Learning to Live by Faith

In the Polyvagal Theory, there are 3 states: VV – safety, daily living; SNS – fight-flight, danger; and DV – freeze, life-threat. This chart shows the activation and deactivation that happens in a trauma response PVChartv10q.pdf. You can see that the colors on the chart are green (safety), yellow (danger), and red (life-threat). Your body is always scanning your environment. If you perceive safety, you will be in VV. If you perceive danger, you will shift states into SNS. If you are not able to fight or flee to resolve the threat, you will shift states into freeze. At some point, you must go through deactivation to get back to a state of safety (VV).

When I first saw the colors on this chart, it made me think of a traffic light. I was just starting to learn about what the different states are, and it helped me to think of being in different states in terms of how you feel differently when you see the lights change on the traffic light. I think it is similar to that in certain ways. If you see the green light, you keep driving calmly. If the light turns yellow, you start feeling differently…maybe you feel some stress as you decide whether you need to speed up to make it through the light or whether you need to slow down and stop before the light turns red. It’s not exactly the same thing as shifting between VV, SNS, and DV. But it helped me get the idea of how you will feel different symptoms in your body based on whether your mind is perceiving a green safety signal from the environment or a red or yellow signal.

When I first started reading about the Polyvagal Theory, I was stuck in an SNS-DV loop and I was thinking that I needed to try to stay in VV all of the time…I was thinking of VV as a good state and SNS and DV as harmful because of all of the symptoms I felt when I was in SNS or DV. But in reading the books, I learned that Fight/Flight and Freeze are not harmful…they are actually defensive states that are intended to protect us. It’s only when you have been stuck in an SNS-DV loop and the signals have kept firing off for too long and you have never truly deactivated, rested, and recovered that you experience symptoms that are harmful to you. But the states themselves are protective and you will be continually shifting into and out of those states throughout life when you perceive threats in your environment. The goal is to try to get the energy associated with those states regulated and to only go into those states when necessary. That way you will only be addressing the present threat without reliving past traumas and without activating the energy of stored traumas. And again, I’m talking as a patient not a practitioner, so I hope I am explaining things correctly.

What I was realizing as I was reading the books, is that they are saying that throughout our day we are basically mobilizing and immobilizing our bodies. We are either mobilizing by standing up, walking around, etc., or immobilizing by sitting down or laying down to rest. And whether we are mobilizing or immobilizing in a safe setting determines how fast our heart rate and breathing will be. If we are in an environment where we feel safe, and we stand up to walk around to do our daily activities, our heart rate will be regulated and our breathing will be steady and relaxed. If we are in an environment that feels threatening to us, and we stand up and walk around, our heart rate will be accelerated and our breathing can be distressed. I also find that if I am perceiving a threat and then I try to push past it and go ahead with my daily activities, it sets off a lot of stress symptoms. So what I’m saying is that you will feel stress symptoms if you mobilize to address a threat and also if you are mobilizing while ignoring a threat your mind has alerted you to.

If you’ve had these threat signals firing off for a long time, sometimes it helps to have a new experience to counter the stressful experience…an experience of feeling safe. I have had success with doing those exercises in the past, but right now during this flare up I am struggling to get to a point of calm. When that is happening, sometimes it helps to just envision walking around and feeling safe (without actually moving around) and see if you can get your mind working that way. In my last post I was writing about how I am trying to learn to be guided by Jesus, the gentle shepherd, rather than only being guided by pain. God brought to mind some imagery that I got from a Spurgeon sermon when he was talking about God’s presence. Spurgeon was talking about Acts 17:28 which says, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul is explaining who God is and that He is not far away from us, but rather He is present all around us. In verses 24-28 Paul says, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ ^b As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ ^c” Note in verse 27 where Paul says that God is not far from us. He is talking about the omnipresence of God. God is everywhere. His presence is everywhere. There are many hymns that talk about God’s love being like a deep ocean. And in his sermon, Spurgeon said that God’s love is to us what the waters of the ocean are to a fish. “In God we live and move and have our being” like a fish lives and moves and is sustained by the waters in the ocean. This is imagery that is very helpful to use in your meditation time. Because humans cannot breathe water, I try to envision an ocean of healing, heavenly light. If I look around and see by an eye of faith that the light of God’s presence is all around me, I begin to feel safe. Then I can envision myself mobilizing and immobilizing in safety…in the light of His love…moving around with a calm, regulated heart rate and calm, regulated breathing.

In Barnes’ Notes on Acts 17:28, he says “and move” can be translated as “And are moved.” He says “it means that we derive strength to move from [God]; an expression denoting ‘constant and absolute dependence’. There is no idea of dependence more striking than that we owe to him the ability to perform the slightest motion.” He says that the words “and have our being” “denotes that our ‘continued existence’ is owing to Him. That we live at all is his gift; that we have power to move is his gift; and our continued and prolonged existence is his gift also.” (Commentaries on Acts 17:28 – Biblehub.com)

Try and incorporate these insights into your meditation. We must derive strength from God to be able to move at all. We are living in complete dependence on Him. Breathe in that light energy of God’s presence. Feel your body being strengthened by it. Feel yourself being able to move around…sustained by God’s power… with life energy flowing easily and freely through you. Your heart rate and breathing rate are regulated. You are able to move your body easily. You feel safe. When you sit down again, you are also able to immobilize in safety. You still feel the light of God’s presence. And you feel at peace.

So again, what I have learned in reading about the Polyvagal Theory is that fight/flight and freeze are defensive states that are meant to protect us. So we are not trying to stop going into those states ever again. We are trying to go into them only when necessary…and to have a regulated energy when we do go into those states…only addressing the present threat and not reliving a past experience. Part of how we can build capacity and develop resilience is by spending time feeling safe…by having good experiences in safe circumstances that can help us be in VV (safety) and get out of the SNS-DV loop (fight/flight-freeze loop). Right now, I am struggling to get out of this flare up, so it helped me to meditate with the imagery of being surrounded by God’s presence and mobilizing and immobilizing in the safety of my shepherd’s loving care.

I have posted several hymns on here that use the imagery of God’s love being like an ocean. Here are the links to them: The 3rd verse of “Closer Walk With Thee” by Fanny Crosby – Learning to Live by Faith uses the imagery of “the wide unfathomed ocean of Thy mighty love so free. And “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” by S. Trevor Francis – Learning to Live by Faith uses the imagery of an ocean throughout the hymn. Here are links to hymns that use the imagery of walking in the light of God’s presence: “Let Us Walk in the Light” by Fanny Crosby – Learning to Live by Faith and “Light and Life” by Rev. T. W. Barber – Learning to Live by Faith. These hymns are very helpful to use as you are meditating on being in God’s presence. And remember while you are thinking about what it is like to feel His presence with us here on earth, to take time to wonder what it will be like to be living in His presence and getting to see Him face to face in heaven where we will be completely safe forever. While we are living here on earth, we are trying to find a sense of being “safe enough” to be in daily living mode. But when we are in heaven, we will be at perfect peace and rest forever. There will be no danger there…forever and ever. Our minds and bodies will be perfectly safe and at peace for all of eternity.