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How we move through the world, whether we can engage with others or we back away or we isolate how much

confidence we have, whether we can be rational or whether we will be caught up in a activated distressing spiral is not actually determined by our

thinking it's not determined by so much necessarily anything outside of the what's called

your autonomic nervous system.

We know this from the work of Stephen Porgas and the

Polly bagel, which shows that people human beings have basically three

different settings three different settings of their nervous system and

depending upon which setting you're in determines, sets the abilities of being either having a kind of rational, detach, thoughtful, responsive engagement with others or a survival-based, fight flight, state, or even a shutdown, the press, isolated disengaged state. These three states have three of course different

names and for the the highest state when you're in what's known as the ventil parasympathetic

you're in approach. Some people call it social engage. Arbo-Fredrickson, a famous psychologist calls it, broad and build. I like to just call it approach.

Approach our social engagement. We can rest. You can digest your food. You can sleep well.

You'll heal from injuries well because your immune system will function. You'll be able to connect

with others. Your heart rate will not be beating too fast. Your blood pressure will be low, you will be slow to respond in situations that

require some detached evaluation.

You'll be able to, most importantly,

when you're in the ventral parasympathetic,

you'll be able to express the feelings in your body through your face.

There's actually nerve clusters that run from the abdomen and the chest,

which holds some of the earlier emotional activations and

...