WEEK 2
Emotional Processing and Nervous System Integration
When the nervous system becomes overwhelmed, the thinking brain temporarily loses access. This is often referred to as “flipping your lid.”
In this state, your responses are driven by survival rather than conscious choice.
Important Distinction: Regulation does not happen through reasoning—it happens through reconnecting with the body.
The vagus nerve is linked to our emotions and makes empathy possible. When someone’s frowning, beaming, or gaping in surprise, they’re wearing their heart on their face. The muscles that control facial expression are linked to the cranial nerves. Thanks to the vagus nerve, our emotions are displayed on our faces and in the sound of our voices. Without the vagus nerve, we couldn’t tell how anyone else was feeling.
We discussed the flexibility of our vagus nerve and our ability to use pendulation ( via the vagal break ) which will allow you to respond better in sensitive situations. Because of the vagus nerve regulates your physiological activity (your heart rate). The idea is that your vagal tone helps to regulate and adjust your physiological state in line with the needs of the immediate situation. Therefore, people with stronger vagal tones are thought to be better at regulating their emotions.
Here is what we know: what appears to arise from the mind might actually be being arising in the body. Looking after the body is the key to looking after the mind. When your nervous system is overwhelmed, your neocortex goes offline. This means you can neither take care of yourself, nor integrate any new skills. This is why, when you are overwhelmed (reptilian brain running the show), you are not logical or rational (traits found in the neocortex).
If you speak rationale to someone overwhelmed, its’ as if your are speaking another language. Think of that time you lost it (hyperarousal) only to later think, Okay, maybe I overreacted. Though at the time it absolutely did not feel like you were overreacting
Look at your hand with your palm facing you, then make a fist with your thumb tucked in and fingers curled over your thumb. Now imagine your wrist is the brainstem (your reptilian brain), your tucked-in thumb is the limbic system (your emotional brain), and your curled fingers are your prefrontal cortex (where logic and reason reside).
When the neocortex is offline, lift up the four fingers curled over your thumb; this is your limbic system. This “lid flip” happens whenever you move beyond your window of tolerance and your prefrontal cortex goes offline.
You can reawaken the prefrontal cortex with ease, and come back into your window of tolerance — because we don’t try to change the mind about what we are feeling; instead we reengage the body. Once you have reengaged the body and your neocortex is back online, you can begin the work of emotional metabolism.
Types of Emotional Experience according to Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands
Clean pain:
Discomfort that supports growth, healing, and expansion
Dirty pain:
Avoidance, suppression, or reactive behavior that prolongs suffering
Paradoxically, only by walking into our pain or discomfort — experiencing it, moving through it, and metabolizing it — can we grow. It’s how the human body works. Clean pain hurts like hell, but it enables our bodies to grow through our difficulties, develop nuanced skills, and mend our trauma.When people respond from their most wounded parts, become cruel or violent, or physically or emotionally run away, they experience dirty pain. They also create more of it for themselves and others.
Out of fear, people often choose dirty pain; they choose the dirty pain of silence and avoidance and, invariably, prolong the pain. As you continue building the tone of your vagus nerve and building your tolerance for discomfort through pendulation, you will find that your ability to metabolize emotions also increases. You choose clean pain, and you grow and evolve with it.
When you flip your lid, use today’s practice to get back into your window of tolerance. Then choose clean pain by allowing yourself to metabolize your emotions. Use an emotions wheel — you can find plenty of variations on google — and name the emotions you are feeling.
Next use your connection to your vagus nerve and body to notice what sensations you are experiencing in your body. Give yourself one to two minutes to identify the emotions by name and experience the sensations in your body. What you’ll notice is the emotions begin to metabolize and the sensations begin to dissipate on their own, and you can practice shifting back to your ventral vagal state of connection.
Somatic Emotional Processing
Identify and name the emotion
Notice where it is felt in the body
Stay with the sensation without attaching a story, create room for it to be there.
Allow it to shift naturally over time
Ball Regulation Exercise (1–2 minutes)
Hold a ball in your hands
Pass it from one hand to the other across your midline
Maintain gentle focus
Pause and observe any shifts in your body or emotional state