THIS ONE IS LOADED!
Welcome, new friends and returning rebels!
I’m offering up Chapter 7 of our Bookish Club to both free and paid subscribers… Why? Because I can!
Okay, real talk—two reasons:
First, I wanted to give my free subscribers a little taste of what we’re up to in Bookish Club and let you know it’s not too late to join. You’ll get access to all the chapters leading up to this one—and more.
Second, this chapter hits close to home.
It’s all about creating an internal sense of safety. And learning what that even meant—how to feel safe inside my own small-but-mighty body—has been nothing short of a game changer.
It is the way. The way to healing.
So welcome to today’s party. I hope you enjoy the chapter—and maybe even decide to stay a while.
I mentioned at the beginning of the pod that I have lots of gifts and things to share today, and here they are, my lovelies!
Click Here → Anchor and Connect Guide creates awareness in recognizing your body's signals, develops flexibility, and creates a sense of internal safety. We will touch on how trauma shapes behaviors, patterns, and responses. I will guide you through intentional connection and anchoring practices to help you better expand your capacity for more flexibility in your nervous system, self-trust, and emotional freedom.
Mark Your Calendars! Sunday LIVE at 9 a.m. MTN time here on Substack: Pleasure, pain, and everything in between: This is a practice in wholeness, awareness, and learning to be with what is. A grounded path to meet your life. ALL OF IT. With clarity and compassion. For the moments you’re tired of running, fixing, or faking it. (Including a quiz to find out what season you are in)
Coming Up: July is 30 days of Somatics (Embodiment and moving beyond mindfulness). I will find a home for these videos and keep you all posted on where they will be kept.
And lastly…Don’t forget to Click Here For Your → Anchoring Into SAFE Meditation that goes along with today’s Pod!
OK LET’S GET TO IT!
Anchor in Connection
Deb uses the term ventral vagal state, and let’s be real—it’s a mouthful. It can feel untouchable or clinical, a little hard to wrap your heart around. So for this purpose, I’m calling it the connected state. Just remember: this is the state at the top of the polyvagal ladder—our calm, socially engaged, safe state.
You might’ve heard your nervous system described as a built-in security system—always running in the background (hello subconscious), scanning for threats, keeping you safe.
When your system becomes overwhelmed, it means there’s not enough felt safety available to disarm the alarm. That alarm might be sounding off when no real danger is present, or staying silent when danger actually is there. Either way, the signal gets scrambled.
This is why anchoring in safety matters.
And what feels safe or unsafe is not one-size-fits-all. Safety is relative—based on your personal history, your wiring, your lived experience. What feels traumatic to one person might not even register for another.
Here’s something important:
You can’t force safety.
But you can build a relationship with it.
That relationship begins with noticing what safety feels like, not what your mind thinks it is.
Without that calm, regulating energy of the connected state—that sense of being grounded, engaged, and present—we lose access to connection, clarity, and health. We end up dysregulated, overwhelmed, and unwell.
Remember the anchor we talked about in Chapter 1?
It’s tethered to something steady, but it’s not rigid. It can sway and move with the waves, but it keeps you from drifting too far. That’s what your connected state offers.
When you’re anchored in safety, you're not floating lost at sea. You're connected to self, to others, to nature, to spirit.
And here’s the relief:
You don’t need to be fully immersed in calm all the time.
You just need enough—a pinky toe dipped into ventral—to stay online, connected, and operational.
It’d be nice to say that once you learn this work, you'll stay at peace forever.
But that’s not real life.
There are still moments I feel overwhelmed, scattered, spun out. The difference is that now I have somewhere to return to. I’ve built that inner anchor. And even if I can’t access that deep calm, I can still reach for just enough safety to stay organized and engaged—to ride the wave without capsizing.
Because with practice, something magical happens:
The duration, intensity, and frequency of your overwhelm begin to shift.
Your container expands.
Your system gets more resilient.
And you rise—free.
Our Two Greatest Gifts in Healing:
Safety and Wonder
What if the greatest gifts you could give yourself in healing weren’t about fixing, but about feeling safe and in awe?
In all my years working with the nervous system, emotional freedom, and deep inner healing, I’ve come to believe this:
The two most powerful senses you can cultivate are a sense of safety and a sense of wonder (or curiosity, if that feels more accessible to you).
Safety: The Foundation of Healing
Safety is non-negotiable. Without it, there is no healing—only coping, managing, or surviving. Your nervous system must feel safe before it can soften, before it can release old patterns, before it can even consider transformation.
Because healing doesn’t happen on a battlefield. It happens in sanctuary.
That’s why nervous system regulation is the heart of deep healing work. Without internal safety, even the best intentions to grow will feel like an internal war. That’s why so many people feel stuck—they’re trying to heal from a place of tension, fear, or self-judgment.
True transformation begins when your body and mind trust that they no longer need to be on high alert.
So, how do you cultivate safety?
By meeting yourself where you are.
By noticing what soothes your system (glimmers):
Slow, intentional breathing.
Grounding in nature.
The weight of a warm blanket.
The sound of a familiar, loving voice.
Safety is built in small, consistent moments of self-reassurance.
It’s the foundation that allows the rest of the journey to unfold.
Wonder: The Expansion of Healing
But safety alone isn’t enough. Healing isn’t just about finding stillness—it’s about rediscovering aliveness.
This is where wonder comes in.
When was the last time you felt awe?
Saw a sunset so beautiful it stopped you in your tracks?
Laughed so hard your body shook?
Marveled at your own resilience—your ability to still love despite everything?
Wonder opens the door to joy and possibility. It makes healing feel expansive rather than heavy. It reminds you that you’re not just here to repair—you’re here to experience. To feel deeply. To explore. To be surprised by the beauty of being alive.
To invite more wonder into your life, start noticing the small, beautiful things:
The way light filters through the trees.
The texture of your favorite food.
The miracle of your breath.
Let yourself be curious. Let yourself be amazed.
Wonder is the antidote to numbness. The bridge between surviving and truly living.
Safety and Wonder: The Perfect Pair
These aren’t opposites. They’re partners.
Safety lets you soften.
Wonder lets you expand.
One roots you. The other lifts you.
Together, they create the conditions for deep, sustainable healing.
So as you move forward, ask yourself:
→ Where can I give myself more safety?
→ Where can I allow more wonder?
Healing isn’t about fixing yourself.
It’s about creating the conditions where you can thrive.
And when you hold both safety and wonder in your heart, you’re not just healing.
You’re awakening to the fullness of life.
The Concentric Circles of Connection Practice
This section is ultimately about embodiment—body work, somatics. The idea that moving our bodies can be a source or tool to help us feel into that connected state or energy.
While I appreciate the image of the nervous system as a security system, it’s not as simple as an on-off switch. We don’t flip from “safe” to “unsafe” in binary ways. Instead, our experience of connection feels more like ripples—a circle inside a circle inside a circle.
This invites a more nonlinear, gentler map. One where we move around inside the connected state, instead of climbing up a ladder to reach it.
Deb Dana uses a beautiful example here:
She imagines reaching out for her ventral connection by lifting her arms overhead, like she’s stretching toward regulating energy. From there, she extends that energy outward—holding her arms open as if to offer a hug—signaling to someone else: “I’m here. I’m holding you in safety. You’re not alone.”
I love this.
So I want to offer that to you, right now.
As you listen to my voice, imagine my arms reaching out to offer you that same connected energy.
See if you can receive it. Take it in. Let it move through you.
Then, try it on for yourself.
Anchor into that calm.
Notice how your system responds.
And then, from that place, can you offer the same energy to someone else?
The physical act of outstretched arms works really well, but try a variety of movements. Find the one that fits you best. Maybe it’s pressing your palms together, placing your hand over your heart, swaying gently side to side, or planting your feet solidly on the ground.
Try it with someone at home, or even remotely—imagine holding them in that calm embrace.
Change the movement.
Play with it.
Notice what feels co-regulating for you.
This isn’t about performance.
It’s about presence.
And in that presence, your body becomes a transmitter of safety, connection, and care.
IAM (inner awareness mapping): Lighting Up Your Circles
(Color + Gesture Practice for Accessing State)
This is an embodied practice. We will literally bring the nervous system map into your body using color and gesture.
Here’s how:
Choose the Colors of Your States
Deb invites you to assign a color to each of your autonomic states. Not just randomly—feel into it.
Ventral/connected: What color feels like connection, clarity, and warmth for you?
Sympathetic/fight or flight: What shade pulses with urgency, fire, movement?
Dorsal/shut down: What color carries collapse, fog, or stillness?
This is personal—no right answer. It’s about your nervous system's felt sense.
Add the Gesture
Using your non-dominant hand, trace the three rings of your autonomic circles in the air, starting from the center and spiraling out.
Begin in dorsal/shut down (center ring)
Move into sympathetic/fight or flight (middle ring)
Then out into ventral/connected (outer ring)
As you trace, imagine lighting each ring in its color, bringing awareness, energy, and breath to each layer.
Why This Works
You’re building a visual + kinesthetic map of your inner world.
It’s not just intellectual anymore—it’s a felt imprint.
This layering of:
Visual (color)
Kinesthetic (gesture)
Imaginative (inner experience)
…creates deeper neural anchoring of each state and the path between them.
Repeat this Daily
Even if you’re in shutdown, you can trace outward.
Even if you’re stuck in fight or flight, you can remember there’s more.
Even if you’re in connection, you can reinforce what it feels like to be there.
This is about reclaiming the pathway.
You light up the system not with force, but with familiarity.
The Connection Continuum
Using the visual of a circle can help us map our nervous system in a way that feels more layered, more nuanced—like flavors or textures—rather than a strict up-and-down ladder we have to “climb.”
It gives us more play.
More expansion.
More permission to move around inside our connected state.
Let’s experiment with what that might feel like…
Start Here: Touch In
Take a pause.
Feel for that very first flicker of regulation in your body.
Not perfect. Not peak state. Just… the beginning.
Maybe it’s a tiny softening in your jaw.
A breath that feels less mechanical.
The weight in your shoulders dropping by half an inch.
Whatever it is—name it.
Some people call this:
“Arriving.”
“Present.”
“Here.”
“Exhale.”
“Beginning.”
This is your entry point to connection.
Your toe in the water.
Now: Find the Other Shore
What does it feel like when you’re fully immersed in that energy?
Not just calm—connected.
Not just regulated, lit up, and anchored.
That place might feel like:
“Alive”
“Expansive”
“At One”
“Overflowing”
“Unshakable”
Name your far end of the ventral spectrum.
This is where your system feels safe enough to open wide.
Use this guide as an additional resource → Map Your Connection Continuum
Glimmers: The Micro-Moments That Matter
In this chapter, Deb includes glimmers—and while we touched on them back in Chapter 5, let’s do a little recap here to remember why this piece matters so much in our healing journey.
There are so many moments we brush past simply because our negativity bias doesn’t allow us to notice them.
We’re wired for survival—
Which means our brain naturally clings more tightly to danger than to delight.
Think of a barking dog: loud, unpredictable, pacing back and forth. It catches your attention immediately.
Now imagine that same dog lying quietly in the corner.
You’d have to actively look for it.
That’s how glimmers work.
They’re subtle—and if you’re not intentionally paying attention, they pass you right by.
Reminder: What Are Glimmers?
Glimmers are the opposite of triggers.
They’re those micro-moments—fleeting signals—that tell your system:
“You're safe.”
It might be the scent of forest green incense wafting from a ceramic holder your daughter made.
That was mine today. And the moment I noticed it—really took it in—my system exhaled.
Not dramatically. Just enough to say,
“We’re okay.”
It’s not a magic trick.
But over time, these moments rewire us.
They don’t cost a thing.
You can access them anywhere.
And when we name them, when we consciously notice, it matters.
It helps your nervous system track safety and create a path back to regulation.
Glimmers = Connection Capacity
Glimmers help increase your capacity for connection.
They strengthen your ability to stay in your connected state longer and return to it more quickly.
Duration.
Frequency.
Intensity.
All of it gets a little more flexible, a little more resilient.
Glimmers?
They’re the gateway.
Glimmers Are a Return Path
The more we practice noticing these moments—and reflecting on them—the more they build upon each other.
They become a return path.
A bridge back to regulation.
And sometimes that return starts with a sigh—a single breath in shut down that says,
“Maybe there’s a way out.”
A sigh is a powerful thing…
We sigh in relief.
We sigh in contentment.
We sigh because our biology knows.
So here’s what I want you to remember:
Glimmers are your way back.
They’re always available—if you’re paying attention.
Noticing is enough.
Naming is powerful.
Repeating builds the road.
Set an intention to notice a glimmer daily.
And that’s how we strengthen our capacity to stay.
Not by gripping harder—
But by softening into the moments that remind us:
“I have a regulated place inside me. I know the way back.”
IMPORTANT!
I feel it is important for me to touch on this as we end our conversation…There is a lot of noise out there on how to regulate, how to feel “safe”—somatic exercises, spiritual events like breathwork and sound bowls, grounding techniques, self-soothing touch, affirmations, meditation, mindfulness, etc.
All of these are great tools to use, but we must remember that we can create more suffering within if we solely focus on or become addicted to the state of feeling safe all the time. Yes, these things are core needs, and it’s important to cultivate them within ourselves. But getting obsessed with bubble-wrapping the world around you doesn’t cultivate safety—it deepens your anxiety. It traps you in a constant state of subtle hypervigilance.
So here’s some tough love: You will not always feel safe. You will not always be able to regulate yourself out of big emotions and feelings. These are processes, not destinations. So stay aligned and intuitive with your truth.
Sometimes our deepest intuitive nudges feel scary, yet they are liberating on the other side. There’s a unique brand of safety you feel when you reclaim the courage to face the fears you carry within, instead of projecting them onto the world around you. That’s where safety meets power. It doesn’t limit you—it liberates you.
On our healing paths, safety is important to integrate, but we don’t want it to limit our capacity to feel alive. It can cause you to confine yourself to a cage, or try to safety-net the world around you, or create an expectation that others need to keep you safe. This is a recipe for suffering and depression.
There’s a silent voice beneath all the fears that often screams, I want to be free. It’s the kind of freedom that doesn’t want to wait. This is a sacred space within us, where safety meets power, where it merges into bravery. This inner knowing reminds you: true safety is what happens when you learn to meet, with an open heart, the scary parts that make you feel unsafe.
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