Welcome back to the somatic series!

This is the series where I am using somatic psych theory to help people learn and map out their autonomic nervous system (ANS), develop a healthier relationship with themselves, and eventually build stronger communities.

This is the 4th part of Unit 3, which explains trauma from a somatic perspective, what triggers are, the concept of biological rudeness, what glimmers are, and how to regulate your ANS out of survival mode through self-regulation and co-regulation.

Chapter 12 covered an overview of how fear and anxiety shows up in the nervous system as a way to lay the foundation for talking about trauma.

Chapter 13, discussed trauma from a somatic perspective, specifically what trauma is and some of the effects chronic trauma has on our brains, bodies, and communities.

Last chapter, Chapter 14, focused on triggers: What triggers generally are and how to identify your own triggers so you can continue this somatic self-learning journey.

And this chapter, Chapter 15, will explain the concept of biological rudeness. What it is, how to tell the difference between misunderstandings, regular relationship conflict, and danger, and what repairing a misunderstanding/conflict can look like using somatic knowledge.

Video versions:

• Video Part 1 explains what misunderstandings and conflict look like somatically.
• Video Part 2 covers how to recover from misunderstandings and conflicts.

What Is Biological Rudeness?

In the last chapter, I briefly mentioned situations where our ANS might miscalculate. Situations where you aren’t actually in danger, but your nervous system (using old information organized by your amygdala long ago) is responding to stress like you are right back in that old trauma all over again.

Have you ever been in a fight where you realize in hindsight or maybe even during that this shouldn’t have gotten to this point? You might have even wondered, “How did I/we even get here?” or “Why are we even fighting?” Maybe even sitcom levels of misunderstanding. If this sounds familiar, you might have experienced biological rudeness.

Biological rudeness is a term created by psychologist Dr. Stephen Porges (and taught by Deb Dana, LCSW) to describe these situations of “misattunement”. Remember the social engagement system from Chapter 5? Our ventral vagus, the part of our vagus nerve, creates a link connecting our brain stem, heart, the muscles in our faces (our facial expressions), the muscles in our middle ear (our ability to listen), and the muscles in our larynx/voice box (how we speak) to form what’s known as the social engagement system. This system is in charge of helping us connect with others, using our facial expressions, tone of voice, the patterns in how we speak, and our body language to send and receive signs of safety.

When we are feeling safe, we are able to connect autonomic nervous systems with others enough to play, relax, be intimate, have an interesting conversation, make plans, solve problems, etc. All important things that you need your prefrontal cortex turned on for. But when we are dysregulated and our prefrontal cortex goes offline, we fall out of connection, out of “attunement,” with our own ANS and the ANS’s of the people around us.

And this misattunement, aka biological rudeness, is what happens when 1 or more people fall out of autonomic connection with each other and their ANS interprets this as a major danger or even an old trauma spinning the block and making its return. This can lead to situations where someone is triggered, and their trauma time capsule is opened, which can then trigger someone else’s trauma time capsule and now everybody is upset.

“Ok So, If It’s Not Trauma, Why Does It Feel Like This?”

Great question. A major reason why biological rudeness can feel like a major danger to your ANS is the status/health of your vagus nerve. In Chapter 12, I talked about stress tolerance and how our vagus nerve plays a major role in managing our emotions and stress levels. The vagus nerve can be damaged as a result of viral infections like COVID (See article on the importance of rest for long COVID recovery and Chapter 6 on the somatic basics on why stillness is essential) or from years of long-term exposure to trauma.

Chronic and complex traumas have a major effect on how our autonomic nervous system’s neuroception responds to our environment and the people near us. This damage to the vagus nerve can affect its ability to activate and deactivate when it’s time to handle a suddenly stressful situation. If the vagus nerve can’t engage and get us back to a chill state then every bit of stress is going to feel like a major crisis.

And if every stress feels like a once in a lifetime natural disaster, then our ANS is going to respond in kind – with a BIG fight/flight response or maybe even immediately going into shutdown. Not only is our ability to manage stress taking a hit, but chronic and/or complex trauma also makes our ANS more sensitive to dysregulation. And what I mean by that is: after years of stress, your body hits the big red button whenever anything goes wrong, even if it’s a relatively small stress. Like using a flamethrower to dry your clothes. Whether it’s crashing out or swan diving into dissociation, someone constantly dealing with trauma has an ANS that’s not playing around.

Everything feels like a crisis, so their autonomic nervous system is ready to meet the moment aggressively, believing that overkill is under-rated. Because you have more experience with crises and conflicts, your body is primed to protect you by any means. In your ANS’s rush to protect you/the hive/your system with its outdated information and rigid black/white thinking (“It’s always like this.” “I’m always like that.” “I always do that.” “People will always do that.”), it makes sense that your ANS could miscalculate sometimes.

And someone who has been dealing with trauma their whole lives probably has more experience with unhealthy conflict and ruptures/disconnections in relationships and has much, much less experience with situations where they had the opportunity to collaborate with someone to repair a relationship. So their ANS has a long documented history dealing with danger and not a whole lot of information saved up on how to maintain safety in a collaborative relationship. It’s literally a foreign concept. And this imbalance in our ANS’s record-keeping/logbook can lead to patterns of behavior and coping skills that are supposed to protect us (and maybe HAVE protected us in the past), but don’t fit our current situation and needs.

Again, pulling out the flamethrower unnecessarily. But just like trauma affects our ability to manage stress and how we even show up in relationships, moments of collaboration, mediation, and relationship repair can also change us and our bodies over time. This is the true meaning of “Healing happens in the context of relationships”. By being in relationships where everyone is in relationship with themselves, trying their best to be safer connections for each other generally, and doing their part to resolve conflict from a place of basic trust and care, your ANS eventually can edit its records and change up its whole ways of responding to things over time.

And like I mention in the above video link, unlike what is commonly talked about in pop psychology, romantic relationships are not the only place to find your healing. The major part of what makes therapy effective is the relationship between therapist and client. Ideally, the therapeutic relationship should be a lower stakes way to practice being in a healthy relationship with someone. That trust and rapport that’s built up intentionally over time.

Navigating the misunderstandings (the miscalculations, the biological rudeness) that happens with someone who you can ideally trust to be capable of holding up their emotional part of the relationship so you can practice attending to yourself somatically, managing your emotions, and resolving conflict. Having a place to practice these skills without feeling the pressure to have it all together or the pressure of being in the public eye. This is why vetting your potential therapist and reassessing your fit with your current therapist is so important. You need to be able to safely collaborate with them in order to get your practice in.

How Do I/We Recover From This?

Ok, What Are We Looking At Here?

The 1st step to coming back from a misunderstanding or falling out is figuring out what the situation is.

According to Deb Dana, LCSW, there are 2 kinds of rupture (a therapy term for the break in connection, big or small, that comes from a misunderstanding or argument): withdrawal and confrontation. Each person involved in a conflict, misunderstanding, etc. is either responding to the situation by withdrawing from situation and not addressing it (a reaction connected to the dorsal vagus so think –  disconnecting emotionally, dissociating, OR going on autopilot, just trying to please and appease everyone so this moment can be over, or avoiding the situation) OR by confronting the situation head-on in a more sympathetic nervous system sort of way. Just because two (or more) people are living in the same moment or situation does not automatically mean that they are experiencing that situation in the exact same way.

Everyone’s autonomic nervous systems have different time capsules with different kinds of information in them. So the same situation can trigger a fight response in someone and cause another person to shut down immediately. Or someone could not be triggered at all and be relaxing while the other person is frozen or even fawning. And because many of us do not have a close relationship with our bodies, we can be making decisions with crisis information while not even being fully aware that you are in crisis and what triggered it.

So the 1st step in recovering from a conflict/rupture is being able to notice it and name what’s going on individually and together. If I was doing mediation or another kind of relationship counseling, this is when I would bring in the basic 3 somatic skills that you know already (I’d also include a 4th tool called bilateral stimulation, which we will get to later in Unit 4).

Grounding to help folks get back to the present moment, which is important for letting your body know that you are not actually 16 years old and dealing with a parent or a teacher, or that you are not actually in your previous relationship, or you are not actually at work and don’t have to bring those work-related tactics and coping strategies home with you.

Body scanning to help you figure out how your body has been responding to this conflict and help you enter a call-and-response with yourself. The body scan helps you take note of what you feel and where you feel it so you can figure out which part of your ANS is activated in that moment.

In mediation, some questions I’d keep in mind are:

• Whose autonomic nervous system is responding to the conflict by withdrawing and what does that look like?
• Whose autonomic nervous system is responding to the conflict via confrontation and what does that look like?
• What parts of your nervous system are activated? What do you notice physically that’s pointing you in that direction?
• What does your ANS need in the moment to be regulated enough to have this conversation (or conversations)? [Note: I’ll be talking about the basics of regulation in the next couple chapters AND spending the next Unit talking about all the ways to intentionally level up your coping skills and community connections from a somatic perspective]

The answers to these somatic questions give you essential information so you and your body are on the same page. Like I’ve said before, our autonomic nervous systems affect how we see ourselves, other people, and the world. It’s important to know if your body is ready to receive advice or if you should go release some pent up anxiety or anger 1st instead. Or if your ANS is actually asking for quality time alone or for comfort from loved ones before you are ready to deal with the conflict in question.

Checking in with your body in this way can also even help you figure out what you need from the person you are in conflict with. When conflict happens, there’s this pressure to do something about it immediately. Stress doesn’t feel pleasant and our nervous systems are screaming for resolution because we want to feel safe again deep down. And that’s so real, but remember that our prefrontal cortex turns off when we are stressed. So during times of stress, we are both feeling a pressure to feel safe by any means as soon as possible while the part of our brain that handles strategy and critical thinking is turned off. Talk about inconvenient.

This kind of crisis quick thinking is good for jumping out of the way of something, but not the best for more complex things like human connection. This is why it’s important to create/identify moments where you can hit the pause button, turn your prefrontal cortex back on with your somatic tools, and come back to the situation with fresh eyes and a clearer perspective.

Note: This chapter is not for abusive relationships. If there is a pattern of behavior of someone limiting someone else’s agency and maintaining power/control over them (especially if they are using systemic oppression and systemic power dynamics to support their behaviors), that’s an abusive relationship. That’s not a rupture in a regular relationship.

What Happens If I/We Do Nothing?

I mean, doing nothing is always an option. It’s well within your right to have conflict with someone, however big or small, and not want to do anything to repair it. Especially if you checked in with your body using your somatic tools and determined that even when you are regulated and chilling, you don’t care about repairing things. You got your answer. You can move on.

But let’s say you are on the fence, you want to repair, but don’t know how, or want to repair, but it seems like a mountain of work. Unfortunately, ruptures/conflicts don’t repair themselves with time. Time does not in fact heal all wounds. Ruptures, conflicts, and misunderstandings that are ignored, pushed to the side, or compartmentalized, can slowly harm the relationship over time. Yes, even the small ones that don’t seem like that big of a deal in the moment. Those small things can build up over time and affect the relationship just as intensely as a major blow out fight.

As more time passes, the relationship feels less and less safe. And each person’s autonomic nervous system is picking up on this even if all the people involved are not consciously aware of anything. And remember, our autonomic nervous systems influence our emotions and thoughts. Technically, the ANS is the foundation and the building blocks of our emotions. The ANS senses things around us and then our conscious minds try to make meaning and make sense of what we are already experiencing.

So if our bodies are feeling more and more unsafe in a particular relationship, our conscious minds start to create narratives/stories to make sense of what we are feeling. And because we are dysregulated, the story that our conscious mind tends to create is based off that old information from a memory time capsule since the critical thinking and reasoning part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) is turned off when we are under stress.

And so these narratives we create to make sense of things may not be totally accurate, but instead, are more like cries for help from your nervous system. And the narratives can have nothing to do with the actual current situation and more to do with stresses and traumas someone has experienced in the past being reopened and reactivated. New ruptures can trigger old ones. And a long history of ruptures affects our body’s stress tolerance, which makes it easier for us to become dysregulated and easier for conflicts to happen.

And so trying to move forward without taking the time to intentionally recover together can lead to more misunderstandings, more conflict, and/or more resentment until the relationship is too damaged to continue.

At the end of the day, even though getting the repair part started can seem stressful or even overwhelming (that’s normal btw. Switching gears in the middle of a stress response is a skill that has to be learned and practiced), doing nothing at all to repair the relationship is 100% guaranteed to end in failure.

What Does Repair Even Look Like?

Remember when I mentioned the goals of somatic work in Chapter 5? They can also be applied to somatic work on the interpersonal level and community level, in our different kinds of relationships.

The goal is not to be happy and in a perfect, blissful relationship with everyone around you at all times. That’s not possible. You’re not trying to avoid misunderstanding or conflict either. That’s also impossible.

Just like your relationship with your body, a goal for relationships outside of yourself is to do your best to be connected to each other like you agreed to be, to notice any patterns in behavior or any ruptures (or take time to think about any patterns or ruptures brought to your attention), and make any related repairs.

The 1st move individually is to regulate your nervous system and get yourself back to safety in your body. Sometimes you’ll prefer to do that alone. And sometimes, you’ll want some back-up (I’ll explain self-regulation and co-regulation later in this Unit). Use the tools explained earlier in this series to notice and name what’s going on for you and to figure out how to turn your prefrontal cortex back on.

The next part is to figure out what needs to be done for everyone to feel safe in the relationship (Again, this is NOT for abusive relationships. An abusive person will take advantage of this step to create more opportunities for abuse).

Anyway, now that everyone took however much time they needed to regulate out of that survival response and turn their prefrontal cortex back on, everyone should have the capacity and the energy to figure out what each of their nervous systems need to feel safe with each other on a gut level again.

In situations of biological rudeness (not abuse), it is not the other person/people’s sole responsibility to keep you regulated. No one knows what’s going on in your body quite like you do so it’s up to you (as an adult) to do the work of learning yourself and how your body responds to things/situations. That will make it easier to figure out what you need to do for yourself AND ALSO help you figure out how to be in community with others.

How to know when you are overstimulated, overworked, or hungry. How to savor the good things, big milestones and the everyday things, in a way that makes them even more memorable than the traumas. How to take notice of when people or situations just aren’t right for you and how to regulate your autonomic nervous system enough to figure out how to pivot, start over, etc.

How to connect to another person’s ANS and intentionally comfort them and/or share an awesome experience with them. AND learning yourself somatically also will help you get enough clarity to determine what you need from someone, what you have the capacity to offer them, and when/if it might be time to change up the relationship entirely.

Ok so you took space. You grounded yourself and you figured out which part/parts of your ANS was activated. Then you took some time for yourself according to what your ANS needed: releasing the pent up energy from a fight/flight response, gently easing out of shutdown with some movement or physical touch, grounding yourself if you feel disconnected, or whatever your body needs at that time. Maybe you did it alone. Or maybe you needed to body-double or share the moment in community. Maybe you even ate some protein and carbs/sugar and took a nap or got a night’s sleep. Either way, you did what needed to be done for your body and you are back, ready to think about the issue outside of survival mode. First off: *applause*. Look at you.

Here are some questions that you are now ready to consider and that should be easier to answer at this point.

• What was the trigger/were the triggers from a somatic POV? Where did the situation go sideways?
• At what point/points do you now notice that your ANS  moved from chilling to dysregulated (or from fight/fight to fawn/freeze and/or from fawn/freeze to shutdown??
  • Optional: Is there a difference in your body in situations where you triggered the rupture/conflict or when someone else does it?
• How do you know in your body when you are ready to start the repair process?
• What do you need somatically and otherwise from yourself, the people involved, or maybe even other people in your community for this relationship to continue?

And Also Sometimes Things Can’t Be Repaired

There are going to be times when you will turn your prefrontal cortex back on and take a fresh look at the situation…only to realize that you actually don’t want to repair the relationship.

And there could be many reasons for that:

• Maybe you are different people now and you just aren’t compatible anymore. It’s not like you’re out to get each other or someone was abusive, but this relationship just isn’t working anymore.
• Maybe y’all are bumping heads so much and so often with what would be called chronic misattunement (just constant misunderstandings & miscommunication) and you’re too tired of it to care about repair.
• Maybe there’s just been too much damage between everyone. Too much hurt feelings.
• Maybe you just don’t think the relationship itself is worth the effort to fix it.
• Maybe you don’t want to change, for whatever reason.

An important part of this work is also knowing when it’s over. There’s no such thing as being so amazing and so noble that you are able to maintain every relationship you’ve ever had. Things change, things end. That’s just a part of life. Some things and people are only meant to be in your life for a specific time. And knowing when to honor the time spent and let go is just as important as learning how to nurture a relationship long term.

Ideally, you want to figure out how to end things in a way that respects everyone involved, including yourself and your body. What does ending things need to look like for you in this situation? How is your nervous system responding? What do you need from your community?

Once again, I’m encouraging you to bring it back to the somatic whenever possible. Learning your autonomic nervous system and nurturing your relationship with your body is the key to being able to use your intuition and your gut as the compass that it is. Will your ANS make some miscalculations from time to time during situations of biological rudeness? Yes, we’re humans with trauma histories. However, the somatic relationships we build with ourselves and our communities can learn from these experiences and grow even stronger.

Thanks for reading! The next chapter will cover the concept of glimmers – what they are, how they are different from triggers, and how to use them to get dopamine boosts and moments of nice ventral vagal activation.