Nervous system musings, for me, can come up at some pretty random times, and here is a case in point.

I was on my bike the other day when I questioned the etymology of the word “bicycle”.  I didn’t know it at the time, but “cycle” comes from the Greek word kyklos, meaning “circle”, the same root word that later took on the meaning of cycle as a repeating sequence.

I then thought of “tricycle” — this is the diabolical part — which led me to think of the Polyvagal Theory.  (How the mind makes these completely unrelated leaps might be the topic of a future blog post.)

Gosh, I digress 🙂

The thing about the tricycle is that only one of the wheels is meant to steer.  If, theoretically, either of the other two wheels tried to steer, it would be a shambles.  It wouldn’t work out.

Three Nervous System States: What Polyvagal Theory has to do with it

So, following this line of thinking, your nervous system is built in a similar way.

Most of the time we don’t think about which part is in charge.  We just make our way through life doing the things that need doing.  Getting the kids to school on time, merging in traffic, paying a parent’s nursing care bill. Underneath all of the activities, your nervous system is busy making determinations every moment of every day.

Depending on what kinds of experiences it’s been navigating, the wheels can land in various positions, but not in a repeating sequence or cycle. Rather, nervous system states can arrive in a manner that can seem haphazard, based on what your system determines is necessary.  

When that happens, however, the ride can get wobbly. An innocuous situation brings out a reaction you didn’t want or anticipate.  A comment lands somewhere tender and you find yourself frozen.

This isn’t a flaw in your character to fix. For a moment, a different wheel was in front.  It happens to all of us at times because it’s how we cope with what is difficult.  

Your nervous system runs on three broad settings — one for mobilizing, one for conservation and one for connection and ease.  In Polyvagal Theory language, these correspond to the sympathetic, dorsal vagal and ventral vagal nervous system states.  

None of the three states is a malfunction.  Each of them does what it evolved to do – and each has been and remains necessary for survival.  All three are load-bearing. A tricycle can’t operate on one wheel alone, and there’s far greater risk of imbalance with only one or two wheels.

pic courtesy Jens Lelie on Unsplash.com

When a Wheel is Steering And You Don’t Know It

What shapes how a moment feels isn’t solely about which states you have access to. You have access to all three, and you’re meant to. What shapes your experience is which one is out front.

When the connective state leads, the other two are still there as capacity rather than command. Mobilizing is available if something genuinely calls for it. Conserving is available when rest is necessary.  Neither one is driving.

When one of the supportive ‘back’ wheels — mobilizing (sympathetic) or conserving (dorsal) — moves to the forefront for longer than necessary, things can feel out of balance. 

A back wheel taking over can take you somewhere you didn’t choose to go because those wheels aren’t built to lead.  They’re built to provide support from the background, to be used when necessary but they don’t have the precision to steer. 

In real life, this will feel uncomfortable and maybe even out of control even though you can still manage to get things done and live your life.

What Somatic Work Offers Instead

The positioning of the wheels happens spontaneously, depending in large part on the accumulation of your past experiences.  It isn’t decided by the thinking mind but rather by systems more primal and physical than that — a layer of the body that’s been reading for safety long before you had words for any of it.

As a physical, somatic system, this is a layer that responds to somatic approaches rather than to talk about what can’t be found by the thinking mind.  Somatic work focuses on the body’s own capacity to find its way back to a resourced state, where the connection, ease and curiosity of the ventral vagal can take the place as the front wheel.

Sessions work toward knowing all three wheels — not getting rid of the other two wheels, but getting the right one back in front.  Ventral vagal isn’t meant to be the only wheel on the tricycle. It’s just the one that’s supposed to steer…. most of the time.

Of course, none of this happens all at once, and it isn’t meant to. The nervous system tends to re-learn at its own pace, a little more each time, met gently instead of argued with.

If this is something you’d like to explore, I offer a free 20-minute consultation, no pressure, to see whether this feels like a fit.