Making a Nervous System "Menu" - a Tool for Your Clients

During the pandemic, your clients may be looking for answers to help them manage the uncertainty and stress of our “new normal.”

And there’s no shortage of advice out there.

The thing is, while some ideas are truly helpful, others may only heighten the discomfort.

According to Deb Dana, LCSW, the key is to help clients listen to what their own nervous system needs in a given moment.

In the video, Deb will mention three states of the nervous system. If you don’t catch them all as you watch, we’ve got you covered. We’ve summarized everything for you in the client handout that you can download after the video.

Now I’ll let Deb take it from here.

Click here for full transcript

Nowadays you probably find that your inbox is full of suggestions for how to manage COVID-19 and how to navigate social distancing, or whatever the current thing is that’s coming into your inbox. I know my inbox is just flooded every morning with suggestions and many of the suggestions are from some very wise teachers who I adore and look up to, some suggestions are from companies I’ve never heard of, some suggestions are from colleagues who are sending things out. But the thing that I really want people to do is I want you to take all of those suggestions and listen to your nervous system. I would like you to take one at a time, like this morning I got six practices from a dear friend and it was like okay, I’m going to take each one one at a time and I’m going to say it out loud and I’m going to consider it and I’m going to see what my nervous system has to say and then I’m going to take the next one and at the end of it I may have six that go on my, I’m calling it a menu, that go on my menu. I may have one that goes on my menu. But it’s my menu because as soon as I start taking somebody else’s suggestions and turn them into a protocol for myself, I’ve stopped listening to my nervous system. I’m now listening to somebody else’s nervous system and not mine. I really have had fun recently with colleagues and clients creating a menu, I call it a pathways to regulation menu ,and truly it’s fun to do. Take a big piece of paper and find colors and paints and markers or whatever you want if that pulls your nervous system, other than that you can just write it on paper but your job is to listen to each suggestion through the hands of your nervous system and say does my nervous system say yes no or maybe. If it says yes, it goes on the on the menu. If it says no, it doesn’t go on the menu. If it says maybe, it goes on the menu. Then again, we’re talking about pre-planning, about being proactive. You’re going to end up with a whole list of things that are possible responses for you when you want to feel more ventral or when you feel like you’ve dysregulated and need to come back to ventral. So once you’ve created your menu, then you’re going to look and say, “Okay, when I’m in dorsal which one of these really feels like it brings a gentle return of energy? When I’m in sympathetic which one of these feels like I could really discharge energy in a safe organized way? When I’m in ventral which ones of these are going to help me really savor and deepen that experience?” Your your menu now has three categories. It has ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal. Once you have your menu and you’ve created it and you’ve made it beautiful and it’s your menu, hang it somewhere where you know you can find it easily because when we dysregulate we lose the ability to locate things and make choices and make decisions. So, put it somewhere where you know where it is. My encouragement would be start every day by going to that menu and saying what does my nervous system think would be interesting to try today. The reason I really think it’s important to create your own menu is that I’ve heard from many clients and colleagues that they feel something’s wrong with them because the suggestions that are coming aren’t working for them and as soon as we put a should in front of a suggestion, we’ve moved out of ventral connection into some sort of a survival response. I just want to remind people that everybody’s nervous system is shaped a bit differently and it’s perfectly fine, in fact it’s just right, that your nervous system says yes to some things, no to others, and maybe to others. We want to remember to really strengthen our ventral when we have those moments. Everything nowadays is focused on what do you do when you’re sympathetically charged with all these cues of danger, we just have to remember to have moments of ventral.

Deb just walked you through how to help a client make a Pathways to Regulation Menu. If you’d like to try this with your client, we created a handout to help. If you’d like to print a copy to share, please click here.

Update: We take great care to read your comments, and this week one in particular stood out to us.

Rachel Garst shared an idea for improving the handout with client-friendly terms for the states of the nervous system. We thought this was a great suggestion, and we’ve updated the handout.

Here’s the link again to get the worksheet.

(Please be sure to include the copyright information. We put a lot of work into creating these resources for you. Thanks!)

It includes instructions, a quick summary of each state of the nervous system, and a template they can use for their menu.

And if you found this helpful, you might like to see our other videos with Deb about How to Befriend the Nervous System During Quarantine as well as A Tool to Help Clients Calm the Nervous System.

Now we’d like to hear from you. Do you have a client who might find this exercise useful? What have you found most helpful for clients who are feeling dysregulated during quarantine – whether they’re feeling anxious and stressed out, or tired and lethargic?

Please let us know by leaving a comment below.

If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:

[Infographic] – How the Nervous System Responds to Trauma

What’s Happening in the Nervous System of Patients Who “Please and Appease” (or Fawn) in Response to Trauma? With Stephen Porges, PhD

Working with the Nervous System via Telehealth

17 Comments

Doris Mason, Psychotherapy, Salt Lake City , UT, USA says

Thank you for this tool. I run an online group and will introduce my members to these helpful questions and the form where they can write down their reflective experiences!

Anonymous, Clergy, CA says

Thank you for all the helpful information and tips on handling many issues

Anonymous, Social Work, Phoenix, AZ, USA says

thanks for all the sharing of ideas and tools. Signing up for the ‘Fear’ course was one of best investments I’ve made in a long time. These additional tools are even a bigger pleasant surprise!

eleanor avinor, Psychotherapy, IL says

Thank you for all the additional information. I like this clear organization of dorsal, sympathetic, and ventral, and asking ourselves what feels interesting to my nervous system now.

Holly Hazen, Counseling, AU says

This is a great way to help clients (and myself!) Thanks so much. Just having a useful tool like this will help calm down the whole nervous system… reminding us of options. Choosing to be stressed or calm… fantastic.

Patricia Johnson, Psychology, AU says

Thank you so much – I find that education on the nervous system is so reassuring and empowering for my clients – and for me!!

Monique Verpoort, Social Work, CA says

This is a very timely video. I, too, am getting inundated with well-intended suggestions in my inbox on how to deal with the stress of COVID-19. I find myself often feeling overwhelmed by all the content which is stressful. Checking inwards to make my selections according to how I am feeling in any given moment on any given day is so reassuring and a great reminder to trust our intuition by tuning into our nervous system. This handout is very usable and it will be a great tool for clients. Thank you so much Deb and Ruth!

Kristina Peary, Counseling, Honesdale , PA, USA says

A pleasure being with Deb’s regulated and joyous self in this clip. Great information and suggestions. A great practical way to practice embodiment. The reminder to savor our ventral experiences is priceless, especially when shared with such joy. Thank you for this wonderful resource. Kristina

Judy Koehler, LPC, Counseling, St. Louis, MO, USA says

I so appreciated this video. As an emotionally focused therapist I sometimes fear that my CBT oriented friends are in their heads too much. In EFT we try to deepen emotion but that is not too different from what Deb Dana reframes as checking in with your nervous system. It is just a more cognitive way of getting to the core of the client’s experience. It is a good reminder of taking a pause, checking inward and assessing our experiential needs at a given moment. I like the menu reframe and can see myself using this imagery with several clients today. Thank you, Deb, for your wisdom.

Lynetta Hagler, Social Work, Fairfield, ID, USA says

Thank you. This will help.

Sara Varzan, Another Field, Miami , FL, USA says

There is no normal in my opinion we who work helping others should be clear on our thoughts and be responsable with our words because words have power

Rachel Garst, Coach, Des Moines, IA, USA says

The thrust of the video is spot on. However using the short-hand terms “Dorsal” and “Vagal” and “Parasympathetic” is off-putting for all but polyvagal theorists. I’ve read 4 books on the subject and STILL find the terms super-clumsy. The video would be so much clearer and user-friendly, if the presenter introduced some more self-evident terminology for the same thing, such as: “Shut-down state,” “Calm and Connected State,” and “Activated state.”

- Sooze Flery, Coach, USA says
  
  Great suggestion Rachel! I agree the verbiage needs to be user friendly when presented to your client/patient.
  
- mikki broughton, Marriage/Family Therapy, concord, CA, USA says
  
  yes…..i agree, as well. so much reinventing the wheel and coming up with names and categories…..holistic types have been using a pendulum for that information for the 40 yrs since i’ve heard about it anyway.
  
  holding the pendulum, programming it which way to turn for yes, no, and maybe….then asking a yes/no question…your nervous system will answer thru the pendulum…..kinesiology has also been used for years ….what thot, what product, held in the hand, will weaken the arm being held straight out, no matter how much resistance is attempted.
  
Iiris Bjornberg, Coach, FI says

Thank you for giving us ideas and information, Ruth! Very interesting.

Anke Martim, Occupational Therapy, DE says

Thank you, such a great idea 🙂

Jeanne Teleia, Marriage/Family Therapy, FR says

While I think the questions in the handout are good ones, the jargon aspect is off putting for clients. Keep it simple and leave the jargon out.

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17 Comments