Can a single image send me into a stress response? | Freewriters | Pic1000 | Autonomic Nervous System

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I've been contemplating
more and more
the impact of images I see
on how they make my body feel.

In my recent studies of the nervous system,
or rather the autonomic nervous system,
I have been learning
that at any one point in time
we, as humans,
are always in one of three states:

If we feel calm, curious and open,
safe, engaged and with a genuine desire to connect
with others, the world around us and spirit
then we are in what's called a
Ventral Vagal State.

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To be in this state
requires that we feel really safe.
When I look at this person,
this person I assume is an old woman,
I do not perceive her as feeling safe.

And I, in turn, don't feel that safe.

If we don't feel really safe
then our nervous system looks for other resources
and it shifts gears to the Sympathetic State
also known as the "fight or flight" state
or the "stress response" state.

It's here that our brain creates stress chemicals
to mobilise the body to either
"fight" or take "flight"
in order to keep us safe.

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To me, this "woman" looks worried.
Maybe it's the steady gaze
or the lack of smile
or maybe I'm imagining that those many lines
on her beautiful face
got there from years and years of worrying.

My mind makes up a story
(as does yours when you look at "her")
and to me, she looks like she's in protection mode
like whatever she's looking at
in her environment
is something that she feels she needs to get away from.

While I cannot know what she was looking at
if she is in fact worried
and she is in fact considering
how to flee this situation
this potential threat
then her ANS
(autonomic nervous system)
is definitely in a Sympathetic State.

And, interestingly, seeing this image of her
makes my body,
my system go into Sympathetic.

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She herself is no threat to me.
How could she be,
a photo, on a screen?

What she's looking at is no threat to me.
How could it be
outside the photo, and off the screen?

And yet, that's how our ANS works:
it works automatically
without cognition (thinking).

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I could use my higher human mind
to remind myself that I am safe,
that this is just a photo
and I am just writing a post on Hive.

I could use my higher human mind
to focus on that beautiful blue skyline
or to ponder what the orange in the background might be,
to guess as to whether it's a sand dune
or a huge rock,
or even to get curious about where in the world
"she" might be.

I could use my higher human mind
to remember, imagine, consider
that she is likely a mother,
a grandmother,
a kind soul who has seen a lot in her time
and could probably tell me amazing stories
over a very slowly drunk pot of tea...

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And putting my focus on any one of these places
would likely shift my system back into
a Ventral Vagal State.

But if I allowed my mind to wander
to the worst possible stories,
to the worst possible imaginings,
if I was to let it spiral down
and remind me of dreadful things
that have happened in my life
then I might find myself in the third, final
and lowest of the ANS states:

The Dorsal Vagal State.

Here I feel despair,
hopelessness,
listlessness.

Here I am stuck,
I cannot move,
I believe I cannot change or improve anything
in my life or the life of another.

I won't write about this state for too long
as I don't wish to spiral into that state,
nor do I wish to remind you of this state
that your system can and does sometimes also visit.

But I share about these states
because that's what came to mind
as I saw this image
of this woman
with the deep lines
on her beautiful face
as she stands alone
deep in some desert
triggering me into a Sympathetic State of being.

1000pic_24juneSource

...

Several of the terms and much of the 'lessons' I shared in this post I have learned directly from Deb Dana who does a brilliant job of translating the academically dense and powerful work of Stephen Porges, PhD. To learn more about Deb's work click here.



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