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Why You Feel Unsafe (and Don’t Know Why) | Understanding Polyvagal Theory
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What if your body—not your mind—was deciding how safe, calm, or stressed you feel?
In this episode of The Men’s Collective Podcast, therapist and Mind-Body Coach Travis Goodman, LMFT, breaks down the three organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory—a science-backed model by Dr. Stephen Porges that explains how your nervous system runs your daily life.
You’ll learn how to recognize your body’s automatic states—ventral (safe and connected), sympathetic (mobilized and stressed), and dorsal (shutdown and numb)—and how to move toward regulation, calm, and connection.
In this episode:
- What Hierarchy teaches us about emotional states and the “autonomic ladder”
- How Neuroception constantly scans for safety or threat without you realizing it
- Why Co-Regulation (connection) is the secret to true calm and healing
- A real-life example of how reaching out to safe relationships resets your nervous system
- Practical ways to notice, name, and navigate your state
If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t just “think” your way out of stress, this episode will help you finally understand the biology of safety—and how to work with it.
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Transcript
Introduction to Polyvagal Theory
00:00:00
Speaker
What if your body and not your mind was the one that was deciding whether you feel safe and grounded, whether you should be on edge and mobilized to act or to be immobilized and shut down for survival?
00:00:13
Speaker
See, that is what the three organizing principles of what polyvagal theory Reveal. Welcome back to this week's episode of the Men's Collective Podcast. I'm your host. My name is Travis Goodman. I'm a licensed therapist and a mind-body coach. And today we're going to dive a little more deeply into the three organizing principles of polyvagal theory.
00:00:31
Speaker
And if you haven't listened to the previous episode, you're You're going to want click on this link above to go back to watch that video. If you're on Apple or Spotify, just go to the previous episode to to listen to what polyvagal theory is for a quick
Core Concepts of Polyvagal Theory
00:00:44
Speaker
overview. For today, as we dive into the three organizing principles, again, this was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges.
00:00:51
Speaker
And these are the three kind of key main ideas that explain our human experience, all rooted in what polyvagal theory is. See, the first and the foremost is the hierarchy.
00:01:02
Speaker
Now, this is related to the previous episode from last week. And the hierarchy is around the three main primary states. And so we can't necessarily jump from numb to joyful without passing through safety.
00:01:15
Speaker
See, we have to navigate the ladder, this kind of autonomic ladder. And we starting off in ventral again, that first line is fight or flight. If that doesn't solve the threat or deal with it, we get to a state of overwhelm, we then shift down and disassociation, disconnection, immobilization.
00:01:32
Speaker
And then we have to move through sympathetic to move back into
Understanding Neuroception and Co-Regulation
00:01:36
Speaker
ventral. The second is neuroception. See, I love that word neuroception. i always think of going to a party or a group and having the kind of word of the day and and I guess being the cool one to have a fun word. Neuroception to me is this kind of concept that as Deb Dana said, it's our internal radar. It's the part of us, our nervous system that's wired to scan.
00:01:58
Speaker
our environment. It's our internal surveillance system. It's constantly scanning the environment around us for cues of safety and threat. It's scanning in between people, things like tone of voice or posture, facial expression.
00:02:13
Speaker
It's also scanning within our body. And what it's detecting, again, are cues of safety and cues of threat. And if our body, if our nervous system picks up enough cues of safety, it'll essentially communicate subconsciously we're safe enough to be inventural grounded.
00:02:32
Speaker
But if it's picking up more a cues of threat over safety, it will then shift us quite quickly to ah survival state in order again to navigate safety. the real and or perceived threat.
00:02:45
Speaker
And the third organizing principle of polyvagal theory is co-regulation. And this is where we turn towards relationships, towards safe people, it's towards people we trust, where we regulate best in connection. This is that kind of biological wiring that we are wired for relationships or wired for connection. You might have heard it.
00:03:09
Speaker
This is where I fully agree with this, that there's really isn't there's no amount of solo meditation or solo practices or solo skill work, no matter what it is, that can fully replace being around someone who's calm, safe, connected nervous system.
00:03:28
Speaker
help settle ours This is why even when you think about what attachment theory is, when we think of bonding with our primary caregiver, how that creates this kind of co-regulation from parent to child, how ah calm parent's presence can help regulate, help navigate relationships.
00:03:47
Speaker
a child's dysregulated nervous system. Now, that's not to mean that they perfectly all the time snap into ventral and calm, but it's more about helping that child navigate the waves. And we do the same as adults with safe relationships, with people that have calm nervous systems that we can reach out to a buddy and say, hey, man,
Personal Insights and Importance of Connection
00:04:06
Speaker
having a hard time. I'm kind of stressed and anxious and I'm elevated and...
00:04:09
Speaker
What do I do? And I think of a time when I felt that earlier this year, feeling like a failure as a dad. I struggled with sleep. I was um up all night and and just could not get my mind to stop. And I'm a trained therapist and coach, and I got stuck for a bit.
00:04:25
Speaker
um And I remember, and had been happened had not happened in a long time, but for whatever reason, man, something hooked me in, this old wound, and it just pulled me back in to this state of just anxiety, of a lot of sympathetic energy, a lot of kind of flight, and then also some dorsal shutdown because it just got too overwhelming.
00:04:48
Speaker
And I've kind of vacillated through that for about a week until I called a few buddies of mine, actually, And as I began to kind of share the story of what i where I was stuck, their really grounded, calm presence, who they were, really brought a ton of relief to my own nervous system. And all that shame of not being enough and failing and anxiety really began to dissipate. Now, I still had to deal with the problem.
00:05:14
Speaker
It didn't take care of the problem in my life. But what it did was it helped me get to a more grounded ventral space through co-regulation helped me move that autonomic ladder out of sympathetic and dorsal into a more ventral state where I could think more critically where I can solve the problem and I was able to pick up that safe connection with my friends and it really helped me reorient myself get a solid footing and take the steps necessary to address that issue I was facing in my life And I was doing all the things in the time, meditating and praying and movement, but it just wasn't enough. And those relationships really were the change makers.
00:05:55
Speaker
For men, this is huge. Really for all of us, this is huge. And many of us were taught. I think to go at it alone, to not reach out to relationships, but to grind through, to grind and push through stress, especially men by and large. and I know it's a general statement, but what I hear time and time again is that's pretty much what's been taught to us as men.
00:06:15
Speaker
But I want to posit, and really I'm taking from the great work of Dr. Porges and many many before him and after him, is that really co-regulation is a strength.
00:06:27
Speaker
And co-regulation, I would argue, and and I'm paraphrasing Dr. Porges, is that it's the science behind why, like brotherhood, relationships, mentorship, or supportive partner, why that helps us feel grounded.
00:06:42
Speaker
Because it's directly tied to our nervous system.
Conclusion and Next Steps
00:06:46
Speaker
And so I want you to think this week, right now, in this moment, I want you to think of one person, and you might have more, but i want you to think of at least one person where you feel calm and grounded around them.
00:06:58
Speaker
Their presence just has this energy about them. And I'd argue that it's not a coincidence. I would argue that it's your nervous system recognizing safety in them which then in a way is kind of borrowing that for your own nervous system to rely on.
00:07:18
Speaker
And so with that said, this is the three kind of organizing principles of what polyvagal theory is, um which helps orient us. And again, if you haven't listened or watched the previous episode on kind of what polyvagal theory is, you're going to want to watch that and listen to it.
00:07:33
Speaker
And if you're looking for more, if you're looking to work with me through therapy or coaching, go to travisgoodmanlmft.com. Link will be in the description below. Stay tuned for next week where I'm going to go through a few quick polybagel-informed practices to help us move toward ventral, move us toward calm, move us toward grounding our nervous systems.
00:07:55
Speaker
And so you want to stick around front for that. But until next time, have a good day.