These days, the call for leaders to be adaptable, agile, flexible, clear, focused, and calm could lead many to think it’s not okay to feel or that you need to be a robot.

We minimize our feelings and put on a brave face until we can no longer fake it, sometimes in the name of being “regulated.”

When there’s a trend in language or an approach to healing, it can sometimes be reductive in how it’s taught, explained, or understood. Concepts drawn from Polyvagal Theory, like regulation and activation, are no exception.

How some talk about regulation and dysregulation can create pressure to diminish our humanity so that we don’t emote, and cause us to criticize someone if they’re upset.

In reality, Polyvagal Theory offers a powerful addition to your toolbox for leading yourself and others well while staying aligned with your values. 

When we work towards helping our nervous systems become more agile and adaptable by putting in the reps and working to understand our systems and our stories, we can offer those we love and lead a greater sense of curiosity, compassion, and connection. And we will have enough boundaries and guardrails to know when to tap out, take a break, and ask for help.

Today’s guest teaches and discusses these topics so that we can learn to regulate our nervous systems better and connect better with others. 

Deb Dana, LCSW, is a clinician, consultant, author, and international lecturer on polyvagal theory-informed work with trauma survivors and is the leading translator of this scientific work to the public and mental health professionals. She’s a founding member of the Polyvagal Institute and creator of the signature Rhythm of Regulation® clinical training series.

Deb’s work shows us how understanding polyvagal theory applies across the board to relationships, mental health, and trauma. She delves into the intricacies of how we can all use and understand the organizing principles of polyvagal theory to change the ways we navigate our daily lives. 

 

 

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why regulation is not a static state but an ongoing dynamic experience 
• How understanding the subconscious survival responses of the nervous system under stress can help us learn to regulate and repair
• Why we can’t discount or dismiss the messages our survival responses are trying to give us
• How even micro-moments of responding to our nervous systems’ needs can create change
• How building capacity to resourcing regulation increases our capacity to sit with discomfort and struggle in our lives and in the world
• How leaders can use Polyvagal Theory concepts to create connected, collaborative environments for themselves and those they lead

 

Learn more about Deb Dana:

• Rhythm of Regulation

 

Learn more about Rebecca:

• rebeccaching.com
• Work With Rebecca
• Sign up for the weekly Unburdened Leader Email

 

Resources:

• Stephen Porges
• The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah
• Blue: The History of a Color, Michel Pastoureau
• Céline Dion, Andrea Bocelli – The Prayer
• Halloween Baking Championship
• Holiday Baking Championship
• The Great British Baking Show

Transcript:

[Inspirational Intro Music]

Deb Dana: I would say to them, “If we could spend just a few minutes here with your nervous system to help you have an experience of listening and finding a bit of regulation, all of those other things you’re going to have different ways to work it in. But when you’re stuck in the have-to, the demands of the day, and you can’t move away from that, you have less capacity to manage them,” right? So if you take 20 seconds to listen, you’re gonna increase your capacity to work well with those things.

Rebecca Ching: Hello, everyone, and, wow, welcome to 2025! I am dropping this episode towards the end of January 2025, and for many of us, this month feels like it’s been a year. I live in Southern California where dangerous and devastating wildfires have hit my neighbors north of me in LA, and high winds and dangerous fire conditions continue to keep many of us on our own high alerts within this region. That feeling of being on alert, that intense hypervigilance, I know so many of you are familiar with this experience and how it’s linked to burnout, physical, emotional, relational stressors, all of which can just take us out. But how we’ve been told and taught to respond to our emotions worsens things and often creates an even faster path to burnout and overwhelm, leaving us feeling shame and doubt about our abilities. And this is why I wanted to bring on my guest today, Deb Dana. She is a practitioner and translator of this incredible work called Polyvagal Theory.

2:01

I’m so excited for you to learn more about this approach and its nuances along with getting to know Deb who has quickly become one of my favorite thought leaders in the mental health space.

I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with humans who navigate life’s challenges and lead in their own ways. Our goal is to learn how they address the burdens they carry, how they learn from them, and how they become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.

These days, the call for leaders to be, you know, fill in the blank, adaptable, agile, flexible, clear, focused, and calm could lead many to think it’s not okay to feel or that you just need to show up as a robot, and as a result, I often see people push and stuff and minimize their feelings just to put on a brave face until they can no longer fake it. They don’t do anything in that in-between space, and this is why I wanted to have this conversation with Deb Dana as we kicked off the year to discuss her incredible work and sharing Polyvagal Theory with the world.

I love this work and its focus on the nervous system. I also deeply value how Deb beautifully teaches and discusses topics so that we can learn to regulate our nervous systems better and connect better with others so we can coregulate in easily accessible ways, and we’ll unpack all these words in our conversation.

I specifically wanted to talk with Deb about how terms like regulation and dysregulation have been misused or how we can use them to pressure ourselves or the leaders that we work with to behave in a certain way. I also want to address how we often misunderstand the difference between activated and dysregulated. We walk through what it means to have realistic expectations of ourselves and others in times of high stakes and high stress in our work and lives as citizens in the world that is literally on fire.

4:09

When there’s a trend in language or in approach to healing, sometimes something that I’m really excited about, like Polyvagal Theory, can also become reductive in how it’s sometimes taught or explained or understood, and one of the concerns I have around how we talk about the concept of regulation is this pressure to diminish our humanity in ways that we’re expected not to emote and that we criticize someone if they’re upset, like, “Oh, they’re so blended,” or “Oh, they’re so dysregulated,” like a judgy marker instead of having compassion and turning towards, right?

I feel like for leaders right now, the expectation — again, here are all these words — to be nimble and agile and adaptable and flexible requires a lot of deep self-awareness, clarity of values, and capacity for being misunderstood. Yeah, no easy thing. And it can also lead to that ever-familiar loop of self-judgment and judgment of others around intense emotions and when they show up.

So let me just say one of the worst things that we can say to someone when they’re upset is, “You just need to calm down,” okay, right? There’s nothing that will send me more quickly from 0 to 100 than a statement like that, right? But what Polyvagal Theory requires, like Internal Family Systems (and by the way, these two approaches to our inner world meld so beautifully), is first looking within. “What am I feeling? Where am I feeling it? How do I feel towards it?” And these approaches give us a more detailed lens on how to best support ourselves and others and particularly Polyvagal Theory from a nervous system lens. Because when we feel activated, the initial triage of what we call the IFS YOU-turn happens, and I’ll be working on a workshop on that soon, so stay tuned.

6:00

But Polyvagal Theory helps us go just a little deeper and also offers some practical and tactical ways of caring for ourselves from a biological perspective in the moment. And the key here is not to judge ourselves or others when we’re upset about something or get activated or triggered. It’s just data. It’s neutral. However, we still have much of this judgment around emotions and showing our feelings, particularly for women. It’s always been a minefield, and if we don’t respond well when activated, harm can be done. This is a fact.

So Polyvagal Theory offers a powerful addition to your toolbox for leading yourself and others well while staying aligned to your values. It helps you stay above the line as we say in many of the coaching spaces. And that’s a lot to ask if we’re not metabolizing and working through what we feel. There’s a lot coming at us these days, these years. Just like athletes train for their sport, leaders of all kinds need to train themselves when different aspects of our story or our sense of safety and protection are threatened. We can engage in ways that don’t exile our story or protect in ways that don’t judge or shame. You know, these are all just normal human reactions. Instead, I really want us to deepen our connection with ourselves and those around us with these powerful tools because when we feel connected, seen, heard, and valued, it’s like drinking a cold glass of water on a hot day. It’s like, “Ahh!” It’s refreshing. When you feel seen, when you get to witness others, when you feel within and connected to that, you can offer that groundedness to other people too.

And I also hope this conversation helps you have a different one other than the ones I see many people having about managing big emotions and reactivities. Many leaders tell me they feel the expectation to make everyone they lead feel safe all the time, and I really want to emphasize that these approaches, it’s not about more safety.

8:09

There has to be a level of connection and regulation, sure. However, the complete absence of discomfort is unrealistic and not the solution. When you work towards helping your nervous system become more agile and adaptable by putting in the reps and working to understand your system, your own story, we can offer those we love and lead a greater sense of curiosity, compassion, and connection. So when discomfort shows up, these continued skills help us access more courage in the present. While our nervous system is wired to help us survive, we can help develop these skills to train ourselves and lead ourselves differently, to be more flexible, recover in a quicker fashion, and know when we’re at our limit. Yes, we have limits. We will have enough boundaries and guardrails to know when to tap out, to convalesce, take a break, and ask for help.

Leading in any capacity is never risk free, and sometimes we make mistakes, we hurt those we care about or get hurt, and this is where we learn how to repair and develop ways to not harm continually. So, sure, we’ll have places where we get triggered or activated, and I love how Polyvagal Theory calls us to look at the glimmers too, that we don’t just look for what’s scary and dangerous, but look at the opportunities in front of us, what delights us and what calms us, and not in a bypassy way but in a very honest acknowledgement.

Deb often shares that safety isn’t the absence of threat. Safety is the presence of connection and capacity, right? It’s a both/and. Yes, we still have considerable work to do on unburdening the systems in which we live and work and what we hold in our own inner systems so we can show up in ways that feel more aligned and adaptable.

10:08

But when there’s a challenge, we’re not just fighting for safety or fighting to note experience any activation or discomfort. Really, we’re moving towards what we can do, how we can grow when things are chaotic around us. And these approaches help us recalibrate, create a new homeostasis, a new baseline while still feeling engaged and alive even when we’re uncertain and overwhelmed. It’s this both/and piece, and I just really can’t emphasize that enough. And that’s the work.

Again, this isn’t about limiting discomfort because leaders tell me how they feel that those around them expect them to make them feel safe but what they need, I often say, is to feel connected, and that’s our  job to cultivate. We must educate those around us on how expecting safety with no discomfort is unrealistic. As leaders, we do the work and help ourselves develop more capacity, and then we can lend our capacity to others as we work towards the same goals.

Now, I want to note every nervous system is different. I want to make that clear, and what we see as strong and what we see as enough capacity may vary from person to person. We must work towards supporting people with different neurology and diverse neurology and stories instead of having a cookie-cutter approach to what “regulation” looks like and not so much on our work. And I find so much hope in all these tools that we have within us to access when challenges arise, how we’re made in our hardwiring. I have over two decades of clinical and leadership experience, over five decades of witnessing people on this planet move through tough things, heal, and grow, and I don’t believe the process ever stops. We don’t arrive, and if you’re a veteran of this podcast, you know I often say we stop growing and learning when we breathe our last breath.

12:06

And sometimes we forget how strong we are because of our circumstances and put pressure on ourselves and others to defy and with strong means in ways that don’t make us strong. We need to avoid adding perfectionism to our expectations around what it means to be regulated.

Okay, let me tell you a little bit about Deb. She’s a licensed clinical social worker, a consultant, an author, an international lecturer on Polyvagal Theory-informed work with trauma survivors and is the leading translator of this scientific work to the public and mental health professionals. She’s a founding member of The Polyvagal Institute, and Deb developed the signature Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series, which is the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living.

Deb’s work shows us how understanding Polyvagal Theory applies across the board to relationships, mental health, and trauma, and dare I say leadership. She delves into the intricacies of how we can all use and understand the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory to change the ways we navigate our daily lives.

So, in our conversation, I want you to listen for when Deb talks about the power of taking a brief pause to check in on how we’re feeling when we feel stuck with the demands of the day. And pay attention to when Deb shares about the difference between stretching and stressing. And notice when Deb talks about what happens when we feel the shift of an invitation to something that becomes more of a demand and the impact that has on our nervous system. All right, y’all. Now, please welcome Deb Dana to The Unburdened Leader podcast.

All right, everyone, you are in for a very timely and important conversation with the amazing Deb Dana! Deb, welcome to The Unburdened Leader podcast!

14:12

Deb Dana: Thank you! Yes, it is timely. We didn’t know that when we scheduled this but boy, oof.

Rebecca Ching: Oh, we did not.

Deb Dana: Yeah, ooh. Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: We did not. I suspected [Laughs] that it would be important regardless.

Deb Dana: Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: And so, I’m really excited to get into a little bit of the anatomy of an approach that is near and dear to your heart, which is called Polyvagal Theory, and talk about it in ways that folks can understand it and maybe understand it better than how a lot of its terms are often spoken out about it. And I know many people may be aware of Polyvagal Theory in some form, maybe not as Polyvagal Theory, but in terms of regulation and dysregulation but still may not understand the roots of its language. I’d love for you to walk me through what regulation actually is and how Polyvagal Theory supports our ability to lead and connect, especially during highly conflictual, divided, or emotionally-intense situations.

Deb Dana: Mm, yeah. We have needed to rely on our capacity for regulation a lot recently, haven’t we?

Rebecca Ching: Absolutely.

Deb Dana: We’re all sort of reaching for those resources that help us regulate.

Rebecca Ching: Yeah.

Deb Dana: So if we think about regulation, we think of regulation as being sort of balanced and organized and, you know, feeling ready to engage with the world, and that is a regulated system. It allows me to show up and connect, right? But when I think about regulation, I think about a system that is continually moving out of regulation and coming back.

Rebecca Ching: Mm.

16:02

Deb Dana: So for me regulation means the capacity to feel a bit challenged, to feel perhaps some of that anxiety, that anger, that disconnect, that frustration, all of that that goes on, and then return to a bit more regulation so that I can be connected with the person that I’m with or connected in the world. So, you know, we think about regulation and think about a definition as being sort of always in this plane of feeling okay, feeling safe enough, and yet we want to expand that, I think, to include regulation is the capacity to return when I have been challenged. So I guess I would invite us to think about regulation as an ongoing dynamic experience that I have more or less of at any given moment about that.

Rebecca Ching: Mm. So it’s a spectrum. What, practically, influences our ability to move and feel a little bit of that anxiety, a little bit of that fear, grief?

Deb Dana: Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: You never do a little bit of grief. You know, how we move. What influences our capacity to be in it and then be able to see it and come back to a place where we still have some presence and clarity?

Deb Dana: Yeah, and again, this is the beauty of understanding the nervous system, understanding how it works. You know, I invite people in the beginning, we call it befriending your nervous system. So get to know how it works because it is what helps us understand how we’re human, right? And so, the challenge on a biological level is a challenge to the part of my nervous system that helps me stay present, stay here, stay engaged. The challenge comes when too much comes at me and my nervous system very wisely makes a choice to move out of connection into one of the survival responses that we have at our disposal, the first one being fight and flight, right?

18:29

Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.

Deb Dana: And that’s where everybody goes first. When things feel overwhelming, when I can’t manage, my system takes me to fight and flight, to anger or anxiety, right? And again, I don’t have a choice about that. We want to remember that. This isn’t a cognitive, aware decision I’m making. My nervous system is making it on my behalf, right? So that’s dysregulation, right?

The other survival state the nervous system may take us to is disconnect, shutdown, right? And again, I don’t choose it. My nervous system chooses it for me. If we think about the way our nervous system moves to protect us, it is an exquisitely organized part of our biology. It is always acting in service of our safety. That said, sometimes the actions it takes can feel pretty irrational and pretty crazy in the moment, right? Because it’s working without the benefit of your brain, right? It’s working below the level of your conscious awareness, so there may be moments when I am feeling a lack of resource, but life is too crazy, and my nervous system takes me to fight, right? And I lash out at the people around me, right? And it makes no sense to them because they aren’t feeling the same experience that I’m having.

20:00

If I can have a way to hold onto a tiny bit of regulation, I might be able to have a bit of observing the present and say, “Ooh, that was a little over the top,” right? I can come back to some regulation, and then I can make a repair with the people around me.

Rebecca Ching: I think a lot of people think that this is a cognitive, intellectual choice.

Deb Dana: Right.

Rebecca Ching: And you touched on that a little bit, that our nervous system’s making a wise decision, which doesn’t maybe feel like what we’re taught. So often we’re taught, you know, to exile. I’m very IFS-influenced. That’s my modality. So we’re taught to exile, and we stuff and protect from, and I’d love for you to — because a lot of folks are hard on themselves saying, “I let that happen to myself. I let my emotions get the best of me. I didn’t stay focused.” What would you say to those folks who are hard on themselves or responding to the teachings they’ve had around this when they get hit with a lot? A lot of leaders, I mean, especially right now, there’s so much coming at them personally and professionally, and a lot of what we’ve been taught on how to lead is to be stoic and have it all together, and if we don’t keep that together, we’re the ones that made the decision. What would you say to them in response?

Deb Dana: One of the things that I say often when I’m working with people is that this thing that happened, this thing you did, this response you had makes perfect sense if we look at it through the lens of the nervous system. You were under-resourced and too much stuff was coming at you, and your nervous system is going to take you into a survival response because that’s what it feels needs to happen in order to keep you safe so that you can come back to regulation and re-engage with the world. It’s that sense of, “I should have,” right?

Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.

Deb Dana: The word should, whenever we’re saying should to ourselves, should is a survival word.

22:11

Rebecca Ching: Oh, interesting. I often say it’s a shame word, but I love that. Say more.

Deb Dana: Well, should lives in the sympathetic drivenness experience, right? So it’s a, “You have to. You should,” and so, it’s giving you that self-critical, self-blaming experience that when we’re talking in the should world, right, they call it the land of should, right, which is a survival experience. From a regulated place, it’s not should, right? It’s a choice. Should does not give you a choice, and when you don’t have a choice, your nervous system takes you into a survival state. We need choice, right? So with regulation, I have choice, and then I can decide what is the best response in this moment, or what is the best action to take in this moment because in regulation, your brain and body are working together. As soon as you leave regulation and enter survival, your brain does not come along for the ride, so to speak. It goes into hypoactive mode. It doesn’t help you in the same way.

Rebecca Ching: And when you’re saying our brain it’s not like we’re a zombie. We move out of our executive functioning, right?

Deb Dana: Right.

Rebecca Ching: Can you say a little bit more about that on a very practical level?

Deb Dana: Yeah, your prefrontal cortex, which is where all of that decision making, planning, problem solving lives —

Rebecca Ching: Yep.

Deb Dana: — goes into hypoactive mode. It just doesn’t work in the same way it works when you are in a nervous system regulated state. So I still have brain function, but I don’t have this lovely ability to problem solve or look at options. You know, instead I’m single focused. My field narrows, and I have specific survival stories and survival actions that I can take in those states.

Rebecca Ching: So people listening are gonna want to know, “Oh, how do I get out of that state and get into a place where I’m not there?” And I think there’s sometimes that question itself is super understandable but sometimes problematic too. It can actually keep them stuck.

Deb Dana: Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: So I’m curious what you would say. What is the way that we should respond to that, and what is the data point if we’re trying to rush ourselves out of a state into a state we think is better?

24:25

Deb Dana: Mm, yeah. And I love that you just said “a state we think is better” because what we want to do is we want to appreciate the qualities of our survival states, right? Appreciate that something has prompted my nervous system to take me into survival and then be curious about it. You know, curiosity is only available to us when we have a bit of regulation flowing through our system, right? I don’t have to be fully regulated to be curious, but I have to have a bit of regulation and be curious, and that’s, I think, the skill that I love to help people develop first ,that you dysregulate because dysregulation is normal and expected every day for every being, right? There is not a human being who can stay regulated every day for long periods of time. That’s not how we’re created, right?

We dysregulate in small ways all the time, in big ways sometimes. The skill is can I notice, “Ooh, I’m losing my grip in regulation,” right? I’m feeling the anger, the frustration, or I’m feeling the anxiety, the worry begin to take over. I can notice that and name it. That’s the beginning practice (notice and name), and then before you try to get out of it, can you turn toward and listen for just 20 seconds to what your nervous system, what that state needs you to know in that moment because that’s the amazing information, right? Rather than simply saying, “Oh, I need to turn away from this anger,” turn toward for just a few seconds and listen. “What is it that I’m missing? What do I need to know?” And once you do that, then you can turn back and bring some regulation. But we don’t want to dismiss or discount the fact that the nervous system has brought a survival response, right?

26:20

Rebecca Ching: It’s human. Yeah.

Deb Dana: It’s human, and there’s information for us there, right? Sometimes the information with people is, “Ooh, I just got a clear message that I am trying to do too much,” right? And if we turn back away, if we ignore it and turn back away, we are just going to keep doing too much. But the interesting thing about the nervous system that I love is that no one escapes the messages from the nervous system, and if you don’t learn to listen when it’s speaking more quietly, it is going to take more and more extreme action to get your attention.

Rebecca Ching: I love that you said that because I say my own version of that to my clients. I’m like, “I’m worried that you’re gonna lose your choices here if something doesn’t change.” And I could hear, as you were sharing, that we need to take a moment to listen, to adjust if we’re not listening to our systems, our nervous systems. A lot of people are like, “Rebecca, are you kidding me? I’ve got my job that demands more than one person can do. I’ve got my kids, my family, my mortgage. Oh, yeah, the world’s on fire, and you’re talking what?”

Deb Dana: Yeah. Yes.

Rebecca Ching: You know, so yeah, what would you say to that?

Deb Dana: I mean, those are most of the clients that I work with. They come with complex, complicated lives. I would say to them, “If we could spend just a few minutes here with your nervous system, to help you have an experience of listening and finding a bit of regulation, all of those other things you’re gonna have different ways to work with them. But when you are stuck in the have-to, the demands of the day, and you can’t move away from that, you have less capacity to manage them,” right? So if you take 20 seconds to listen, you’re gonna increase your capacity to work well with those things.

28:19

Rebecca Ching: I think that really lands on multiple levels. First, just from an IFS perspective, right, it’s that YOU-turn, checking in and just that moment of listening and getting curious about what’s going on here, and what I’m hearing from you, just that practice itself is expanding capacity.

Deb Dana: Yes.

Rebecca Ching: It’s helping us.

Deb Dana: Yes, just that practice: noticing, turn toward, you know, like a 25-second practice. And I ask people, “Do you have 25 seconds, do you think?” They say, “I could do that.” “Great, that’s all I’m asking.” It’s the micro moments, and I just did a teaching piece around making the most of micro moments. That’s how the nervous system is reshaped, in these tiny moments that we do over and over. We don’t need a great, big, long, hour-long practice to reshape our nervous system to be able to find regulation. It’s tiny moments like this that we notice and turn toward, listen and then come back. Every time we do that we begin to allow there to be more capacity in our system to find regulation.

Rebecca Ching: Micro moments. We have time for micro moments.

Deb Dana: We do.

Rebecca Ching: We don’t have to scroll. We don’t have to — however else we comfort and soothe. And what you’re saying is it’s those micro moments that actually help us rewire and recalibrate. And I think we’re taught that we have to do these big things. From physical activity, “I’ve got to run a marathon to be healthy!” It’s like, “No, you don’t.” From a nervous system health, it’s those micro moments of checking in, what’s happening, witnessing. That can have a profound effect.

Deb Dana: The question that I love to have people ask once they sort of get to know their nervous system, right, if they know, “Oh, this is what regulation feels like to me. This is what it sounds like. This is what it looks like,” we get to know that. “And this is what dysregulation looks like, sounds like, feels like to me,” right?

30:17

Then the question, you know, when I’m dysregulated, very simply is, “What does my nervous system need in this moment to feel a little more regulated?” And it’s a simple question. It’s just not the cognitive question. “What do I need to do,” is a cognitive question. “Oh, you need to finish those three reports. You need to return those four emails. That’s the brain saying because it’ll get them off your to-do list that’ll help, but your nervous system is not gonna tell you that. You know, if you say, “What does your nervous system need in this moment?” it may say, “I need to just stop and look out the window. I need to turn on some music. I need to breathe without doing anything else for a minute,” right? Your nervous system is going to tell you what it needs to find a bit more regulation, and then you’re gonna be much more protective.

Rebecca Ching: Those little moments, we really resist that. I know I do. [Laughs] In my fifties now I still am like, “Oh, my gosh, it’s just that simple and so hard to do,” because other parts of me are really — they think the solution is doing more, working harder. But it’s quite the opposite. And it’s those moments that actually will make a difference, and we sometimes have a hard time believing that it will.

Deb Dana: Yeah, and you’re right. And so, how do we gain some evidence, I guess, around that? This is that we’re doing in the beginning, you know? If we say, “Okay, I’m gonna try this for the next week, and then I’m gonna just notice what are the small changes that might happen,” because we want to know that something is working. I truly believed that these micro moments would begin to have an impact, so I was always willing to say, “Okay, let’s try it! How do we want to create an experiment so that next week when you come back you can let me know what happened,” right? Because something will happen, right?

32:13

Because the nervous system doesn’t work on the power-through principle, right? If you try to power through something, it will take you deeper into a survival response, and as soon as you go into a survival response, you lose your capacity for creativity, your capacity for connection, your capacity to problem solve.

Rebecca Ching: And the survival response is fight or flight?

Deb Dana: Or shut down, disconnect, mm-hmm.

Rebecca Ching: Shut down, disconnect, okay. And once we’re in those states, it does take a beat to get out of them. Once we’re already there, and that’s so unique to people, what I’ve learned in my clinical capacity as a trauma therapist. And depending on their story and what they’re system’s already carrying, what are some things that we can do, especially when we’re in high-profile, high-demand roles in our life, if we’re feeling that but we have to still show up? What would you say in those moments? What would you recommend?

Deb Dana: It’s really tough when you know that you’re struggling and you have to show up because you can’t hide your nervous system’s struggle, right? We think we can. We do this fake it ‘til you make it. We do this put on a good act, right? But there’s this lovely thing called neuroception, which Steve Porges created that word, which I love that word.

Rebecca Ching: Me too.

Deb Dana: Neuroception is how we send signals out into the world and receive signals from the world and from other people from other nervous systems. When I’m struggling, if I am holding on by my fingertips, if I am dysregulated and try to, you know, smile anyway and power through it, through my neuroception, I am sending signals of danger to your nervous system, and your nervous system gets it. So your nervous system is no way believing that I am okay. Your brain might try to convince you, but your nervous system’s getting the message, “Ooh, not okay.”

34:17

So what do we do when we know we have to show up and we are feeling overwhelmed or dysregulated? It’s interesting because, like you, in clinical work, we have to figure out how do we do this. Sometimes the best thing to do is to say to a client, “My nervous system has been all over the place this morning. Let’s land here together, and I’m gonna take a minute and breathe,” or whatever your particular way of getting back is. Again, it’s that naming explicitly what they implicitly feel anyway. And I know people in leadership roles find that challenging, and yet the people they are speaking to are going to feel it anyway.

Rebecca Ching: And the benefit of saying, “You’re important, but I need a beat. Let me catch my breath,” actually is an invitation and a normalization.

Deb Dana: Yes. Yes.

Rebecca Ching: Because when I’m around someone and I didn’t even know that I needed to notch it down and they’re like, “Ugh, let me take –,” I’m like, “Oh, yeah. Thank you.” Even though parts of me that are like the worker bees are like, “What are you doing?” I feel it in my body. My body’s like, “Thank you for that unintentional or unspoken permission slip.”

Deb Dana: Yes. I mean, that’s my passion. My passion is to have people speak this language so that it doesn’t become something weird, and I don’t know what’s happening. It’s like we come into a meeting and, you know, we say, “What do you need to arrive here,” right? “Do what your nervous system needs to arrive here,” whether that’s breathe or find your seat or whatever it is, right? But it becomes sort of the normalcy of what we do rather than everything being brain driven. It’s including the body in this experience.

36:17

Rebecca Ching: Because if we don’t listen to the body, the body always wins. I always say that. So I want to get into the language, but before we do, I have one more quick question on this. Where do you see the intersection of this lens with vulnerability? I use Brené Brown’s language. I’ve been a practitioner of her work for a long time, and her defining risk on certainty and emotional exposure as vulnerability — all states that aren’t activations, right, that are not safe or comfortable, but that if we can hang in there, that’s the path to everything that we really desire like love and belonging and so on and so on. Sometimes that moment, coming into a meeting like, “Let’s just take a moment to do what you need to to settle in,” some people might feel like that’s too vulnerable even just taking a breath. So I’d love for you just to speak to the intersection of this lens of Polyvagal Theory with vulnerability.

Deb Dana: You know, we’re talking about stretching our nervous system, not stressing our nervous system. That’s what I have, a stretch to stress continually. Is this a stretch for you? Then let’s move into that. Is it a stress where it feels — the cues of danger outweigh the cues of safety for you? We’re not gonna do that, right? So the invitation is, you know, do what you need to do. If you just need to sit there, and you’re gonna get your notepad out and you’re ready to go, that’s fine. And if you need to breathe or you need to move, whatever, right? And it’s really recognizing that the nervous system is going to need different things, right? Each nervous system is going to say, “This is what I need today,” as well. Not only is it unique to my system but it’s unique to my system today, right? Next time, next week it may be something totally different because the system’s a dynamic system, always giving us that information.

38:12

So I guess what I’d say is I have been in circumstances, in trainings, in meetings where people will say, “Okay, we’re all going to [fill-in-the-blank].” “We’re all gonna breathe. We’re all gonna dance. We’re all gonna whatever,” and my nervous system immediately goes, “No way,” right? 

Rebecca Ching: I’m with you. [Laughs]

Deb Dana: That feels terrifying because there was no choice, right?

Rebecca Ching: Yeah.

Deb Dana: If somebody said, “For those of you who would like to breathe, I’m going to do that, and if that doesn’t fit for you, please feel free not to.” There has to be an invitation. As soon as we feel as if it’s a demand, it brings a survival response for us. An invitation, yes. A demand or even an expectation, your nervous system is gonna feel that, and it’s gonna feel threatened.

Rebecca Ching: Brilliant. Thank you for naming that. It’s always about choice. I always say, “Any living creature that is trapped is not doing well.” They turn on themselves, others, or both, and it’s not pretty. But my brain is kind of going to a lot of well-known professional development spaces that are all about the push on through. It’s all about, you know, “Let’s walk the coals of fire!” And you’re high fived for that, but then I see the folks on the other side of that going, “I didn’t have permission.” They’re having major backlash because they pushed themselves to show up in ways, and then a lot of leaders are sensitive to that, and they’re nervous about, “I don’t want anyone to be offended.” And so, this language of, “Here’s an invitation, and find what’s best for you,” when we’re thinking about those little things, that’s super empowering.

So I want to get into the language. You mentioned you want this language to kind of be normal and comfortable, but there’s a phase right now.

40:00

I think the phenomenon of social media and folks who do marketing well, they can distill things down, and it ends up losing its complexity and nuance. And I see people using dysregulation in a very othering way at times, like, “You’re dysregulated. Oh. Ew,” you know? Kind of like, “Gross. You’re dysregulated.” But it elicits more shame versus, “Hey, what do you need?” So, for me, I see a difference between dysregulation and activation. I don’t think activation in itself is bad. I’m more alert. I could be excited. I could be cautious, right? And then dysregulated is when I go into those different — my brain’s offline.

I would love for you maybe to explain what are the distinctions you see between activation and dysregulation, and what are the signs that someone’s in a healthy state of activation versus being dysregulated?

Deb Dana: I love the distinction. I, too, talk about activation as it’s energy in your system, right?

Rebecca Ching: Yeah.

Deb Dana: And we can have lots of that sympathetic energy in our system but not be in sympathetic survival, not be in fight/flight. And there’s actually a piece of our nervous system that allows us to do that that’s called The Vagal Brake. We don’t have to get into that, but its purpose is to allow us access to all of this amazing energy but keep us feeling safe enough, connected enough, regulated enough. So activated and regulated. I like to say we’re regulated and ready. You can be excited, you can be passionate, you can move your purpose, you can speak with strength, you can be playful, all of these things from a place of safety and connection, from a place of regulation.

And then at some point when things feel too big for you yet again, that energy is gonna turn from filling, from nourishing to dysregulating, to you’re feeling unsafe, you’re feeling threatened in some way, and that same energy is gonna turn to anxiety, anger, fight, fight. It’s interesting to help people figure that out because trauma survivors often think, “I’m either calm or not,” right?

42:25

Rebecca Ching: Yeah.

Deb Dana: Well, there are all sorts of flavors of regulation, calm being one of them, right? I think ventral, which is the regulated state, if we want to think about that, that gets a bad name because we equate it with calm. “Oh, you’re calm.” Well, sometimes, but sometimes I’m excited or I’m alert, I’m ready, I’m moving through my to-do list with purpose, and I’m getting a lot done. That’s still regulated, right? And it’s individual.

You know, I work with people and say, “Does this feel nourishing to you, or have you now moved into it feels draining or it feels driven,” right? Those are the opposites: draining or driven. If it’s draining or driven, you’re no longer regulated. Activation has turned to dysregulation.

Rebecca Ching: One buzzword — I want to throw this in here because I was just talking about this, and actually I just presented at the IFS conference on integrating IFS with trauma-informed leadership practices. One of the things I talked about is the word safe, and I hear this a lot too because I have an energy where I can be activated and excited, and I have to really be mindful of who I’m around because even my excitement, my passion can not be helpful to someone else’s system, and I’ve had to really be aware of that. But sometimes, “Oh, that’s not safe,” right? “That’s not safe. You’re not making me feel safe.”

What would you say is a good response, just from your lens, when a leader’s told — when they show up in a meeting and maybe they’re feeling excited or even impassioned, you know, they’re not 98.6 a robot mode but they’re bringing in who they are and some energy to it but presence, an embodied presence, and folks, their nervous systems receive that and they go, “Oh, I’m not safe,” and they get that feedback. How do we respond to that in a way that isn’t othering and get into a polarization?

44:23

Deb Dana: I mean, my response when somebody says, “I’m not feeling safe,” or “I’m feeling whatever,” I say, “Tell me more.” That’s always where I go. “Tell me more,” because I have no idea what that means to that person and their nervous system, no idea. So first, I have to get more information, right? And so, maybe someone says, “You feel really big with a lot of energy, and that makes me anxious,” right? Then I can say, “Oh, so this energy that I have is because I’m really excited about this project that we’re going to begin to create. Does that help?” Again, we make a lot of assumptions around it.

Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] We sure do.

Deb Dana: Because we’re feeling it and then I put a label on it, you know? And I agree with you. I think people all the time, more recently, have been saying, “I feel unsafe,” right? And then the person that’s being told that tries to turn themselves inside out to fix it or goes into their own shame response. When really, if we can stay in a bit of curiosity, we can say, “Ooh, tell me more.” That’s really where we want to go because I don’t have enough information to know what that means for you.

Rebecca Ching: Because what I’m learning is that unsafe and discomfort have become conflated, and my training says that’s just a crappy thing to say to someone because they could really be in a space and I don’t — but something that is uncomfortable could trigger unsafety, a lack of safety, right? But that doesn’t mean I am doing something wrong. I work with just a lot of wholehearted, caring people who are just wanting to have everyone feel good and connected, and that’s a lot of pressure to put, especially these days.

46:15

Deb Dana: You said, you know, you haven’t done anything wrong. I always say that to people. I say, “Your nervous system’s having a response,” right? “And yes, it might be having a response to something I’m saying or doing or the way I’m moving, but it’s your system that’s having that response. Let’s figure out what your system needs, not to change me, but let’s figure out what your system needs. And if there’s something I can do, I’m happy to do it. But your system, that’s what you’re navigating the world with, right? So let’s get to know your system and what it needs in order to be able to move through different spaces with different people.”

[Inspirational Music]

Rebecca Ching: Leading is hard. Leading is also often controversial as you navigate staying aligned to your values, your mission, and your boundaries. Navigating the inevitable controversy can challenge your confidence and clarity and calm when you feel triggered and less confident in your ability to navigate the big emotions that you’re feeling. I know you don’t mind making hard decisions, but sometimes the stakes seem higher and can bring up echoes of old doubts and insecurities during times when you need to feel rock solid on your plan and action.

Finding a coach who gets the nuances of your business and leading in our complex and polarized world can help you identify the blocks that keep you playing it safe and small. Leading today is not a fancy title or fluffy bragging rights. It’s brave and bold work to stay the course when the future is so unknown and the doubts and pains from the past keep showing up to shake things up. Internal emotional practices like IFS and Polyvagal Theory, along with systemic strategies, are needed to keep the protector of cynicism at bay and foster a hope that is both actionable and aligned.

48:13

When the stakes are high and you don’t want to lose focus, when you want to navigate inevitable conflict between your ears and with those you lead, when time is of the essence and you want to make hard decisions with confidence and clarity, then Unburdened Leader Coaching is for you and where you deepen the capacity to tolerate the vulnerability of change, innovation, and doing things differently than we were taught. To start your Unburdened Leader Coaching process with me go to www.rebeccaching.com and book a free connection call. I can’t wait to hear from you!

[Inspirational Music]

Rebecca Ching: How have you seen this approach, Polyvagal Theory, and the language around dysregulation/regulation, how can these concepts and language — have you seen them be used to dismiss emotions or avoid discomfort rather than fostering genuine connection?

Deb Dana: I get that question when I teach because we know that regulation, what we call ventral energy, the ventral state, is the essential ingredient for healing and for wellbeing, both physical wellbeing and psychological wellbeing, because the nervous system manages both your physical state and your psychological state. So we spend a lot of time helping people create ways to resource that capacity for regulation. We do that so that they have a greater capacity to be with the struggle, to be with the suffering, not because we want them to move away from it. But if you don’t have the capacity to have an anchor in regulation, you can’t be with the suffering and the struggle.

50:03

I surf the net sometimes, and you just put “vagus” in your thing, and oh, my god, you get —

Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] Right.

Deb Dana: — so many things, and I go, “Really?” And you read some of it, you know, like, “Hack the vagus,” that’s a big one.

Rebecca Ching: Yes. That’s a sexy one right now, Deb.

Deb Dana: Yeah. Yeah, and yes, I’d like to find some way to have regulation, but then I need to go figure out where the dysregulation is coming from, right? Because the dysregulation is wanting us to know something, right? So let’s find a way to increase the capacity for resourcing regulation so we can then go and be with the dysregulation. Trauma lives in dysregulation, right? That’s where it lives. It doesn’t live in regulation. When we have enough regulation, we can go revisit rather than relive.

You know, that’s sort of my soapbox is like, yes, we need ventral so that we can go be with the distress. And if you just read people’s work and see what people are doing it’s like, you know, let’s just get out of — you don’t need to be there. Let’s come to regulation. Yes/and is really what we want to say. Yes, we need regulation, and we then need to be able to see what’s going on underneath, right? You know, so you went to sympathetic, and you had a rage attack, and you broke up the furniture, whatever. Your biology took you there, right? that was not your decision-making process. It was your biology that took you there, right? So we need to start there.

And now that you understand your nervous system, you’re beginning to get to know it, you have a responsibility to shape it so that that intensity doesn’t keep happening and to clean up some mess you made. It’s your biology, not your choice. And once we understand that, then we have a responsibility to work with our system and repair the ruptures that we’ve created when we were dysregulated.

52:11

Rebecca Ching: This is huge because we’re human. We’re gonna have misses, right? Our intent and impact, we’re not gonna be 100% perfect in that, and it’s gonna take capacity for the vulnerability to circle back with someone and say, “I didn’t show up for you the way that I wanted, and I’m sorry, and I would like to move forward and repair this.”

Deb Dana: Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Because we’re opening with a vulnerability there, so the thought of that versus, “They were just dysregulated. Oh, they just need to go do their own personal work. They took their personal stuff to work and dumped it on me.” You know, I hear all this stuff, and I’m like, “Uh, I think it’s more than that.” I just keep going back. I mean, there are so many beautiful integrations with Polyvagal and IFS, but if I can sit with the discomfort that I’m feeling, my capacity to sit with others’ discomfort increases and whatever they bring out in me, they may say or do something that taps into something in my story or the echo of a burden I’m still carrying. And if I’m aware of it, I’m like, “Oh, yeah. Okay, take care of my system,” and then I can return to the relationship.

But I think the repair, there are so many people right now in their shutdown, at least for folks that I’ve been talking to, and I have immense compassion for why they’re feeling the way they are and concern too, but there isn’t a place for repair. And I’m hearing, “I don’t know if I’m interested in repair.” And that’s something that I feel like my hope is to help folks when they’re ready because I’m concerned what’ll happen if we don’t, if we stay siloed. 

Deb Dana: You know, it’s interesting when you said, you know, “I’m not interested in a repair.” We can’t be interested when we’re in a survival state. It doesn’t fit. “I am slowly focused on survival and repairing a rupture with someone who’s dangerous? Forget it,” right? Because that’s what you’ve become in my nervous system, right?

54:08

Rebecca Ching: You got it.

Deb Dana: You’ve become a threat rather than a restorative resource. It’s only when we can find our way to enough regulation that we can consider repair. I, too, worry about the people who are so stuck in survival at the moment, and so, what can we do to help those people feel a little more welcomed, a little bit safer to begin to come back towards a little regulation. That’s step one. We can’t offer repair. There’s no way repair could happen now. Repair has to happen after people begin to feel that they’re here again, they’re present again, they’re feeling a bit of safety and connection.

Rebecca Ching: I’m glad you mention that because there’s often this rush to want to bypass that and get it resolved, right, because the discomfort of the person who maybe did the wrong or is just at a different place, it’s like, “Come on. Let’s go.” That’s a very common occurrence.

I guess I’m thinking about, too, what’s in store for a lot of us here in The States, and I guess it depends on your views, but many people I know and care about and support, it feels like it’s gonna constantly be pinging. I’m wondering how can leaders apply this framework, you know, obviously not just to themselves but use it to foster environments that help people feel a little bit more safe, a little bit more connected within their teams and their groups and their organization?

Deb Dana: Hmm, it’s a great question. It’s also a challenging question because there are lots of nervous systems that all have a different need for connection, you know? So I think, you know what, I tell people in the beginning is, “Can we just get curious? Can we see?” And I think as a leader if you are modeling this befriending experience, you’re modeling that it’s safe, it’s welcome to say, “Phew, this was a messy morning, and I’m feeling it in my nervous system.”

56:09

To begin to bring that way of talking into the world you’re in, the organization you’re in is a start, and then to figure out with individuals and then the teams how do we find a way to come together around what it is the nervous systems need. It is really hard to do.

You look at teachers and classrooms. You’ve got 35 nervous systems. Holy moly, right! And then so, what I say to teachers, and we could say to leaders running a meeting or an organization, some days I’m gonna be the regulated one. And so, then I’m your ally that day. Some days I’m gonna be the dysregulated one, and I need somebody else to be the ally, right? I can’t always be one and I’m not always gonna be the other. I’m gonna move back and forth. So today, who are my allies? Those are the nervous systems that are more regulated. And we can come together as a group to help regulate the others, to offer safety and connection.

Rebecca Ching: I love this because it also has a really collaborative lens on leading, obviously, self and others, right? The expectation that I have to have it together all the time is unrealistic.

Deb Dana: Yes.

Rebecca Ching: And if you have your people that can tap in when you’re like, “I need to tap out. I need you to tap in,” and how you do that dance and fostering those relationships, personally, but also in your professional spaces, that’s just really wise. I think people do that but not from a nervous system lens but maybe from a tactical lens, you know, of work? “Oh, I can’t get to that meeting. Will you do it?” versus, “I can’t lead this meeting right now. I need you to.” [Laughs]

58:00

Deb Dana: Yes. Yes! If you think about schools, you think about kids, what are we helping kids begin to learn in this way? We’re helping kids learn that I can offer help to another. That is meaningful. I can connect with another nervous system. Oh, and I can also receive, right? I mean, that’s the beauty of this fullness of being human. Some days I can offer; some days I need to receive. So that same is true if you’re adults in an organization, right? Some days I’m there, I’m regulated, I’m ready. And other days, it’s like, “Oh, please. I can’t,” right?

Rebecca Ching: For sure. We could go in some many deep dives on these, but I want to hear a little bit kind of personally from you because I know with IFS, I know with Shame Resilience Theory, those theories have not just been intellectual practices. They’ve been, not to be hyperbolic, but truly life-changing practices on how I do life. And so, I’d love for you, because you’ve shared in your speaking, writing, and teaching, you do so much, you share stories of how Polyvagal Theory has personally impacted your own healing and your own leadership journey. I’d love for you to walk me through a time in your personal experience where Polyvagal practices supported your nervous system so you could show up in ways that honored your values and desired impact.

Deb Dana: Yeah, it is powerful when we connect with our nervous system, and it helps lead the way. And I think that the place that it’s still very present in my world is the end of my husband’s life and, you know, showing up for him as a caregiver. He died a little over a year ago, and it’s still sitting in my system in all sorts of interesting ways. But I will say two things.

I’ll go back to he had a stoke way back in 2015, and the first person I called was Steve Porges, and I said, “Steve, Bob just had a stroke. What do I do?” Because I was thinking he’s gonna give me nervous system advice, right? Like what does his system need.

1:00:07

And you know what he told me? I carried that with me all those years of caregiving is that if you can be regulated, you will offer those cues of safety to his system so that he can do the hard work of recovery, right? And it was both practical like, “Oh, okay. I can work on that,” and extremely hard to do, as anybody who’s a caregiver knows, right? And so, we did really well for a long time, and then he got very sick in the last couple of years. In the last year of his life, I really tried to find enough resourcing from my nervous system so that I could show up and be the caregiver from a place of connection and offering that kindness, right? And I will say, you know, everybody who’s a caregiver hopefully will say, “Oh, I’ve done that too.” That’s not always possible, right? And so, as I reflect on his last months, there were many, many times when I wish I’d had more resourcing. I would have done it differently.

So in the cognitive world, in that world, people will say you did the best you could, right? My brain knows that. This is not a brain experience. This is an embodied nervous system experience. I still feel the dysregulation around it because you can do what needs to be done from a sympathetic drivenness. You can do what needs to be done from a dorsal, “I’m not really here doing it but I’m just getting it done.” And you can do what needs to be done from the kindness of regulation. It still gets done. On my end it feels very different, and on Bob’s end I’m sure it felt very different. So that’s the humbling experience around nervous systems that sometimes, and there are so many people who are in this same situation, there’s not enough help, there’s not enough resourcing, and we can’t do it from a place of kindness all the time.

1:02:13

So that’s the personal journey. And so, it helps me when I look at other people who are struggling with whatever they’re struggling with. I go back to finding what that feels like. I know what that feels like to not be able to act with kindness in this moment, right? And I think that’s helpful.

Rebecca Ching: That component of Kristen Neff’s Self-Compassion Theory, the common humanity. You access that, you know, and of course empathy too.

Deb Dana: Yeah. Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Ah, that’s beautiful. I’m curious because this is a big — you know, we have our own — talking about success and leadership spaces is kind of a common thing and I think sometimes burdened, and I’m curious how you define success and how is it different from what you were taught and raised.

Deb Dana: Yeah, I mean, I think I was taught that success was achievements. I was raised in a very goal-oriented family. You achieved things. You got good grades, you went to a good school, all these sort of things, which was a measure of success. I don’t feel that way anymore.

Success for me I think is when I touch somebody’s life and it has an impact, right? And whether it’s one person or twenty people, it doesn’t matter. There’s that sense of I’m regulated and I’m offering my kindness and my care through my nervous system to another, and they receive it, and what I know is that it’s gonna ripple out. And so, that’s lovely, but that feels like, ooh, that was a good day. Maybe that’s how I measure success. That’s a good day when my system connects with another, and I can feel that.

Rebecca Ching: I feel that deeply. Connection’s one of my core values, so that really resonates with me too. Deb, do you think you’ll come back in the future, come back and talk more about these things? I think we’re gonna need to have more conversations in the months to come. Would that be something you’d be open to?

1:04:18

Deb Dana: Absolutely! Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Wonderful, wonderful.

Deb Dana: Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: Before we go, I have a tradition of asking guests some fun, quickfire questions. So here we go!

Deb Dana: Good luck. Let’s see! [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] Let’s see! What are you reading right now?

Deb Dana: Oh, I am between books. I just finished The Nightingale, which I will say my kids gave it to me, and they will laugh if they ever hear this. It traveled around the world with me for a year because I would take it everywhere I went and not open it. [Laughs]

Rebecca Ching: [Laughs]

Deb Dana: They laughed when I said, “I read it!” I finally did. So that’s done, and I’m just starting The Color Blue, which is about the history of the color blue. It’s fascinating.

Rebecca Ching: Oh, my gosh. That sounds great! What song are you playing on repeat?

Deb Dana: Ooh, at the moment, I am into Andrea Bocelli and also Céline Dion, their duet The Prayer has been — yeah, and I could just keep playing it over and over, and I love loud music, so I can blast it and be right inside it, yep.

Rebecca Ching: Me too! [Laughs]

Deb Dana: [Laughs] Good!

Rebecca Ching: I definitely feel that. Oh, yes. What is the best TV show or movie that you’ve seen recently?

Deb Dana: Oh, well, you’re gonna get all my secrets here. I love baking shows. [Laughs] So here I am. I just finished The Halloween Baking Championship, and now —

Rebecca Ching: Oh, my goodness.

Deb Dana: — of course The Holiday Baking Championship has just started! There’s always one going, so that’s what I’m doing now.

Rebecca Ching: I love it, oh, my gosh. What’s your favorite baking show? Do you have a favorite? Is that, like, sacrilege for me to ask that question?

1:06:00

Deb Dana: No, I mean, I do love The Great British Baking Show.

Rebecca Ching: It’s the best! It’s the best.

Deb Dana: So, you know, there is that one. It is. It is such fun, isn’t it? Yeah.

Rebecca Ching: I’m an eighties child, so I always ask people what’s their favorite eighties piece of pop culture or their favorite piece of pop culture from their childhood.

Deb Dana: That’s interesting. Eighties is not gonna resonate with me. You know, it’s interesting. What I — hmm, I don’t know. I’m not sure I can answer that question, which leads me to the sense that I think I travelled through much of my childhood and adolescence not truly there about that. So I’m gonna skip that one, yeah.

Rebecca Ching: I get it. No, I get it. What is your mantra right now?

Deb Dana: “My nervous system knows the way.”

Rebecca Ching: Oof.

Deb Dana: I’m holding onto that one, yep.

Rebecca Ching: I think I’ll join you in that. What is an unpopular opinion that you hold?

Deb Dana: [Laughs] Oh, boy. Well, in the clinical world, and I may bump into you, I don’t know, but I am so frustrated with everybody wanting certifications, right? So the whole certification process is driving me crazy because people ask me all the time, “Can I get certified in Polyvagal theory?” I said, “No, there is no such thing, nor will there ever be. No, you can’t,” right? “You can get really good at being a Polyvagal-guided therapist, how about that?” So I would vote to — I like licensure because it means something. Certifications are like, “Oh, gosh. I don’t know.”

Rebecca Ching: I appreciate that. I feel like that’s a big conversation. It does not bump against me at all.

Deb Dana: Oh, good.

Rebecca Ching: As someone who holds a lot of certifications, I cosign with what you’re saying, and I appreciate the spirit behind it. And lastly, who or what inspires you to be a better leader and human?

Deb Dana: Oh, I think I’ll go back to Steve Porges. I will tell you, when I met Steve and he invited me to — I was doing clinical application of his theory, and we met, and it was a lovely meeting in a sense of this is a lovely collaboration.

1:08:08

What I love about Steve is he is brilliant. He is humble. He is kind. And he believes that you put the work out into the world and the people who need it are gonna find it, and I find that so refreshing, and so, that’s how I’ve always done my professional work. It’s not about all the advertising and promotion and hoopla, and people put out there into the world to get people to come and learn and take their courses. I just love that belief he has that it will find its way, and I love that I’ve been able to do that with him. So Steve and the way that he — yeah, I truly think he’s changing the world, and he’s doing it in a way that is so kind, so not big and promoting but just being who he is. So he inspires me.

Rebecca Ching: Deb, where can people find you and connect with you and your work?

Deb Dana: On my website, www.rhythmofregulation.com. We try to keep it up to date and have a lot of free things that people can listen to, podcasts, meditations, all sorts of stuff. So come to the website and see what’s cookin’.

Rebecca Ching: Deb, this has been a real honor to talk with you. It’s one thing to read and take an asynchronous class from you but it’s another to be in the presence of you live, so thank you for this conversation. I know many people will benefit from it, and I look forward to you coming back on the show. But take good care of you!

Deb Dana: Thank you!

[Inspirational Music]

Rebecca Ching: Before you go, I want to make sure you take away some important nuggets of wisdom Deb shared with us today about her work with Polyvagal Theory.

1:10:05

Now, Deb shared a lot of incredible information on how the lens of Polyvagal Theory can help us be better leaders of ourselves and others, and she shared the most beautiful story of how she practiced this work herself when her husband was dying. She shared that if we can be regulated, we will offer those safety cues to others so they can do the hard work ahead of them. And Deb reminded us that our triggers start as biological responses, so we need to respond by taking a biological approach to addressing them. Lastly, and this is a challenging one, when we experience demands or expectations on our nervous system, we can feel threatened. Leaving choices on the table is key to helping mitigate that.

So if you take anything away from this conversation, I hope you embrace that the work of leaders today is not to never be triggered or for everyone to always feel safe. It’s to do the work to build greater capacity and connection within ourselves and with others so we all feel safe enough to do the brave work before us, and this is the ongoing work of an Unburdened Leader.

[Inspirational Music]

Thank you so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader. You can find this episode, show notes, and free Unburdened Leader resources, along with ways to sign up for my email list, my new Substack, and ways to work with me at www.rebeccaching.com. And if this episode impacted you positively, I’d be honored if you left a rating, a review, and shared it with a few folks you think may benefit from it. And this episode was produced by the incredible team at Yellow House Media!

[Inspirational Music]