#4 - Wandering around Vagus - May 2023

Bringing awareness to the character & intentions behind our fight and flight responses

Welcome to Month 4 of Wandering around Vagus, a paid monthly subscription series exploring the Vagus Nerve + Polyvagal Theory.

I’m Tina Foster of Foster & Flourish, the creator and guide of Wandering around Vagus.

Last month’s post (our third) on ventral vagal and GLIMMERS! is here. All past posts are archived here.​ And now all Monthly & Supplementary Posts + Recordings can be accessed from the navigation bar atop the Homepage.

This month our focus is sympathetic response. We’ll use a 3-step process to become more familiar with the character and intentions behind our fight and flight responses. (More on the 3 experiential states, including sympathetic response here.)

First, we untangle fight and flight and examine them as separate energies.

Then we shine a gentle, loving light on our own way of being in fight and flight, clarifying how each response plays out in our individual lives.

Once we’re more aware of the energies and function of each response in our lives, we examine the ways our sympathetic responses shield us from harm but also can hinder or block our ability to take healthy risks and embrace opportunities for learning and growth.

By the end of this 15 minute audio you’ll have a better sense of:

• how essentially different fight and flight are from one another.

• your individual experience of fight and flight—how you feel, what you believe and who you are in each response.

• your everyday concerns and what your sympathetic system is protecting you from.

• which of your hopes and dreams might be getting blocked or shut off by any overprotective fight and flight responses.

Untangling fight from flight

Whenever we sense a neuroception of danger, our sympathetic system takes us into fight and/ or flight in response to the particular situation we’re in.