Open call for questions
We are changing the format of the newsletter a bit in June. We’ll be bringing in a couple of guest curators to organize and follow some of the threads of our work and present them to y’all. We want fresh eyes on the material… Their names will appear in the subtitles as CURATED BY: Such and So.
I’m also interested in seeing if there might be some questions you (our readers) have been studying, meditating on, being with. Things you might be interested in our take on, related to the neurobiological themes of this newsletter.
Comments for this post are open to our community of readers for things you might like us to address in future posts. No promises, but let us know what is on your hearts and minds.
Ok. I hear the call, here is my response. After many many years of psychotherapy I arrived at a therapist who introduced me to the word neuroception (and the rest as they say, is history!). He also introduced me to frames such as "the relationship is the therapy" (he views his work as an adjunct to this therapy) and how sex differences effect how we relate to feelings and needs. I have read up a lot of neuroception, polyvagal theory, autonomics (thanks Gabriel) and, while not explicitly written about, I've noticed the "relationship is the therapy frame" woven through a lot of the neurobiology of connection that I've read. The sex differences I haven't seen much on. I read somewhere that when asleep a male might sleep through a baby crying whereas the female will wake on hearing the slightest whimper. And a female may sleep through lots of other noise but the male awakes at the slightest rustling of something. Apparently our hormones and brains are wired differently. A relational example is that I (as a male) tend to find it most therapeutic when I sublimate uncomfortable feelings into action (not distraction, just action taking to move through it) and I need my wife to continually invite me to this, to step up so to speak. When my wife has uncomfortable feelings she needs my loving presence - to listen, not fix, to hold her. I seem to feel best in my body when I'm providing, protecting and prioritising my wife (being master of the ship). She it turn seems to feel best when she's creating, nurturing and being open (being a goddess). It's a spectrum of course - we are multi layered beings with both energies inside - but there's a balancing act play and I haven't read much about that nuance in polyvagal theory or autonomics. And I find myself curious to understand more in my mind what I've experienced in my body if that makes sense.
hello Gabriel. It seems a while since i deeply dove into your pre-publication text for the NBoC. I have not been able to afford the final published book so i'm working wiht eyes half shut, my question being related to grief. A stuffed neural response in these times.
I'm also interested in the means of neural balance, when it's never been known in (an individual) and not nurtured in the Evolved Nest so essential to the nervous sytem's (person's) sense of security and safety amongst humans.
So.. themes i'd love to see you writing / exploring with us are : loss, gone-ness, grief
Felt sense of safety for those who do not know what 'safety' or security feel like, did not have Evolved Nest or other safe nervous systems to 'carry' or entrain them, and so have no model to replace the normativity of varioustforms of fear/threat/life-threat, and also whether practices that are supportive for other nervous systems can actually be sensed as a threat to those who have retreated into 'mind' and no longer have an ability to even imagine what safety may be, what to aim for, as the move towards 'being quiet' represents threat.
Neurodivergence comes into this too..so might you be interested in exploring / talking about the role of 'retained reflexes' developmental reflexes in the picture of Restorative Practices and the Autonomic Nervous System? What, for example, might a person for whom being 'under the gaze' of another is threatening, when the said other insists upon having access to the face, to gaze upon it in order that 'they' gain their (argued for) need for their social engagement system to be activated by the face of another? Why 'rely' on being able to 'gaze' on another if to do so subjects that other to their gaze [on the grounds that their social connection system 'needs it'] but the exposed person feels only threat?