If you've attended a Loto experience, like Forest Church, you've probably heard us talk about the nervous system—and you've likely practiced something as simple as slowing down your breath.
Understanding how our nervous system responds to stress can help us become more curious about what is happening within us. Rather than judging ourselves for feeling anxious, activated, overwhelmed, exhausted, or disconnected, we can begin to recognize these experiences as information and develop practices that support greater flexibility, presence, and connection.
Have you ever noticed that slowing your breathing sometimes helps you feel more settled? Breathing is unusual because it happens automatically, yet we can also consciously influence it. Certain breathing patterns—particularly slow, comfortable breathing—can influence physiological arousal and may support relaxation.
Learning to notice these relationships between breath, body, stress, and safety can help us engage more fully with ourselves, one another, and the Sacred.
Have you ever noticed that when you take slow, deep breaths that fill your belly, you start to feel more relaxed?
Understanding Polyvagal Theory
One framework commonly used in trauma-informed and somatic practices is Polyvagal Theory, developed by neuroscientist Stephen Porges. The theory offers a way of understanding how our autonomic nervous system may relate to experiences of safety, connection, mobilization, and shutdown.
Polyvagal Theory describes three broad patterns of autonomic response: a ventral vagal state, associated with feelings of safety and social connection; sympathetic activation, associated with mobilization and responses such as fight or flight; and a dorsal vagal state, associated in the theory with immobilization, withdrawal, or shutdown.
This framework has become influential in psychotherapy, trauma-informed care, and somatic practices because many people find its language useful for understanding their experiences. However, some of Polyvagal Theory’s specific anatomical and evolutionary explanations remain scientifically debated. For that reason, we use it at Loto as one framework for exploring our lived experience—not as a definitive map of how every nervous system functions.
Ventral Vagal: Safety & Connection
Within Polyvagal Theory, the ventral vagal state is associated with experiences of safety, connection, curiosity, and social engagement. When we feel sufficiently safe, we may find it easier to connect with others, think creatively, communicate, play, rest, and remain present with what is happening around us.
This does not mean that ventral vagal is the “best” state or that our goal should be to remain calm and connected at all times. Our nervous systems continually respond to changing circumstances, and activation is a normal and necessary part of being human.
Instead, this framework can help us notice when we experience a sense of safety and connection—and what relationships, environments, and practices help make those experiences more accessible.
Sympathetic Activation: Mobilization
The sympathetic nervous system helps mobilize the body for action. When we perceive a threat or encounter a challenge, sympathetic activity can increase heart rate, redirect energy, heighten alertness, and prepare us to respond. This is commonly associated with “fight or flight.”
But sympathetic activation is not inherently a problem. We also rely on mobilization when we exercise, dance, create, compete, speak in front of a crowd, feel excited, or take courageous action. Energy and activation are essential parts of being alive.
Difficulty can arise when stress is intense, persistent, or when our responses feel disproportionate to the situation at hand. We might notice racing thoughts, muscle tension, irritability, anxiety, restlessness, or difficulty settling.
Rather than treating activation as something we need to eliminate, we can practice noticing it with curiosity: What is my body preparing me to do? What does this moment require? And what might help me respond with greater choice?
Dorsal Vagal: Immobilization & Shutdown
Within Polyvagal Theory, the dorsal vagal state is used to describe experiences of immobilization, withdrawal, or shutdown that may occur when a situation feels overwhelming or inescapable.
Someone experiencing this kind of response might notice numbness, disconnection, exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, reduced motivation, or a desire to withdraw. Dissociation can also occur during overwhelming experiences, although it is complex and should not be reduced to a single nervous-system pathway.
These responses are not signs of weakness or failure. In difficult circumstances, withdrawing, becoming still, or disconnecting from overwhelming sensations may serve a protective function.
It is important to note that the specific role Polyvagal Theory assigns to the dorsal vagal pathway in trauma-related shutdown remains scientifically debated. We can still find value in the framework as a way of naming experiences of immobilization and disconnection without assuming that it provides a complete neurological explanation for them.
Rather than forcing ourselves out of shutdown, a gentler question might be: What would help me experience a little more safety, connection, or capacity in this moment?
Working With Our Nervous System
Understanding our nervous system is not about learning how to remain calm all the time. It is about becoming more aware of our responses and developing greater flexibility in how we move through stress, activation, rest, connection, and recovery.
Different practices may support us at different times. Slowing the breath, moving the body, spending time in nature, resting, orienting to our surroundings, creating art, listening to music, or engaging in contemplative practice may help us reconnect with ourselves and the present moment. What feels supportive will vary from person to person—and even from moment to moment.
And regulation is not something we have to accomplish alone. Humans are relational beings. A trusted voice, compassionate presence, safe touch, shared laughter, eye contact, or simply being near someone with whom we feel safe can influence how we experience stress. This process is often described as co-regulation.
Rather than asking, How do I get myself back into the right state? we might begin asking: What am I noticing? What might my body be responding to? What support is available to me? What would help me have a little more capacity for what I am experiencing right now?
Over time, practices of present moment awareness, self-regulation, and co-regulation can help us develop greater capacity to move through the full range of human experience—not by avoiding stress or activation, but by learning how to meet ourselves within it.
Nervous-System Care as Spiritual Practice
For modern Mystics, learning to listen to the nervous system can become a part of learning to listen to Life.
Our bodies are continually offering information about how we are experiencing the world—what feels safe, what feels threatening, what energizes us, what overwhelms us, and what helps us return to presence. Paying attention to these signals can become an embodied contemplative practice: a way of meeting ourselves with curiosity rather than judgment.
This does not mean that calmness is more spiritual than activation, or that feeling regulated brings us closer to God. The Sacred is present in our joy and our grief, our stillness and our movement, our connection and even our disconnection. Perhaps the invitation is not to perfect our nervous systems, but to become more compassionate inhabitants of our bodies—to listen more closely, respond more wisely, and allow ourselves to receive support from one another.
In that sense, nervous-system care becomes another practice of returning: to the body, to relationship, to Creation, and to the Divine Presence that has been with us all along.
