Self Mastery through Nervous System Regulation

The Subtle Anatomy of Inner Masculine/Feminine Polarities through Autonomic Nervous System Function

Last month we talked about the masculine and feminine energies and how they show up through our subtle anatomy within yogic philosophy. Within Yoga, the energies of the Ida/Pingala channels are brought into balance through various practices, some of which I shared in last month’s newsletter. When we bring our awareness from these subtler layers into the more gross expression of these systems, we find various aspects of the nervous system, namely the autonomic nervous system.

The autonomic nervous system is divided into three parts, the sympathetic, the parasympathetic and the enteric nervous systems. In this piece we’ll focus on the sympathetic and parasympathetic functions and save the enteric nervous system for future posts about the gut brain axis.

Working with the nervous system, through various practices and protocols, learning how to self regulate, is a critical component of self mastery. In this regard, the Ida and Pingala subtle energy channels - The balancing of these energies or forces, corresponds to the sympathetic and parasympathetic functions of the autonomic nervous system.

In a healthy system we maintain a balance between these two functions. The sympathetic being responsible for activity and alertness, while the parasympathetic is responsible for rest and assimilation. When they are both functioning properly we move through our day within a certain equilibrium.

As far as survival responses go, within the sympathetic function, (which can be seen as the masculine or Pingala channel), you have the fight-flight response and within the parasympathetic, (which can be seen as the feminine or Ida), is the freeze response. These can also be understood functionally as a gas pedal and a brake.

When we are triggered or aroused we tend to go into a fight-flight-freeze response, or some combination thereof. What happens with a lot of us who have chronic developmental trauma is that we go into what is called a functional freeze state, where we have our foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. What this means is that our sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are working against each other. We’re sort of frozen into a state of hyper arousal.

The vagus nerve becomes an integral interface in this process of harmonization between these two complimentary forces in the nervous system. The vagus nerve can be thought of as a mind-body information highway that communicates information about whether you are safe or in danger. It governs the nervous system’s parasympathetic response, and according to Dr. Stephen Porges, polyvagal theory, this system is divided further into two circuits that are aspects of this vagus nerve structure. The vagus nerve becomes responsible for various ways to down regulate the nervous system and this is often referred to as the vagal brake. These braking functions are unique to each branch.

The two branches of the vagus nerve are the dorsal vagal branch and the ventral vagal branch.

The dorsal vagal branch innervates lower down in the body starting just below the diaphragm, innervating into our gut and the various organs of the abdomen. The dorsal vagal branch is believed to be the more primitive branch that develops earlier, making its braking functions more primitive - more connected to our “reptilian’ survival instincts.

The second, later forming, more evolved branch that connects more into our “mammalian’ instincts, is called the ventral vagal branch. Often referred to as the social engagement branch, it innervates higher up above the diaphragm and controls our speech, facial muscles and fascial expressions etc.

The two branches however are not in competition. Both are necessary for overall functioning. Bringing them into more conscious control and coherence becomes tantamount to, not only trauma integration and awakening, but self mastery. The dorsal vagal branch may be more primitive in its functioning, but it’s like our foundation. And in a lot of cases we need to work from the bottom up, so to speak, in order to build resilience and capacity in our nervous system - To build this foundation before we can work with the social engagement aspects of the ventral vagal branch. The maladaptive responses in the dorsal vagal branch are usually what is responsible for the functional freeze state I referred to earlier, so common with chronic developmental stress.

In some ways we could view the vagus system as a sort of bridge between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind as well, when we work with it as such. Much of the vagal system controls bodily functions that are normally automatic and unconscious to us, i.e. digestion. But it also transmits emotional signals stored within the organs, to the brain. Although we usually keep the various gates in the body clenched shut where this material would normally flow through into conscious awareness. (More on these gates another time). Through various mind-body somatic practices we can spread our awareness into this inner landscape, allowing unconscious information to flow up through the body to the mind, for integration.

When we bring the forces of the sympathetic and parasympathetic into harmony, inner gates of all kinds are opened up. We move from surface level conscious awareness, to subconscious material, into the unconscious and eventually super conscious mind. The more mastery we have over our nervous system, the deeper we can become integrated.

These two complimentary nervous systems functions, just as the energies within the ida and pingala channels, can be viewed through the symbology of masculine and feminine. There is always some kind of dual synthesis of this sort going on in our plane of existence, in working with the process of self mastery.

In terms of vagal control, we are referring to maintaining a subtle awareness of our own nervous system arousal and knowing when and how to apply the vagal brake. Knowing when and how to let off this brake as well.

In the coming newsletter, I intend to share some guided exercises for beginning to work with the body-mind and nervous system in this way.