This Is Your Nervous System Speaking

I’m in the middle of my Polyvagal Institute training, and I swear — every week, I learn something that makes me sit back and go:

“OH. That’s why I do that.”

It’s science. But it’s also me work.
It’s showing me things I’ve felt my whole life — but finally have language for.

🔍 One concept that stopped me in my tracks?

Neuroception — your nervous system’s built-in surveillance system.
It constantly scans your environment for safety or threat — without asking your permission, and definitely without looping in your logical brain first.

This happens beneath awareness.
Not thought.
Not emotion.
Just straight-up biology.

Your brain-body system is always asking:

👀 Am I safe?
😬 Am I in danger?
🤝 Can I connect?

And one of its main players in that scan?

The vagus nerve — specifically, the 10th cranial nerve.

It’s part of your parasympathetic nervous system, and it runs from your brainstem down through your face, chest, heart, lungs, and gut.
It’s a superhighway for felt experience — carrying signals from your body up to your brain more than the other way around.

One wild detail I learned?

Your eyes are an extension of your brain.
They’re taking in micro-cues constantly — lighting, posture, tone, even the tiniest facial expressions on someone else — and using that information to decide:

“Safe, or not safe?”
“Open up, or armor up?”

This is why we can walk into a room and immediately feel off.
Why a single glance from someone can trigger shame.
Why being in a Zoom meeting with blank faces can feel like danger — even if everyone’s being “nice.”

That’s not just anxiety.
That’s your nervous system doing its job.

So what happens once your system makes that call?

It shifts your state — your internal setting.
And your state drives your behavior.

Which is why sometimes, even if your brain knows better, your body still:

• shrinks

• fawns

• snaps

• freezes

• goes blank

• dissociates

• over-performs

That’s not you being irrational.
That’s you being adaptive.

Your nervous system isn’t trying to ruin your day — it’s trying to protect you.

But when that state shift gets stuck or misread (which it often does, especially if your history includes trauma or burnout), you start reacting to cues that aren’t actually dangerous.

And that’s when things get hard.

🧠 Quick Nerd Break:

What’s the difference between a feeling and an emotion?

This one blew my mind.

• A feeling is the physical, sensory data your body picks up (tight chest, shallow breath, eye contact drop).

• An emotion is the meaning your brain assigns to that feeling.

→ Feeling = input
→ Emotion = interpretation

Your vagus nerve is part of the system that feeds those inputs upward.
But if your system is dysregulated, you’ll interpret everything as threat — even connection.

So why does this matter?

Because if we don’t know what our nervous system is doing — if we’re not trained to track it, listen to it, respond to it — we lead from a place of protection, not presence.

And that impacts everything: our leadership, our communication, our relationships, our energy, our ability to stay with ourselves.

This isn’t about mastering the science.
It’s about understanding just enough of it to say:

“Oh. I’m not overreacting. I’m reacting exactly the way my system is wired to.”

And that’s where the work begins.

Want me to break down more pieces of PVT?
Comment or DM me the part of your nervous system you’ve been side-eyeing lately.

Because if you’ve ever felt like you’re spiraling while still looking “put together” on the outside?
Same.

Let’s talk about it.