’t want to be Pollyannaish about this, but being able to key into ventral states when out in the world, can help the nervous system take the foot off the accelerator and also help us reclaim life back from trauma and grief.

But we also have to be wise about when we do this and sometimes staying hypervigilant will be the difference between us staying alive or being killed. Choose your time and place.

You can also calm and anchor the body really quickly using Resmaa Menakem’s five tools to manage stress which are here.

If this way of thinking about the body, nervous system and the brain appeals to you, get in touch with us at Rhizome Practice because it’s our jam too. Drawing upon Somatic work, EMDR, Schema Therapy and Compassion Focussed Therapy and then blending it with Emergent Strategy and a few other imagery based tools, this might be the way of helping you to welcome in a safe and settled New Year for 2024.

If we can survive the Holiday Season, then maybe, just maybe we can also survive Late Capitalism…

…with that in mind, I hope you manage to have a ventrally anchored Festive Season and here’s to a regulated 2024!